Cool science stuff

[WriteThinking]

Here's an interesting article on CRISPR gene-therapy technology. It's an exciting development most immediately for sufferers of sickle-cell anemia, but also for the possibilities with other diseases like cancer and diabetes.

The one huge obstacle standing in the way of progress on gene-editing medicine

Hopefully, the technology continues to develop. I was drawn to read about it because I have a nephew who works for CRISPR, and we as a family have heard about a lot of this stuff for the past few years. It really is fascinating, and exciting, listening to him talk about it, especially because he's been directly involved with the research efforts.

 

[garrow]

Dozens of Egyptian pyramids, some in Giza, sat along a branch of the Nile, study says

 

[Starman]

Well.


Uranus is weirder than we thought

https://www.salon.com/2024/12/01/ur...ts-report-new-mysteries-of-the-tilted-planet/

 

[WriteThinking]

I'm not sure if this is science, exactly, but I think it is -- kinda, sorta, and I wasn't sure where else to place this link.

I found it interesting, and hopeful and exciting, because I flipped out when I heard about the fire that nearly destroyed my favorite site in Paris a couple years ago. I'm so glad this is going on:

'They said it was impossible': how medieval carpenters are rebuilding Notre Dame

A continuation of this post of mine from 2022: The Notre Dame Cathedral restoration is done. It seems like a true miracle to me.

Here's a pretty interesting, in-depth explanation and celebration of the efforts of thousands of workers, funded by millions in, mostly, French and American donations. It's a good listen and look-see.

MSN

 

[2muchcoffeeman]

Well.


Uranus is weirder than we thought

https://www.salon.com/2024/12/01/ur...ts-report-new-mysteries-of-the-tilted-planet/

TMI!

 

[WriteThinking]

Star Trek meets Antarctica, and the results are intriguing.

MSN

The idea of parallel universes has captivated imaginations for decades, popularized by sci-fi tales and comic books. But while the concept has been discussed since physicist Erwin Schrödinger introduced it in 1952, tangible evidence has remained elusive-until now.

 

[garrow]

Archaeologists Found a Skeleton Wearing an Amulet That May Change the History of Christianity

 

[qtlaw]

Watched Blue Origin launch their rocket into orbit tonight; so cool because my son worked on main engines at liftoff ( stage. 1)

 

[TrooperBari]

Meanwhile, one of SpaceX's starship rockets broke up over the Turks & Caicos islands, sending rainbow streaks across the night sky. Can't wait to hear how the latest unscheduled rapid disassembly is DEI's fault.
Phil Lewis (@phillewis.bsky.social)
SpaceX Loses Spacecraft After Catching Rocket Booster At The Launch Pad In Latest Starship Test

 

[2muchcoffeeman]

Meanwhile, one of SpaceX's starship rockets broke up over the Turks & Caicos islands, sending rainbow streaks across the night sky. Can't wait to hear how the latest unscheduled rapid disassembly is DEI's fault.
Phil Lewis (@phillewis.bsky.social)
SpaceX Loses Spacecraft After Catching Rocket Booster At The Launch Pad In Latest Starship Test

A URD is a chance to learn.

 

[da man]

A recent discovery could have implications for the possibility of extraterrestrial life, perhaps in our solar system.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/17/scie...9am_GGQqgT_hE0zGfA_aem_OE49aT4d6YC1JNuoowS37w

A team investigating so-called "dark oxygen" has found oxygen being created in rocks deep in the ocean -- without the benefit of sunlight, which has been considered necessary for oxygen production. NASA is interested in dark oxygen research as it searches for life in places like Jupiter's moon Europa and Saturn's moon Enceladus that are believed to have underground oceans which won't have sunlight to draw energy from.

 

[da man]

So the James Webb Space Telescope has made a huge discovery, one that astronomers are calling "the impossible" and "a universe breaker."

JWST's super-sensitive infrared detectors have found the most distant galaxies yet observed. Which, because their light travels at a finite speed, are by definition the oldest galaxies yet observed -- a mere 600-700 million years after the Big Bang (hey, when you're talking 13.8 billion years, 600 million in "mere").

But instead of the small, just-getting-started baby galaxies they expected to find, researchers found some galaxies just as massive as our own, which has had billions and billions of years to develop. That contradicts the current models of how the universe and its stars and galaxies formed, leading some to suggest it might completely blow up that model.
https://www.npr.org/2023/02/22/1158793897/webb-telescope-huge-early-galaxies-big-bang

Massive galaxies seen by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope shed light on dawn of the universe; scientists "discovered the impossible" - CBS News

So it turns out these "little red dots", or LRDs as they are called by astronomers, haven't broken the universe. Further analysis of the light coming from what looked like too-massive-to-be-true galaxies shows signs of coming from the accretion disks of supermassive black holes, meaning instead of large galaxies, the LRDs are smaller galaxies containing a lot of black holes and fewer stars, which researchers said fits with current theories.

https://science.nasa.gov/missions/w...FQiTxKdEAGv2tavWRQ_aem_1hWD5c01WNOYIDi2FUk6-A

There are still plenty of questions about LRDs, such as why they only seem to show up during a certain time period in the early universe.