(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Overnight News Digest - Saturday Science Edition [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-02-18 A list of tonight’s stories follow. A fascinating discussion of “What is nothing?” Native American tribe takes back its water What caused the buildings to collapse in Turkey’s earthquakes? Black holes discovered to be the source of dark energy Clay could hold the solution to global warming Using emotional intelligence to thwart passive-aggressive behavior A new UK college dedicated to the climate crisis in Wales A new citizen-science project, Infection inspection Big Think by Don Lincoln “Nothing” doesn’t exist. Instead there is “Quantum Foam.” What is nothing? This is a question that has bothered philosophers as far back as the ancient Greeks, where they debated the nature of the void. They had long discussions trying to determine whether nothing is something. While the philosophical facets of this question pose some interest, the question is also one that the scientific community has addressed. (Big Think’s Dr. Ethan Siegel has an article describing the four definitions of “nothing.”) It’s nothing, really What would happen if scientists took a container and removed all the air out of it, creating an ideal vacuum that was entirely devoid of matter? The removal of matter would mean that energy would remain. Much in the same way that the energy from the Sun can cross to the Earth through empty space, heat from outside the container would radiate into the container. Thus, the container wouldn’t be truly empty. However, what if scientists also cooled the container to the lowest possible temperature (absolute zero), so it radiated no energy at all? Furthermore, suppose that scientists shielded the container so no outside energy or radiation could penetrate it. Then there would be absolutely nothing inside the container, right? That’s where things become counterintuitive. It turns out that nothing isn’t nothing. Smithsonian Magazine by Jim Robbins This Native American tribe is taking back its water Cradling her 4-year-old son, Cowboy, Camille Cabello watches tumbleweeds blow across an emerald green field of newly sprouted alfalfa toward a small canal. Water spills over the canal’s side, glistening in the brilliant Arizona sun. Not far away, her husband, Cimarron, his head covered in a western hat, guards the stream with a pitchfork. As the tumbleweeds roll into the water, he fishes them out. “On a windy day like this we have to stay out here,” Camille says, a dust devil spiraling skyward in the distance behind her. “If we don’t get them out of there it will clog the canal and cause problems.” This desert tableau is at once modern and ancient. Modern because the arrow-straight canal, lined with concrete and designed with turnouts that divert water to flood the field, is the last leg of a state-of-the-art irrigation system here on the Gila River Indian Community, an Indian reservation in southern Arizona. Ancient because Camille is a member of the Akimel O’odham, or River People, also called Pima. For centuries her ancestors practiced irrigated agriculture across this vast desert, digging hundreds of miles of canals that routed water from the Gila and Salt rivers onto planted fields of maize, beans and squash, the “three sisters” that fed a huge swath of prehistoric America. Big Think by Mark Quigley Earthquake footage shows Turkey’s buildings collapsing like pancakes. An expert explains why. A pair of huge earthquakes have struck in Turkey, leaving thousands of people dead and unknown numbers injured or displaced. The first quake, near Gaziantep close to the Syrian border, measured 7.8 in magnitude and was felt as far away as the UK. The second occurred nine hours later, on what appears to be an intersecting fault, registering a magnitude of 7.5. Adding to the devastation, some 3,450 buildings have collapsed , according to the Turkish government. Many of the modern buildings have failed in a “ pancake mode ” of structural collapse. Why did this happen? Was it simply the enormous magnitude and violence of the quake, or is the problem with the buildings? Thousands of years of earthquakes Earthquakes are common in Turkey, which sits in a very seismically active region where three tectonic plates constantly grind against one another beneath Earth’s surface. Historical records of earthquakes in the region go back at least 2,000 years, to a quake in 17 CE that levelled a dozen towns. […] Over the past 2,000 years we have learnt a lot about how to construct buildings that can withstand the shaking from even severe earthquakes. However, in reality, there are many factors that influence building construction practices in this region and others worldwide. […] Many of the collapsed buildings appear to have been built from concrete without adequate seismic reinforcement. Seismic building codes in this region suggest these buildings should be able to sustain strong earthquakes (where the ground accelerates by 30% to 40% of the normal gravity) without incurring this type of complete failure. The 7.8 and 7.5 earthquakes appear to have caused shaking in the range of 20 to 50% of gravity. A proportion of these buildings thus failed at shaking intensities lower than the “design code”. PHYS.org by RAL Space Scientists find first evidence that black holes are the source of dark energy Observations of supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies point to a likely source of dark energy—the 'missing' 70% of the universe. The measurements from ancient and dormant galaxies show black holes growing more than expected, aligning with a phenomenon predicted in Einstein's theory of gravity. The result potentially means nothing new has to be added to our picture of the universe to account for dark energy: black holes combined with Einstein's gravity are the source. The conclusion was reached by a team of 17 researchers in nine countries, led by the University of Hawai'i and including Imperial College London and STFC RAL Space physicists. The work is published in two papers in the journals The Astrophysical Journal and The Astrophysical Journal Letters. Study co-author Dr. Dave Clements, from the Department of Physics at Imperial, said, "This is a really surprising result. We started off looking at how black holes grow over time, and may have found the answer to one of the biggest problems in cosmology." Study co-author Dr. Chris Pearson, from STFC RAL Space, said, "If the theory holds, then this is going to revolutionize the whole of cosmology, because at last we've got a solution for the origin of dark energy that's been perplexing cosmologists and theoretical physicists for more than 20 years." The Brighter Side News by Mollie Rappe Researchers find that clay could be the solution to global warming The atmospheric level of carbon dioxide — a gas that is great at trapping heat, contributing to climate change — is almost double what it was prior to the Industrial Revolution, yet it only constitutes 0.0415% of the air we breathe. This presents a challenge to researchers attempting to design artificial trees or other methods of capturing carbon dioxide directly from the air. That challenge is one a Sandia National Laboratories-led team of scientists is attempting to solve. Led by Sandia chemical engineer Tuan Ho, the team has been using powerful computer models combined with laboratory experiments to study how a kind of clay can soak up carbon dioxide and store it. The scientists shared their initial findings in a paper published earlier this week in The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters. These fundamental findings have potential for direct-air capture; that is what we’re working toward,” said Ho, lead author on the paper. “Clay is really inexpensive and abundant in nature. That should allow us to reduce the cost of direct-air carbon capture significantly, if this high-risk, high-reward project ultimately leads to a technology.” Inc. Magazine by Justin Bariso Emotionally intelligent people use six words to stop passive aggressive behavior and strengthen relationships As someone who runs a small business, I've dealt with my fair share of passive-aggressive behavior. You know what I'm talking about. It's when someone deals with anger or frustration by, for example: Saying they're OK when they aren't Pouting Giving the silent treatment Agreeing to do something, and then not following through Responding with sarcasm You might think I'm talking about my partners, employees, or customers--and I am. But I'm also talking about myself. That's right. A few years ago, I discovered that I had a nasty habit of being passive-aggressive. But it's not who I wanted to be. So, I decided to make some changes. I needed to use my emotional intelligence--the ability to understand and manage emotions--to help me do so. Eventually, I learned a brilliant, six-word phrase that I now use to help me stop passive aggression dead in its tracks… The Guardian by Patrick Barkham We create changemakers’: the new UK college dedicated to climate crisis The lecture theatre was once a cowshed, the study centre is an old farmhouse living room and the classrooms are mostly outdoors: welcome to the newest higher educational college in Britain. The former farm that is Black Mountains College campus is a core part of an insurgent institution that is the first entirely dedicated to adapting to the climate emergency. The college is this year offering a radical new degree course designed to prepare students for a career in times of climate breakdown, and build a generation with the innovative skills and ideas required to tackle the crisis. The first students for its BA in sustainable futures: arts, ecology and systems change will arrive at the rural campus in September to take the three-year cross-disciplinary course, which features the latest climate science, neuroscience, environmental history and critical thinking, with Amitav Ghosh’s The Nutmeg’s Curse a key text. Zooniverse ​​​​​​​Here’s your citizen-science project: You've probably heard of antibiotic resistance, but would you recognise it if you saw it? Today we're launching Infection Inspection - an effort by Oxford University researchers to develop faster tests for detecting infections. Read on below to learn more about how you can help out, and click the following link to get started: Infection Inspection Peer through the microscope lens to help us spot antibiotic resistance! The images in the Infection Inspection project were collected as part of our research to develop a test for antibiotic resistance that uses machine learning to provide rapid and accurate results. We will use Infection Inspection to improve our models and provide a reference to how well the computer model can predict resistance compared to lots of human eyes. The project is funded by the Oxford Martin Programme on Antimicrobial Resistance Testing and is developed by a team of physicists, microbiologists, data scientists, and medics from the University of Oxford. Get involved and give it a try! Visit Infection Inspection by clicking here: Infection Inspection asks volunteers to look at images of bacteria we've captured on microscopes to determine if the samples are resistant or sensitive to an antibiotic. Antibiotics are life-saving medicines used to control bacterial infections. The number of bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics is increasing, which creates a big problem. By developing much faster tests for antibiotic resistance, we hope we can help clinicians select the best antibiotic to use much faster. Our technique is based on the changes in a bacterium's cell structure that can be seen under a high sensitivity microscope when it is exposed to antibiotics. Depending on the resistance of the bacteria, different responses are observed. We need you to look at pictures of bacteria and tell us if the changes indicate antibiotic resistance or sensitivity.The images in the Infection Inspection project were collected as part of our research to develop a test for antibiotic resistance that uses machine learning to provide rapid and accurate results. We will use Infection Inspection to improve our models and provide a reference to how well the computer model can predict resistance compared to lots of human eyes. The project is funded by the Oxford Martin Programme on Antimicrobial Resistance Testing and is developed by a team of physicists, microbiologists, data scientists, and medics from the University of Oxford.Get involved and give it a try! Visit Infection Inspection by clicking here: Infection Inspection We welcome your content! Please feel free to share quotes from articles, links, tweets, and your own analysis in the comments below. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/18/2153317/-Overnight-News-Digest-Saturday-Science-Edition Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/