SCIENCE and things like that

[Daehawk]

[Jaymann]

Amazing that Higgs held on long enough to see the discovery of his brain child. Great video. I was afraid it would be more of the Joe Rogan: OMG WHAT'S REALLY HAPPENING AT CERN AND IT'S TERRIFYING!!! garbage. They did a great job of demonstrating the minuscule scale of the particles.

[Isgrimnur]

RIP Superconducting Super Collider

[disarm]

There are a lot of really great things in that LHC video, but I think the section 'Why Does This Matter?' at 11:30 is probably my favorite part. The way she explains why proving and understanding theoretical research are important is perfectly stated and something I wish everyone who looks down on theoretical sciences could understand.

We may not understand the importance of everything we're learning now, but you also never know what discovery might change the world forever.

[Blackhawk]

Primate observed administering medicine

When a wild orangutan in Indonesia suffered a painful wound to his cheek, he did something that stunned researchers: He chewed plant leaves known to have pain-relieving and healing properties, rubbed the juice on the open wound — and then used the leaves as a poultice to cover his injury.

"This case represents the first known case of active wound treatment in a wild animal with a medical plant," biologist Isabelle Laumer, the first author of a paper about the revelation, told NPR.

[Kraken]

Primate observed administering medicine

When a wild orangutan in Indonesia suffered a painful wound to his cheek, he did something that stunned researchers: He chewed plant leaves known to have pain-relieving and healing properties, rubbed the juice on the open wound — and then used the leaves as a poultice to cover his injury.

"This case represents the first known case of active wound treatment in a wild animal with a medical plant," biologist Isabelle Laumer, the first author of a paper about the revelation, told NPR.

Unfortunately its insurance plan denied coverage.

[Daehawk]

Thats a bad wound. Feels sorry for him. Not sure why people didn't help. I guess being a wild animal they have to let it be.

[Blackhawk]

Thats a bad wound. Feels sorry for him. Not sure why people didn't help. I guess being a wild animal they have to let it be.

Broadly speaking, you don't interfere.

[Daehawk]

Fascinating new info on how fireflies light their lantern.

How do fireflies get their glow? We finally have some answers.

[Daehawk]

[Isgrimnur]

Physicists Puzzle Over Emergence of Strange Electron Aggregates

Researchers at the University of Washington reported in August 2023 that in a stack of two atomically thin crystalline sheets offset from each other at a slight angle, electrons behaved like quasiparticles with fractional amounts of charge, such as −⅔ and −⅗. A few months later, a team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology reported the same effect in another material. It was the first time that electrons had formed fractional quasiparticles without the enabling influence of a magnetic field.

While predictions about the possibility of this particular effect date back to 2011, theorists are still puzzling over the new discovery. It’s not clear how the underlying mechanism works in the MIT group’s material; calculations from several groups neither fully explain the fractional states nor agree. Other, even odder quantum phases of matter may also be present.

The new discovery isn’t incidental, or specific to a material. Rather, it’s universal and fundamental — the result of the quantum nature of the electron, albeit a behavior that has until now stayed hidden. While condensed matter physicists want to understand the breadth of electron behaviors for their own sake, there’s always the chance of uncovering the basis of a world-changing technology. In this case, the newfound effect may carry the seeds of long-sought quasiparticles with stable memories that could underpin a new and powerful approach to quantum computing.