Off Topic The "That's interesting"/geek thread

I had to install a microphone hole in my sons' bass drum last week.....finding out how to do it, isn't that what YouTube is for......

With great trepidation, we followed this tutorial......

It worked a treat, although I did nearly burn the house down

 

That’s right though, the incredible number of great ‘how to’ tutorials on YouTube and the 95% of truly excellent articles on Wikipedia are what the internet was intended for - a free, open source resource to help us do stuff and enrich our lives.

 

Thanks to You Tube I'm now an expert* at DIY, car mechanics, gardening, IT wizard, chef, you name it!!




*Well, not really expert, but you know what I mean!

 

Enriching my life
Yeah
That's what I use the internet for

 

GM fungus rapidly kills 99% of malaria mosquitoes, study suggests

By James Gallagher
Health and science correspondent, BBC News

• 4 hours ago

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Image copyrightSCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY
A fungus - genetically enhanced to produce spider toxin - can rapidly kill huge numbers of the mosquitoes that spread malaria, a study suggests.

Trials, which took place in Burkina Faso, showed mosquito populations collapsed by 99% within 45 days.

The researchers say their aim is not to make the insects extinct but to help stop the spread of malaria.

The disease, which is spread when female mosquitoes drink blood, kills more than 400,000 people per year.

Worldwide, there are about 219 million cases of malaria each year.

• Working the night shift on Malaria's frontline in Sierra Leone
• Africa pilots world's first malaria vaccine in major trial

Conducting the study, researchers at the University of Maryland in the US - and the IRSS research institute in Burkina Faso - first identified a fungus called Metarhizium pingshaense, which naturally infects the Anopheles mosquitoes that spread malaria.

The next stage was to enhance the fungus.

"They're very malleable, you can genetically engineer them very easily," Prof Raymond St Leger, from the University of Maryland, told BBC News.

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Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES
Image captionInstructions for making the funnel-web spider toxin were added to the fungus's genetic code
They turned to a toxin found in the venom of a species of funnel-web spider in Australia.

The genetic instructions for making the toxin were added to the fungus's own genetic code so it would start making the toxin once it was inside a mosquito.

"A spider uses its fangs to pierce the skin of insects and inject toxins, we replaced the fangs of spider with Metarhizium," Prof St Leger explained.

Laboratory tests showed the genetically modified fungus could kill quicker, and that it took fewer fungal spores to do the job.

The next step was to test the fungus in as close to real-world conditions as possible.

A 6,500-sq-ft fake village - complete with plants, huts, water sources and food for the mosquitoes - was set up in Burkina Faso.

It was surrounded by a double layer of mosquito netting to prevent anything escaping.

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Image copyrightETIENNE BILGO
Image captionA so-called "mosquitosphere" tests the fungus in real-world conditions, without releasing it into the wild
The fungal spores were mixed with sesame oil and wiped on to black cotton sheets.

The mosquitoes had to land on the sheets to be exposed to the deadly fungus.

The researchers started the experiments with 1,500 mosquitoes.

The results, published in the journal Science, showed numbers soared when the insects were left alone.

But when the spider-toxin fungus was used, there were just 13 mosquitoes left after 45 days.

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Image copyrightOLIVER ZIDA
Image captionA mosquito breeding pool inside the test area
"The transgenic fungus quickly collapsed the mosquito population in just two generations," said Dr Brain Lovett, from the University of Maryland.

Tests also showed the fungus was specific to these mosquitoes and did not affect other insects such as bees.

He added: "Our technology is not aiming to drive the extinction of mosquitoes, what we're aiming to do is break malaria transmission in an area."

New tools are needed to tackle malaria as mosquitoes are becoming resistant to insecticides.

The World Health Organization has warned that cases are now increasing in the 10 worst affected countries in Africa.

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Image copyrightBRIAN LOVETT
Image captionA mosquito infected with fungus marked in green
Commenting on the findings, Prof Michael Bonsall, from the University of Oxford, said: "Neat - this is a super-exciting study.

"The prospects for controlling mosquitoes using this modified fungus are high.

"Proportionate bio-safety regulations are needed to ensure that the viability of this and other approaches for vector [mosquito] control using genetic methods are not lost through overly zealous restrictions."

Dr Tony Nolan, from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, added: "These results are encouraging.

"We need new and complementary tools to augment existing control methods, which are being affected by the development of insecticide-resistance

 

This is ****ing great. Science to the rescue. Again.

 

If you order Bombay Duck, you will be served a fish.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombay_duck

 

This should be on the fact thread

 

True. A very interesting discovery.

 

A very interesting study in the limits of human endurance.

Ultimate limit of human endurance found.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-48527798

Plus, congratulations to women during pregnancy for being “Champions”.

 

apparently geeks should love this
This amazing map shows London in Shakespeare’s day
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By James Manning Posted: Thursday June 13 2019, 12:05pm

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Any self-respecting London nerd gets a kick out of a cool map of our city in times past. And here’s an excellent one: a tapestry that depicts Greater London in the 1590s, when big Willy Shakespeare was knocking about Southwark and the City.
Woven for Catholic nobleman Ralph Sheldon, it’s one of four super-deluxe tapestries showing the counties where the family owned land at the time. The map (view a zoomed-in version here) centres on Oxfordshire, but one of the surviving edges shows how the capital was laid out in the late sixteenth century, with the City of London surrounded by outlying villages that have since evolved into the capital’s northern and western suburbs. (Sadly, south London has been obliterated by the passage of time.)
Got an eye for detail? Look out for Westminster Abbey, the Tower of London and the original St Paul’s Cathedral among the houses along the Thames. Regent’s Park appears as an enclosed space near Paddington – it was a private royal hunting park at the time. You can spot the old London Bridge too: covered with buildings, this was the only river crossing until 1750.
You’ll also see some sort-of-familiar names – like Hakeney, Higat, Chelsey and Elinge – alongside some that haven’t changed in 400 years, such as Islington, Fulham, Acton and Paddington.
If you fancy seeing the tapestry IRL, it’s now on display at the Bodleian Library in Oxford, where from July 5 it’ll form part of the ‘Talking Maps’ exhibition. Why not take a fellow map geek on a fun day trip this summer?

 

They've always been ahead of the game....

Chinese tombs yield earliest evidence of cannabis use

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Image copyrightXINHUA WU
Image captionResearchers found the cannabis residues within wooden braziers
Researchers have uncovered the earliest known evidence of cannabis use, from tombs in western China.

The study suggests cannabis was being smoked at least 2,500 years ago, and that it may have been associated with ritual or religious activities.

Traces of the drug were identified in wooden burners from the burials.

The cannabis had high levels of the psychoactive compound THC, suggesting people at the time were well aware of its effects.

Cannabis plants have been cultivated in East Asia for their oily seeds and fibre from at least 4,000 BC.

But the early cultivated varieties of cannabis, as well as most wild populations, had low levels of THC and other psychoactive compounds.

The burners, or braziers, were found at Jirzankal Cemetery, high up in the Pamir Mountains.

The scientists think ancient people put cannabis leaves and hot stones in the braziers and inhaled the resulting smoke.

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Image copyrightXINHUA WU
Image captionTomb M12, where the wooden burner was found
It's possible the high altitude environment caused the cannabis plants in this region to naturally produce higher levels of THC. There's evidence this can happen in response to low temperatures, low nutrient levels and other conditions associated with high elevations.

But people could have deliberately bred plants with higher levels of THC than wild varieties.

It's the earliest clear evidence of cannabis being used for its psychoactive properties. The plants appear to have been burnt as part of funerary rituals.

The scientists used a method called gas chromatography-mass spectrometry to isolate and identify compounds preserved in the burners.

To their surprise, the chemical signature of the isolated compounds was an exact match to the chemical signature of cannabis.

The findings tally with other early evidence for the presence of cannabis from burials further north, in the Xinjiang region of China and in the Altai Mountains of Russia.

In addition, tests on human bones from the cemetery show that some of the people here did not grow up locally.

Nicole Boivin, director at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena, Germany, said: "The findings support the idea that cannabis plants were first used for their psychoactive compounds in the mountainous regions of eastern Central Asia, thereafter spreading to other regions of the world."

The study is published in the journal Science Advances.

 

I am a big fan of technology, robotics and AI.

But something for me seems seriously wrong in this film.

I guess this is a parody of Boston Dynamics - but I am concerned!

 

Not a pleasant or enjoyable read.

But it includes a very good technical animation of the BUK missile explosion.

MH17 plane crash: Investigators 'expected to name four suspects' https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-48685584

 

How to Find the Best Stuff in the Night Sky From Absolutely Anywhere
A beginner’s guide to admiring stars, planets, and satellites—no mountaintop or fancy gear required.
by Jessica Leigh Hester June 21, 2019
How to Find the Best Stuff in the Night Sky From Absolutely Anywhere

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Griffith Observatory's Tesla Coil
High on a hill overlooking Los Angeles lives a world famous, high power conical Tesla Coil.

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The High Line
Elevated freight railway turned wildly successful urban park.
The first time I saw Saturn’s rings, I was up on the High Line, a pedestrian greenway built atop an old train track just west of 10th Avenue in New York City. It was far, far from where I grew up in rural Ontario, Canada, where the night is dark as obsidian and the sky, on a clear night, looks sequined. I took it for granted that the sky was huge and reliably wonderful. As a kid, I loved keeping watch for shooting stars, and we always seemed to spot them. I wasn’t hungry to see more—to look closer at things like Saturn’s icy bands or lunar craters—until it became much harder to do so.
Manhattan is not a great spot for stargazing. There’s too much light, and the city is too low and too humid, with too many tall buildings eating up the sky. Generally speaking, the highest, driest conditions lead to the crispest, most dazzling views, which is one reason that professional astronomers trek to arrays at the South Pole or remote desert mountains, and some deeply invested amateurs work with telescopes they can access remotely. But while those conditions are crucial for science, for seeing distant stellar nurseries or studying black holes, they’re definitely not prerequisites for seeing something cool.
Sarah Barker, an astrophysicist and science communicator, stargazes in New York, too. She cuts through an urban park to get home every night, and says that “more often than not, you can see a few things—a bright planet, Orion—really clearly.” Atlas Obscura asked Barker, author of the new book 50 Things to See in the Sky, and other experts, to teach us how to stargaze from pretty much anywhere. “Even in the biggest, brightest city in the world,” Barker says, “there’s always something to see.”
Locate yourself in space-time
To determine what will be visible when you look up, you need to know “where and when you are,” Barker says. That is, you’ve got to determine your latitude and consider the time of year. Several constellations are only visible from one hemisphere or the other, and various stars and planets are easiest to observe at certain times of year. Some observatories, such as the famed Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, issue weekly reports about what’s happening in the sky so you know what to look for. Apps such as Star Chart can help you get your bearings by using your phone’s GPS to sketch out the constellations you should be able to see—helping you to literally connect the dots.
You’ll also want to figure out what’s going on with the lunar cycle, because the moon can either improve or obscure your view, depending on what you want to see. If you’re looking for the Milky Way, for instance, or faint, distant objects, your best bet is to wait for a moonless night. If you’re planning to look for something on the moon itself, though, you probably want to do so when it’s full.
Related
How to See Jupiter in All Its Glory
Throughout May, the gas giant will be close to Earth and visible all night long.
Read more

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No need to buy your own expensive telescope—many observatories have public viewing nights.
Get a handle on the weather
It helps to check the forecast and steer clear of downpours or gray days—but a crystal-clear night is not critically necessary. A couple of clouds aren’t a deal-breaker, Barker says, and they sometimes pass quickly, leaving clear skies behind them. “High, wispy clouds—not a problem,” she says. “Big, thick, fat rain clouds—problem.” There’s no reason to call off your search unless the cloud cover is significant and looks like it won’t budge.
Don’t be obsessed with gear
No need to run out and drop thousands on a fancy telescope—Barker has never owned one, and doesn’t plan to. “You don’t need one to see stuff and fall in love with the night sky,” she says. You can make out plenty of constellations with nothing but your eyeballs. The first third of Barker’s book is dedicated solely to stuff you can spot with the naked eye. And a simple, easily portable pair of binoculars can bring things into sharper focus.
If you want even more detail, drop by a public stargazing night at a local observatory, or meet up with an astronomy club, which will probably have telescopes trained on the sky and people stationed on the ground to field questions. To find one near you, check out this directory from Sky and Telescope.
Brush up on your measurements
If you’re looking for a specific star or planet, you might hear distance measured in degrees, with zero degrees referring to the horizon, and 90 for the sky directly above you. To zip from one location in the sky to another, you can use your body as a navigational tool, Barker writes. Extend your arm away from you and make a fist—the width of your clenched hand is about 10 degrees. Splay your thumb and pinky finger, and that shape is about 25 degrees. “Using some combination of these can help you find your way when guides say things like, ‘Look 15 degrees southwest to see this object,’” Barker writes.

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Your own hands can help you navigate the night sky.
Focus your search
If there are buildings in the way, you don’t have much choice of where to look. Otherwise, you might want to narrow your view. The full night sky is vast and overwhelming—but there’s no need to try to take it all in. Barker recommends exploring the area around Orion, because it’s dense with things to spot. She calls it “Orion and neighbors.”
That subdivision of the sky has “lots of cool stuff,” she adds, and it rewards close looking. With the naked eye, you can see the constellation’s sword and other iconic shapes. (In the northern hemisphere, look southwest to find the three stars that form Orion’s belt. In the southern hemisphere, you should be able to see him in the northwest part of the summertime sky.) Gaze up at Orion’s right shoulder, and you’ll see Betelgeuse, a future supernova so bright and massive—hundreds of millions of miles across—that its reddish glow is easily visible here, hundreds of light-years away. With binoculars, you can appreciate the nebula known as Messier 42, or the Orion Nebula, a stellar nursery visible as “a faintly fuzzy patch” below Orion’s sword, Barker writes. The nebula is easiest to see when Orion is highest in the sky. In the northern hemisphere, that means your best chance at spotting it is likely to be around midnight on December or January nights.
Get to know an old favorite
You’ve definitely seen the moon—but there’s a lot going on there. Try to find the Sea of Tranquility, where Apollo 11 touched down in July 1969. Next time the moon is full, look for the Tycho Crater. (From the northern hemisphere, it will appear like a bright, pitted spot toward the bottom of the disc, even with the naked eye, though binoculars or a telescope could help.) Then, look for the dark splotches nearby that resemble a lobster claw. The portion closest to the crater is the Sea of Tranquility. You’re not going to see the bootprints in the regolith, but trust us, they’re there.
Don’t forget about the human-made stuff
The International Space Station (ISS) zooms through low-Earth orbit, around 250 miles up. At roughly 17,500 miles per hour, it orbits the planet every 90 minutes—and you can often spot it from the ground.
The ISS and other satellites “are only visible during dawn and dusk, when the sky is dark but the sun’s light is still arcing around the planet, illuminating shiny objects passing overhead,” says Lisa Ruth Rand, a postdoctoral fellow at the Consortium for History of Science, Technology, and Medicine, who studies objects humans have launched into space. “The contrast is key.”
To figure out exactly when the ISS will be passing overhead, consult NASA’s Spot the Station, which has a live tracking map and 6,700 suggested sighting locations around the world, updated several times a week by Mission Control at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. You can sign up for text or email alerts that will ping you when the ISS passes by at 40 degrees or higher, giving you the best chance of spotting it. Barker also recommends the ISS Spotter app, which shows you the angle and duration of visibility you can expect, and even allows you to set an alarm so you’ll remember to run outside to catch it zooming by. Rand uses SkyView, a sky-mapping app that includes satellites.
“I often find that people will stop and ask what I’m looking at—and when I tell them, they are astounded that that moving star is a space station with people on it.”
You’ll be able to distinguish the space station from a plane because it won’t have any blinking dots on the wings. “It’s just a point of light, whipping and more arched, and bright,” Barker says. Also, “it’s booking it—it’s moving fast.” The ISS is “easy to see with the naked eye, even in urban areas with light pollution,” Rand says. And when you do spot it, remember, there are fellow humans up there, staring down at Earth. “I often find that people will stop and ask what I’m looking at,” Rand adds, “and when I tell them, they are astounded that that moving star is a space station with people on it.”
It’s easy to discount the night sky, or assume that its wonders can’t be revealed without a powerful telescope and perfectly cooperative conditions. But really, there are scores of wonders to be spotted, whether you’re in Manhattan or on Mauna Kea. You just have to look