Lenguador
- 10 Posts
- 39 Comments
Lenguador@kbin.socialtoWorld News@lemmy.ml•Scientists at Fermilab close in on fifth force of nature
61·3 years agoFrom Wikipedia: this is only a 1-sigma result compared to theory using lattice calculations. It would have been 5.1-sigma if the calculation method had not been improved.
Many calculations in the standard model are mathematically intractable with current methods, so improving approximate solutions is not trivial and not surprising that we’ve found improvements.
Lenguador@kbin.socialto
News@kbin.social•'Barbie' Makes Greta Gerwig 1st Female Director with Billion-Dollar Movie
1·3 years agoThis seems like more of an achievement for the Barbie brand than for the individual director.
Lenguador@kbin.socialto
Space@kbin.social•Massive galaxy with no dark matter is a cosmic puzzle
3·3 years agoNGC 1277 is unusual among galaxies because it has had little interaction with other surrounding galaxies.
I wonder if interactions between galaxies somehow converts regular matter to dark matter.
Oh certainly, that series took quite a risk on writing style and it’s quite divisive.
If you enjoy fantasy, you could try her other series as an alternative. The Inheritance Trilogy is a more standard writing style.
I almost put The Fifth Season down after the first chapter, I remember thinking: “This author has a chip on their shoulder”. I’m glad I persevered though, and I definitely recommend the series to people as it is quite different. I’d suggest giving it another shot.
Lenguador@kbin.socialto
Science Fiction@kbin.social•Babylon 5 Creator Says a Single Warner Bros. Executive Stopped the Show’s Comeback for Close to 20 Years
1·3 years agoI might try jumping in again on season 2, thanks.
Lenguador@kbin.socialto
Technology@kbin.social•Someone Used ChatGPT to Finish the Game of Thrones Book Series - IGN
1·3 years agoClaude 2 would have a much better chance at this because of the longer context window.
Though there are plenty of alternate/theorised/critiqued endings for Game of Thrones online, so current chatbots should have a better shot at doing a good job vs other writers who haven’t finished their series in over a decade.
Lenguador@kbin.socialto
Science Fiction@kbin.social•Babylon 5 Creator Says a Single Warner Bros. Executive Stopped the Show’s Comeback for Close to 20 Years
2·3 years agoAs a counterpoint to other comments here, I didn’t like Babylon 5. I gave up in the first season on the episode about religions, where each alien race shows a single religion but then humanity shows an enormous number of them.
Showing planets in sci fi as homogenous is a common trope, but such a simplistic take. This resonated poorly with me as I felt the aliens all behaved exactly like humans as well, to the point where you have stand-ins for Jehovah’s witnesses. That episode cemented for me the feeling I had when watching. Babylon 5 is racist against aliens.
Lenguador@kbin.socialto
News@kbin.social•How a plan to recognize Australia's indigenous people became the country's latest culture war
2·3 years agoWhy do you say they have no representation? There are a lot of specific bodies operating in the government, advisory and otherwise, with the sole focus of indigenous affairs. And of course, currently, indigenous Australians are over represented in terms of parliamentarian race (more than 4% if parliamentarians are of indigenous descent).
Lenguador@kbin.socialto
News@kbin.social•Johnson & Johnson sues researchers who linked talc to cancer
1·3 years agoWhile in general, I’d agree, look at the damage a single false paper on vaccination had. There were a lot of follow up studies showing that the paper is wrong, and yet we still have an antivax movement going on.
Clearly, scientists need to be able to publish without fear of reprisal. But to have no recourse when damage is done by a person acting in bad faith is also a problem.
Though I’d argue we have the same issue with the media, where they need to be able to operate freely, but are able to cause a lot of harm.
Perhaps there could be some set of rules which absolve scientists of legal liability. And hopefully those rules are what would ordinarily be followed anyway, and this be no burden to your average researcher.
Lenguador@kbin.socialto
Space@kbin.social•How old is our universe? New study says Big Bang might have happened 27 billion years ago
1·3 years agoSee this comment on another thread about this for some more details.
Lenguador@kbin.socialto
Technology@kbin.social•Elon Musk’s new AI company is staffed entirely by men
3·3 years agoTaking 89.3% men from your source at face value, and selecting 12 people at random, that gives a 12.2% chance (1 in 8) that the company of that size would be all male.
Add in network effects, risk tolerance for startups, and the hiring practices of larger companies, and that number likely gets even larger.What’s the p-value for a news story? Unless this is some trend from other companies run by Musk, there doesn’t seem to be anything newsworthy here.
Lenguador@kbin.socialto
Science@kbin.social•Artificial Muscles Flex for the First Time: Ferroelectric Polymer Innovation in Robotics
2·3 years agoSo, taking the average bicep volume as 1000cm3, this muscle could: exert 1 tonne of force, contact 8% (1.6cm for a 20cm long bicep), and require 400kV and must be above 29 degrees Celcius.
Maybe someone with access to the paper can double check the math and get the conversion efficiency from electrical to mechanical.
I expect there’s a good trade-off to be made to lower the force but increase the contraction and lower the voltage. Possibly some kind of ratcheting mechanism with tiny cells could be used to overcome the crazy high voltage requirement.
Lenguador@kbin.socialto
Science Fiction@kbin.social•[Discussion Thread] How can we grow the /m/scifi community?
1·3 years agoNone of the related magazines in this community are listing this community in their related magazine section.
I’d advise expanding (and trimming) the related magazine section, plus messaging mods to ask if they’d like to add your magazine to their related section.
Lenguador@kbin.socialto
Science@kbin.social•NASA Seals Crew Members In Isolated Chamber For Yearlong Test Of Mars Mission—Here’s What To Know
6·3 years agoI wonder what specifically they’re interested in vs long deployments in Antarctica (people do 12 months rotations in some stations there).
I found this article discussing the psychology of placements in Australian antarctic stations: https://psychology.org.au/for-members/publications/inpsych/2021/february-march-issue-1/life-in-the-australian-antarctic-program.
The differences as I see them are:
- Smaller crew
- No unsuited outdoor time
- Smaller space
- Communication latency / outages
- Personal belongings weight/volume limits
- Dietary restrictions
Lenguador@kbin.socialto
Australia@aussie.zone•Lab-produced meat could be on Australian supermarket shelves as soon as next year
18·3 years agoLooks like the same guys were doing publicity around 2019 https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2019-07-30/australia-joins-lab-grown-meat-industry/11360506
At the time, they claimed the cost to make a single hamburger was $30-$40, and now 4 years later, they claim to have gotten it down to $5-$6 per patty.
The article claims the first demonstration of a lab-grown hamburger was in 2013.So 6 years from proof of concept to (probably) first capital raise, then 4 years to start regulatory approval, 1 year for approval to take place (target is March next year).
!literature@kbin.social should go in your list, it has more of a poetry slant.
!books@kbin.social has almost 3000 membersI’m sure you can find plenty more on kbin.social as well.
Lenguador@kbin.socialto
Technology@beehaw.org•Deepfake Porn Reveals a ‘Pervert’s Dilemma'
1·3 years agoHaha, thanks for the correction. If you have to use your degree in ethics, perhaps you could add your perspective to the thread?
Lenguador@kbin.socialto
News@kbin.social•3M reaches $10.3 billion settlement over contamination of water systems with PFAS 'forever chemicals'
5·3 years agoIn the last 12 months, 3M’s profits were $14.4B (source), so this fine represents 8.5 months of profits.
How large should the fine have been?







That reminds me of a joke.
A museum guide is talking to a group about the dinosaur fossils on exhibit.
“This one,” he says, “Is 6 million and 2 years old.”
“Wow,” says a patron, “How do you know the age so accurately?”
“Well,” says the guide, “It was 6 million years old when I started here 2 years ago.”