The one important fact in this video, at 10:00 - after the next mega-quake tsunami, there will be secondary waves hitting the inundated area for up to 6 hours. Don't go into the inundation zone for 6 hours.
Monday, March 10, 2025
Sunday, March 9, 2025
The genius behind audience conducting
If you don't have time, start at 5:30. This deep dive into the evolution of Jacob Collier's improvising with an audience shows how far he has taken this skill, and the complexity he has achieved.
Voice-over acting
Voice-over acting is easy - well, it's hard. And finding the right person to voice a character is very hard.
Saturday, March 8, 2025
Friday, March 7, 2025
First growth after a forest fire
Shrubs such as willow, blueberry, Labrador tea, and shrub birch re-sprout if the fire lightly burns the soil. If a fire burns deeply and burns the roots, the shrubs depend more on seeds to reproduce. Plants with non-woody stems, such as fireweed and grasses, will also become more plentiful soon after a fire.
Unities
I encountered the Scrabble word "unities." I did not know this as a term in classic drama, where an entire play takes place in one scene, with one plot, within 24 hours. The examples of such movies, or close to it, are interesting discussion in this Reddit. Such as Panic Room, 12 Angry Men, and Die Hard.
Tom Hanks' 2024 movie "Room" is a similar idea but stretched to infinity rather than over 24 hours.
Sunday, March 2, 2025
Geothermal energy
Saturday, March 1, 2025
Accuracy of weather forecasts
analyzed over 20 years' worth of climate model forecasts of ENSO (El Niño-Southern Oscillation)
and found some interesting results... The purest test for models is how well they do in the future, on data that the model has never ever seen. This type of evaluation on "real-time forecasts" is much rarer, and is exactly what Azhar and his co-authors did...The model forecasts can be split into two types, dynamical and statistical. Dynamical models refer to models which take observational data to simulate earth's future climate by using equations that represent our best understanding of the laws of physics...Statistical models, on the other hand, use the historical relationships...and...observational record[s] and then use these relationships to make predictions for the current situation.
Scientific advances that were ridiculed and ignored at first
It's fascinating how many groundbreaking scientific ideas were initially met with skepticism, ridicule, or outright rejection. Here are a few notable examples:
* The Heliocentric Model (Aristarchus and later Copernicus):
* The idea that the Earth revolves around the Sun was proposed by Aristarchus of Samos in the 3rd century BC, and later championed by Nicolaus Copernicus in the 16th century.
* For centuries, the prevailing belief was the geocentric model, which placed the Earth at the center of the universe. The heliocentric model was considered absurd and even heretical.
* It took considerable time and the work of scientists like Galileo Galilei to gain acceptance.
* Germ Theory of Disease (Ignaz Semmelweis):
* Ignaz Semmelweis, a 19th-century physician, observed that handwashing significantly reduced maternal mortality rates in hospitals.
* His suggestion that doctors were transmitting infections was met with hostility and disbelief. He was ridiculed and his findings were largely ignored.
* Later, Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch provided further evidence for germ theory, which revolutionized medicine.
* Plate Tectonics (Alfred Wegener):
* Alfred Wegener's theory of continental drift, which proposed that continents move over time, was initially dismissed by the scientific community.
* His evidence, such as the matching shapes of continents and similar fossil records, was considered insufficient.
* It wasn't until the mid-20th century, with the development of plate tectonics, that Wegener's ideas were validated.
* Helicobacter pylori and Peptic Ulcers (Barry Marshall and Robin Warren):
* Barry Marshall and Robin Warren proposed that the bacterium Helicobacter pylori caused peptic ulcers.
* This challenged the long-held belief that ulcers were caused by stress and diet.
* Their findings were met with skepticism, and Marshall famously ingested a culture of H. pylori to prove his point. They later received the Nobel Prize.
* Quasicrystals (Dan Shechtman):
* Dan Shechtman's discovery of quasicrystals, which have a non-repeating pattern, defied the established rules of crystallography.
* He faced strong opposition and ridicule from prominent scientists, including Linus Pauling.
* His perseverance led to the acceptance of quasicrystals, and he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
* The theory of Evolution by Natural Selection (Charles Darwin):
* Darwin's theory, outlined in "On the Origin of Species," challenged prevailing religious and scientific beliefs about the creation of life.
* It faced intense criticism from both religious figures and some scientists who couldn't accept the idea of species changing over time.
* Despite the controversy, the overwhelming evidence eventually led to its widespread acceptance.
* The concept of neurons (Santiago Ramón y Cajal):
* Ramón y Cajal's work demonstrating that the nervous system is made up of individual cells, or neurons, was initially met with skepticism.
* At the time, the prevailing "reticular theory" suggested that the nervous system was a continuous network.
* His meticulous work and detailed drawings eventually proved the neuron doctrine correct.
* The existence of meteorites:
* For a long time, the idea that rocks could fall from the sky was considered ridiculous.
* Reports of meteorites were dismissed as folklore or hallucinations.
* It wasn't until the early 19th century that scientists began to accept the reality of meteorites, after careful analysis of recovered specimens.
* The idea of blood circulation (William Harvey):
* William Harvey's demonstration that blood circulates throughout the body, rather than being constantly produced by the liver, was a revolutionary concept.
* It contradicted the long-held beliefs of Galen, the dominant medical authority at the time.
* Harvey faced considerable opposition, but his observations and experiments eventually prevailed.
* The understanding of Mental illness:
* For a very long period of time, mental illness was thought of as demonic possession, or moral failing. With the work of people like Philippe Pinel, and others, the idea of mental illness being a medical condition began to gain traction. However, even when that idea started to take hold, many of the treatments were very barbaric. It has been a long road to get to the current understanding of mental health.
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