Arturo Serrano reshared this.

mastodon - Link to source

What defines a habitable planet? Well, as far as we know here on Earth, it’s a few simple ingredients… but Athena spoke to experts Victoria Meadows and Andrew Lincowski, who look at the ingredients necessary for life (AS WE KNOW IT), and let’s just say there’s more to it than just water and air!

youtube.com/shorts/hKaP2DryKWs…

#space #science

Listening to the Universe: Ep 3 - What defines a habitable #planet? #science #scienceexplained

Auf YouTube findest du die angesagtesten Videos und Tracks. Außerdem kannst du eigene Inhalte hochladen und mit Freunden oder gleich der ganzen Welt teilen.
SETI Institute (YouTube)
#Science #space

Arturo Serrano reshared this.

Arturo Serrano reshared this.

mastodon - Link to source
The media in this post is not displayed to visitors. To view it, please go to the original post.

A next-generation deformable mirror for the VLT.

Today we signed a contract with AdOptica for the design & production of a new adaptive mirror.

Adaptive mirrors play a crucial role in adaptive optics facilities that correct observations for the atmosphere's blurring effect.

📷 ESO

1/3 🧵 👇

#astrodon #astronomy #astrophysics #space #science #engineering

#Science #space #astronomy #Astrodon #engineering #astrophysics
in reply to ESO

mastodon - Link to source

ESO

The media in this post is not displayed to visitors. To view it, please go to the original post.

2/3 Our VLT has four Unit Telescopes (UT). Yet at present only one of them, UT4, has an adaptive optics facility, which includes a deformable mirror.

Because of this and its highly demanded instruments, UT4 is one of the most oversubscribed telescopes on Earth.

📷 ESO/E. Vernet

reshared this

in reply to ESO

mastodon - Link to source

ESO

The media in this post is not displayed to visitors. To view it, please go to the original post.

3/3 The new adaptive mirror will be installed on UT3.

This will reduce the pressure on UT4, allowing more observations of cosmic objects in finer detail than is possible today.

Read more: eso.org/public/announcements/a…

📷 ESO/P.Horálek

ESO signs contract for next-generation deformable mirror for the VLT

www.eso.org

Eowyn reshared this.

Arturo Serrano reshared this.

mastodon - Link to source
The media in this post is not displayed to visitors. To view it, please go to the original post.
A watercolor painting I created the day after the airstrike on Kyiv on June 15, 2026
Arturo Serrano reshared this.

ActivityPub - Link to source

Barbados prime minister announces manifesto for slavery reparations

www.theguardian.com/news/2026/jun/18/barbados-prime-minister-manifesto-slavery-reparations

Updated document, which emphasises harm done to African women, is being considered by other Caribbean countriesBarbados’s prime minister, Mia Mottley, has announced a new manifesto from Caribbean leaders asserting the “moral, ethical and legal case” for…

Barbados prime minister announces manifesto for slavery reparations

Natricia Duncan (the Guardian)

reshared this

Arturo Serrano reshared this.

mastodon - Link to source

Great news: in the 5 years 2020-2024, know how many 20-24 year olds died of cervical cancer in England?

ZERO.

That's the first cohort of folks that age who were offered the HPV vaccine when they were 12 or 13.

Before the vaccine was used, on average about 20 people in that age range died of cervical cancer in a 5 year span.

We're looking forward to more dramatic results as that group enters their 30s & 40s.

bbc.com/news/articles/c621z28z…

#HPV #Gardasil #vaccines

Cervical cancer deaths fall to zero in young women given vaccine

A new study finds that hundreds of lives have been saved since school-age girls were offered the HPV jab in 2008.
Sophie Hutchinson (BBC News)
#vaccines #hpv #gardasil
Arturo Serrano reshared this.

mastodon - Link to source
SunZia, the largest renewable energy project ever built in the US, has begun sending wind power from New Mexico to California via an 885 km transmission line. The impact is already visible: in the month after SunZia came online, California wind generation rose 37% and gas generation fell 35%. That is what new transmission is supposed to do: move cheap clean power from where it is abundant to where it can displace fossil fuels. eenews.net/articles/largest-us…
#ShareGoodNewsToo

Largest US renewable project begins generating electricity

SunZia has quietly begun sending enormous amounts of wind power to California, as President Donald Trump works to thwart the wind industry.
Benjamin Storrow (E&E News by POLITICO)
#sharegoodnewstoo
Arturo Serrano reshared this.

mastodon - Link to source

Being a fascist is associated with memetic thinking, but this cognitive style can exist among anyone, including scientists and academic philosophers.

A person who illustrated very well that highly intelligent people can engage in this was James Watson, the co-discoverer of DNA. Everything he did was from intuition, and it's why he was such a bigoted and stubborn person statnews.com/2025/11/07/james-…

James Watson, dead at 97, was a scientific legend and a pariah among his peers

James Watson, the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA who died Thursday at 97, was a scientific legend and a pariah among his peers.
Sharon Begley (STAT)

reshared this

Arturo Serrano reshared this.

mastodon - Link to source

We can now take *1,500-color* images of galaxies! Here's a gorgeous nearby spiral to sculpt your interest.

badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/the…

[words by me; this issue is free for all!]

The spectacular Sculptor spiral galaxy in 1,500 colors!

Picking your colors carefully reveals rich science
Philip Plait (Bad Astronomy Newsletter)
Arturo Serrano reshared this.

mastodon - Link to source
This is a BFD - watch this story. If any other country were to steal the assets of another country, move the money into a Qatari bank account and claim to have disbursed them with no audit controls we would see IMF and potentially ICC involvement. nytimes.com/2026/02/11/us/vene…
Unknown parent

mastodon - Link to source

N. T. O. & Y.

@nazokiyoubinbou @helvick Yes! And Trump, for all his many (MANY) shortcomings, seems to get that.

It makes me morbidly curious if Reagan had said "yeah, we're selling weapons to Iran to fund the Contras" or if Nixon said "we broke into Watergate, so what?" if they'd have gotten the many (MANY) free passes that Trump has received from American society and the U.S. media.

@Nazo @Joe Mansfield
Arturo Serrano reshared this.

mastodon - Link to source
The media in this post is not displayed to visitors. To view it, please go to the original post.

PRESS RELEASE:
A new study led by SETI Institute scientist Matija Ćuk suggests Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, formed from a collision between two older moons—and that this event may also be linked to the formation of Saturn’s iconic rings.

Read the full release: seti.org/news/saturns-moon-tit…

#space #science

Saturns Moon Titan Could Have Formed in a Merger of Two Old Moons

SETI Institute
#Science #space

reshared this

Arturo Serrano reshared this.

mastodon - Link to source

Long shot, but hopefully I get results. In the early 2000s, I read a Ugandan newspaper article about two Indian scientists trying to genetically engineer the anopheles mosquito. That set off alarm bells so I wrote a short story, which some universities in UK and Kenya teach in a course Applied African Science Fiction. I've looked for that article but can't find it. I guess it must have been via Reuters or AP or such a newswire.
Anyone think they can dig it up?

#science #scientist

#Science #scientist
in reply to Dilman Dila

mastodon - Link to source

7sleepersmusic

The media in this post is not displayed to visitors. To view it, please go to the original post.
Is this close? From The Statesman (India), January 2, 2006: "Researchers have developed a strain of anopheles mosquito that has the DNA, or is genetically programmed, to generate SM1, and have that found there is a significant reduction in their capacity to transmit malaria."
in reply to Dilman Dila

mastodon - Link to source

Gavin Chait;

the approach is called a •gene drive• & it's quite remarkable. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_dri…

The idea, in this case, being to eradicate malaria through introducing genetically modified mosquitoes which propagate their genes into the wild mosquito population & gradually eradicate the disease.

One of those things that, like antibiotics & vaccines, are lifesaving sci-fi that actually exists.

Gene drive - Wikipedia

Contributors to Wikimedia projects (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.)
Arturo Serrano reshared this.

mastodon - Link to source

The Chinese government intensified its repression in 2025 according to Human Rights Watch's annual report. It particularly targeted minority groups including Tibetans, Uyghurs and members of unofficial churches

"The Chinese government under Xi Jinping has amassed an increasingly disastrous human rights record, expanding and deepening its crackdown on fundamental freedoms"

hrw.org/news/2026/02/04/china-…

#China #CCP #HumanRights #HRW

China: Repression Deepens, Extends Abroad

The Chinese government intensified its repression across the country in 2025.
Human Rights Watch
#china #humanrights #CCP #hrw

reshared this

Arturo Serrano reshared this.

mastodon - Link to source

"First vaccine targeting SARS virus family enters human trials"

A new vaccine, GBP511 developed by UW Medicine, has entered clinical trials in Australia. It aims to protect against COVID-19 and related coronaviruses, including potential future threats, with trials led by South Korean pharmaceutical company SK Bioscience.

#COVID19

Source: ipd.uw.edu/2026/02/gbp511-vacc…

First vaccine targeting SARS virus family enters human trials – Institute for Protein Design

The computer-designed vaccine aims to protect against coronaviruses that haven't yet emerged, including pandemic threats
admin (Institute for Protein Design – Designing tomorrow)
#covid19
This entry was edited (4 months ago)
Arturo Serrano reshared this.

mastodon - Link to source
On the border with Peru and Brazil, Bolivia recently added two new protected areas to stitch the western Amazon together. Created by municipal governments, the 7,300 km² of intact forest, rivers and floodplains will give jaguars, tapirs, river dolphins, giant otters and spider monkeys corridors to move around vast territories. Andes Amazon Fund andesamazonfund.org/news-blog/…
#ShareGoodNewsToo

Newly Created Los Palmares de Villa Nueva and Guardián Amazónico Pacahuara Protected Areas Enhance Connectivity of Amazonian Forests in Pando, Bolivia - Andes Amazon Fund

Together these two areas span a combined 1,817,247 acres (735,414 hectares) of intact Amazonian forests and water sources that connect with an extensive conservation mosaic in the Department of Pando.
Andes Amazon Fund
#sharegoodnewstoo
Arturo Serrano reshared this.

mastodon - Link to source
The media in this post is not displayed to visitors. To view it, please go to the original post.
A century of hair samples proves leaded gas ban worked
“We should not forget the lessons of history. And the lesson is those regulations have been very important.”
arstechnica.com/science/2026/0…

A century of hair samples proves leaded gas ban worked

“We should not forget the lessons of history. And the lesson is those regulations have been very important.”...
Jennifer Ouellette (Ars Technica)
in reply to Ars Technica

glitchsoc - Link to source

Rhyothemis

quote from article:
"An American mechanical and chemical engineer named Thomas Midgley Jr. was a key player in the development of leaded gasoline (tetraethyl lead) because it was an excellent anti-knock agent, as well as the first chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) like freon. Midgley publicly defended the safety of tetraethyl lead (TEL), despite experiencing lead poisoning firsthand. He held a 1924 press conference during which he poured TEL on his hand and inhaled TEL vapor for 60 seconds, claiming no ill effects. It was probably just a coincidence that he later took a leave of absence from work because of lead poisoning. (Midgley’s life ended in tragedy: he was severely disabled by polio in 1940 and devised an elaborate rope-and-pulley system to get in and out of bed. That system ended up strangling him to death in 1944, and the coroner ruled it suicide.)"

Can't make this stuff up.

#LeadPoisoning #Environment #Pollution #PublicHealth

#publichealth #environment #Pollution #LeadPoisoning
Arturo Serrano reshared this.

mastodon - Link to source

This week Microsoft stock tanked -12% on revelations that 45% of its Azure customer backlog is OpenAI.

Oracle is now struggling to get loans to pay for its data center buildout to meet its $300B deal with OpenAI. They may need layoffs to come up with the money.

The underlying theme being bankers don’t believe OpenAI will have the money to pay these bills and it’s pulling down companies doing business with it.

cio.com/article/4125103/oracle…

Oracle may slash up to 30,000 jobs to fund AI data-center expansion as US banks retreat

Oracle is considering workforce cuts and selling Cerner to alleviate financial pressure, warns investment bank TD Cowen.
Gyana Swain (CIO)
This entry was edited (4 months ago)
in reply to Ariaflame

mastodon - Link to source

The Frog

Uber and tech

Sensitive content

@Ariaflame @gotofritz
Arturo Serrano reshared this.

mastodon - Link to source

Europa is a moon of Jupiter with a liquid water ocean underneath its thick shell of ice. But *how* thick? Scientists have measured it using data from the Juno spacecraft, and the answer is: pretty damn thick.

badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/eur…

Europa’s ice is pretty thick

Also: a barred spiral galaxy more distant than expected
Philip Plait (Bad Astronomy Newsletter)
Arturo Serrano reshared this.

mastodon - Link to source
Coming attraction: Upasana Sarraju’s new book “Unruly: The Ig Nobel Prizes and the Science That Refuses to Behave” linkedin.com/posts/sanasarraju…

#improbableresearch | Upasana Sarraju

📔 COVER ART REVEAL! Unruly: The Ig Nobel Prizes & The Science That Refuses to Behave .....is my love letter to weird science and weirder scientists.
Upasana Sarraju (www.linkedin.com)

Arturo Serrano reshared this.

in reply to Innerworld

lemmy - Link to source

Sequentialsilence

YouTube educator, Cleo Abrams did a video on this as well as the actual options available to us to protect against asteroids, and found a new asteroid on camera

youtu.be/LOn-mmezykQ

Humanity’s Real Plan to Stop This Asteroid (Feat. Mark Rober)

Auf YouTube findest du die angesagtesten Videos und Tracks. Außerdem kannst du eigene Inhalte hochladen und mit Freunden oder gleich der ganzen Welt teilen.
Cleo Abram (YouTube)
Arturo Serrano reshared this.

mastodon - Link to source

Oooo Department of Conservation have a Kākāpō cam :kakapo:

Kākāpō Cam: Rakiura the kākāpō – 2026 nest

youtube.com/live/BfGL7A2YgUY

Kākāpō Cam: Rakiura the kākāpō – 2026 nest

Auf YouTube findest du die angesagtesten Videos und Tracks. Außerdem kannst du eigene Inhalte hochladen und mit Freunden oder gleich der ganzen Welt teilen.
Department of Conservation (YouTube)
This entry was edited (5 months ago)
in reply to Raj Patel

mastodon - Link to source

Paul H

When I worked at DOC last year we used to have a large TV screen on the wall with a Iive feed from the albatross colony at Taiaroa Head on the Otago Peninsula. We got really invested in the chicks and their progress. It was endlessly fascinating watching them. When they fledged in September we switched to the penguin colony down at Ōamaru. Wonderful. And now there is a kākāpō cam!

reshared this

Arturo Serrano reshared this.

mastodon - Link to source

5702631489 is an interesting number: 5702631489⁴ = 10575 50783 69274 13892 95697 10824 23634 08641.

It's the smallest number 𝑛 such that the decimal digits of 𝑛⁴ make up four copies of the digits of 𝑛.

And did you notice that 5702631489 uses every decimal digit?

Spotted in the new #OEIS sequence oeis.org/A391002, which lists numbers like this for each power.

A391002 - OEIS

oeis.org
#oeis

reshared this

Arturo Serrano reshared this.

mastodon - Link to source
Meet Veronika, the tool-using cow. Veronika uses sticks to scratch herself, using different orientations and motions, an example of multi-purpose tool use. This suggests scientists may have underestimated cows' cognitive abilities. arstechnica.com/science/2026/0…

Meet Veronika, the tool-using cow

Veronika uses sticks to scratch herself, suggesting scientists have underestimated cow cognition...
Jennifer Ouellette (Ars Technica)
Arturo Serrano reshared this.

mastodon - Link to source

Oh look: #discord outsourced their age verification to some vendor. You know, the #ageverification that countries like the UK want to make mandatory for basically every online service. And the vendor had a data breach exposing photos of government IDs for 70,000 people.

Do you feel safer? How many children did we protect by exposing the IDs of these 70,000 (presumably) adults? Thanks for taking one for the team, you 70,000 canaries in the #privacy coal mine.

discord.com/press-releases/upd…

Update on a Security Incident Involving Third-Party Customer Service | Discord

At Discord, protecting the privacy and security of our users is a top priority. That’s why it’s important to us that we’re transparent with them about events that impact their personal information.
discord.com
#privacy #discord #ageverification
Unknown parent

mastodon - Link to source

Sir Osis of Liver

Oh, jeeze that's enraging.

When I was working in the US, I heard a lot of stories about Comcast, none good.

What I hate is I was happy with NBTel, Fundy Cable and later Shaw Cable. They were bought out by Rogers or Bell Canada, the conglomerates with the worst customer satisfaction scores in the country.

The regulator just rubber stamped the deals without paying any attention to public feedback.

Arturo Serrano reshared this.

lemmy - Link to source

Alabama uses Japanese American Internment era law to charge immigrants who don’t self-register
archive link

Alabama uses Japanese American Internment era law to charge immigrants who don’t self-register

Alabama is finding new ways to criminally charge undocumented immigrants
Sarah Whites-Koditschek | swhites-koditschek@al.com (al)
#politics

reshared this

Arturo Serrano reshared this.

lemmy - Link to source

Mass Extinction 445 Million Years Ago Paved the Way for Jawed Fishes to Take Over

Mass Extinction 445 Million Years Ago Paved the Way for Jawed Fishes to Take Over

Discover how the first mass extinction put jawed fishes on the map, species that would later come to dominate animal life on the planet.
Jenny Lehmann (Discover Magazine)
#Science

reshared this

Arturo Serrano reshared this.

mastodon - Link to source

What's happening in the sky in 2026? I made a list of the events I'm personally looking forward to, including eclipses, spotting elusive Mercury, and watching the Moon occult (pass directly in front of) Venus and Jupiter!

scientificamerican.com/article…

A Guide to the Best Skywatching of 2026

Total eclipses, lunar occultations, planetary conjunctions and meteor showers await stargazers this year
Phil Plait (Scientific American)
Arturo Serrano reshared this.

mastodon - Link to source
The media in this post is not displayed to visitors. To view it, please go to the original post.

This month’s highlights range from careful scientific evaluation of speculation surrounding interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS to broader discussions of where life might exist beyond Earth, informed by SETI’s integrated approach to biosignatures and technosignatures.

Read the full stories: seti.org/news/seti-institute-i…

#space #science #news

SETI Institute In the News: December Roundup 2025

Throughout December, the SETI Institute appeared across leading science and media outlets, reflecting the SETI Institute’s continued leadership in research and public engagement.
www.seti.org
#news #Science #space

reshared this

Arturo Serrano reshared this.

mastodon - Link to source
The media in this post is not displayed to visitors. To view it, please go to the original post.

New Year’s Eve brought more than fireworks.

A rare meteor shower flared up in southern skies — debris from a comet, lighting up Earth’s atmosphere at cosmic speeds. 🌌

🔭 The Volantids were spotted again, just like they were in 2015 and 2020, hinting at a repeating pattern.

💥 Alongside it, observers from Australia, Brazil, Chile, New Zealand, and South Africa saw an outburst of the kappa Volantid meteors, with over 300 flashes recorded.

Learn more: seti.org/news/volantid-meteors…

#space #science

VOLANTID METEORS 2025-2026

The Volantids meteor shower was detected in the southern hemisphere during New Year's Eve 2025
www.seti.org
#Science #space

reshared this

Arturo Serrano reshared this.

mastodon - Link to source
"On a long enough timeline, any surveillance tool you build will eventually be used by people you don’t like for reasons that you disagree with. A surveillance-industrial complex and a democratic society are fundamentally incompatible, regardless of your political party." eff.org/deeplinks/2026/01/ice-…

ICE Is Going on a Surveillance Shopping Spree

We need to have a hard look at the surveillance industry. It is a key enabler of vast and untold violations of human rights and civil liberties, and it continues to be used by aspiring autocrats to threaten our very democracy.
Electronic Frontier Foundation

reshared this

Arturo Serrano reshared this.

lemmy - Link to source

The best video essays of 2025

best-video-essays-2025

www.bfi.org.uk
#entertainment

reshared this

Arturo Serrano reshared this.

mastodon - Link to source
Tanzania is rolling out a scheme to train and deploy 137,294 community health workers by 2028, aiming to close the gap created by previously informal, under-resourced care. Every worker will use the same tablet-based Unified Community System, ending years of fragmented reporting and enabling instant risk alerts, referrals and household-level education. Gavi gavi.org/vaccineswork/tanzania…
#ShareGoodNewsToo

Tanzania’s newly trained 'army' of community health workers

The country aims to train and equip nearly 140,000 frontliners by 2028, in what leaders hope represents a transformative shift for healthcare at the grassroots.
www.gavi.org
#sharegoodnewstoo

reshared this

Arturo Serrano reshared this.

mastodon - Link to source
A 14-year-old boy has folded origami that can hold 10,000 times its weight. Miles Wu used the Miura-ori fold, which is known for collapsing and expanding with precision. He’d like to use his origami experiments to help improve pop-up emergency shelters, which currently are “sometimes strong,” sometimes “easily deployable,” and sometimes “can compact really small,” but rarely all three. sciencealert.com/14-year-old-w…
#ShareGoodNewsToo

14-Year-Old Wins Prize For Origami That Can Hold 10,000 Times Its Own Weight

While most 14-year-olds are folding paper airplanes, Miles Wu is folding origami patterns that he believes could one day improve disaster relief.
Business Insider (ScienceAlert)
#sharegoodnewstoo
in reply to swanksalot

mastodon - Link to source

Ada Palmer

@swanksalot Good! For more such news, I strong recommend signing up for the free FixTheNews newsletter, a dose of good news weekly in your inbox. It’s genuinely mood-transforming being reminded once a week that we really are getting a lot of victories globally (disease, civil rights, environment) even if the news in the Anglosphere is always dire.
@swanksalot
Arturo Serrano reshared this.

mastodon - Link to source

Australia has become a globally significant representative case for worst-case Indigenous rights-breaches when developing liquified fossil gas

abc.net.au/news/2025-12-09/can…

Canadian traditional owners fear Australian-style LNG development

Canadian hereditary chief Na'Moks wanted to find out what a gas pipeline on his land would look like, so he flew to northern Western Australia.
Charlie McLean (ABC News)

Arturo Serrano reshared this.

Arturo Serrano reshared this.

mastodon - Link to source
The media in this post is not displayed to visitors. To view it, please go to the original post.
Fascism Wrapped just dropped in NYC — and more cities are coming soon. Don’t use Spotify until they stop running recruitment ads for ICE: indivisible.org/cancel-spotify…

Don’t Stream Fascism: Cancel Spotify

Indivisible
Arturo Serrano reshared this.

mastodon - Link to source
Generative Clickbait, Brought to You by Google and Meta pxlnv.com/linklog/generative-c…

Generative Clickbait, Brought to You by Google and Meta – Pixel Envy

Sean Hollister, the Verge: I read a lot of my bedtime news via Google Discover, aka “swipe right on your Samsung Galaxy or Google Pixel homescreen until you see a news feed appear,” and that’s where these new AI headlines are beginning to show up.
pxlnv.com

Arturo Serrano reshared this.

Arturo Serrano reshared this.

mastodon - Link to source
The media in this post is not displayed to visitors. To view it, please go to the original post.

On International Human Rights Day CHRD calls on the Chinese government to end its practice of long-term imprisonment of human rights defenders

CHRD is highlighting the cases of 10 human rights defenders who have been wrongfully imprisoned for more than 10 years

nchrd.org/2025/12/china-end-lo…

#China #HumanRights

China: End Long-Term Imprisonment of Human Rights Defenders | Chinese Human Rights Defenders

China: End Long-Term Imprisonment of Human Rights Defenders
Jason (Chinese Human Rights Defenders)
#china #humanrights

Arturo Serrano reshared this.

Arturo Serrano reshared this.

mastodon - Link to source
The media in this post is not displayed to visitors. To view it, please go to the original post.

#PPOD: Is it an insect? A strange fossil? An otherworldly eye, or even a walnut? No, it’s an intriguing kind of martian butterfly spotted by ESA’s Mars Express. Insects aren’t commonplace on Mars, so it’s no surprise that this is no butterfly as we know it. It’s actually a kind of crater, formed as a space rock hurtled towards the Red Planet and collided with its red-brown surface. Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin

#space #science

#Science #space #PPOD

reshared this

⇧