#epic scienceing

[feathery-dreamer]

so

a module legit hovered with its retro-rockets and lowered a rover, gently, to the surface of Mars, huh

6+ months of flying, 30 Mars days (30d 18h 30m) planned for the stay, but based on previous rovers I predict Perseverance could last a couple decades or more.

there's also a flying drone called Ingenuity, and apparently it's more a test to see whether photos can be taken from above too. they aren't expecting it to serve for long, don’t even know if it’ll work at all, but they had to try it out.

[feathery-dreamer]

First ever real image of a black hole revealed

Researchers at the Event Horizon Telescope have released the first ever picture of a black hole

and the picture basically confirms every theory we had about black holes.

[feathery-dreamer]

this is an actual scientific experiment about rat-tickling and it got me smiling like an idiot for the last five minutes at least

[feathery-dreamer]

Holy FUCK I can’t believe I just watched a rocket launch (and the first stage’s return to Earth) live on YouTube just now. Mean, it’s just communication satellites (not my field of study) but still, goddamn.

[feathery-dreamer]

nerdy puns

I wish I had zinc fingers to get groovy between your strands.

Hey baby, I wish I was helicase so I could unzip your jeans.

Excessive intelligence can be fought with brainkillers.

After talking about computers for so long, I made my mother bored. I didn’t mean to chip at her patience so much, but she just couldn’t process everything.

Now, some Star Trek goodness:

I showered before leaving. I’m clean-gone.

A Klingon and a Romulan try to shoot each other, but their weapons are disrupted. Unphased by this realization, they charge at each other.

*knock knock* - Who’s there? - Esses and Prize. - Oh hey! You, Esses; enter, Prize.

I met a starship captain yesterday. His mind was totally warped.

(Transporter operator:) To beam or not to beam, that is the question.

[feathery-dreamer]

So apparently, students from four colleges and one high school actually did experiments to determine how many licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie pop. They got results ranging from just below 3.5k to just below 150.

Once again, science finds the answer to a decades-old question, and as expected, it depends on many factors. Hence people keep repeating we “may never know” because it’s a complex reality, not a single number simply handed out to them on a tray.

PS: I sure hope these people got an Ig-Nobel prize or something for their efforts.

[feathery-dreamer]

pay special attention to the middle panel

[feathery-dreamer]

Labs should have a supply of washable cotton gloves to be worn beneath latex/nitrile gloves to absorb sweat.

Some of the scientists here wear the same pair of gloves for hours. Naturally, it gets all sticky and far from hygienic.

I also realize it’d be much too costly to fabricate those disposable gloves with cotton coating inside. With separate cotton gloves to wash every evening (alongside your hands that are supposed to be washed anyway) and dry overnight, that problem would be solved.

You can even prevent the glove soaking up spilled chemicals/cultures/etc by making them cover a smaller surface than the latex/nitrile ones. The sweating problem only affects the palm and fingers anyway, not the wrist.