Nov 1, 2019
Physicists have discovered a jewel-shaped geometric object that challenges the notion that space and time are fundamental constituents of nature.
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Physicists have discovered a jewel-shaped geometric object that challenges the notion that space and time are fundamental constituents of nature.
An orca, then, is an apex predator’s apex predator. No wonder sharks flee from them. But orcas don’t actually have to kill any great whites to drive them away. Their mere presence—and most likely their scent—is enough. Many predators have similar effects. Their sounds and smells create a “landscape of fear”—a simmering dread that changes the behavior and whereabouts of their prey. The presence of tiger sharks forces dugongs into deeper waters, where food is scarcer but cover is thicker. The mere sound of dogs can keep raccoons off a beach, changing the community of animals that lives in the tide pools.
The fear of death can shape the behavior of animals more than death itself. “Lions, for example, do not eat a lot of impala, but impala fear lions more than any other predator on the landscape except humans,” says Liana Zanette from Western University in Canada, who studies landscapes of fear. Similarly, killer whales don’t have to kill many white sharks to radically change their whereabouts. In 2009, for example, orcas passed by Southeast Farallon for less than three hours, but the great whites stayed away for the rest of the year. For the elephant seals, the island became a predator-free zone. “The two predators faced off, and the winners were the seals,” Jorgensen says.
who watches the watchmen but it’s who preys on the predator
When archaeologists found a tunnel under Mexico’s ‘birthplace of the gods’, they could only dream of the riches they would discover.
Undisturbed for 1,800 years, the sealed-off passage was found to contain thousands of extraordinary treasures lying exactly where they had first been placed as ritual offerings to the gods. Items unearthed included greenstone crocodile teeth, crystals shaped into eyes, and sculptures of jaguars ready to pounce. Even more remarkable was a miniature mountainous landscape, 17 metres underground, with tiny pools of liquid mercury representing lakes. The walls of the tunnel were found to have been carefully impregnated with powdered pyrite, or fool’s gold, to give the effect in firelight of standing under a galaxy of stars.
just gonna put this here
While Tamayo was working on his simulations, he was approached by Matt Russo, a fellow postdoc and jazz guitarist who thought the TRAPPIST-1 resonances looked familiar from music theory. Now, coordinated with the release of Tamayo’s paper, Russo, Tamayo and the musician Andrew Santaguida have teamed up to translate the system’s intricate arrangement of passing worlds into a musical composition. The seventh planet, h, orbits about once every three weeks. Sped up some 200 million times and expressed in sound waves, that frequency is a C note. From there, the known ratios between planets determine every other planet’s signature note. Together the notes form a major ninth chord. “It’s really remarkable that it worked out like that,” Russo said. “Even with a different pattern of resonances, you wouldn’t get a chord that sounds as good.” On top of that, the team added drumbeats for whenever an inner planet overtakes an outer neighbor — moments that correspond to close gravitational interactions among the planets. Compared to human percussion, Russo said, “It’s a super-creative drummer. It’s doing something that nobody else would think of.” The team next plans to apply a similar treatment to the large Galilean moons of Jupiter. But these moons have simpler ratios, corresponding to just the same note in different octaves. “You don’t get this lush chord like with TRAPPIST,” Russo said. While TRAPPIST-1 is the longest known chain of resonant orbits, there are other resonant exoplanet systems worth trying out too, Tamayo said — systems that also pose their own dynamical problems. “All I do is study these resonances,” he said, “but it’s such a hard thing to communicate to people and tell them why it’s interesting.
A slew of factors—its acidity, its lack of water and the presence of hydrogen peroxide—work in perfect harmony, allowing the sticky treat to last forever
and just to round this out
Mellified man, or human mummy confection, was a legendary medicinal substance created by steeping a human cadaver in honey. The concoction is mentioned only in Chinese medical sources, most significantly the Bencao Gangmu of the 16th-century Chinese medical doctor and pharmacologist Li Shizhen. Relying on a second-hand account, Li reports a story that some elderly men in Arabia, nearing the end of their lives, would submit themselves to a process of mummification in honey to create a healing confection.[1]
This process differed from a simple body donation because of the aspect of self-sacrifice; the mellification process would ideally start before death. The donor would stop eating any food other than honey, going as far as to bathe in the substance. Shortly, his feces (and even his sweat, according to legend) would consist of honey. When this diet finally proved fatal, the donor's body would be placed in a stone coffin filled with honey.[2]
After a century or so, the contents would have turned into a sort of confection reputedly capable of healing broken limbs and other ailments. This confection would then be sold in street markets as a hard to find item with a hefty price.
The city of Tikal purified one of its reservoirs with technology comparable to modern systems
closure, associativity, identity and invertibility
but make it magic