Sreys Blog Posts

Are we alone in the universe? It comes down to whether intelligence is a probable outcome of natural selection, or an improbable fluke. By definition, probable events occur frequently, improbable events occur rarely — or once. Our evolutionary history shows that many key adaptations — not just intelligence, but complex animals, complex cells, photosynthesis, and life itself — were unique, one-off events, and therefore highly improbable. Our evolution may have been like winning the lottery … only far less likely. The universe is astonishingly vast. The Milky Way has more than 100 billion stars, and there are over a trillion galaxies in the visible universe, the tiny fraction of the universe we can see. Even if habitable worlds are rare, their sheer number — there are as many planets as stars , maybe more — suggests lots of life is out there. So where is everyone? This is the Fermi paradox . The universe is large, and old, with time and room for intelligence to evolve, but there’s no

The ozone hole above Antarctica , where the sun’s harmful ultraviolet (UV) rays bust through an otherwise sunscreened stratosphere, has shrunk to its smallest size on record going back to 1982, scientists have found. Typically, at this time of year, the hole in the ozone — a layer made up of molecules containing three oxygen atoms — grows to about 8 million square miles (20 million square kilometers), NASA said. That’s bigger than Russia. But unusually warm weather in the Southern Hemisphere means that the hole only extended less than 3.9 million square miles (10 million square kilometers) for most of September until now, according to a statement from NASA.  “This warming that occurred is great news for the Southern Hemisphere because ozone is going to be higher and UV levels will be lower,” Paul Newman, chief scientist for Earth Sciences at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, told Live Science. Here’s how it works: During the winter months in the Southern H

After being admitted into hospice care, veteran John Vincent had just one special request: He wanted to spend a little time with his beloved dog. Vincent, a 69-year-old Marine who fought in Vietnam, was placed into the Hospice Center at the Raymond G. Murphy Veterans Affairs Medical Center in New Mexico. Because he had no family in the area to care for his pet, he had to give up his 6-year-old Yorkshire terrier mix named Patch to the Albuquerque Animal Welfare, the organization posted on Facebook . Knowing he likely didn’t have much time left, Vincent told Amy Neal, his palliative care social worker, that he wanted to say goodbye to Patch and see him one last time. Neal reached out to the city’s animal welfare department. “It was an immediate ‘yes’ from us,” Adam Ricci, Albuquerque Animal Welfare chief of field operations, told CNN . “So, we worked with the VA to get things organized.” Patch spent the day on Vincent’s bed. (Photo: Albuquerque Animal Welfare) A team brought Patch

Heartbreaking news for any socially conscious gamers out there: Michael Devato, the brave man who tried to warn the world about the crisis of lag in games by sailing across the Atlantic Ocean atop his PS4, has drowned on the first day of his journey. Devato reportedly made it just under 15 feet off the coast of Florida before perishing beneath the waves. He was 24. As many gamers know, this sad story began in early 2018 when a particularly laggy round of Super Smash Bros. prompted Devato to realize he had to draw attention to this woefully unaddressed issue. After being ignored for weeks by his local representatives, Devato bravely took to the web, calling for an end to game lag by 2025 and raising money for his ill-fated journey to sail across the ocean atop a PS4. Unfortunately, even as his courageous pledge to action won him a legion of hardcore followers online, it ignored several small but crucial details about a PlayStation 4’s design that doomed the voyage before it began.

Does owning a dog increase the attractiveness of men? Um, yes! Okay, personal opinion aside, science actually says that it does. Dogs are pretty darn good at manipulating our emotions if you haven’t already figured that out. Turns out it is no different when it comes to dating. Psychology Today is saying that there is research suggesting that dogs make women perceive men differently and it honestly makes sense. The Age-Old Battle Of Dads Vs. Bad Boys There’s a theory floating around that some men may be attractive to women because they exude romance and nurturing characteristics. They also give off the impression of being the fatherly type. Women tend to be attracted to these types of men for long-term relationships because they see them as satisfying partners both emotionally and physically. They are also instinctually perceived as being good dad-types for future children down the road. “I’m just keeping daddy warm.” Then there’s the “bad boy” type, also known as a “cad.” You

We all wish we could get by on less sleep, but one father and son actually can—without suffering any health consequences and while actually performing on memory tests as well as, or better than, most people. To understand this rare ability, researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, first identified a genetic mutation—in both individuals—that they thought might deserve the credit. Then the scientists intentionally made the same small genetic spelling mistake in mice. The mice also needed less sleep, remembered better and suffered no other ill effects, according to a study published Oct. 16 in Science Translational Medicine . Although a medication with the same benefits will not be available anytime soon—and might never materialize—the idea is incredibly appealing: take a pill that replicates whatever the father and son’s body does and sleep less, with no negative repercussions. “I find the concept of a gene product that might potentially provide protection against c

NASA’s newest planet hunter is joining the hunt for intelligent aliens. Scientists working on the space agency’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) mission will collaborate with the $100 million Breakthrough Listen project in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), members of both teams announced today (Oct. 23). “It’s exciting that the world’s most powerful SETI search, with our partner facilities across the globe, will be collaborating with the TESS team and our most capable planet-hunting machine,” Pete Worden, executive director of Breakthrough Initiatives, a program that includes the Breakthrough Listen project, said in a statement .  “We’re looking forward to working together as we try to answer one of the most profound questions about our place in the universe: Are we alone?” Worden added. TESS launched to Earth orbit in April 2018, on a mission to hunt for alien planets circling bright, relatively nearby stars. The spacecraft does this work via the

Epic Games Is that a real person? When Fortnite Chapter 2 launched last week , players everywhere dropped into a match and claimed a victory royale. But then a rumor started circulating. Was it actually possible for so many people to have come out on top like that? Was there perhaps something fishy going on? News articles started popping up , claiming that Fortnite’s battle royale mode had placed everyone in bot lobbies, and in the absence of skilled enemies, the game made it possible for more people to secure a dub. The conspiracy theory was the confluence of a few factors; beyond the new addition of computer-controlled characters, Fortnite didn’t seem to spend any time actually matchmaking for that first Chapter 2 skirmish. And, players remembered that Epic, the developers, noted that bots would now be more pervasive at the lower levels of play . The idea, which Epic has been doubling down on over the course of 2019, was to open up a cutthroat game for more players. So aft

By RosemaryJ36 Probably around 1956, my later-to-be-husband and I were on a boat at anchor in a creek off the River Thames, babysitting his sister’s two children while their parents enjoyed a well-earned drink in the onshore pub. Diana, the older of the children, was perhaps 2 or 3 years old, and made a game of postponing bedtime by responding to every request or answer with one word. ‘Why?’ This is probably the most important word in the entire lexicon and it is what makes human beings pretty unique in the animal world. We are seldom content with accepting everything around us. We want to know why it is there, what it is composed of, and how it works, if we are referring to material objects. If, however, we are referring to emotions or more ephemeral issues, we remain curious and seek explanations. Which is why human beings invented gods, with their accompanying spiritual qualities. There were so many answers people could not find, and the more cunning among them realised that

From walking on the street, to launching a rocket into space, to sticking a magnet on your refrigerator, physical forces are acting all around us. But all the forces that we experience every day (and many that we don’t realize we experience every day) can be whittled down to just four fundamental forces: These are called the four fundamental forces of nature, and they govern everything that happens in the universe.  Gravity is the attraction between two objects that have mass or energy, whether this is seen in dropping a rock from a bridge, a planet orbiting a star or the moon causing ocean tides. Gravity is probably the most intuitive and familiar of the fundamental forces, but it’s also been one of the most challenging to explain. Isaac Newton was the first to propose the idea of gravity, supposedly inspired by an apple falling from a tree. He described gravity as a literal attraction between two objects. Centuries later, Albert Einstein suggested, through his theory of general

A lmost two years ago, Dennis Degray sent an unusual text message to his friend. “You are holding in your hand the very first text message ever sent from the neurons of one mind to the mobile device of another,” he recalls it read. “U just made history.” Degray, 66, has been paralysed from the collarbones down since an unlucky fall over a decade ago. He was able to send the message because in 2016 he had two tiny squares of silicon with protruding metal electrodes surgically implanted in his motor cortex, the part of the brain that controls movement. These record the activity in his neurons for translation into external action. By imagining moving a joystick with his hand, he is able to move a cursor to select letters on a screen. With the power of his mind, he has also bought products on Amazon and moved a robotic arm to stack blocks. Degray has been implanted with these devices, known as Utah arrays, because he is a participant in the BrainGate programme, a long-running multi-inst

NEW YORK (October 10, 2019) – Today, the National Audubon Society announced a groundbreaking climate report, Survival by Degrees: 389 Bird Species on the Brink . “Two-thirds of America’s birds are threatened with extinction from climate change, but keeping global temperatures down will help up to 76 percent of them. There’s hope in this report, but first, it’ll break your heart if you care about birds and what they tell us about the ecosystems we share with them. It’s a bird emergency,” said David Yarnold, ( @david_yarnold ), CEO and president of Audubon . “A lot of people paid attention to last month’s report that North America has lost nearly a third of its birds. This new data pivots forward and imagines an even more frightening future,” Yarnold said. “And, you can use a first-of-its kind web tool to find threatened birds in your zip code, as well as a list of things everyone can do.” Audubon scientists studied 604 North American bird species using 140 million bird records, inc

Credit: CC0 Public Domain Scientists at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management have established a causal relationship between failure and future success, proving German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche’s adage that “what does not kill me makes me stronger.” googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-1449240174198-2’); });   The researchers utilized advanced analytics to assess the relationship between professional failure and success for young scientists. They found, in contrast to their initial expectations, that failure early in one’s career leads to greater success in the long term for those who try again. “The attrition rate does increase for those who fail early in their careers,” lead author Yang Wang said. “But those who stick it out, on average, perform much better in the long term, suggesting that if it doesn’t kill you, it really does make you stronger.” The study, “Early-career setback and future career impact,” will be published