TIZER'S SCIENCE NEWS

[Stanley]

See THIS for a report on the possible connection between a common gum disease, Gingivitis, and dementia. Could be significant?

[Tizer]

Yes, although I added some qualifications when I mentioned it on the Med Matters topic.

More on the drilling in the Antarctic ice sheet...
`UK team drills record West Antarctic hole' LINK
`UK scientists have succeeded in cutting a 2km hole through the West Antarctic Ice Sheet to its base. It's the deepest anyone has gone in the region using a hot-water drill. The British Antarctic Survey (BAS) pulled up sediment from the bottom of the hole and deployed a series of instruments. The researchers hope the project's data can help them work out how quickly the White Continent might lose its ice in a warming world. Dr Andy Smith leads the team, which is still at the drill site at a location known as the Rutford Ice Stream. He says there is immense satisfaction at having reached the bed after so many years of trying. An aborted attempt was made in 2004...'

[Stanley]

Ah, I mentioned the bore in Climate Change. Is the ice sheet moving? I heard mention of them placing instruments at the bottom of the bore and wondered how they could survive the grinding if they are being rolled along the sediment.

[Tizer]

It will be shifting very slowly but I guess the instruments will be embedded in the ice and taken with it. Once they take away the flow of hot water the hole freezes up.

[Stanley]

[plaques]

The magnetic NorthPole is moving at a faster rate than predicted. The yearly movement is now 34 Miles a year. Since 1831 when it was first measured in the Canadian Arctic it has moved about 1,400 miles (2,300 kilometres) toward Siberia. Fortunately satellite systems will not be affected until Trump decides to turn them off.

[Stanley]

I think I am right in saying that over geological time the polarity of the magnetic field reverses itself,,,,,

[Tizer]

Over geological time Earth's magnetic field reverses many times. As the Mid-Atlantic Ridge exudes new ocean floor spreading out both east and west the mag reversals are recorded in the new rock. If you make a graphic showing a strip of ocean floor from west to east and show the north-south reversals as black and white respectively you'll find it looks just like a bar code. There are many bars and the frequency appears high but in the human time scale they are very far apart. There have also been some very long periods with no reversals. The article says `Researchers know from traces left if rocks that this has happened before, but not in the past 780,000 years. “It’s not a question of if it’s going to reverse, the question is when it’s going to reverse,” said Daniel Lathrop, a geophysicist at the University of Maryland. Such a flip would not be instantaneous, but would take 1,000 or more years to play out.'

I read an article this morning about two planets colliding and it said: `They calculated that the colliding planets must have been travelling at more than 60 kilometres (37 miles) per second at the time of impact.' That had me wondering how they calculate the speed of an object in space. You can only calculate a speed if you have something else to relate it too. I found this physics forum web page which mentions several ways it might be done: `How will you measure speed in km/hr in space?' LINK

[Stanley]

Beyond my comprehension Tiz but I am sure you and the other experts are right. I've seen examples of the transformation of kinetic energy in 'normal' life and scaling it up to planetary size is truly incomprehensible.

[Tizer]

I'm glad that a scientist has drawn attention to this problem. As well as the machine learning aspect there is too much attention given to statistical analysis of giant datasets instead of identifying mechanisms, causes and effects. The trend towards analysing big datasets is at least partly due to pressure on scientists to publish as much as possible and as quickly as possible rather than spending the necessary time to study the mechanisms etc.

`AAAS: Machine learning 'causing science crisis'' LINK
Machine-learning techniques used by thousands of scientists to analyse data are producing results that are misleading and often completely wrong. Dr Genevera Allen from Rice University in Houston said that the increased use of such systems was contributing to a “crisis in science”. She warned scientists that if they didn’t improve their techniques they would be wasting both time and money. Her research was presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington. A growing amount of scientific research involves using machine learning software to analyse data that has already been collected. This happens across many subject areas ranging from biomedical research to astronomy. The data sets are very large and expensive. But, according to Dr Allen, the answers they come up with are likely to be inaccurate or wrong because the software is identifying patterns that exist only in that data set and not the real world...'

[Stanley]

I believe I heard that report Tiz but didn't fully appreciate what it was saying.
It's a very old syndrome and I have come across many instances of it, believing what 'the latest technology' says even though it is out of line with reality. I was once told that the verdict of a new optical system for checking wheel tracking said that the tracking on my wagon front wheels was a mile out when I knew from the way the tyres were wearing that it was wrong. I got them to track the back wheels, it said they were out of line as well which of course was impossible. Jack Ruddy the foreman at Gilbraith's Garage at Accrington sent the bar back to the makers the same day. Luckily he was as old-fashioned as me!

[Stanley]

THIS BBC account of a report by the Nuffield Trust caught my attention this morning. You'd hardly think we were talking about the fourth most wealthy nation on earth. I think it is a shocking indictment of government policies in the modern era. This situation didn't arise unseen, we have had warnings about what is happening for years.

[Tizer]

As well as poor, or lack of, government policies we've been too wound up with the life of celebrities and digital answers to everything. In the meantime, real life in Britain has been sliding downhill.

[Stanley]

Too right!

[Tizer]

I've mentioned this meteorite search before and this is an update report. There are some good pics of the meteorites and showing the characteritsic spalled appearance due to sharp changes in temperature as they fall to Earth. It had been a puzzle why there seemed to be a lower proportion of iron-nickel meteorites in the Antarctic and greater proportion of stone compared to elsewhere. Then the scientists found that the iron ones sank into the snow or ice quickly due to absorbing the sun's heat quicker than stone ones do. When you go to places where the iron ones get `stranded' then you find the proportions are more like normal.
`UK Antarctic meteorite hunt bags large haul' LINK

[Stanley]

Makes sense when you think about it Tiz....
I saw an encouraging report on the effects on Parkinson's disease of GDNF, a treatment where drugs are delivered directly into the brain with fine tubes. I went looking for it and found THIS report which describes the mixed results of the tests. Not very encouraging but the field is so complicated I hope the researchers can be funded to persevere. There are so many variables in the treatment, type of drugs, dosage etc. and there is no doubt we need progress.

[Stanley]

See THIS New York Times report of the second known 'cure' which results in retro-viral drugs no longer being needed by a 'London Man' with HIV. I put cure in inverted commas because the scientists admit that it is difficult to distinguish between cure and long term remission when there are only two examples. Nevertheless this is a hopeful sign.

[Tizer]

This helps to fill in the detail of human movements over time in Europe...
`Ancient migration transformed Spain's DNA' LINK

[Stanley]

Interesting stuff Tiz and it points the same way that archaeological evidence has been nudging us for many years. Another reason why the land bridge to Europe via Doggerland was so influential. Migration and displacement of populations is a natural process and not all down to the EU!

[Tizer]

`Roman road unearthed in Lancashire' LINK

[Stanley]

The more we look (dig) the more we find! I've always said the Romans are best viewed as a well armed civil engineering force rather than an army of conquest. A bit more disruptive than your plumber Peter!

[Stanley]

See THIS BBC account of a report in the Lancet Psychiatry that says that smokers of potent forms of cannabis are 5 times more likely to suffer episodes of psychosis.

[Tizer]

Our assumptions about Venus are being over-turned...
`Planet Venus: Hopes rise of new mission to the hothouse world' LINK

[Stanley]

All very interesting Tiz and no doubt profitable for some but could we have a bit more investment into sorting out the problems of Planet Earth? One does wonder sometimes about priorities.....

[Tizer]

I agree with your request for `a bit more investment into sorting out the problems of Planet Earth' - in fact I'd say we need lot more. But to be fair, what we are learning about the other planets is helping us better understand how Earth works.

This discovery will blow the minds of palaeontologists. They dream of finding fossils of soft-bodied animals which usually leave no trace other than perhaps a mark in the mud were they wriggled or walked. Now here, in one location, is found a range of species and they are from very early in the history of life, about half a billion years ago in the Cambrian age.
`Huge fossil discovery made in China's Hubei province' LINK