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Why plants panic when it rains: https://phys.org/news/2019-10-panic.html
UWA Professor Harvey Millar said after spraying plants with water and observing the effect, the researchers noticed a chain reaction in the plant caused by a protein called Myc2: "When Myc2 is activated, thousands of genes spring into action preparing the plant's defences. These warning signals travel from leaf to leaf and induce a range of protective effects. When a raindrop splashes across a leaf, tiny droplets of water ricochet in all directions. These droplets can contain bacteria, viruses, or fungal spores. A single droplet can spread these up to 10 metres to surrounding plants."
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Changing climate may have driven collapse of civilizations in Late Bronze Age: https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-08/plos-ccm080913.php #ClimateChange
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Denmark clears Russian gas pipeline Nord Stream 2: https://www.dw.com/en/denmark-gives-go-ahead-for-nord-stream-2-russian-pipeline-segment/a-51050205
Denmark has granted permission for the Russian Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline to be contructed across Danish seabed in the Baltic Sea, leading to Germany. The project's near completion comes despite US criticism.
Gazprom finishes filling China-bound Power of Siberia gas pipeline: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-gas-china/gazprom-finishes-filling-china-bound-power-of-siberia-gas-pipeline-idUSKBN1X8165
Gas flows to China from east Siberia are scheduled to start by the end of the year, Gazprom said.
China-Russia gas pipeline construction begins new phase: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201907/04/WS5d1db85ea3105895c2e7bb87.html #Infrastructure #Politics
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'It is a bit embarrassing to have been concerned with the human problem all one's life and find at the end that one has no more to offer by way of advice than 'try to be a little kinder.' - Aldous Huxley
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Is Climate Change Inconvenient or Existential? Only Supercomputers Can Do the Math - by Sabine Hossenfelder (nytimes)
"Accurate predictions of Earth’s warming require computers that are too expensive for one country or institution."
“It’s not like this is string theory,” said Timothy Palmer, professor of climate physics at the University of Oxford. “We know the equations.” But we don’t know how to solve them. The many factors that affect the climate interact with one another and give rise to interconnected feedback cycles. The mathematics is so complex, the only way scientists know to handle it is by feeding the problem into computers, which then approximately solve the equations.
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The crisis in physics is not only about physics: https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2019/10/the-crisis-in-physics-is-not-only-about.html
What is the quantum measurement problem? https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2019/10/what-is-quantum-measurement-problem.html
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Morocco Builds First Solar-Powered Village in Africa: https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2019/10/285212/morocco-builds-first-solar-powered-village-in-africa/
Moroccan officials inaugurated the first village in Morocco and Africa to be fully powered by solar energy on October 12. The village “Id Mjahdi” is completely autonomous energy-wise and is not connected to the power grid of the National Office for Electricity (ONE). All of the village’s power comes from 32 photovoltaic solar panels, generating 8.32Kwh of electricity.
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Computerized fakery intrude onto our reality: https://selforum.blogspot.com/2019/10/computerized-fakery-intrude-onto-our.html
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Global distribution of earthworm diversity: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/366/6464/480/tab-pdf https://sci-hub.tw/https://science.sciencemag.org/content/366/6464/480/tab-pdf
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"Artificial intelligence will soon be able to decode your poop": https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/29/20937108/poop-database-ai-training-photo-upload-first-mit https://seed.com/poop/
Their website makes it quickly clear, that indeed these people are full of shit.
And by writing such a crap headline, this "journalist" made it clear she is full of shit.
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Teachers talk too much! http://teachinglearning.albapages.net/teachers-talk-too-much/
Most teachers talk too much. They enjoy standing up there, in front of a largely captive audience, and talking about what they know. It makes them feel important.Is that learning? Is that the best way to teach? Nope. Of course not.
Teachers should not talk more than 10 minutes in each class. The rest of the class time students should be doing something – practising what they have learned, be engaged in finding answers to questions their teachers have asked, be at work on a learning project, doing group work, pair-work. They should be learning actively. Research has shown that students taught by active learning, score a grade & a half higher than those who learn in traditional (boring) ways.
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German & EU announced their "supranational Cloud" called "Gaia-X": https://www.bundeskanzlerin.de/bkin-de/aktuelles/kanzlerin-bei-digitalgipfel-1686406 on the same day Germany's economy minister had an accident and fell off the stage at the countries "digitalisation summit". https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/altmaier-251.html #Comedy #Politics
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Scientists discover fractal patterns in a quantum material: http://news.mit.edu/2019/fractal-patterns-quantum-1016 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-12502-0 #Generative
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"Absolute scale corrupts absolutely": https://apenwarr.ca/log/20190819
#Complexity #Technology -
Can a Plant Remember?: https://www.worldsciencefestival.com/programs/intelligence-without-brains/ #FFHCI #Biology
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"Preventing the Collapse of Civilization" - talk by Jonathan Blow (2019)
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"President Xi Says China Should ‘Seize Opportunity’ to Adopt Blockchain": https://www.coindesk.com/president-xi-says-china-should-seize-opportunity-to-adopt-blockchain
"China Wants Communist Party Members to Pledge Loyalty on Blockchain": https://www.coindesk.com/china-wants-communist-party-members-to-pledge-loyalty-on-blockchain
