Episode #989
News Items
- Sun’s Magnetic Field About to Flip
- Kids and Gun Safety
- Gates Goes Nuclear
- Nanodroplet Drug Delivery
- Potential Dyson Spheres
Science or Fiction
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Item #1
Fiction
A recent analysis confirms that the current red spot of Jupiter is the same spot first observed by Cassini in 1665, making it at least 360 years old. https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2024GL108993
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Item #2
Science
By analyzing tool-making researchers find that humans began cumulative culture around 600,000 years ago. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2319175121
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Item #3
Science
For the first time astronomers witness the activation of a massive galactic black hole into an active galactic nucleus. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-astronomers-massive-black-hole-awaken.html
Skeptical Quote of the Week.
“The downside of skepticism: it can easily turn into an arrogant position of a priori rejection of any new phenomenon or idea, a position that is as lacking in critical thinking as the one of the true believer, and that simply does not help either science or the public at large.” ― Massimo Pigliucci, Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science from Bunk