Possibly untrue science news

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Interesting research, but thereā€™s a huge difference in being able to predict a slight seasonal or cyclical variation in earthquake activity and being able to predict any given specific earthquake. My wife (a geophysicist who specializes in this kind of thing) has convinced me that will never be possible.

Teeny tiny earthquakes are happening constantly, and theyā€™re initiated at very small points on a fault miles underground. Even if you could magically accurately predict each one of those that would still be totally useless information without knowing which of them was going to cascade into a larger rupture, and there are a ton of factors and a whole lot of randomness that contribute to that.

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https://gofund.me/d507f778

TLDR: The National STEM Festival is running a gofundme, ā€œbecause three major sponsors just pulled their funding for this festival because of the current political climate regarding scienceā€. Kari Byron (of Mythbusters) is running the gofundme itself.

(At the videoā€™s suggestion, Iā€™ve been looking at the sponsor page to see whoā€™s recently removed. So far Iā€™ve only spotted https://does.dc.gov/ as no longer on the list)

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Dr. W. Stanley Jevons just called me on the astral miasmic link and wondered if they had seen his 1905 treatise on sunspotsā€¦ :thinking:

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Thereā€™s a Sandwich Bag of Plastic in Your Brain

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/theres-sandwich-bag-plastic-your-brain-2025a100059r?ecd=WNL_trdalrt_pos1_250305_etid7274228&uac=365926BR&impID=7274228

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You know, there was a vague memory of ā€œwasnā€™t there a now discarded theory about earthquakes and sunspots and possibly aether a hundred years or so agoā€ stirring at the back of my mind when I read this? But then I realised that I couldnā€™t be asked to go and look for it.

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Hey - at least my brain will stay fresh!

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Is that why Iā€™m so sleepy all the time?

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Panopticon intensifies.

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The new study compared megalodon fossils with more than 150 living and extinct shark species. It found the megalodon may have had a longer, more slender body resembling that of the modern lemon shark, rather than the great white. It could have ranged between around 54 feet long and 80 feet long, the study suggests.

Which is even longer than previously thought. (For those who just wanted to know the reason already.)

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Longer, but less massive. Great whites are chonkers!

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Woooo, time to head to the barā€¦ wait, still many risks? Dang.

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ā€œIt has a lot of connections to my cultural background, so I was very interested in doing more research into this disease and also introducing some novel treatments that might help improve the quality of life for individuals within my tribe,ā€ Cummings said.

So this involves kids with Hispanic, Asian and Native America heritage. How long until screams of ā€œDEI!!!ā€ come from the usual suspects?

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Microsoft quantum breakthrough claims labeled ā€˜unreliableā€™ and ā€˜essentially fraudulentā€™

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I donā€™t knowā€¦ Maybe itā€™s time to accept that weā€™ve reached the limit on what computing can actually do for us? :woman_shrugging: Weā€™re not ever gonna get Hal, me thinks.

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