Science & Technology News

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by GordMay

Of course you do.


Typhoon "Surigae", known locally, in the Philippines as Typhoon "Bising", is currently a powerful tropical cyclone east of the Philippines which recently became the strongest Northern Hemisphere tropical cyclone to form before the month of May on record, and one of the most intense tropical cyclones on record

➥ https://weather.com/en-IN/india/news...es-intensifies

➥ https://reliefweb.int/report/philipp...ing-surigae-17

Phillipines ‘No Sail Policy’
Upon hoisting of the Tropical Cyclone Wind Signal #1, the Coast Guard Station - Surigao del Norte immediately issued a ‘Notice to Mariners’ for all vessels/watercrafts plying in the area of responsibility of the station to temporarily suspend the respective voyages in relation to the published Severe Weather Bulletin Number 3 issued by Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA), which is in accordance to the HPCG Memorandum Circular 02-13 entitled Guidelines of the Movement of Vessels during Heavy Weather dated 05 June 2013.
➥ https://pia.gov.ph/news/articles/1072658

Just think about the advances in satellite observation technology for weather in the last 50 years . I doubt there are any more or any worse just better tracking and measurements .

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by newhaul

Just think about the advances in satellite observation technology for weather in the last 50 years . I doubt there are any more or any worse just better tracking and measurements .

... that doesn't make sense. Better measurements doesn't necessarily mean that they were previously getting readings that were low.

Also note that this typhoon is "the strongest Northern Hemisphere tropical cyclone to form before the month of May on record, and one of the most intense tropical cyclones on record".

... as far as I know, the calendar hasn't been much improved in the last 50 years

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

... that doesn't make sense. Better measurements doesn't necessarily mean that they were previously getting readings that were low.

Also note that this typhoon is "the strongest Northern Hemisphere tropical cyclone to form before the month of May on record, and one of the most intense tropical cyclones on record".

... as far as I know, the calendar hasn't been much improved in the last 50 years

However our ability to measure as well as our coverage and accuracy have improved greatly in the last 15 years let alone 50.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by newhaul

However our ability to measure as well as our coverage and accuracy have improved greatly in the last 15 years let alone 50.

Absolutely, yes. But that doesn't automatically mean that the older speed numbers were low.

And that date thing... May still happens at the same time every year (or one day later on leap years)

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

Absolutely, yes. But that doesn't automatically mean that the older speed numbers were low.

And that date thing... May still happens at the same time every year (or one day later on leap years)

Would love to know how deep the 1274 kamikaze typhoon credited with saving Japan from the Mongolians.
My point is the instruments have improved greatly in the recent decades. To track and accurately measure pressures and wind speeds.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by newhaul

My point is the instruments have improved greatly in the recent decades. To more accurately track and measure pressures and wind speeds.

FTFY

and as before, agreed... but this still doesn't explain why the typhoon in question is greater and earlier, when looking at the recorded history of these things.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by newhaul

Would love to know how deep the 1274 kamikaze typhoon credited with saving Japan from the Mongolians ...

We'll probably never know how intense the legendary storms of 1274 & 1281 were; but it's beginning to look like they may have actually occurred.

According to Japanese legend, “large and intense” typhoons, powered by the divine Kamikaze winds, smashed the Mongolian fleet in 1274 and again in 1281.
Researchers report online, in ‘Geology’, that they’ve discovered evidence, in a lakebed on Japan’s Amakusa Island, that suggests the fabled storms may have been real.
Sediment accumulates at the bottom of lakes in layers; similar to how geologists can see “back in time”, by looking at deeper layers of rocks, lakebed sediment can reveal details of the planet’s history. By analyzing cores of sediment, collected from the bottom of Lake Daija, scientists were able to predict how frequently the sea had risen over the beach, and washed into the nearby lake.
Although the resolution of the technique wasn’t high enough to confirm typhoon events, in 1274 and 1281 precisely, the team did discover evidence for two overwash events, in the late 1200s, lending some real credibility to the Japanese legend.
Unlike the legend, though, the scientists credit the turbulent seas of the past to stronger El Niño activity, instead of a divine savior. Using complementary studies of historical typhoon activity in China and Japan, scientists have previously found that storms veer toward Japan more often during El Niño-heavy periods and toward China under more dominant La Niña climate states.

“Depositional evidence for the Kamikaze typhoons and links to changes in typhoon climatology” ~ by J.D. Woodruff et al
➥ https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa...dFrom=fulltext

About the study:
➥https://www.earthmagazine.org/articl...an-kublai-khan

[GordMay]

Lift off! First flight on Mars launches new way to explore worlds

NASA's "Ingenuity" Mars Helicopter took the first powered, controlled flight, on another planet on April 19, 2021

Yesterday [April 19], the robot rotorcraft, part of NASA’s Perseverance mission, lifted off from the surface of Mars for 40 seconds.
Ingenuity’s counter-rotating carbon-fibre blades spun at more than 2,400 revolutions per minute, to lift the craft 3 metres into the air. The US$85-million drone hovered there, and then, in a planned manoeuvre, turned 90 degrees, and descended safely back to the Martian surface. Software issues that kept the helicopter from transitioning into flight mode had delayed the flight from 11 April.

More ➥ https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00909-z

Video ➥ https://youtu.be/wMnOo2zcjXA

[SailOar]

How many T. rexes were there? Billions.

How many Tyrannosaurus rexes roamed North America during the Cretaceous period?
Estimate...

• T. rex as a predator with per pound energy requirements between those of a lion and a Komodo dragon
• Sexual maturity was 15.5 years; maximum lifespan late 20s; ecological body mass 5,200 kg (max 7,000kg)
• Population density one dinosaur for every 100 square kilometers
• Geographic range of T. rex about 2.3 million square kilometers
• Population of T. rexes likely 20,000 adults at any give time
• About 127,000 generations

Conclusion...
It is estimated that some 2.5 billion lived and died over the approximately 2-1/2 million year existence


Marshall expects his colleagues will quibble with many, if not most, of the numbers, but he believes that his calculational framework for estimating extinct populations will stand and be useful for estimating populations of other fossilized creatures.

[newhaul]

Rock glaciers (RGs) are normally used as ”ground‐truth” observations to indicate the presence of permafrost, and hence extensively used in training permafrost distribution models. However, the unique structure and composition of RGs enhance ground cooling effects, leading to more favorable conditions for permafrost presence than in adjacent ground. We therefore hypothesized and confirmed that permafrost extent is overestimated using RG‐driven models.


https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley....9/2021GL092476

[newhaul]

This is a very interesting article from nasa on the AMOC

https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/details.cgi?aid=4895

[GordMay]

Get Your Sleep!


According to the CDC, not getting enough sleep can negatively impact your health, in a variety of ways: increasing your chances of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, obesity, and depression.
Now, a new study [1], recently published in the medical journal Nature Communications, has established a link between a sleep habit and your risk of dementia. These findings suggest that short sleep duration, in midlife, is associated with a modestly increased risk of late-onset dementia.
According to the new research which followed almost 8,000 people over a period of 25 years, starting from the age of 50, those who slept less than six hours or less a night, are 30 percent more likely to develop dementia later on in life, in their 70s.

[1] “Association of sleep duration in middle and old age with incidence of dementia” ~ by Séverine Sabia et al
➥ https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-22354-2

[SailOar]

The new wave of e-boats taking to the seas

• If shipping were a country, it would be the sixth largest emitter of CO2 after China, the USA, India, Russia and Japan
• International shipping will not be electrified any time soon, as the energy density of batteries simply cannot facilitate it.
• However, speed boats, ferries and even small container ships are exploring becoming e-boats
• Candela is making battery-powered hydrofoil speed boats with cruising speed of 20 knots and 50 nautical mile range
• Voyager Marine has converted a diesel-powered 12-passenger ferry into an electric vessel cruising at five knots for four hours
• They are also planning to build a 150-passenger electric catamaran in 2022
• Yara Birkeland is the world’s first battery-powered autonomous vessel, a 120 TEU container ship designed to load up, navigate its course, then unload its cargo with virtually no human input, scheduled to begin operations later this year

[GordMay]

“How COVID hurt the fight against other dangerous diseases” ~ by Leslie Roberts

Campaigns to quash tuberculosis (TB), measles and polio have all been set back by the need to divert medical resources to COVID-19. Half a million more people than usual might have died of TB last year because of a drop in the number of people who received life-saving treatment, according to World Health Organization estimates.
The data suggest that the knock-on effects of the pandemic could be larger than those caused by COVID-19 itself — and that they will linger long after the pandemic has ended.

Much more ➥ https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01022-x

[GordMay]

Link between cardiac arrests and COVID-19
A new study [1], published this month, collected data from 50 US cities, as well as from major cities in the United Kingdom, France, Italy, New Zealand and Australia. The study showed that rises in out-of-hospital cardiac arrests were linked to rising COVID cases.
Normally, a 10 percent increase in cardiac arrests would be a cause for concern.
But during last spring in the US, two-thirds of US cities in the study saw increases between 20 and 50 percent.
In cities particularly hit hard, the rate doubled. New York’s rates went up on average 250 percent in April, and on a single day [April 6] New York’s rate of cardiac arrests was 10 times the rate from the previous year.
Scientists noticed that both the COVID cases, and cardiac arrests, increased at a similar rate. Then, as cases dropped over the summer, so too did the number of cardiac arrests. In the cities relatively untouched by COVID in the spring, the rate of cardiac arrests had remained normal. But, in the summer, as epicentres shifted, those cities saw their COVID rates surge, and so too did their rates of cardiac arrests.
Just as some Covid patients develop a cough or fever, or lose their sense of taste and smell, others may suffer a cardiac arrest.

Since many of those who had cardiac arrests were not counted among COVID deaths, the data could potentially help to calculate a more accurate death toll.
The authors, of the study, estimate that the death toll from COVID could increase by 10 or 15 percent globally, if excess cardiac arrests are included.
It shows how grossly underestimated the death rate from COVID-19 truly is.

This appears to be one more reason to examine "excess deaths", as a good measure of Covid-19 mortality.

[1] “The relationship of large city out-of-hospital cardiac arrests and the prevalence of COVID-19" ~ by Kevin E. McVaney et al
➥ https://www.thelancet.com/journals/e...X/fulltext#%20