Sabine

These scientists got sued for doing their job

[This is a transcript with links to references.]

Truth can be painful, but truth can’t be sued. So sometimes, people who’ve been hurt by truth will try to sue those who dug up the truth. This doesn’t only affect journalists, who often have legal backup from their employer, but increasingly often also scientists, who usually have no legal support. This worries me considerably. What a...

New experiment finds weird atomic nucleus with dumbbell shape

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Image an atomic nucleus. What does it look like? Is it round, like, a ball? Yeah, that’s what I used to think they look like. But this group of researchers from China has found one that has the shape of a dumbbell.

Atom...

Content changes, a brief explanation

I've gotten a lot of question about the recent content changes on the YouTube channel, with the move from the weekly news to daily news.

The issue I have, in a nutshell, is the following. I see in my comments, here and elsewhere, that you are asking both for reactions on recent news and for in-depth coverage of more general questions. I am trying to address both. So, we have short, short...

Carbon Capture, Lithium, & Smaller MRIs

UAE Launches Carbon Capture Plant

The ADNOC carbon capture plant. Image Credit: ADNOC.

The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) has launched a carbo...

Move over LHC: This particle accelerator is just 10 cm long

 [This is a transcript with links to references.]

You’ve probably heard that particle physicists would really, really like to have a new particle collider, one that can reach even higher energies that the Large Hadron Collider, the currently most powerful particle accelerator in the world. And this new breakthrough which I just read about the other day might make their dre...

This experiment will measure nothing, but very precisely

 [This is a transcript with links to references.]

The physics paper that I’m most excited about this week is about an experiment that will measure nothing. But not any nothing, a very specific nothing, that’s the vacuum of quantum electrodynamics.

You might think that if you remove all the particles from within a container, then the only thing that’s left insid...

The Best Sleep Advice - According to Science

[This is a transcript with links to references.]

You’ve all heard that sleeping problems are called “imsomina” but have you heard of “orthosomina”? “Ortho” is the Greek word for straight or correct, and ‘somnia’ means sleep. The term “orthosomina” was coined a few years...

Ozone Layer Trouble, One Moon-Crater Too Many, & the Hubble Tension Bites Back

Ozone Layer Trouble

Left: Ozone layer illustration. Right: NASA images a hole in the Ozone layer.

A group of scientists in New Zealand says that the o...

Science News Nov 29

 [This is a transcript with links to references.]

Welcome everyone to this week’s science news. Today we’ll talk about the leading theories for why Sam Altman got fired from OpenAI, cosmic rays with HUGE energies, evidence of a an overdue supervolcano eruption near Italy, an exoplanet on which it rains sand, Microsoft’s first AI-chip, why spiral galaxies like the Milky Way are...

Long COVID is real, but may be overestimated

[This is a transcript with links to references.]

Remember COVID? It’s over, right? Except for some people it isn’t over, and maybe it never will be. Estimates say that as much as one in 10 people who had COVID were still affected more than 3 months later. They got long COVID.

But what’s long COVID? What might cause it, how common is it, and what should you do if you...

6G, Unstickable Glue, & Blinking Masterminds

Move Over 5G, 6G is Arriving Soon

Image: Department of Defense

The U.S. government is already planning the transition to the 6th generation of mobile network...

Science News Nov 21

 [This is a transcript with links to references.]

Welcome everyone to yet another exciting week of science news. Today we’ll talk about why Mars glows green, an amazingly cool way to make magnets hover, a study which found that a supposed piece of alien tech isn’t alien tech, surprising absolutely no one, plans to use the entire moon as a gravitational wave detector, pro...

Is Science Dying?

[This is a transcript of the video.]

Is science coming to an end? I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently. This may sound like old Sabine has finally gone completely crazy. Fair enough. But I believe my worries aren’t quite as crazy as they sound. Though I guess that’s exactly what a crazy person would say, wouldn’t they.

Crazy or not, I think it’s worth d...

Super-Misconduct, Cloud Seeding, & What's Up With ASMR

A Super-Misconductor?

The supposed superconductor. Image: University of Rochester.

Nature – the world’s most read, respected, and prestigiou...

Science News Nov 15

 [This is a transcript with links to references.]

Welcome everyone to this week’s science news. Today we have an update on the biggest astrophysics drama of the year, that’s an observation which seems to be ruling out the most popular alternative to dark matter. Then we have a group of geologists who claim that parts of the moon are stuck in the mantle of earth, a new an...

I think net zero plans are bonkers, here's why

[This is a transcript with links to references.]

Net Zero. Everyone is talking about Net Zero, everywhere, all at once. But Net Zero what? What does this even mean? Is it a reasonable goal? How far are we on the way? And do we have any chance of reaching it? That’s what we’ll talk about today.

First things first, what do we mean by net zero? Until recently the term had ...

A Bold Bird, Cotton on the Moon, & Super-Silk

Bold Bird Survives Five Rounds with Typhoon Faxai 

Streaked Shearwater Seabird, Japan. Source: lin-sun-fong/iNaturalist/ 

A graduate stude...

Science News Nov 7 2023

[This is a transcript with links to references.]

Welcome everyone to this week’s science news! This week we have new evidence that the dinosaurs were killed by the aftermath of an asteroid impact, then we have a look at the biggest universe simulation ever, talk about a lost continent that’s been found, roman ruins in spy footage, a new record for a single photon camera, an a...

Physicist reacts to quantum memes

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I know I said I wouldn’t do reaction videos. But, ah, I keep seeing these terrible memes about quantum mechanics. It’s quite possible that you don’t want to know what I think about them, but I’ll tell you anyway. In this totally unfunny video, I’ll rate the 10 most popular quantum memes. Are they any good? That’s what we’ll talk about today.<...

Peak Oil, Augmented Forests, & Energy from Feathers

Peak Oil is Here Again

IEA 2023 projection for global oil demand in million barrels per day

According to the International Energy Agency, we are on track...

Science News Nov 01

[This is a transcript with links to references.]

Welcome everyone! Science never rests and this week we have quite a selection of news. It looks like the sun’s magnetic field will flip earlier than expected, the moon is 40 million years older than anyone thought, a group of geologists have found that Earth’s core is leaking, we’ll have a look at the tiniest particle acceler...

Ozempic and Wegovy: All You Need To Know

[This is a transcript with links to references.]

In 2021, the US Food and Drug Administration approved wegovy a drug with the active ingredient semaglutide that helps people lose weight. In contrast to pretty much all previous weight-loss drugs, this one actually works. And it’s taken the world by storm.

According to Komodo Health, the number of prescriptions for this and simil...

Earthquakes, Marsquakes, & Wine vs Beer

Earthquake Warnings from Unused Seafloor Cables

(a) Map of detected earthquakes (b) Data used to detect the quakes. Image: Jiuxun Yin et al., GeoScienceWorld (20...