New Scientific Discoveries, Part Vier

[Zoraptor]

That would explain why I recognised Re from somewhere; it's used in insect flight mechanics to explain wing shape and function. Not that I've done anything on insect flight mechanics since uni, but the course it was in was the best presented one I had while there (and also had the highly memorable dinosaur unit that could easily have been called "why everything you learned about dinosaurs when you were eight was wrong").

[rjshae]

A Gene-Editing Experiment Let These Patients With Vision Loss See Color Again

[kanisatha]

10 hours ago, rjshae said:

A Gene-Editing Experiment Let These Patients With Vision Loss See Color Again

Awesome. Wonder if something similar could be done for those of us with hearing loss.

[Azdeus]

53 minutes ago, kanisatha said:

Awesome. Wonder if something similar could be done for those of us with hearing loss.

I would personally love that. Doubt my brain could handle it though.

[Malcador]

On 9/27/2021 at 11:43 AM, rjshae said:

A little nerd humor...

No Euler's number ? Seeing that means you're an engineer

[Chilloutman]

2 hours ago, Azdeus said:

I would personally love that. Doubt my brain could handle it though.

Should have skipped all those punk concerts

[Azdeus]

25 minutes ago, Chilloutman said:

Should have skipped all those punk concerts

Haha, if that was the case I'd have had hearing on that ear at one point I was born without the small hairs in my cochlea so I never had any hearing on one side, I don't know how the brain would react to suddenly getting signals from the ear

[InsaneCommander]

7 hours ago, kanisatha said:

Awesome. Wonder if something similar could be done for those of us with hearing loss.

And I wonder if it could give us UV sighting, like some women have. I wonder if it creates new colors in the brain or simply shifts the spectrum and the colors we see will adjust to the broader range of wavelenghts. I once asked a biologist and she guessed that if it involved a new type of receptor, we would see new colors.

[Zoraptor]

Wouldn't have thought it could work like that, but brains are weird. You wouldn't think that synesthesia would 'work' either based on how 'normal' sound/ sight perception works, and there are some pretty funky perceptional stuff everyone can do like adapting to vision inverting glasses.

(Colours are also a bit scientifically vague, since like a lot of stuff they're a language based construction to describe an observed physical/ perceptional phenomenon, and that is inherently imprecise. Humans could definitely see in the 450-500nm range historically, but often the word for blue didn't exist. Thus you see descriptions of the sea as 'black' or 'wine coloured' instead in many ancient texts, and even in english 'blue' was the last major colour to be named)

[rjshae]

3 hours ago, InsaneCommander said:

And I wonder if it could give us UV sighting, like some women have. I wonder if it creates new colors in the brain or simply shifts the spectrum and the colors we see will adjust to the broader range of wavelenghts. I once asked a biologist and she guessed that if it involved a new type of receptor, we would see new colors.

Some people get tetrachromacy, which gives them greater color sense. I wonder how long it would take your brain to adapt to the enhanced vision? Reminds me of At First Sight.

[InsaneCommander]

3 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

Wouldn't have thought it could work like that, but brains are weird. You wouldn't think that synesthesia would 'work' either based on how 'normal' sound/ sight perception works, and there are some pretty funky perceptional stuff everyone can do like adapting to vision inverting glasses.

(Colours are also a bit scientifically vague, since like a lot of stuff they're a language based construction to describe an observed physical/ perceptional phenomenon, and that is inherently imprecise. Humans could definitely see in the 450-500nm range historically, but often the word for blue didn't exist. Thus you see descriptions of the sea as 'black' or 'wine coloured' instead in many ancient texts, and even in english 'blue' was the last major colour to be named)

There are people in Africa that can distinguish subtle variations of green that we would never notice, but still don't have a word for blue. Perception is also shaped by language.

[Azdeus]

6 hours ago, InsaneCommander said:

There are people in Africa that can distinguish subtle variations of green that we would never notice, but still don't have a word for blue. Perception is also shaped by language.

It's not directly related to this, but something I found very interesting when it comes to Swedish sign language, it's how you sign for the colour blue;

https://teckensprakslexikon.su.se/ord/02647

https://teckensprakslexikon.su.se/movies/02/bla-02647-tecken.mp4

In Sweden you point to underneath your right eye, and tap. Historically alot of people in Sweden have had blue eyes, though I don't think that is quite as true anymore

[kanisatha]

22 hours ago, Azdeus said:

Haha, if that was the case I'd have had hearing on that ear at one point I was born without the small hairs in my cochlea so I never had any hearing on one side, I don't know how the brain would react to suddenly getting signals from the ear

Interesting. My condition (hereditary) is that the small hairs start lying down flat suddenly at some point in time, for me in my early forties. It is much more sever in one ear than the other, so I can use a hearing aid in the "good" ear to hear somewhat. But it took me a while for my brain to adjust to hearing only the good sound signals from one ear and disregarding the bad signals from the other ear. But this also means I now hear only in mono, which has its own issues.

[Azdeus]

1 hour ago, kanisatha said:

Interesting. My condition (hereditary) is that the small hairs start lying down flat suddenly at some point in time, for me in my early forties. It is much more sever in one ear than the other, so I can use a hearing aid in the "good" ear to hear somewhat. But it took me a while for my brain to adjust to hearing only the good sound signals from one ear and disregarding the bad signals from the other ear. But this also means I now hear only in mono, which has its own issues.

Damn, sorry to hear that man.

I've got some luxury in that I was born with it, I still have a form of "stereo" hearing though it's bad, but since I don't have any practicable hearing on my right I don't get any benefit of a hearing aid at all. Still, in an environment with multiple noises I can barely hear people speak, I've got a real hard time separating once from the other.

[kanisatha]

56 minutes ago, Azdeus said:

Damn, sorry to hear that man.

I've got some luxury in that I was born with it, I still have a form of "stereo" hearing though it's bad, but since I don't have any practicable hearing on my right I don't get any benefit of a hearing aid at all. Still, in an environment with multiple noises I can barely hear people speak, I've got a real hard time separating once from the other.

Though the causes may be different, it sounds like we actually face the same condition, though clearly a worse case for you. So sorry.

For me also it is less an issue of volume and more an issue of discerning one voice from a babble. So if one person is speaking to me, while relatively closeby, and there's no ambient sound, I can here pretty well with my hearing aid. But with even a little ambient sound, or if it is an electronically generated sound, my hearing aid doesn't help much at all. I hear the sounds, but cannot distinguish words.

Did you ever consider cochlear implants?

[rjshae]

6 hours ago, kanisatha said:

Though the causes may be different, it sounds like we actually face the same condition, though clearly a worse case for you. So sorry.

For me also it is less an issue of volume and more an issue of discerning one voice from a babble. So if one person is speaking to me, while relatively closeby, and there's no ambient sound, I can here pretty well with my hearing aid. But with even a little ambient sound, or if it is an electronically generated sound, my hearing aid doesn't help much at all. I hear the sounds, but cannot distinguish words.

Did you ever consider cochlear implants?

I have some hidden hearing loss myself. The worst though is speaking to some guy who is wearing a mask and doesn't enunciate well. It basically comes out as, "Blah-blah blah blabab and blah bah-lah. Okay?"

[Azdeus]

6 hours ago, kanisatha said:

Though the causes may be different, it sounds like we actually face the same condition, though clearly a worse case for you. So sorry.

For me also it is less an issue of volume and more an issue of discerning one voice from a babble. So if one person is speaking to me, while relatively closeby, and there's no ambient sound, I can here pretty well with my hearing aid. But with even a little ambient sound, or if it is an electronically generated sound, my hearing aid doesn't help much at all. I hear the sounds, but cannot distinguish words.

Did you ever consider cochlear implants?

Thank you, but I don't know if I agree there, I've never had hearing on one ear, but you've had and lost, my worst nightmare is literally gradually losing my hearing.

Yeah, and there are certain frequencies that are just a no go at all, I've got a female coworker with a really bright voice and my coworkers hear her all the time over engine noises and what not. I have a hard time hearing her when an electric car drives by...

I did look into it, but they don't recommend it, since I've never had hearing I've never really developed a sense of hearing at all on that side so from what I was told the brain would just not comprehend the signals. And since I'm only deaf on one ear, they haven't done any research to see if it gives "any tangible benefit" whatever that means.

6 minutes ago, rjshae said:

I have some hidden hearing loss myself. The worst though is speaking to some guy who is wearing a mask and doesn't enunciate well. It basically comes out as, "Blah-blah blah blabab and blah bah-lah. Okay?"

Oh yeah, this pandemic has been a pain, I've done alot of doctors visits, and I've got a genetically runny nose or something, it never really stops, so I've always been put in the "corona-patient-room", and doctors wear both a mask and shield which makes it basically impossible to follow along on what some of them say.

[kanisatha]

13 hours ago, Azdeus said:

Thank you, but I don't know if I agree there, I've never had hearing on one ear, but you've had and lost, my worst nightmare is literally gradually losing my hearing.

Yeah, and there are certain frequencies that are just a no go at all, I've got a female coworker with a really bright voice and my coworkers hear her all the time over engine noises and what not. I have a hard time hearing her when an electric car drives by...

I did look into it, but they don't recommend it, since I've never had hearing I've never really developed a sense of hearing at all on that side so from what I was told the brain would just not comprehend the signals. And since I'm only deaf on one ear, they haven't done any research to see if it gives "any tangible benefit" whatever that means.

Oh yeah, this pandemic has been a pain, I've done alot of doctors visits, and I've got a genetically runny nose or something, it never really stops, so I've always been put in the "corona-patient-room", and doctors wear both a mask and shield which makes it basically impossible to follow along on what some of them say.

@Azdeus, yeah, the prospect of eventually becomming completely deaf is indeed my nightmare. To never again be able to hear all the voices and sounds I've come to love hearing. To lose a major part of my independence. I love my music collection (have about 250+ CDs) and I play my CDs as often as I can because I'm sad of one day not being able to hear them. At least now I can close all the windows in my house and turn up the volume a lot and in that way reasonably appreciate them. I also think my brain doesn't really 'hear' those old songs I love so much as it *remembers* them and that feels like I'm hearing them.

@rjshae, you are so right! I have the same problem with people speaking from behind a mask. I think some people who normally don't mumble do so when speaking from behind a mask for some reason. That's why even though my university has allowed us to return to the classroom I have chosen to claim a disability accommodation to remain with remote teaching, because at least on Zoom I can turn on closed captioning and somewhat follow what my students are saying.

[Azdeus]

2 hours ago, kanisatha said:

@Azdeus, yeah, the prospect of eventually becomming completely deaf is indeed my nightmare. To never again be able to hear all the voices and sounds I've come to love hearing. To lose a major part of my independence. I love my music collection (have about 250+ CDs) and I play my CDs as often as I can because I'm sad of one day not being able to hear them. At least now I can close all the windows in my house and turn up the volume a lot and in that way reasonably appreciate them. I also think my brain doesn't really 'hear' those old songs I love so much as it *remembers* them and that feels like I'm hearing them.

@rjshae, you are so right! I have the same problem with people speaking from behind a mask. I think some people who normally don't mumble do so when speaking from behind a mask for some reason. That's why even though my university has allowed us to return to the classroom I have chosen to claim a disability accommodation to remain with remote teaching, because at least on Zoom I can turn on closed captioning and somewhat follow what my students are saying.

I assume from what you've described to me that cochlear implants aren't really on the table for you either, or is it just a cost thing seeing as you're from the US?

[kanisatha]

21 hours ago, Azdeus said:

I assume from what you've described to me that cochlear implants aren't really on the table for you either, or is it just a cost thing seeing as you're from the US?

Actually my doctor and audiologist said it was an option, but they strongly advised keeping it as the very last option because putting in the implants means destroying your inner ear bits. Cost I do not know specifically other than that it is very expensive. But even for my hearing aid, which is a fancy programmable device that more than ten years ago cost something like $2,500+, my insurance covered everything including all the tests and other doctor/audiology visits and I had to pay only a total of about $700 myself. Seemed eminently reasonable.

Edited October 3, 2021 by kanisatha

[Azdeus]

38 minutes ago, kanisatha said:

Actually my doctor and audiologist said it was an option, but they strongly advised keeping it as the very last option because putting in the implants means destroying your inner ear bits. Cost I do not know specifically other than that it is very expensive. But even for my hearing aid, which is a fancy programmable device that more than ten years ago cost something like $2,500+, my insurance covered everything including all the tests and other doctor/audiology visits and I had to pay only a total of about $700 myself. Seemed eminently reasonable.

Hearing aids are a bit complicated here, you can get ones for free, but they're old models, but if you decide to get a new good one you get a varying amount of money from different regions in Sweden, between 1000-3500 sek is paid for by the region and the cost above is out of pocket, and then you add in varying costs for fitting, 350SEK to 1500SEK. It's a bit of a mess.

I can't find any mention anywhere that cochlearimplants costs anything here, it would be the normal 100-300 SEK cost for a doctors visit i suppose.

[Guard Dog]

As Pluto heads towards aphelion the atmosphere is starting to freeze

New Horizons was a HUGE accomplishment.  

[rjshae]

Liquid Gallium Shown to Break Down Carbon Dioxide

Quote

A team of researchers led by the University of New South Wales has discovered that suspensions of gallium liquid metal — a soft, silvery-white metal that is solid at room temperature but it can melt in the palm of your hand (it has a low melting point of 29.76 degrees Celsius, or 85.57 degrees Fahrenheit) — can convert carbon dioxide (CO2) into carbonaceous solid products and oxygen (O2) at near room temperature.

Intriguing. I'm curious to know how well this could work in a manned spacecraft. Maybe it needs a method for separating out the solid carbon in the absence of gravity?

Quote

 

“We have already scaled this system up to 2.5 liters dimensions, which can deal with around 0.1 liter of carbon dioxide per minute.”

“And we’ve tested that running continuously for a whole month and the efficiency of the system did not degrade.”

 

 

[rjshae]

Researchers make hardened wooden knives that slice through steak

Quote

 

...researchers have developed a potentially more sustainable way to make sharp knives: using hardened wood. The method, presented October 20th in the journal Matter, makes wood 23 times harder, and a knife made from the material is nearly three times sharper than a stainless-steel dinner table knife.

"The knife cuts through a medium-well done steak easily, with similar performance to a dinner table knife," says Teng Li, the senior author of the study and a materials scientist at the University of Maryland. Afterwards, the hardened wood knife can be washed and reused, making it a promising alternative to steel, ceramic, and disposable plastic knives.

 

Impressive. Also a little concerning for airport security, I'd imagine.

[Guard Dog]

NASA's Juno spacecraft flew above Jupiter's Great Red Spot and discovered that the vortex churns up to 310 miles deep

As interesting as Jupiter is the moons are it's main attracting IMO. Ditto with Saturn.