jbotz

30 ms·

331.
Polar bears sometimes bludgeon walruses to death with stones or ice(sciencenews.org)
2 points by jbotz 5y ago|0 comments
332.
by jbotz 5y ago
This. We already have a fusion reactor... it achieved ignition some 5 billion years ago with enough fuel to sustain itself for about 10 billion years (5 down, 5 remaining). It's conveniently located at a safe distance suspended in emp
333.
The Multiple Paths to Multiple Life(link.springer.com)
1 points by jbotz 5y ago|0 comments
334.
by jbotz 5y ago
The article actually mentions that that has been proposed by: Moore, A. & Kennett, D. Cosmic impact, the Younger Dryas, Abu Hureyra, and the inception of agriculture in Western Asia. Eurasian Prehist 10, 57–66 (2013).
335.
by jbotz 5y ago
The article talks about the researchers designing special electric lights to mimic the paleolithic stone lamps (including flicker). Is this design published anywhere?
336.
by jbotz 5y ago
> Instead of spinning your cables in a circle, spin them in a figure 8 Also known as "butterfly coiling" rope, cable or hose. The alternating turns mean that every twist has a counter-twist, so you don't end up with the t
337.
by jbotz 5y ago
No need, the atmosphere is a sufficient condenser. Unless you heat the atmosphere with a lot more energy than the little bit you get from combusting the hydrogen in question... but then you'll have bigger problems as your oceans begin
338.
by jbotz 5y ago
Although water vapor is technically a "greenhouse gas", it is not responsible for forcing any global warming. That's because at the temperatures we're interested in water is a liquid, not a gas, and what small amount of
339.
by jbotz 5y ago
Because a real space elevator would go all the way to geostationary orbit where the orbital speed is the same as the rotation of the planet. Remember that the further up you go, the slower the orbital velocity, i.e. the "horizontal pa
340.
by jbotz 5y ago
Did you do the exercise as well? There is a lot more evidence that exercise lowers your cholesterol than that eating eggs raises it. Not only is your anecdote N=1, but you also probably changed severak variables with controlling any of the
341.
by jbotz 5y ago
What about if someone were starving and they needed to eat a human to survive? (Because there wasn't anything else, shipwreck, etc) You're trying to apply the same standards to animals as to humans with respect to killing them be
342.
by jbotz 5y ago
Because if I don't control the population things will get ugly... overpopulation will bring disease and conflict and much greater suffering than killing. I try to control the population first by taking eggs, but the hens get very unha
343.
by jbotz 5y ago
Since we plant things that we eat and sell (or give away) we are removing nutrients from the soil. Someone has to put them back. We could do that with industrial NPK fertilizer, but that's not very ecological. Chicken manure is a mo
344.
by jbotz 5y ago
It's not so simple as all that. We raise chickens, turkeys, ducks and geese completely free range. Our homestead doesn't really even have fence on all sides and most of it is virgin forest. All these sepecies can survive on thei
345.
by jbotz 5y ago
First, the article wasn't about human-like technological civilization, but just about life in general. And there are species of animals alive today that have hardly changed in 100s of millions of years. So Kershenbaum would be right
346.
by jbotz 5y ago
This doesn't include digital purchases, only physical items that are shipped. Is there an equivalent report for digital purchases?
347.
by jbotz 5y ago
"Organic" is just a word, and like many words has multiple meanings depending on context. In the context of farming / food production it means primarily not using inorganic NPK fertilizer, so it makes perfect sense that wa
348.
by jbotz 5y ago
Since someone else posted the Gingery books on building a machine-shop from scratch, I thought I'd post this slightly different approach... build a machine that can do the work of a lathe, drill-press and milling machine from recycled
349.
The Multimachine – an Open Source one-machine metal shop(en.wikipedia.org)
3 points by jbotz 5y ago|2 comments
350.
by jbotz 5y ago
But the way the microtubules are doing computation as described in this paper is decidedly not based on quantum phenomena, but rather a fairly simple mechanical state machine. It's not at all clear that this type of computation, even
351.
by jbotz 5y ago
There are too many to list, and it depends entirely on the crop system you're trying to support. For example, for annual crops it would be different than for multi-year agroforestry systems, and you may want some plants to provide win
352.
by jbotz 5y ago
I think your experience is just normal for the tropics, and it has nothing to do with the specifics of your soil. Certainly I and lots of others have had similar experiences. In natural tropical environments the nutrients aren't in th
353.
by jbotz 5y ago
Right. That's biochar. See my top-level comment. But note that this is not all or most of the soil in the Amazon, by a long shot... the "terra preta da Amazonia" exists in isolated patches where humans had been conducting s
354.
by jbotz 5y ago
There is one way of storing carbon in the soil for the long term: biochar[0]. Biochar is organic matter heated anaerobically (pyrolysis) until it turns into something like charcoal. Biochar is stable for a long time. You can then bury th
355.
by jbotz 5y ago
Aside from time, you also need a stricly anaerobic environment under pressure for that to happen.
356.
by jbotz 5y ago
As someone who has practiced (or tried to) sustainable agriculture in the tropics, I have to say that I've long ago become dubious about the whole idea of storing carbon in the soil. I think in cold climates, under dense forest growth
357.
by jbotz 5y ago
One of the reasons that the statistical oddity of Jeanne Calumet as an outlier may not mean much is that maybe the main reason she doesn't have much competition is simply that there aren't many alleged super-centenarians with good
358.
by jbotz 5y ago
According to this article just 5% of the world’s power plants account for almost three-quarters of carbon emissions from electricity generation. I think this may be one of the most encouraging bits of news about AGW that I've seen in a
359.
Reducing CO2 emissions by targeting the world's hyper-polluting power plants(iopscience.iop.org)
289 points by jbotz 5y ago|219 comments
360.
by jbotz 5y ago
Interesting. Any references, further reading?

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