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What did you learn today?

#4,662

Summertime and the living is … just a little bit weird, wouldn't you think? "Record high temperatures for a week have killed hundreds of elderly people, spoiled crops and wrecked infrastructure in British Columbia, Washington State and Oregon. The extreme heat is hotter, earlier and longer than ever recorded. …" Deadly high temperatures hit Canada and US northwest.

Because I read inventing the future, in the early nineties, none of this is baffling. The detail, however, is hot-off-the-presses. My heart goes out to all those who lost their battle, suffering unnecessarily, in this diabolical heat. Shout out to dear David, with thanks — Great Inspirations - David Suzuki.
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#4,664
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#4,667

Cosmic dawn occurred 250 to 350 million years after Big Bang. They're now building the next Hubble — launch time November — and they're saying that, this time, they'll be able to witness the very beginnings of very, very distant galaxies. Something to look forward backward to :)

Analysing images from the Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes, the researchers calculated the age of these galaxies as ranging from 200 to 300 million years, allowing an estimate of when their stars first formed.

The UK-led research team examined six of the most distant galaxies currently known, whose light has taken most of the universe’s lifetime to reach us. They found that the distance of these galaxies away from Earth corresponded to a “look back” time of more than 13 billion years ago, when the universe was only 550 million years old.
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“We now eagerly await the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, which we believe has the capability to directly witness cosmic dawn.

“The quest to see this important moment in the universe’s history has been a holy grail in astronomy for decades. Since we are made of material processed in stars, this is in some sense the search for our own origins.”**

The new study involved astronomers at the University of California-Santa Cruz, the University of California, and the University of Texas.

The researchers received support from the Kavli Foundation, the European Research Council, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and the National Science Foundation (NSF) in the United States.

The NASA-led James Webb Space Telescope, the successor to the Hubble observatory, is scheduled to be launched into space in November. It will be the premier observatory over the next decade, serving thousands of astronomers worldwide. It consists of an infrared observatory, an immense mirror 6.5 metres wide, and a diamond-shaped sunshield. UCL scientists at the Mullard Space Science Laboratory have built and tested key hardware components for the NIRSpec (Near-Infrared Spectrograph), one of the telescope’s four instruments. …

… The researchers analysed starlight from the galaxies as recorded by the Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes, examining a marker in their energy distribution indicative of the presence of atomic hydrogen* in their stellar atmospheres. This provides an estimate of the age of the stars they contain.

This hydrogen signature increases in strength as the stellar population ages but diminishes when the galaxy is older than a billion years. The age-dependence arises because the more massive stars that contribute to this signal burn their nuclear fuel more rapidly and therefore die first.

Co-author Dr Romain Meyer (UCL Physics & Astronomy and the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany) said: “This age indicator is used to date stars in our own neighbourhood in the Milky Way but it can also be used to date extremely remote galaxies, seen at a very early period of the universe.

“Using this indicator we can infer that, even at these early times, our galaxies are between 200 and 300 million years old.” …

*Atomic hydrogen is hydrogen that has not been split into protons and electrons.

**All the heavier elements in the universe – everything except for hydrogen, helium and lithium – are synthesised in stars and then seeded across the universe when the stars explode at the end of their lives. This includes the elements that make up humans – the calcium in our bones, the iron in our blood.
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#4,670

Why being a beginner is good for you: Water dew learn today? Some sing like that ;) I learnt how to go-for-a-row and exercise my new row-plasticity. … Then I learnt how to conjure up a storm — bake a lite chess set — and, so, cooking now, across-the-board, and firing up synapses — brand new and out-of-the-blue — became a storming pawn in the old brain game.

No doubt, old dogs learn new tricks, given half a chance. Check, mate.​

… simultaneously learning multiple skills is feasible and potentially beneficial for healthy older adults. Learning multiple skills simultaneously increased cognitive abilities in older adults by midpoint of the intervention, to levels similar to performance in a separate sample of middle-aged adults, 30 years younger.
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#4,671
I learned how to make a killer enchilada sauce today, on my first try. I usually have to make a new recipe as written then tweak it more to my liking the second go round. The one I tried today I tweaked a little as I assembled the dry ingredients and my gamble paid off. I also learned boneless skinless chicken breast does not work near as well as boneless skinless thighs for Mexican shredded stewed chicken to stuff my enchiladas. It was good but I had to keep it steeping in a warm pot with the lid on and a few spoons of unsalted chicken stock to keep it from drying out as I built my enchiladas. Chicken went in with red rice, whipped beans, and a little medium Mateos salsa. Half had a little co jack shreds inside and the other half didn't for my non dairy using guests. Topped with the new sauce and the same cheese treatment on top as inside. Once they were all rolled and under the broiler they came out good, but it's just an extra step I don't have to do when I use thighs. Once out of the oven they got dressed with shredded lettuce and diced tomatoes. No complaints.
 
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#4,675
Groove Doctor said:
TIL that I’m too old to apply for a 10-year drivers licence. Ouch !!!
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I know how you feel, I recently had to surrender my paper licence (that I've had since moving to my current address in 1978) and get a photo card one, something I've been avoiding since they were introduced a few years ago. Because of my age I will now have to renew it every 3 years.
 
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