Notices by Soh Kam Yung (sohkamyung@mstdn.io)

"[S]cientists have confirmed the new species—and enshrined it in the annals of science as Solenostomus snuffleupagus, a nod to its remarkable resemblance to Big Bird’s beloved friend."

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-real-mr-snuffleupagus-meet-the-oceans-strangest-new-fish-species/

#Fish #Species

Coffee physics.

"It takes more than 150 people to make a cup of coffee, from farmer to barista. But if that final person makes a mistake, your precious coffee is wasted. Michael Allen investigates whether physics can help us brew smarter so we don’t waste a product that’s threatened by climate change"

https://physicsworld.com/a/coffee-with-a-splash-of-physics-how-to-make-the-most-out-of-your-brew/

#Coffee #Drinks #Food #Physics #FluidDynamics

"Another study this month suggested the positive findings against dementia from the past may even be underestimates of the vaccination’s potential, with a newer vaccine against shingles providing even more protection."

https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/02/could-a-vaccine-prevent-dementia-shingles-shot-data-only-getting-stronger/

#Vaccines #Diseases #Dementia #Health

"A new phase of water ice, dubbed ice XXI, has been discovered by researchers working at the European XFEL and PETRA III facilities. The ice, which exists at room temperature and is structurally distinct from all previously observed phases of ice, was produced by rapidly compressing water to high pressures of 2 GPa. The finding could shed light on how different ice phases form at high pressures, including on icy moons and planets.""

https://physicsworld.com/a/ice-xxi-appears-in-a-diamond-anvil-cell/

#Physics #Ice #Materials #Water

The future with climate change.

"In an ordinary field in a quiet part of east England, a unique experiment is taking root.

"When I tell people what I'm doing here, they think I'm joking," says Nadine Mitschunas, the UK's first and only rice-grower."

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1wgeq702dyo

#UK #England #Rice #Crops

@ubi Maybe I'm wrong, but Singapore Laksa is more like a curry than Asam Laksa.

Of course, my favourite laksa is from my home town: Kuala Kangsar, Perak. The Best! 🙂

@skinnylatte

With some improvement, they could detect frame dragging (Lense-Thirring effect) due to the Earth's rotation.

"As the Earth moves through space, it wobbles. Researchers in Germany have now directly observed this wobble with the highest precision yet thanks to a large ring laser gyroscope they developed for this purpose."

https://physicsworld.com/a/optical-gyroscope-detects-earths-rotation-with-the-highest-precision-yet/

#Physics #Gravity #Sensors

"The Nobel Prize laureates in physics for 2025, John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret and John M. Martinis, used a series of experiments to demonstrate that the bizarre properties of the quantum world can be made concrete in a system big enough to be held in the hand.
[...]
This year’s Nobel Prize in Physics recognises experiments that demonstrated how quantum tunnelling can be observed on a macroscopic scale, involving many particles."

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2025/popular-information/

#NobelPrize2025 #Physics

Using a speed-up version of the pitch-drop experiment for outreach.

"The pitch-drop experiment has been a great way for students to learn basic scientific skills, such as observation, data-taking, data analysis and communication."

https://physicsworld.com/a/how-the-slowest-experiment-in-the-world-became-a-fast-success/

#Physics #Education #Schools #Experiments #PitchDrop #Outreach

"[T]he LIGO detectors have captured the clearest merger signal ever recorded, GW250114 [and] was able to draw two spectacular conclusions. First, it confirmed that the nature of the merging objects is consistent with that of Kerr (spinning) black holes. Second, it convincingly verified the area theorem formulated by Stephen Hawking in 1971, which asserts that the total surface area of black hole horizons cannot decrease in time.

https://physics.aps.org/articles/v18/160

#BlackHoles #Physics #LIGO

"In 1980, Japanese astrophysicist Kōryō Miura worked out a pattern of parallelograms that permit a map to be folded much more compactly than conventional right-angle creases. So efficient is the pattern that a map can be opened or refolded with a single motion by pulling on opposite ends, rather like an accordion."

https://www.futilitycloset.com/2025/06/30/the-miura-fold/

#Geometry #Folding

"Shigeichi Negishi [...] was singing to himself at work one day in 1967 when an employee jokingly told him he was out of tune. Figuring that singing along to music would help him stay on pitch, Negishi began thinking about how to make that possible. He had the idea to turn one of the 8-track tape decks his company manufactured into what is now known as the karaoke machine."

https://spectrum.ieee.org/karaoke-machine-ieee-milestone

#Technology #Engineering #Entertainment #Karaoke #History

GNU / Linux is great. I needed a way to timestamp output from a program. A search lead me to this solution:

> <program> | ts

ts is a util to timestamp input, usually found in the moreutils package.

#Linux #Gnu #Utilities #Timestamp

"The researchers found that each ancestral parent contained one key gene that—when combined—allowed tubers [on potatoes] to grow. Tomatoes contributed the SP6A gene, which acts like a master switch to begin tuber formation. And from the Etuberosum side, another gene called IT1 controls the growth of stems that become tubers."

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-the-potato-got-its-start-nine-million-years-ago-thanks-to-a-tomato/

On Archive [ https://archive.ph/eKTCb ]

#Plants #Tomato #Potato #Hybrids #Genetics #Food

Yes, it can be addictive, but in a good way. 😉

"On Wednesday, a New York-based app developer named Isaac Gemal debuted a new site called WikiTok, where users can vertically swipe through an endless stream of Wikipedia article stubs in a manner similar to the interface for video-sharing app TikTok."

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/02/new-wikitok-web-app-allows-infinite-tiktok-style-scroll-of-wikipedia/

On [ https://wikitok.vercel.app/ ]

#Wikipedia #DoomScroll

"A new ecological haven is set to take shape in northern Singapore as the Mandai Mangrove and Mudflat Nature Park opens progressively from 2028.

Situated roughly 3km to the east of Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve, the new park will provide a vital sanctuary for biodiversity and expand the Sungei Buloh Nature Park Network"

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/mandai-mangrove-park-opens-bird-watching-mudflat-kranji-sungei-buloh-wetland-4886631

#Singapore #Nature #Parks #Biodiversity #Conservation

May have to try this if I ever go to Germany.

"Spaghettieis (German pronunciation: [ʃpaˈɡɛtiˌaɪs]), or spaghetti ice cream, is a German ice cream dish made to resemble a plate of spaghetti. In the dish, vanilla ice cream is extruded through a modified Spätzle press or potato ricer, giving it the appearance of spaghetti."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaghettieis

#Food #Germany #IceCream

@david Long ago, I wrote a Perl script. One week later, I looked at it and I didn't understand what I wrote. 🙂

"A research team headed up at Seoul National University has pioneered an innovative metasurface-based folded lens system, paving the way for a new generation of slimline cameras for use in smartphones and augmented/virtual reality devices."

http://physicsworld.com/a/lens-breakthrough-paves-the-way-for-ultrathin-cameras

#Physics #Optics #Cameras #Metamaterials #Materials

@thomasfuchs I love the music in the series by Vangelis.