Science news of the day thread.

[laklak]

Yep. My Dad would have been 92 this year. He routinely called Thais "coolies" and blacks "coons", Muslims were "ragheads" or "bedsheets and beanies". The culture he grew up in was racist, and then decades as an old-school expat didn't help.

[Seabass]

Chinese internet users have defended Albert Einstein’s recently published travel diaries in which the physicist calls the Chinese “industrious, filthy people.”

Portions of the diaries from his travels in Asia in the 1920s were posted online this week and their content surprised Einstein fans.

“Chinese don’t sit on benches while eating but squat like Europeans do when they relieve themselves out in the leafy woods,” he wrote.

“All this occurs quietly and demurely. Even the children are spiritless and look obtuse.”...'

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/ ... _clipboard

The Asian Squat!

[Seabass]

"bedsheets and beanies"

Never heard that one before...

[Rum]

That there SpaceX Dragon look like a proper space ship innit?!

[Seabass]

Yep. It's nice to have some good news for a change...

[Woodbutcher]

Neat stories.
https://www.facebook.com/watch/What.If. ... 494293019/

[Sean Hayden]

Insect apocalypse? Not so fast, at least in North America

In recent years, the notion of an insect apocalypse has become a hot topic in the conservation science community and has captured the public’s attention. Scientists who warn that this catastrophe is unfolding assert that arthropods – a large category of invertebrates that includes insects – are rapidly declining, perhaps signaling a general collapse of ecosystems across the world.

Starting around the year 2000, and more frequently since 2017, researchers have documented large population declines among moths, beetles, bees, butterflies and many other insect types. If verified, this trend would be of serious concern, especially considering that insects are important animals in almost all terrestrial environments.

But in a newly published study that I co-authored with 11 colleagues, we reviewed over 5,000 sets of data on arthropods across North America, covering thousands of species and dozens of habitats over decades of time. We found, in essence, no change in population sizes.

These results don’t mean that insects are fine. Indeed, I believe there is good evidence that some species of insects are in decline and in danger of extinction. But our findings indicate that overall, the idea of large-scale insect declines remains an open question.

...

Explaining continental differences

We are confident in our analysis and our conclusion, but a more important question is why our results are so different from those of other recent studies. I see two potential explanations: location and publication bias.

As I have noted, most insect decline papers have come from European data. Indeed, Europe has better and more extensive long-term data than other parts of the world. It is also one of the most densely populated parts of the world – three times higher than North America.

Moreover, almost all of Europe’s land has been modified for human use. Agriculture is widespread and intense, and cities and suburban areas cover large swaths of the landscape. So perhaps it is unsurprising that Europe has also lost a larger proportion of its wild creatures compared to North America.

Publication bias is not about dishonesty or false results. It refers to the idea that more dramatic results are more publishable. Reviewers and journals are more likely to be interested in species that are disappearing than in species that show no change over time.

https://theconversation.com/insect-apoc ... ica-141107

[laklak]

The very best insect apocalypses are European insect apocalypses.

[macdoc]

Been watching the Africam live feeds ...nice to see lots of insects.
https://www.africam.com

[Sean Hayden]

The world's last surviving male northern white rhino has died after months of poor health, his carers say.

This happened in 2018...

[Brian Peacock]

Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn this evening. Find somewhere with a clear south-western horizon and look for the brightest thing you can see, low in the twilight sky: that object will be both Jupiter and Saturn. The planets will set about an hour after sunset.

[Sean Hayden]

[Brian Peacock]

Terrifyingly beautiful.

[macdoc]

this is very good if it scales https://phys.org/news/2021-01-advance-r ... stics.html

[Tero]

Fusion
https://www.popularmechanics.com/scienc ... eff-bezos/