Year: 2022

OVERBEARING BIAS. “Most geoscience is done by interpreting the parts in terms of the assumed whole. Basic assumptions often are so entrenched that practitioners are unaware that there might be little or no evidence behind them. Data, narrowly sought and interpreted, fill the space between starting assumptions and conclusions required by them.” https://lnkd.in/d8kyQ4xj View in LinkedIn

THE IDEAL PROCESS. “Recognize a problem, gather information, evaluate conflicts between concepts in diverse fields, and seek explanation and understanding. New or revised concepts should themselves be subject to constant scrutiny as new data come in and as other disciplines provide data for challenge.” https://lnkd.in/d8kyQ4xj View in LinkedIn

SO ENDS this second and last weekend on the magnetic shield theory of Warren Hamilton and how it might contribute to explaining the Cambrian explosion. It is also a case study on how science actively resists new ideas and how vicious those conceptual turf wars can get. https://lnkd.in/d8kyQ4xj View in LinkedIn

STRANGE MATING. Argonautidae, or paper nautiluses, are pelagic octopuses, and the dwarf males have an exaggerated copulatory tentacle equipped with a with penis with tentacles, which detaches during breeding into an autonomous missile called a hectocotylus, and swims about for some time seeking females. Females sometimes keep the little creature inside the brood case until her eggs are mature. This strange detachment can survive for 7 hours without water, This penis has been mistaken for a parasitic worm, and for a new male form of the octopus. https://lnkd.in/e7h9CDcN View in LinkedIn

Paper Nautilus octopus’s hectocotylus, or detachable autonomous penis and the brood sack of the female. https://lnkd.in/e7h9CDcN View in LinkedIn

UNSOLVED RIDDLE. “Matter-antimatter asymmetry is one of the greatest mysteries of current cosmology: we have no evidence so far from ground experiments for a mechanism which could explain baryogenesis.” https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10686-021-09708-w.pdf View in LinkedIn

ANTIMATTER CONFOUNDER. “Anti-D, anti-3He, and anti-4He have been produced with the same relative rates as D and 3,4He in heavy ions collisions.” https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10686-021-09708-w.pdf View in LinkedIn

NO EXPLANATION. “Anti-H atoms exhibit exactly the same emission spectra as H atoms. Limits on proton lifetime does not provide evidence for baryon number violating interactions.” https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10686-021-09708-w.pdf View in LinkedIn

DISCONNECT. “At the same time, theories that either predict the existence of nuclear antimatter in segregated domains or its total absence in the current Universe have no firm foundation in observational data.” https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10686-021-09708-w.pdf View in LinkedIn

ANTIMATTER COSMIC RAYS. “The detection of anti-4He or heavier antinuclei in CRs would shatter our current understanding of early Universe physics with broad cosmological implications or reveal something completely unforeseen in the realm of astrophysics, such as e.g. an anomalous abundance of dense antibaryon stars or anti-cloudlets in our Galaxy.” (CR = cosmic rays). https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10686-021-09708-w.pdf View in LinkedIn