Science news of the day thread.

[Tero]

Deadly. Now interfering in the lives of individual atoms.

[Tero]

Nature article has paywall so

To characterize just one atom with X-rays, it needs to be isolated from the same kind of atoms. To do so, the team first entwined a single iron atom in a nanometer-size molecule composed of different elements.

They then took the sample for analysis with the powerful X-ray beam at Argonne’s light source, the Advanced Photon Source (APS). The team detected the single atom in the sample at a beamline (XTIP) shared by the APS and the Center for Nanoscale Materials (CNM). Both are DOE Office of Science user facilities at Argonne. The beamline includes a scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) probe.

“A DOE Early Career Research Program Award that I received in 2012 allowed me to form a team of passionate scientists and engineers to develop the microscopy technique used in this study,” said Volker Rose, physicist at the APS and in the CNM. ​“Together, we developed and built this one-of-a-kind microscope at the XTIP beamline thanks to additional DOE funding.”

The rush of photons from the X-ray beams bombard the sample, causing it to release electrons. Positioned less than a nanometer above the sample surface, the STM probe collects the electric signal due to the emitted electrons. The resulting spectra (plots of current versus photon energy) are ​“fingerprints” for the elements in the periodic table. Each element has a unique fingerprint. By probing the sample surface, scientists can thus identify an element of a particular atom and its exact location.

There is more. They can also determine the atom’s chemical state from the same spectrum. The chemical state has to do with the fact that atoms can lose a certain number of electrons; for example, iron can lose two, three or four electrons. The chemical state reflects the number of electrons missing and is important for scientists to know because it affects the physical, chemical and electronic properties of the atom.

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/991811

[Tero]

Flush your heat, then capture it
https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... eat-sewage

[Brian Peacock]

‘Violent colonialist’ Magellan is unfit to keep his place in the night sky, say astronomers

For centuries Ferdinand Magellan has been accorded a rare privilege. The explorer’s name has been written in the stars. Two satellite galaxies of our own Milky Way, which sparkle conspicuously over the southern hemisphere, are labelled the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds.

Now astronomers want to erase this celestial distinction. They say that Magellan, the16th century Portuguese sailor, was a murderer who enslaved and burned down the homes of Indigenous peoples during his leadership of the first expedition to circumnavigate the globe. They insist his name should no longer be honoured by being associated with the clouds.

“Magellan committed horrific acts. In what became Guam and the Philippines, he and his men burned villages and killed their inhabitants,” says the astronomer Mia de los Reyes, of Amherst College in Massachusetts. Magellan led the 1519 Spanish expedition that achieved the first European navigation to Asia via the Pacific, but died in a battle, in 1521, with Indigenous people in present-day Philippines.

In an article in the journal APS Physics, Reyes calls for the International Astronomical Union – the body in charge of naming astronomical objects – to rename the Magellanic Clouds. “I and many other astronomers believe that astronomical objects and facilities should not be named after Magellan, or after anyone else with a violent colonialist legacy.”

It is not just Magellan’s actions that should lead to his name being stripped from the skies, argues Prof David Hogg, of New York University. “The primary issue is that the clouds aren’t his discovery,” he has told the website Space.com.

Indigenous people across the southern hemisphere could clearly see these objects and had their own names for them. In fact, it was not until the late 19th century that they were named after the explorer.

“When we uphold the names of people, such as Magellan, whose lives and legacies have actively caused harm, we alienate the communities who have been harmed,” adds Reyes...

[Svartalf]

fuck those woke morons, tradition trumps PCness

[macdoc]

Nah - the guy was an evil bastard and astronomers not the typical rabble rousers....plus he did not discover the clouds ....He's got other stuff ie Strait of Magellan that is lots for him.

[Brian Peacock]

They'll be renaming the sun and the moon next. I vote Jason and Kylie.

[JimC]

The stars don't care...

[macdoc]

Kaboom...on a small scale ..relatively

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/11/23/amer ... tected-scn

[Sean Hayden]

[rainbow]

Coal mining is good for the environment

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/24/rare-ea ... uture.html

[Brian Peacock]

Coal mining is good for the environment

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/24/rare-ea ... uture.html

Rare earth discovery in US values coal mine at $37bn: Ramaco Resources discovers gallium and germanium in Wyoming

Stock price jumped by c.80% on announcement. Up c.250% since September. Someone is very interested in this.

[rainbow]

Coal mining is good for the environment

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/24/rare-ea ... uture.html

Rare earth discovery in US values coal mine at $37bn: Ramaco Resources discovers gallium and germanium in Wyoming

Stock price jumped by c.80% on announcement. Up c.250% since September. Someone is very interested in this.

Gallium is really cool. It melts in your hand.

[Tero]

Er, no.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/202 ... imal-tests
we will torture animals. I am responsible (molecules I made) for the fate of many rodents. And two dogs. I did not see the dogs. The biologist did photograph some of it, though.

[leo-rcc]

Er, no.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/202 ... imal-tests
we will torture animals. I am responsible (molecules I made) for the fate of many rodents. And two dogs. I did not see the dogs. The biologist did photograph some of it, though.

It sucks. I work for a chemical company and though we don't want to, certain governments demand we still test our products on animals even though we already know the outcome. Who knew if you make a product that is labelled as a biocide it hurts biological creatures?