A handwritten manuscript from nearly 400 years ago has revealed a glimpse of the recipe for the mythical ‘philosopher’s stone.’

The 17th century document was penned by Isaac Newton, and is a copy of another known alchemist’s text.

After decades in a private collection, the text was purchased by the Chemical Heritage Foundation in the US, which has revealed the early steps in a process alchemists thought could turn lead to gold.

In the text, the alchemist describes the process for making ‘philosophic mercury,’ according to Chemistry World.

Shortened as ‘sophick,’ philosophic mercury was thought to be a key substance in the creation of the philosopher’s stone, researchers say.

‘Philosophic mercury was [thought to be] a substance that could be used to break down metals into their constituent parts,’ James Voelkel, the CHF’s curator of rare books, told Chemistry World.

Abstract

A paper by C. Corda (A Clarification on the Debate on “the Original Schwarzschild Solution”, EJTP 8, No. 25 (2011) 65-82) purports equivalence of Schwarzschild’s original solution (1916) and Hilbert’s subsequent solution (1917), the latter commonly but incorrectly called ‘Schwarzschild’s solution’. The derivation of Schwarzschild’s actual solution by Corda is, in fact, a copy of Schwarzschild’s original derivation with only changes in notation and equation numbering. It adds nothing new to the problem. Corda’s subsequent arguments on gravitational collapse follow those advanced by Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler for Hilbert’s solution, in their book ‘Gravitation’, and suffer thereby from the very same shortfalls. Consequently, Corda has failed to prove his alleged equivalence of the Schwarzschild and Hilbert solutions. Moreover, it is not difficult to prove that these are not equivalent. Furthermore, all methods employed to otherwise ‘extend’ Droste’s solution into Hilbert’s solution thus producing a black hole constitute a violation of the rules of pure mathematics and are invalid.

 

1 Introduction

One hundred years ago, on the 13th of January 1916, Karl Schwarzschild communicated his solution to Einstein’s gravitational field for a `mass point’. Then, less than five years ago, on the 25th of May 2011, a paper by Christian Corda was published which reproduced most of Schwarzschild’s paper. In a prelude on page 70 of his paper, Corda stated,

“In our approach we will suppose again that a(r,t) = 0, but, differently from the standard analysis, we will assume that the length of the circumference centred in the origin of the coordinate system is not 2πr. We release an apparent different physical assumption, i.e. that arches of circumference are deformed by the presence of mass of the central body M. Note that this different physical hypothesis permits to circumnavigate the Birkhoff Theorem [4] which leads to the ‘standard Schwarzschild solution’ [3].”

NEW YORK (AP) — Scientists have deleted nearly half the genes of a microbe, creating a stripped-down version that still functions, an achievement that might reveal secrets of how life works.

It may also help researchers create new bacteria tailored for pumping out medicines and other valuable substances.

The newly created bacterium has a smaller genetic code than does any natural free-living counterpart, with 531,000 DNA building blocks containing 473 genes. (Humans have more than 3 billion building blocks and more than 20,000 genes).

But even this stripped-down organism is full of mystery. Scientists say they have little to no idea what a third of its genes actually do.

“We’re showing how complex life is, even in the simplest of organisms,” researcher J. Craig Venter told reporters. “These findings are very humbling.”

Some of the mystery genes may be clues to discovering unknown fundamental processes of life, his colleague Clyde Hutchison III said in an interview. Both researchers, from the J. Craig Venter Institute in La Jolla, California, are among the authors of a paper on the project released Thursday by the journal Science.

The DNA code, or genome, is contained in a brand-new bacterium dubbed JCVI-syn3.0.

The US space agency’s Dawn satellite continues to return remarkable images from the dwarf planet Ceres.

Now just 385km above the surface (lower than the space station is above Earth), the probe has revealed new features inside the mini-world’s Occator Crater.

This is the 92km-wide depression that has multiple bright spots of what arethought to be exposed salts.

The new imagery reveals a dome in a smooth-walled pit in the centre-most bright area of the crater.

With a resolution now of 35m per pixel, Dawn can make out numerous fractures that cut across the top and down the flanks of this dome.

The Moon used to spin on a different axis and show a slightly different face to the Earth, a new study suggests.

Using data collected by Nasa’s Lunar Prospector mission in the late 1990s, scientists spotted two hydrogen-rich regions near the Moon’s poles, probably indicating the presence of water ice.

The icy patches are opposite each other – the line between them passes through the middle of the Moon – so it appears that this used to be its spin axis.

The work appears in the journal Nature.

It describes a gradual wobble, or “true polar wander”, adding up to about a six-degree shift altogether.

Climate change activist James Hansen has released a peer-reviewed study yesterday that claims an increase in temperatures of 2 degrees Celsius is imminent and would be catastrophic. He originally released a preview of his paper last July and it came under heavy fire for conflicting with established climate science. Now that the final version has been released, it warns that humanity could face an abrupt climate shift in a few decades, as illustrated in the implausible movie ‘The Day after Tomorrow.’

Even climate scientist Michael E. Mann from Pennsylvania State University said that “some of the points highlighted in Hansen’s study conflict with what is generally known about climate change, so much so that they require a high standard of proof.” Hansen’s proof is based on interpretations of the historical record from 120,000 years ago. He says it was about 1 degrees Celsius warmer than it is today and that this period had much more powerful storms, even though his proof is largely theoretical. One item is a giant boulder in the Bahamas that Hansen contends was moved by a super storm.

Part of Hansen’s problematic study is that his reputation as being the godfather of global warming has been tarnished by his climate activism. He has been arrested numerous times, gone after museums that get donations from fossil fuel companies, and has joined in frivolous lawsuits against the government for not doing more to prevent global warming. As Tech Times noted, “This may have turned Hansen into an inspiration to advocates of climate change prevention, but it has also caused some colleagues to doubt whether his findings have been skewed to suit his political goals.”

Scientists have unveiled a see-through wrist cuff that measures the level of glucose in the bloodstream of diabetic patients and administers a drug to lower that level if needed. It’s not yet a full-blown treatment—for one thing, the experimental version can’t provide enough of the drug to do the trick—but it should be of great use in monitoring patients.

It’s also an actual application for a newfangled material in sore need of one: graphene, a superthin form of carbon with interesting electronic properties. By itself, graphene can’t sense glucose, but if you dope 2-D carbon properly, it can become quite a useful elecrochemistry set. The inventors—working in South Korea, Massachusetts and Texas—doped the graphene with minute quantities of gold to get the effect they wanted. They describe their work in this week’s issue of the journal Nature.

A moment with Google will reveal all kinds of cranks offering “free” energy from quantum “zero-point” phenomena, but it’s a real thing with real effects.

At the tiniest scales, quanta vibrate, even at their lowest energy. If all motion ceased, an observer would be able to breach uncertainty theory. 

Now, National Institute for Science an Technology (NIST) boffins reckons zero-point motion could help do for temperature what silicon spheres will do for weight: tie a measurement to a fundamental property of the universe.

So far, NIST says it’s only carried out a demonstration of the technique, and currently it’s only accurate to a few percentage points.

But you have to start somewhere, and here’s where NIST has started: the researchers used a laser to observe a nanoscale beam of silicon nitride.

To see these picometre vibrations, the beam has a reflective cavity; the vibrations cause small changes in colour of the reflected light.

If we eliminated, worldwide, all anthropogenic (man-made) carbon dioxide (CO2) the atmospheric concentration would only reduce by 11-12 ppmv taking us back to the 2003 level when it was warmer than 2008. See table below and the subsequent graph concerning this analysis. These clearly show CO2 concentration is not warming the earth. If we removed almost twice that amount (20 ppmv) we would go back to the 1998 level. It was warmer in 1998 than in 2008 (by ~0.6 C). This is so simple to see, isn’t this the first thing the UN IPCC should have looked at. However, they probably knew this because Table 1 below was subsequently eliminated from the 2001 report, even though it is still online in other reports.

Table 1. Global sources and  Absorption of CO2

tonto.eia.doe.gov – document page 6, pdf page 26, Table 3.

See www.tech-know.eu – for further references

We know how hard it can be to understand the atmosphere on earth, but maybe we should count ourselves lucky that we are not on the outer extremes of the solar system.

Pluto has always been seen as a bit of an oddball (its classification in the solar system is still an area of debate) and now it seems its atmosphere is pretty extreme too.

Nasa’s New Horizons probe passed by the planet back in 2015, however it is still sending information back to earth and recent research on the data has revealed just how varied the climate on this tiny outpost can be. 

It is easy to assume that this small rock on the outskirts of our solar system is just that, a lump of hard, dry rock, but now it seems that liquid nitrogen may have once flowed on the surface and may well do again.

Some parts of Pluto can spend around 50 years in perpetual night.”

The ash tree is likely to be wiped out in Europe, according to a review of the evidence.

The trees are being killed off by the fungal disease ash-dieback along with an invasive beetle called the emerald ash borer.

According to the research, published in the Journal of Ecology, the British countryside will never look the same again.

The paper says that the ash will most likely be “eliminated” in Europe.

This could mirror the way Dutch elm disease largely wiped out the elm in the 1980s.

European scientists are worried they could soon lose a vital tool for monitoring Earth’s ice fields.

The Cryosat-2 radar spacecraft has transformed studies of the Arctic, the Antarctic and Greenland, but is now operating beyond its design lifetime.

A group of 179 researchers is concerned the ageing mission could die in orbit at any time.

They have urged the European Commission (EC) and the European Space Agency (Esa) to start planning a replacement.

“The mission is now central to international efforts to monitor the state of the cryosphere,” they write in a letter to top officials at the EC and Esa.

In recent times, some new political movements have arisen in Germany. For example the political party “Alternative für Deutschland” (AfD), founded just three years ago, has won several seats in German State parliaments at the most recent election, a few days ago.

In Dresden (a city in the German State of Saxony), thousands of people go regularly on quiet “walkabouts” on Mondays, without any disturbance, unless provoked by others.

What’s their “Beef?” 

Among their various complaints is one specific and rather novel term: “Die Lügenpresse,” a term that means “liar’s press.”  What the people mean by that term simply is purposely false or misleading information propagated by a large segment of the media, from newspapers to television reportages and – as much of that information is frequently “fed” to them by government sources and, by extension, also such governments.

“One is disturbed each day by verifiably untrue statements touted as incontrovertible facts about hot-button issues.”
— Richard S. Lindzen

“CO₂ absorbs in the infrared and reradiates heat downward, thus heating the earth.”
— Richard S. Lindzen

Okay then, let’s examine that particular “incontrovertible fact.” You know how a solar oven works.

 

Hubble has probed a clutch of monster stars about 170,000 light-years away on the edge of our Milky Way Galaxy.

Some two dozen behemoths were identified, all with masses in excess of a hundred times that of the Sun.
Four were known previously, including the remarkable colossus catalogued as R136a1, which is 250 times as massive as our home star.

But the new survey finds many more of the super-objects in a tight patch of sky within the Large Magellanic Cloud.

“In just a tiny bit of this satellite galaxy, we see perhaps a couple of dozen stars with more than a 100 solar masses, of which nine are in a tight core just a few light-years across,” explained Prof Paul Crowther from Sheffield University, UK.

The brilliant flash of an exploding star’s shockwave—what astronomers call the “shock breakout”—has been captured for the first time in the optical wavelength or visible light by NASA’s planet-hunter, the Kepler space telescope.

An international science team led by Peter Garnavich, an astrophysics professor at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, analyzed light captured by Kepler every 30 minutes over a three-year period from 500 distant galaxies, searching some 50 trillion stars. They were hunting for signs of massive stellar death explosions known as supernovae. 

In 2011, two of these massive stars, called red supergiants, exploded while in Kepler’s view. The first behemoth, KSN 2011a, is nearly 300 times the size of our sun and a mere 700 million light years from Earth. The second, KSN 2011d, is roughly 500 times the size of our sun and around 1.2 billion light years away.

“To put their size into perspective, Earth’s orbit about our sun would fit comfortably within these colossal stars,” said Garnavich.