BIOMEDICAL SCIENCE: “Good News in the Fight Against Pancreatic Cancer” / Ted Talks / Laura Indolfi ☮


Anyone who has lost a loved one to pancreatic cancer knows the devastating speed with which it can affect an otherwise healthy person. TED Fellow and biomedical entrepreneur Laura Indolfi is developing a revolutionary way to treat this complex and lethal disease: a drug delivery device that acts as a cage at the site of a tumor, preventing it from spreading and delivering medicine only where it’s needed. “We are hoping that one day we can make pancreatic cancer a curable disease,” she says.

PALEONTOLOGY: “Hunting for Dinosaurs Showed Me Our Place in the Universe” / Ted Talks / Kenneth Lacovara” ☮

What happens when you discover a dinosaur? Paleontologist Kenneth Lacovara details his unearthing of Dreadnoughtus — a 77-million-year-old sauropod that was as tall as a house and as heavy as a jumbo jet — and considers how amazingly improbable it is that a tiny mammal living in the cracks of the dinosaur world could evolve into a sentient being capable of understanding these magnificent creatures. Join him in a celebration of the Earth’s geological history and contemplate our place in deep time.

SPORTS: “Kelly Slater’s Perfect Artificial Wave Could Change Everything About Surfing” / Huffpost Sports ☮

Even the pros are obsessed with this “freak of technology.”

When world-famous professional surfer Kelly Slater unveiled his artificial wave poolin December after nearly 10 years of research and development, the entire surf world was stoked.

This week, after Slater invited a group of professional surfers to try out what he has dubbed “a freak of technology,” it became clear the sport may never be the same.

As wave after flawless wave rolled in, the surfers, including Carissa Moore, Nat Young, Stephanie Gilmore and Kanoa Igarashi, got some of the longest rides and most consistently perfect barrels we’ve ever seen.

While the company has yet to disclose the pool’s location, Reddit users managed to find it using Google Earth satellite imagery. They located the pool in Lemoore, California — about 100 miles from the coast.

In the past, artificial waves haven’t met surfers’ expectations. They didn’t barrel — take the shape of a hollow tube — and weren’t fast enough for surfers to get air. Slater’s waves, however, live up to the real thing, not just mimicking the ocean, but seemingly improving it.

This ride by Stephanie Gilmore is a prime example of just how clean and glassy each wave is.

Continue reading . . .

THEORETICAL PHYSICS: “Stephen Hawking may Have a Shot at a Nobel Prize Now” / Richard Dawkins Foundation ☮

Stephen Hawkings

By Bob Fredericks

Stephen Hawking’s decades-old black-hole theory has been confirmed by another scientist — and that may finally land the renowned physicist on the short list for a Nobel Prize.

Hawking — whose life with his former wife and struggle with motor neuron disease were dramatized in the 2014 movie “The Theory of Everything” — calculated back in 1974 that tiny particles should be able to rob black holes of a minuscule fraction of their energy and then escape.

That means that the black holes would slowly evaporate over time, spewing out all the dust, light and passing stars they had swallowed in a trickle of heat.

Conventional wisdom at the time said that black holes were places where gravity pulled so hard that nothing could get out, including light.

The development could open up a bizarre vision of the universe in which black holes can cough themselves into nothingness, Hawking said during recent lectures on the BBC and at Harvard.

“This raises a serious problem that strikes at the heart of our understanding of science,” he said.

Richard Dawkins Foundation

NATURE: “Why are Peacock Tail Feathers so Enchanting?” / “Real-time and Slow Motion Video of Peacock Courtship Displays” ☮

Why are Peacock Tail Feathers so Enchanting? / PBS News Hour

Male peacock feathers have long set the standard for mating displays in the bird world. And while their expansive fan of spots is beautiful, they are also beguiling.

Real-time and Slow Motion Video of Peacock Courtship Displays

Adult peacocks court peahens by vibrating the erect tail and elongated covert feathers during their train-rattling displays. Wing-shaking behaviour is also performed during courtship. Slow-motion clips of train-rattling peacocks demonstrate that the eyespots remain relatively stationary (as compared to the rest of the train feathers) during the display, and that the tail drives the vibrations by stridulating against the train feathers.