Science Microthreads

[Catoptric]

The usual MRI


fMRI is different (and I might be part of a study.)


I might also be trying out an experimental nasal spray that seems to be a modified psilocybin extract that doesn't have hallucinogenic traits and believe a lot of studies are targeting neuro-plasticity. It's intended to target social anxiety, and the fMRI study I might do is also supposed to research that (but it would probably be against the parameters of research to be taking any anti-anxiety proscription.)

Still it get's into the topic of things like Zoloft (which has a high deathrate when people pair it with opioids, since it's a benzo,) though it does seem they are still concerned if people might possibly have a genetic predisposition to mental illness in their families.

An example of some of the academic papers.

Network-pluralistic psychiatry: linking genetics, brain connectivity, and psychosocial context
https://www.academia.edu/2997-9196/2/3/ ... hWellB7805


Update: No, it isn't psilocybin but rather a hormone intended to reduce social anxiety which is administered similarly to Elon Musk's Ketamine inhaler. I'm also reminded of the South Park End of Obesity episode where they keep on injecting themselves which was based on Wegovy or Ozempic which coined the term "(Brand) face" because of how it makes people look like freaks or ghouls. Incidentally they want people to sniff the stuff up to 6 times a day whenever they feel like it.

The drug trial is for Fasedienol


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[HighlyIrregular]

https://chatgpt.com/s/t_69172a995670819 ... 7dcb60a24c

Is there a simulator to figure out how life began?

Short answer: There’s no full “origin-of-life simulator” that can recreate abiogenesis end-to-end, but there are several powerful simulation platforms and research frameworks that model specific stages of how life might have begun. Scientists break “how life began” into components—prebiotic chemistry, self-replication, metabolism, membranes, and evolutionary dynamics—and simulate each piece with different tools.

Below is the honest state of the art and what is actually simulatable today.

What does exist

1. Prebiotic Chemistry Simulators (chemical reaction networks)
These simulate how early-Earth chemicals could react under various conditions.

Examples:
* AChem (Artificial Chemistry simulators) – generic frameworks used in origin-of-life research.
* ChemDyME – models prebiotic reaction networks under thermal and chemical gradients.
* MØD (Molecular Interaction Modeling) – graph-rewriting simulation of chemical reaction networks, used in some abiogenesis studies.

These can test questions like:
“Could nucleotide-like molecules form naturally in these conditions?”
“Does a set of reactions autocatalyze?”

2. Protocell / lipid-vesicle simulators
Simulate how primitive “cells” (vesicles) form, grow, and divide.

Examples:
* VESICLE – models lipid membrane formation/dynamics.
* LAMMPS or GROMACS with coarse-grained models – simulate membrane self-assembly and encapsulation of molecules.

Used to explore:
*Could random amphiphiles form compartments?
*Could membranes trap replicating molecules?

3. RNA World / Replicator Simulators
These simulate early replication and evolvability.

Examples:
* Avida – digital evolution platform used to study how information accumulates and how replicators evolve.
* Tierra and Core War–style systems – earlier forms of digital life evolution.
* RiboLab tools – simulate RNA folding and replication fidelity.

Useful for questions like:
* “Could simple replicators evolve increasing complexity?”
* “What error rates allow early evolution?”

4. Planet-scale environment models
These simulate conditions, not life itself.

Examples:
* Early-Earth atmospheric chemistry models
* Hydrothermal vent gradient models (e.g., thermal convection in alkaline vents)
* UV radiation models for prebiotic photochemistry

These test the plausibility of certain origin scenarios rather than simulating life’s emergence directly.

What does not exist

There is currently no simulator that:
* Starts with H₂O, CO₂, NH₃, minerals, etc.
* Lets the computer run
* And spontaneously produces living cells or metabolism.

Chemical search space is far too large; physics-level simulation of billions of molecules for millions of years is currently impossible.

What some researchers are trying

A few groups are trying multi-scale “from chemistry to evolution” simulators:
1. The ELSI Simulations (Tokyo Institute of Technology)
Trying to couple geochemistry → chemistry → replicator dynamics.

2. Santa Fe Institute origin-of-life models
Agent-based and network-theory simulations of autocatalytic sets (Kauffman networks).

3. NASA Astrobiology / Exobiology simulations
Focus on prebiotic chemistry and replicator emergence.

These are promising but nowhere near a full “origin simulator.”

If you want to use simulators yourself

Here are accessible ones:

For digital evolution:
* Avida-ED (free, runs in browser)
* Tierra (open source)

For prebiotic chemistry networks:
* MØD (free, academic)
* OpenReactionNetwork (Python-based)

For protocells / membranes:
* GROMACS with MARTINI coarse-grained model (free)
* LAMMPS (free)

If you want, I can also list the closest real attempts at full end-to-end origin-of-life modeling, or recommend educational vs research-grade tools.

[Catoptric]

Unidentified objects referred to as 3I/Atlas are hurtling towards earth (found accelerating with no known propulsion though I bet it's like a gravity slingshot; otherwise it's aliens that want to wipe us off the planet?)
https://rollingout.com/2025/11/06/inter ... tlas-nasa/

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Alchemy, basically.




I'm wondering what the cost of the chemicals, and the very high likelihood that inhaling any of that was safe.

Cost of equipment and damaged clothing, as well as how to acquire a tote container of old electronics; time, etc.

In all, he was able to sell the gold for about $1400, minus expensive lab equipment, chemicals, etc. . . So probably about 10 hours minimum of chemical mixtures, if not much more, split between two people, presumably (and of course the time to edit the video, which is probably where most of the monetizing of this comes from.)


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Pretty interesting about the largest CRT (while talking about metals, Lead (Pb) required for CRT could make the TV weigh 440 LBS. . .


There are some really innovative ones that utilized motorized movement, which I'm kind of not seeing on a cursory search, but even I owned a Samsung GXE1395 13” CRT TV that used a fold open door with a subwoofer on the top of it, that was designed to improve the look of games (you just didn't want to open and close the speaker doors much because it seems some of them stopped producing sound as the wires would get pinched.)

I still think a decent emulator and LCD screen can look significantly better because many tube TVS by design really hindered the visual appearance. It's akin to preferring VHS purely for sentimental nostalgia, when the actual movie original master footage was 1000x better.

It's worth mentioning that CRT still has some advantages that you can't recreate in modern LCD.


Our TV Motion Tests
Response Time Stutter
https://www.rtings.com/tv/tests/motion/stutter


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Weapons of Field Artillery 1953 Korean War era



Red Star OS (North Korea copied Mac OS)



It even comes with it's own surveillance software. . .
https://archive.org/details/red-star-en

[Catoptric]

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Dunbar's number
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar's_number



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Some obscure science-related videos
https://archive.org/details/@takagren


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Soviet-era city used for nuclear testing (Kazakhstan)
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/th ... ocialshare

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Groundbreaking visuals capture how our bodies repair damaged DNA
https://aeon.co/videos/groundbreaking-v ... amaged-dna



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I'm making this right now (but I have about 2 oz of water inside a espresso shot glass, and it looks like they used enough of the "Iron galls" or "oak apples" to fill a much larger glass with about the same amount of water at the bottom. I also pounded the galls into a finer powder, so it's floating to the top and has about 2/3rd of a gap in-between, though perhaps it will evaporate if I leave it for a few days?)


Basically a parasitic wasp lays larvae into the stem of an oak tree and a barrier of tannins fill in around the wasp and insulate it in what almost resembles chaga mushroom. The copperas as they referred to it is basically rusty iron, so I planned to either take a rusty screw driver and soak the filtered solution in another shot glass or perhaps use a planter drip tray and a rusty metal grate for fire logs, and see if I can filter it through again (though that would be bad considering I don't have a lot of liquid to begin with.)

Better and longer explanation:




And then their is this:

Psychiatry and Psychology documentaries

[HighlyIrregular]

The distributed computing part of SETI@home, a project to search for extraterrestrial intelligence, has essentially ended ("gone into hibernation").

https://www.seti.org/news/seti-at-home- ... bernation/

UC Berkeley has announced that the volunteer computing part of SETI@home will stop distributing work and go into hibernation on March 31. Two reasons were cited for this action:

1) Scientifically, they have reached point of diminishing returns; basically, they analyzed all the data they need for now.

2) Managing the distributed processing of data is labor intensive. The priority now is to focus on completing the back-end analysis of the results they already have, and writing this up in a scientific journal paper.

https://news.berkeley.edu/2026/01/12/fo ... hey-found/

[volunteers] downloaded the SETI@home software to their home computers and allowed it to analyze data recorded at the now-defunct Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico to find unusual radio signals from space. All told, these computations produced 12 billion detections — “momentary blips of energy at a particular frequency coming from a particular point in the sky,” according to computer scientist and project co-founder David Anderson.

After 10 years of work, the SETI@home team has now finished analyzing those detections, winnowing them down to about a million “candidate” signals and then to 100 that are worth a second look.

...[the 100 signals] are being targeted by [China’s Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope]...Though the FAST data are not yet analyzed, Anderson admits he doesn’t expect to find a signal from ET.

...The results of the SETI@home project — presented in two papers published last year in The Astronomical Journal — provide lessons for future searches and point to potential flaws in ongoing searches.”

I tried some distributed computing for folding@home twice in the past, for cancer research. It didn't play nice with my computer and I'd heard comments about the findings not replicating how the biology actually works. With the unclear level of usefulness and the strain on my little computer, I decided to stop.