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To the name of …
One of the greatest honors of science is having something with the name of you. For example, the geographer Alexander von Humboldt is remembered by a penguin, a Californian county, a mountain range and much more.
Congratulations, then, Harvard Abraham “Avi” Loeb astronomer, after whom a new scale can be appointed. Loeb, a regular in New scientistMuch of the last decade has passed considering the nature of interstellar objects that pass through our solar system. The first was’ Oumuamua in 2017; This year, Comet 3i/Atlas fell.
Loeb attracted a lot of attention in arguing that these objects could be artificial: probes or trades of some kind sent by aliens. His statements, to speak politely, not convinced of many of his companions astronomers. The skepticism was aggravated in 2023, when Loeb said he identified pieces of an interstellar meteorite at the bottom of the sea. It turned out that seismic The signals that he said showed that a meteorite impact was probably “A moving vehicle that crosses the road next to the seismometer”.
Even so, interstellar objects will continue to appear now that we can detect them, justifying the need for the scale proposed in a Preimpression. It is intended to classify such objects for the probability of being artificial, and if they are going to hit the earth. The scale varies from 0 (an object “consisting of known natural phenomena”) to 10 (an object of “extraterrestrial artificial origin confirmed” and a “impact trajectory with global terrestrial consequences”).
Feedback is slightly confused, since the scale seems to be measuring two things at the same time, and that is not how the scales work. If we ignore impact things, the scale at 8 and upper means that an object is definitely et. The interesting thing is at levels 2 to 7, which cover increasingly strong evidence of artificial origin, from “non -gravitational acceleration” and “unusual forms” to “signs of being operational” and “receptive behavior”.
Feedback is not clear how some of these would decide. Take the unusual form of a space rock. Famous, mimas, a saturn moon, resembles the Star Wars Death Star, but is not a space station. It is also difficult to distinguish artificial electromagnetic signals from natural ones, hence the large number of alarms on alien radio messages.
Everything seems a bit confusing, so the feedback decided to see the creators of the Loeb scale. Two are sports psychologists at the University of Reichman, Israel, who are obviously branched. The third is, Er, Loeb.
Utilitarian dog vehicle
Feedback has often reflected on unusual measurement units, as if we can measure the information transfer rate using a snail that carries a DVD.
The reader William Dockendorf Electronic Correos to tell us about a totally new one, and this will take a unpacking. Apparently there is a new car brand in the United States called Pizarra. It is “a two -door electric truck” that can be “customized again and again to transform into whatever it is: even a SUV”. Dockendorf points out that this is a configuration that “approximately anyone will probably buy.”
On the company’s website, Slate.auto, there is a long page Frequent questions. One asks: “How much garbage can I fit in bed and the cargo bed?” Before asking, no, “Frunk” is not a typographic error: electric vehicles often have a storage compartment at the front, so it is a “front trunk.”
Anyway, the measures are given in cubic feet and feet, listing what William calls “relatively generic things” as a “55 in. Flat screen TV (in the box)” that will fit into the loading bed. But then he says that the cargo bed will also contain “about 30 Dachshunds.”
Williams says he now feels “a need to measure everything in an approximate number of field ships.” Feedback wants to know if it is live Dachshunds, or something less that they fill the space such as dead, lyophilized and packed sausage dogs as sardines.
Last farts
After finding out about the analysis and recognition transformer of flavors (FART), we request more examples of high quality acronyms, or, at least, investigably artisanal. What follows is a selection of the flood of emails. This will become a recurring element, at least until it improves morality.
First, Thomas Kläger writes about the Regional Buses and Railroads of Ticino, the only Swiss canton where Italian is the only official language. In this language, its name is the Ferrovie Autolinee Regionali Ticinesi SA. Comments can confirm that this is real, and that its official website is delicious fartice.ch.
Years ago, physicist Paul Davies says he attended the opening of “an experimental configuration of Australian-Japanese cosmic rays” near Woomera in Australia. This was the collaboration between Australia and Nippon for a gamma ray observatory in the outback, also known as Cangaroo. “Complete brands for creativity” Davies says.
But the last word must go to the paleoanthropologist John Hawks, who wrote in Bluesky (we don’t even think he read comments) about an article in which he found The American Journal of Human Genetics. Describes “a method to estimate the recent mutation and demographic history of very large samples.” By “very large”, the authors mean a set of data from one million genomes. Naturally they called their tool “Diffusion for rare elements In inventories of variation that are large “, or” dr evil “.
“Well played,” says Hawks. What feedback can only add: “Yes, baby!”
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