Science image dump

[Tank]

It looks like it will one day.

[Recusant]

Here is a video that has no immediate political content.

Will Africa have an ocean inside the continent?

It's a interesting video despite the robotic narrator, but the script: "Soon humanity might have two motherlands."

For some values of "soon." 

[Dark Lightning]

Heh, I saw that earlier. I'd like to live to 30MY old in order to see it. 

[Icarus]

Intriguing take on method used by the great pyramid builders.

https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/ancient-egyptians/ancient-egyptians-used-a-hydraulic-lift-to-build-their-1st-pyramid-controversial-study-claims?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=pushly&utm_campaign=All%20Push%20Subscribers

[Recusant]

Intriguing take on method used by the great pyramid builders.

https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/ancient-egyptians/ancient-egyptians-used-a-hydraulic-lift-to-build-their-1st-pyramid-controversial-study-claims

Seems to me I've come across something a lot like this hypothesis before. My recollection is that it was not given any more credence back then, and for similar reasons.

. . . concerns about the study are that no Egyptologists or archaeologists were directly involved . . . [the] hypothesis is not proven at all . . .

[zorkan]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/cly57d5jw7eo

Is this a SpacefiX?

[Dark Lightning]

Musk is a shit of a human being, but he's hired a lot of people who are doing great things.

[billy rubin]

this is the rocket that musk wants to use to send people to mars.

which brings up a question i have not yet had a satisfying answer to, which is why we want to send people to mars in the first place.

if we want to escape an overcrowded, polluted world, it seems to me that we would do better to fix the one we have, and help out everybody here, rather than the dystopian elites who will have their million-acre fiefdoms on a new planet without laws or government, other than themselves.

if we want to save ourselves from the inevitable asteroid impact, the same question applies: who gets a ticket to the lifeboat, and what resources could we have used to deflect the collision that went to the escape program instead?

and if the idea is to avoid the extinction of all of humanity (which is elon's specific rationale for space colonization, or so i have heard) then why exactly are we concerned, again?

all of us will go extinct, individually, at the end of our normal lifespans. what  is the reason for being concerned about a collective extinction, which is really nothjing more than what happens to all of us, individually, sooner or later.

sure, space exploration is fun, in a diverting sort of way, watching rockets go up and down and having space stations circle the earth with real people on them.

but im still not seeing any benefit other than entertainment, at least for me.

[Dark Lightning]

It is a fool's errand to go to Mars. Nothing is to be gained but more rocket science, and we already have that. And yes, fixing what we have, climate-wise, should be a top priority.

[zorkan]

this is the rocket that musk wants to use to send people to mars.
which brings up a question i have not yet had a satisfying answer to, which is why we want to send people to mars in the first place.

Golfers would want to go to the Trump Golf Resort at the foot of Olympus Mons.
I'd want to go. With its reduced gravity and atmosphere I might hit the ball at least 1000 yards.

More seriously, humans are always trying new frontiers, one stepping stone to space travel has to be Mars.

[Old Seer]

According to Musk, his objective is to guarantee the preservation of the peoples if they destroy society on the planet(here), those on Mars will survive to carry on. He doesn't seem to realize that in order to do that the psychology of those on Mars would have to exist on a different psychological make-up. Without that the destroying mentality would merely be exported to Mars eventually causing the same as on Mars.  To me the logic doesn't stand on solid ground. If we can't fix our problems here then also not there. Musk would have to explain the difference in the mentality on Mars as here, and if that could be there'd be no such reason to go to Mars as that mentality, if found/known, could be implemented here.

[billy rubin]

i am all in favor of the billionaire earthly elites going to mars, and as soon as possible. they can take all their assets with them, and i would let them stake a claim to as much territory there as they want, subject to the restriction that they cant endow its ownership to anybody or anything when they die.

let em go.

elon first.

[Tank]

i am all in favor of the billionaire earthly elites going to mars, and as soon as possible. they can take all their assets with them, and i would let them stake a claim to as much territory there as they want, subject to the restriction that they cant endow its ownership to anybody or anything when they die.

let em go.

elon first.

Hear hear!

[Icarus]

Some interesting findings about genetics.

https://www.livescience.com/health/9-of-the-most-genetically-isolated-human-populations-in-the-world?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us

[Dark Lightning]

Populations can be relatively isolated, even in the US. My mother grew up in a tiny town in Minnesota, and if first cousins wanted to marry, it had to be requested from the RCCs "rota"- not sure of the official name, but my mother did mention it. Evidently, they kept track of births to the level of defects? Kind of surprising, given some of the deformities presented by royalty in Europe, ca 1800s, who were pretty much all Catholics.