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He Jackobshavn Isbrae glacier It reached a speed of 45 meters per day, as recorded in August 2004. Thus, it is the glacier that has moved at the fastest speed, as far as we know.

The speed was attributed to an influx of warm seawater into Disko Bay, on the west coast of Goenland.

Titanic and the iceberg the size of Belgium

Since then, the glacier has slowed considerably, especially after a very cold period in 2013.

The curious thing is that it is very likely that the Titanic sank when it collided with an iceberg that broke off from this glacier that holds the speed record. It's not strange something like that: The Jakobshavn Glacier drains 6.5% of the Greenland ice sheet and produces about 10% of all Greenland icebergs. Approximately 35 billion tons of icebergs break off from the fjord each year.

Still, it was not the largest iceberg ever documented that stood in the path of the largest ship. That title is held by another: on November 12, 1956, the crew of the USS Glacier sighted a tabular iceberg with an estimated area of more than 31,000 square kilometers, that is, more than the surface of Belgium.

The iceberg measured 335 kilometers long and 97 kilometers wide. They spotted it west of Scott Island, in the Antarctic Ocean.

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It is likely that the Titanic sank after colliding with an iceberg that broke off from the fastest glacier: 45 meters per day

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Sergio Parra

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Aptera has opened the possibility of placing orders for a solar electric vehicle that can be equipped with batteries that allow a range of up to 1,600 kilometers. He Aptera solar EV provides up to 72 kilometers of autonomy per day without needing to be plugged in.

Its manufacturers claim that its 180 small solar panels, which make up an area of more than three square meters, will collect enough energy to make all this possible.

Aptera

With a vaguely aeronautical-looking two-seat cabin, the Aptera has an 'unheard of' drag coefficient of just 0.13. Compare that to, say, the Concept V's 'incredibly low' 0.24 drag coefficientolkswagen ID Space Vizzion. It is also completely constructed of carbon/kevlar/flax composites, which makes it very light and resistant.

As for the engine, there are multiple options available, with liquid-cooled electric motors on either the two front wheels or all three.

Battery sizes will also vary, so a range of 400, 644, 965 km or up to 1600 km. To get an idea of how efficient this three-wheeled vehicle is, the Tesla Model S P100D had a radical increase in efficiency this year and can now reach 650 km with a battery of the same size.

To be fair, Tesla has actually already put its cars on the road, and Aptera has only reached the production prototype stage so far. But it is ready to accept reservations for the 'Paradigm' and 'Paradigm+' special edition vehicles that will be produced in 2021.

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This new electric vehicle is now capable of reaching 1600 kilometers of autonomy

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Sergio Parra

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Dunbar, the pilot of Catch 22, of Joseph Heller, that if time flies when you're having fun, the best way to slow down the passage of time is by making life as boring as possible.

That is not what you are going to get with this scholarly, exquisite book of Santiago Alvarez:De women, men and molecules. A book punctuated by unpublished veins in the history of science, and the best: how these veins connect with others, allowing us to see new forms emerge: laboratories, mirrors, etc.

An alphanumeric book

The world does not systematize its scenery with the same architectural capacity that a writer does. But Álvarez achieves it without resorting to fiction: he simply analyzes scientific reality from such wonderful aspects and angles. that highlight charms from the world of fantasy.

In other words: if you applied a stethoscope to me to listen to my heart rate while I was reading this work, you would notice my heart was racing with emotion.

That's why I have kept my eyes wide open all the time. And I have learned the unspeakable; In addition to the fact that Álvarez does his bit so that we forget to divide people into “literary” or “science” people, betting on an alphanumerism that only the epistemically hungry farm at the expense of academic divisions.

Without a doubt, essential, like another book in this collection that is already becoming one of my favorites: Science in literature, of Xavier Duran.

How do artists, writers and musicians view chemistry? And chemists, what vision do they have of topics as far apart as visual communication, magnetism, the image of a mirror or the relationship between music and alchemy? Of Women, Men and Molecules is located at the intersection of the sciences and the humanities, and brings together those two complementary views on us and the reality that surrounds us from a place little traveled, but no less necessary and creative. This is a popular book about chemistry, and at times it is also a history of philosophy, painting and music, and sometimes even an anecdote with which Santiago Álvarez allows us to look at the world with the eyes of a restless and observer. In short, from the different ways in which chemistry is present in literature and art.

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Books that inspire us: 'Of women, men and molecules' by Santiago Álvarez

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Sergio Parra

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Already in the Middle Ages, when two men were accused of the same crime, the judge sentenced the least physically attractive of the two. And if in doubt, the ugly ones were the culprits.

This trend is still evident in the courts of law: those with facial defects They tend to be convicted more easily by popular juries. According to This studioIn fact, there is a positive relationship between cosmetic surgery and criminal rehabilitation, measured by a decrease in recidivism.

Legal beauty bias

Judges and juries are affected by all types of cognitive distortions, such as emotive evidence, time of day, the defendant's obvious remorse, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, gender, anchoring effect, and contrast bias.

Beauty is also a fundamental distortion according to research based by 27 different studies. The results of three studies, e.g. show a minimum increase of 119,25% and a maximum increase of 304,88% in convictions due to this bias.

In Xataka Science

Attractive people have better salaries, but less than those who are very unattractive

Attractiveness had little effect on a judge's guilty verdict, although it also had one: where the bias is best seen is in the harshness of the sentence, which tends to be greater for unattractive criminals.

For example in This studio that looked at convictions for misdemeanors, judges sentenced unattractive offenders significantly more than attractive offenders. The fine gradually increased as the attractiveness decreased.

1. Misdemeanors \u003d + 224,87%
2. Moderate misdemeanors \u003d + 304,88%
3. Serious misdemeanors \u003d + 174,78%

The results are shown below:

In cases of negligent homicide, robbery, burglary, and civil negligence, unattractive defendants were sentenced more harshly than attractive defendants. However, for scam cases, attractiveness bias seems to have the opposite effect.

Attractiveness bias can also affect civil cases. In another study Participants were presented with an audio-video showing a case of automobile negligence. Mock Juries Consistently Gave More Guilty Verdicts to Unattractive Defendants.

In Xataka Science

What type of girls are most successful at hitchhiking?

halo effect

All this happens because of the call halo effect: In general, attractive people are perceived as more intelligent, with more social skills, more interesting personalities, more moral, more altruistic, more likely to be successful, more desirable as managers, and more competent.

Thus, attractive people tend to have better physical health, better mental health, better dating experiences, earn more money, obtain higher professional positions, get selected in job interviews more often, get promoted more often, receive better job evaluations, and are chosen as business partners more often What unattractive people. That is to say, we are facing a very deep gap: that of beauty.

In Xataka Science

Traditional faces give us greater confidence

This unconscious bias is even reflected [in neuroimaging studies] (Physical Attractiveness and Femininity: Helpful or Hurtful for Female Attorneys (2015) by Peggy Li). When a person comes into contact with an attractive person, certain parts of the brain are activated. The activity in the medial orbitofrontal cortex, the brain region associated with processing positive emotions, stimuli, and rewards, increases based on ratings of attractiveness and moral goodness. Similarly, the activity in insular cortex, a brain region associated with processing negative emotions and pain, increases as a result of unattractiveness and negative ratings of goodness.

Consequently, your face is what will determine your success in life, and one of the biggest sources of inequality is How your face fits into current beauty standards:

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The less attractive the criminal, the harsher the sentence: ugly criminals are sentenced up to 304,88% more

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Known as Spherical tokamak for energy production (STEP), the United Kingdom today embarked on a step towards building the world's first nuclear fusion power station, launching a search for a site of more than 100 hectares where it can be connected to the electricity grid.

However, there are still big hurdles to overcome before it can start generating power. No fusion reactor has so far produced more energy than it consumed. That could change in 2025, when the world's largest fusion project, ITER in France, turns on.

Master Upgrade

Master Upgrade (Mega Amp Spherical Tokamak) will use an innovative design known as a spherical tokamak and could remove some of the obstacles to delivering clean, unlimited power to the grid. Most tokamaks are donut shaped. But in Mast Upgrade, the size of the nut hole has been reduced as much as possible, giving the plasma a nearly spherical profile.

STEP's energy production target is more modest (a net gain of 100MW) but, unlike ITER, it will be connected to the ordinary electrical grid to understand how a fusion plant operates day in and day out.

The plant is being presented as an important platform in efforts to reach the UK's target of net zero emissions by 2050. The UK is not the only country aiming to build a commercial fusion reactor. A Chinese proposal, the Chinese Fusion Engineering Test Reactor (CFETR), could come into operation in 2035. And DEMO, the European successor to ITER, is planned for the 2050s.

In Xataka Science

You cannot be an environmentalist if you do not support nuclear energy but there are few politicians who send that message

The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA), the government body that oversees STEP, hopes construction can begin around 2030, with the plant operational as early as 2040.

The tokamak is a fusion device that uses magnetic fields to confine plasma (hot ionized gas) within a container. This plasma allows light elements to fuse and produce energy.

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UK takes step towards world's first fusion nuclear power plant

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As part of the Plant Habitat-02 experiment, NASA astronaut Kate Rubins has harvested the first radishes grown aboard the International Space Station.

The following radish shows the 27-day process of radish growth on the space station accelerated for the study in 10 seconds.

Why radishes?

Rubins meticulously picked and wrapped each of the 20 radish plants in aluminum foil, placing them in cold storage for the trip back to Earth in 2021. As they grew inside the habitat, The radishes required little maintenance from the crew.

But why radishes? Because they are nutritious, grow quickly, and are genetically similar to Arabidopsis, a plant frequently studied in microgravity.

As explained Nicole Dufour, NASA APH program manager at Kennedy Space Center:

Radishes are a different type of crop compared to the leafy greens that astronauts previously grew on the space station, or the baby wheat that was the first crop grown on the APH. Growing a variety of crops helps us determine which plants thrive in microgravity and offer the best variety and nutritional balance for astronauts on long-duration missions.

Sophisticated control systems supply water, while control chambers and more than 180 sensors in the chamber allow researchers at NASA's Kennedy Space Center to monitor plant growth, as well as regulate levels of humidity, temperature and carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration.

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These are the first radishes to be grown on the International Space Station

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Sergio Parra

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Everyone is an influencer. And that's good and bad. It's bad because dumb ideas seem to spread just as easily as well-founded ideas.

For this reason, social networks have contributed toempower conspiracy theorists: anti-vaccines, anti-5G, those who think that the coronavirus does not exist or that it was created in a laboratory.

Avoid frustration

Talking to these types of people is frustrating, sometimes because they are very well informed, other times because they are very stubborn. Next, Tanya Basu, from MIT Technology Review, proposes ten strategies To do it most efficiently:

1. Treat others with respect. Although it can be considered a simple rhetorical trick (a trick to win the debate, not to get to the truth, because what matters are the ideas and data, not the persuasion to get them to nest in the other), without respect, compassion and empathy, our interlocutor will shut down and stop listening to our ideas, no matter how valid they may be. Sometimes, that is very difficult, of course, because it can also happen that in front of us there is a real nutcase.

2. Prevent others from attending the debate. Having an audience is the best way to influence people's behavior and the course of a conversation. Social networks tend to lead to the harsh exchange of invective and insults, precisely because there are millions of eyes potentially reading what is said. It is better to resolve these types of issues in private, perhaps through a Twitter DM, rather than through a tweet that leaves the conspiracy theorist at the mercy of ludibrio. Embarrassing someone in public is one of the worst formulas when it comes to reaching an agreement.

3. Don't waste time with lost cases. If the person in front of you categorically states that they will never change their mind, don't waste time and energy: you are unlikely to achieve anything useful. Sometimes people just want to give their opinion without being bothered because their opinion is actually a way of describing themselves to the world: it does not matter if that opinion is true or not, but if the opinion allows them to be part of a social club.
4. Show agreement on some points. People are not wrong about absolutely everything, there are surely parts of their argument that you agree with. Make them clear and reinforced to show that you are on the same side and thus generate an environment of trust. The adversarial format always tends to be very thorny.
5. Try the 'truth sandwich'. It uses the fact-fallacy-fact approach, a method first proposed by linguist George Lakoff. It involves stating what is true, debunking the conspiracy theory and re-stating what is true, says Donovan. For example, if you're talking to someone who believes in the 5G conspiracy theory, you could structure your argument like this: "Coronavirus is an airborne virus, meaning it is transmitted by sneezing or coughing; Because viruses are not transmitted via radio waves, the coronavirus, which is an airborne virus, cannot be carried by 5G. It's repetitive, but it reinforces the facts and points out where the conspiracy theory doesn't work.
6. Use the Socratic method. In other words, use questions to help others test their own argument and see if it holds up. Because the best way to change someone's mind is to make them feel like they've figured it out themselves.
7. Be careful with your loved ones. Before embarking on a debate with a family member or close friend, perhaps you should consider how harmful that idea is and whether it is worth confronting. Social relationships are preferable to winning depending on what debates. Sometimes you have to bite your tongue, be polite, or even think that everyone can hold their own. Imagine trying to convince your mother, devastated by the death of her husband, that Heaven does not exist when she uses that belief to combat her sadness.
8. There are ideas that are difficult to change.. All ideas that have to do in a deep way with worldview, morality, politics and others are very difficult to change because they are linked with other sets of ideas that support the entire personality and way of facing the world at a level. social. That means it won't be enough to simply show peer-reviewed studies or overwhelming logic. The other person may never change their mind. The world, after all, is more interesting if there is neurodiversity.
9. If it gets worse, quit.. All debate is like weather: a non-linear dynamic system. You have to be attentive to those storm clouds that lurk: if they grow, give up. That can mean both that the other person is starting to lose it and that you yourself are losing it because your demons are taking over. You simply have to know how to stop.
10. Every little bit helps. One conversation probably won't change a person's mind, and that's okay. People are not going to have profound changes in beliefs all at once. Sometimes you can change someone's perspective a little, like water eroding a rock. You won't debunk a conspiracy theory, but you will pave the way for someone in the future to do so.

In Xataka Science

Loss of local newspapers is fueling political polarization, study finds

Bonus track: above all, above all, avoid the ad hominem. It doesn't matter who the other person is, nor their studies, nor their culture, nor their ideology. What matters are the ideas. Let the ideas be the ones that confront each other, not the people; Respect the latter, be merciless as much as possible with the former; listen to the koala:

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Ten tips for talking to someone who believes in conspiracy theory

was originally published in

Xataka Science

by
Sergio Parra

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