Hi. This is an #introduction. I'm Jack. I'm the science editor at CNET.com, a good website on the internet. I write science stories for a living. I like to call out bullshit science and science reporting.
I'm ready to jump ship from The Bad Bird Site.
You can find all my stuff here: https://www.cnet.com/profiles/jacksonryan/
@dctrjack Not really a theory or unexplained phenomenon, but I'm personally endlessly fascinated by Göbekli Tepe. A massive temple complex built 5000 years before agriculture was developed. It's an archeological find this century that has completely turned everything we once believed about the development of agriculture and religion and prehistoric human capability on it's head.
@dctrjack Folks generally have heard that the universe is expanding, and that the further you look the faster things are moving away. What’s generally under-appreciated is that there is a distance in the observable universe after which *space* is expanding faster than the speed of light. Galaxies beyond this horizon will fade away, as new light emitted today fails to ever catch up to us. The universe is ~13.7B years old, but the radius of the observable universe is 46B lightyears!
@dctrjack I have always been intrigued by the Critical Period Hypothesis in second language acquisition, which states the commonsensical-sounding idea that beyond puberty it’s much more difficult if not impossible to obtain native-like competency in a second language.
@dctrjack life (and/or intelligence) as a thermodynamic phenomenon, understood through information theory.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-new-thermodynamics-theory-of-the-origin-of-life-20140122/
@eqe @dctrjack Planet 9 could be a primordial black hole the size of a melon: https://www.science.org/content/article/planet-nine-may-actually-be-black-hole
@dctrjack I think the weirdest one that isn't talked about enough is warp field theory. From the early stages of the Alcubierre theory to the first creation of a real bubble: https://scifi.radio/2021/12/07/darpa-researchers-create-first-genuine-warp-bubble-by-accident/
@dctrjack I wouldn't mind seeing more work into the hypothesis that consciousness is just a fundamental part of Existence, like gravity and spacetime and all that
@dctrjack reducing the impact of climate change through large scale carbon capture via bioengineered algae
@dctrjack galaxies don't have enough matter in them to explain the gravity that MUST be there given how they rotate. There's ... Something Else ... going on to add more gravity. The leading contender is "dark matter" but every theory about dark matter has made failed predictions so far. So where's the extra gravity coming from???
My favorite theory I've seen published so far is that it's clouds of medium sized black holes. If so they'll show up as microlensing events and there are telescopes looking for these... And JWST should be really good at seeing such events.
I hope to see more such ridiculous theories until we figure out what's actually going on.
@dctrjack Recently read about a case of a man who died of a heart attack while undergoing brain imaging. https://www.livescience.com/first-ever-scan-of-dying-brain Apparently the brain images showed activity consistent with recall of old memories, like “life flashing before your eyes.” Would be interesting to know if that’s a real thing.
We're working away on explaining this amazing achievement @ CNET.
STARE INTO THE VOID — It's widely predicted we will see the Milky Way's #blackhole in about 5 hours time.
You can follow along live:
https://www.cnet.com/science/space/watch-live-astronomers-reveal-groundbreaking-result-of-milky-ways-black-hole/
NOT IDEAL — World Meteorological Organization says we've got a 50:50 chance of hitting 1.5 degrees of warming at least once before 2026...
The chance of exceeding 1.5 used to be almost zero (as recently as 2015). Now it's a coin flip. Think about that. #climatechange
All the data here:
https://hadleyserver.metoffice.gov.uk/wmolc/
In total, the #antarctica package at CNET this week featured 20,860 words across six stories.
I wrangled 1,394 photos of my own photos, hours of video, over 56 interviews and filled two notebooks.
Wild!
This is the final story in my #antarctica series (for now) and it's a doozy. It's about aliens in the Antarctic.
It's not some ąŋƈıɛŋɬ ąƖıɛŋʂ under the ice type affair though. It's about the very real threat introducing non-native species to the continent poses. As the world warms, more pathways are opening up to bring in plants and animals that could disrupt the Antarctic ecosystem.
Science Editor @ CNET.
Award-losing journalist. Party pooper.
Absolutely brain-wormed by Twitter.