September 11, 2020

To survive frigid nights, hummingbirds cool themselves to record-low temperatures

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/09/survive-frigid-nights-hummingbirds-cool-themselves-record-low-temperatures

High in the Andes, thousands of meters above sea level, speedy hummingbirds defy near-freezing temperatures. These tiny flyers endure the cold with a counterintuitive trick: They lower their body temperature—sometimes as much as 33°C—for hours at a time, new research suggests.

“It’s a capacity that’s just incredible,” says Anusha Shankar, a physiological ecologist at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, who was not involved with the study.

Among vertebrates, hummingbirds have the highest metabolism for their size. With a metabolic rate roughly 77 times that of an average human, they need to feed nearly continuously. But when it gets too cold or dark to forage, maintaining a normal body temperature is energetically draining. Instead, the small animals can cool their internal temperature by 10°C to 30°C. This slows their metabolism by as much as 95% and protects them from starvation, says Blair Wolf, a physiological ecologist at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque.

In this state, called torpor, a bird is motionless and unresponsive. “You wouldn’t even know it was alive if you picked it up,” Wolf says. But when the morning comes and it’s time to feed, he says, the birds quickly warm themselves back up again. “It’s like hibernation but regulated on an even tighter schedule.” [snip]

September 11, 2020

Dozens of scientific journals have vanished from the internet, and no one preserved them

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/09/dozens-scientific-journals-have-vanished-internet-and-no-one-preserved-them

By Jeffrey BrainardSep. 8, 2020 , 4:10 PM

Eighty-four online-only, open-access (OA) journals in the sciences, and nearly 100 more in the social sciences and humanities, have disappeared from the internet over the past 2 decades as publishers stopped maintaining them, potentially depriving scholars of useful research findings, a study has found.

An additional 900 journals published only online also may be at risk of vanishing because they are inactive, says a preprint posted on 3 September on the arXiv server. The number of OA journals tripled from 2009 to 2019, and on average the vanished titles operated for nearly 10 years before going dark, which “might imply that a large number … is yet to vanish,” the authors write. [snip]

September 9, 2020

Cross-posted

https://democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=14048562

September 9, 2020

Anybody follow this WSJ offering?

https://www.wsj.com/news/risk-compliance-journal


I ask because I noticed this story there surfin' around: https://www.wsj.com/articles/treasury-and-delaware-sign-pact-to-boost-sanctions-enforcement-11599476400

I know it's Joe's home state...and TPTB associated with the WH (referring directly re: Cabinet Sec. Mnuchin) are 50% into sanctions enforcement but also 50% into hiding the sunlight of their own treacheries, past and present, and saying one thing; doing another without sunscreen...so could the Fed still really be digging a certain "white rabbit hole" deeper??? or the State of Delaware really be trying a tightened general atmosphere?

I've also read an old "white paper" (2016-seems the most recent?) from an international financial group of "watchers?, evaluators? of world economies headquartered in Paris, France, that summaries the US efforts as pretty good, but does recommend tightening individual State's regulatory compliance, especially one like Delaware known for favorable business climate, for more timely paper trails.

https://www.fatf-gafi.org/media/fatf/documents/reports/mer4/MER-United-States-2016-Executive-Summary.pdf

September 6, 2020

Help - My bookmarks are a true mess...

Can I use some extension or other tool to alphabetize or catagorize my browser bookmarks?-

September 5, 2020

Introducing "The Breadbot" -

See the video at link.

https://www.krem.com/article/tech/breadbot-makes-debut-in-north-idaho/293-2daa6789-620f-4b76-adea-21b1c552fe03?fbclid=IwAR39qVyt5XnQRkSq_mNT5vjvTMwKxyZhaESHogrft8rZE8jEvpNBct5VKxY

snip...The devices, which measure ten feet by four-and-a-half feet, were designed specifically for grocery stores, according to the company. Wilkinson said that the Breadbot gives customers a fresher alternative to most brands of pre-sliced bread found on supermarket shelves.

"People can actually take bread home that is just out of the oven," he explained.

A description on the company's website states that the Breadbot "allows customers to know exactly where, when, and how, their bread was made."

The Breadbot is currently capable of producing 10 loaves an hour. Wilkinson said that the company is currently making two types of bread with more varieties in the works.

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LOL!