Thursday Things: How Big, How Blue Edition
10 February 2021. Vol 3 No 6 By Dan McGirt. #79
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Blue sky above! Photo by Àlex Rodriguez on Unsplash
What’s new in blue? Meet YInMn, the First New Blue Pigment in Two Centuries. I’m pretty sure I read about this new blue pigment several years ago when it was discovered. What is new now is that it has finally been approved for commercial use.
And now, for the first time in two centuries, a new chemically-made pigment of the celebrated color is available for artists — YInMn Blue. It’s named after its components — Yttrium, Indium, and Manganese — and its luminous, vivid pigment never fades, even if mixed with oil and water.
Like all good discoveries, the new inorganic pigment was identified by coincidence. A team of chemists at Oregon State University (OSU), led by Mas Subramanian, was experimenting with rare earth elements while developing materials for use in electronics in 2009 when the pigment was accidentally created.
A new kind of blue! Source: Oregon State University
Rats love driving tiny cars, even when they don’t get treats. Who doesn’t love driving tiny cars? Scientists built tiny cars and taught rats how to drive them, using the usual food rewards. But eventually for some of the rats driving was its own reward:
Rats that learn to drive are more able to cope with stress. That might sound like the fever-dream of a former scientist-turned-car writer, but it's actually one of the results of a new study from the University of Richmond. The aim of the research was to see what effect the environment a rat was raised in had on its ability to learn new tasks.
The subjects were 11 male rats, five of whom lived together in a large cage with multiple surface levels and objects to play with, and six who lived together in pairs in standard laboratory rat cages. Although both groups of rats learned to drive the car, the ones that lived in the enriched environment were quicker to start driving, and they continued to be more interested in driving even when there was no reward on offer beyond the thrill of the wind in one's fur.
Click through to the article for cute pictures of rats driving tiny cars!
Meanwhile, other scientists are opening portals to other dimensions. Scientists Are Pretty Sure They Found a Portal to the Fifth Dimension
In a new study, scientists say they can explain dark matter by positing a particle that links to a fifth dimension.
Oh, good, they’re only “positing” a portal, not actually opening it.
The new study seeks to explain the presence of dark matter using a WED [“warped extra dimension”] model. The scientists studied fermion masses, which they believe could be communicated into the fifth dimension through portals, creating dark matter relics and “fermionic dark matter” within the fifth dimension.
This sounds entirely plausible to me! Read the full article in Popular Mechanics or go to the scientific article “A warped scalar portal to fermionic dark matter” for the full scientific details:
We argue that extensions of the SM with a warped extra dimension, together with a new Z2Z2-odd scalar singlet, provide a natural explanation not only for the hierarchy problem but also for the nature of fermion bulk masses and the observed dark matter relic abundance. In particular, the Kaluza-Klein excitations of the new scalar particle, which is required to naturally obtain fermion bulk masses through Yukawa-like interactions, can be the leading portal to any fermion propagating into the bulk of the extra dimension and playing the role of dark matter.
Couldn’t have said it better myself. Really.
Some things never change. Ancient soldier's payslip, found during excavation of 1,900-year-old Roman Empire camp in Israel, reveals the infantryman was left BROKE after military deducted his uniform and food
Gaius Messius was a Roman soldier in the time of the emperor Vespasian. He likely served in the siege of Masada, about 1,900 years ago. His payslip was uncovered by archaeologists excavating the site of a Roman military camp of the era.
‘I received my stipendium of 50 denarii, out of which I have paid barley money 16 denarii. […]rnius: food expenses 20(?) denarii; boots 5 denarii; leather strappings 2 denarii; linen tunic 7 denarii.’
The total deductions of 50 denarri equal poor Messius’ whole pay!
‘It is interesting to observe how much of his pay went to mandatory expenses: clothing, food, etc. He seems effectively penniless after payday,’ reads the notes left by the team involved with the database.
Never mind fifth dimension fermions — expenses alone can turn your money into dark matter.
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