Weekly Science And Technology Reports - December 11 2022

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Good day everyone, hope we've all been doing great ?

For me, not really. This past week has been kinda chaotic and it was mainly due to unforeseen circumstances, which if not handled carefully could have led to costly mistakes. I could have missed posting today or even forever. I mean, how do you plan ahead of something you never thought and expected to happen. You see brethren, one distinction between we and the lower animals is that we pay attention to our actions, a supposed costly mistake can mess up with our minds if we aren't careful, this in turn can make us make more costlier mistakes. They (lower animals) on the other hand "seem" not to give a damn, they seem to rely only on natural instincts. With these, we can safely say that it ain't easy being human and i wouldn't advice our fellow brothers and sisters in the animal kingdom to envy us, this is if they do actually envy us. 😎
Since we are unable to escape such disastrous encounter - as we are not omniscient, I hope we have the right wisdom to escape it's shackles. If on the other hand you lack the wisdom, you can ask somebody - it will make you even more wiser.

Ook... Away from the philosophy of life and back to the philosophy of science and technology, below are some of the interesting reports you may have missed in the past week.

‘Great scientific step forward’: Construction of world’s largest radio observatory is finally under way

Did you know that the earliest prediction of Einstein's theory of general relativity was confirmed partly in Africa, can you guess this prediction ?
The answer is ..... Find out for yourself. However, this was possible thanks to a "terrestrial optical telescope". There are different kinds of telescope, for example, in terms of position, we have the space telescope and the terrestrial telescope. The former is normally located outside of our planet or in outer space (like the James Webb telescope) while the latter is located at the surface of our planet. These telescopes are usually connected to a special kind of lab, either through cables or electromagnetic waves, this lab is called an "observatory"- this is where scientists/astronomers carry out their observations/test astronomical theories.
In terms of function, we have the optical telescope, radio telescope and others. Originally, astronomers usually used optical telescopes which relied heavily on visible light but there are astronomical objects whose presence and activities cannot be detected because they don't emit visible light, they emit other kinds of electromagnetic waves like radio waves. Did you know that the CMB (cosmic microwave background) radiation which is an evidence of the big bang theory was detected in the radio wave spectrum. In cases like this is where the radio telescopes comes in and it's lab is called the "radio observatory". In this report however, scientists have began the construction of what could be considered the world's largest radio observatory and it's a combination of giant "terrestrial" radio telescopes that would be constructed in South Africa and Australia. Do you wish to know what they intend to use this very large telescope for and more, then read here.

A “QUANTUM BRAIN” COULD SOLVE THE HARD PROBLEM OF CONSCIOUSNESS, NEW RESEARCH SUGGESTS

When we hear the word "consciousness", the first thing that comes to our mind is us (we humans) but what about animals or intelligent machines ?
From the animal perspective, there's no much difference between their fundamental biological make up and ours. In fact, if you pay very close attention, you would observe some puzzles and these puzzles have eluded the best of minds in science and philosophy since it was first pointed out. Today, these puzzles are referred to as the "hard problems of consciousness", what then are these puzzles ?

• Why do we (humans) have this awareness that we are conscious ?
• How does this consciousness arise from our physical/biological make up ?

In the kingdom Mammalia, every animal, including us possesses a brain, the only obvious difference being the size but for we humans, how does the physical processes in our brain give rise to what we perceive as consciousness ?
One may be tempted to bring in intelligence but we have intelligent machines and they don't seem to display consciousness. Even to this day, science still doesn't know the specific parts of our brain responsible for consciousness. However, if you still look deeper into these puzzles, another one arises which is more fundamental and it's, what really is consciousness ? - nobody knows for sure. Also, we have quantum mechanics - the theory of the atomic/subatomic world, another mysterious aspect of our reality. As a matter of fact, these two puzzling phenomena (consciousness and quantum mechanics) seems to have a common ground, especially when we deal with the interpretations of quantum mechanics, this common ground is still..... consciousness. Some believe that having a complete understanding of quantum mechanics could help in also understanding consciousness. In other words, there are theories that suggests consciousness may arise from quantum mechanics and in this recent report, researchers seemed to have found something quantum mechanical about our brain - the supposed seat of consciousness. Do you wish to know what they found and more ?
Read more to find out.

Maybe we don't see aliens because they're waiting to hear a signal from us first

We should by now be aware that we exist in a very vast universe, almost beyond imagination. In our universe, there are over a million galaxies, in each galaxy are billions of stars, some with their own planets like our sun (solar system) but somehow it happens that life appears to exist only at a point in just one particular galaxy - our galaxy. Have you ever wondered the possibility of other life forms existing beyond our solar system ?
In fact, there are exoplanets in our galaxy that look habitable and some even older than our planet. If we assumed life did actually exist in those planets, especially the ones older than ours, shouldn't their civilization be more advanced than us ?
But unfortunately, we are yet to see signs of these advanced civilization or signs of life. This apparent contradiction has led to what is today called the "Fermi paradox". According to this paradox, where did everybody (other life forms) go ?
In other words, why are we yet to come across life beyond our planet. There have been different proposals to solve this paradox and in this recent report, there seems to be a newer one. It is suggested that they do exist but too busy to make themselves known to us, probably because they think every other planets may have life but the life forms aren't intelligent. Would you waste your time and resources trying to meet and communicate with some groups of bacteria in another planet ?
This research seems to be proposing a way out (to make them reveal themselves) and it's that....Read More

Study Shows Brains With More Vitamin D Function Better

Did you know that superman..... wait a minute, i think i may have said what I'm about to say before. When and where was that ? 🤔

Ooh, i remember now, in my previous report. In that same report we presented a research about how very important vitamin D is, especially it's link with longevity. Here again, it's another report on vitamin D but this time around it can make you have a super mind - just kidding. It's actually related to the brain, especially improving cognitive functions, read here to find out more.

Can machines invent things without human help? These AI examples show the answer is 'yes'

Did you know that we aren't the only ones that can invent things, machines (computer) too can. It is popularly believed that machines (computer) does what we only tell them to do but the truth is that machines can also be trained to do what we didn't tell them to do.
For some time now, machines have been inventing things .... wait, what ? 😨
Yes, some products in use have been invented by machines but when it's time to file for a patent application - a legal guarantee that you are indeed the inventor, it is normally rejected and it's because we still think/believe that we are the only ones that can invent things, this could explain why most of us aren't aware of this kind of information. In this report however, some researchers highlights some products that was and still being used that were invented by machines. Do you wish to know these products and more ?
Then, read more

It is here we conclude today's report, have a thoughtful day and till i come your way again next week.

Thank you all once again for stopping by to read my jargons and also thank you @stemng, @lemouth and the @Steemstem team for your valuable supports.

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