Various bits of stuff 'n things

On the science front, SciNews reports that physicists from the STAR Collaboration have observed the antimatter hypernucleus antihyperhydrogen-4 — composed of an antihyperon, an antiproton and two antineutrons — in collisions of atomic nuclei at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory. Detecting this unstable antihypernucleus is a rare event. It required all four components — one antiproton, two antineutrons, and one antilambda — to be emitted from the quark-gluon soup generated in RHIC collisions in just the right place, headed in the same direction, and at the right time to clump together into a temporarily bound state.

Antihyperhydrogen-4 pops out after 2 gold nuclei 
collided and exploded into subatomic fiddly bits

The shock and awe among the peanut gallery crowd was palpable as these comments indicate:
Peanut 1: I have no idea what any of this means.
Peanut 2: But the words are all cool, right?
Peanut 3: Basically it means we've finally found aliens.
Peanut 4: Yes, we're within striking distance of a warp core** that will take us into a communal, post-scarcity future with great healthcare. Get this to the warp core!
Peanut 5: Fixing healthcare requires antimatter.
Peanut 6: We could all piss antimatter out our asses and healthcare will remain broken.
Peanut 7: I sure as heck wouldn’t want to see the bill after going to the ER with antimatter piss.
Peanut 8: All that anti, I love it. So cool.
Peanut 9: Definitely anti hyper-cool.
Peanut 10: One of my methods for personal amusement whenever I'm in the presence of some know-it-all person blabbering on and dominating a conversation is to memorize headlines like this, and interrupt them to ask "Did you read where....?" Their immediate stare like a deer in headlights creates the perfect pause to say I'm going to get a drink and just walk away.

** That comment probably was an oblique reference to another SciNews article, Warp Drive Collapse Should Generate Gravitational Waves, Theoretical Astrophysicists Claim. The principle idea behind a warp drive is that instead of exceeding the speed of light directly in a local reference frame, a ‘warp bubble’ could traverse distances faster than the speed of light — as measured by some distant observer — by contracting spacetime in front of it and expanding spacetime behind it.


Peanut 1: I have no idea what any of this means.
Peanut 2: Etc.
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From the good guy with a gun files: Yesterday, NPR broadcast a heart-warming story of an armed good guy thwarting the evil intentions of a bad guy with a gun. Somewhere in USAlandia, I forget where, a bad guy was holding up a convenience store, demanding cash and two pickled eggs from the big glass jar on the counter. As the shop owner was fumbling around getting the cash and eggs, his 10 year old daughter walked behind the counter beside her dad. She picked up a baseball bat that was always there and walked out and faced the bad guy. He turned to see what was happening with a pipsqueak girl holding a stick. The girl then got in batting position and swung as hard as she could, hitting the bad guy in squarely the nuts. Shortly thereafter, the policed arrived and escorted the bad guy,  still writhing on the floor in pain, to the local slammer.

One commentator commented: Wow! That's probably the first time in the entire history of baseball that hitting two balls was considered a home run!
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In other exciting news, 5-Year-Old Kid Hits 194 MPH in Lamborghini Revuelto, Celebrates With Smokey Donuts. Meet Zayn Sofuoglu, a 5-year-old kid who just hit a higher top speed than most of us in a dream machine: a brand-new Lamborghini Revuelto. Does that name sound familiar? Well, it's because you probably saw him do donuts in a Ferrari SF90 two years ago when he was just three years old. For his latest adventure, the kid jumped inside a Lamborghini Revuelto and hit a dizzying top speed on a closed course.

A smokey donut is on the right, the baby is
left and center


The BBC reports another heart warming story: Dad hacks database to fake his own death to avoid paying child support. The dad was rewarded with an 81 month (6 years, 9 months) stay in the local slammer for faking his own death.

Busted!

The Telegraph reports about the ongoing aftermath of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan: Taliban sacks hundreds of men because they can’t grow beards -- Militant group has also destroyed thousands of musical instruments in Afghanistan over the past year in campaign to enforce Sharia law.

Another recent report is that the Taliban now require women in public to be fully covered and to disguise their voices by some unspecified means.



Ah, one can feel the return of the good 'ole religion-fueled Dark Ages. 

The Taliban has prohibited barbers in several provinces 
in Afghanistan from shaving or trimming beards
(note that some of the barbers are heavily armed)


The Dark Ages, what great fun!

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