For All Mankind season 1

Mar. 11th, 2026 12:30 pm
watervole: (Default)
[personal profile] watervole

 I've just finished the first season of 'For All Mankind'.  Enjoyed it, but I'm puzzled by the season finale.

 

How did Ed manage to get upto the Apollo module and down to the moon again?  And then up again!  

 

Surely there's no way salvaged fuel could power two lunar take-offs, let alone give the course correction for the Apollo module as well?

 

and the way lunar landers worked was for the base part to be left on the moon, in any case. 

Diabetes and iron deficiency....

Mar. 11th, 2026 10:12 am
watervole: (Default)
[personal profile] watervole

 Went to see the diabetes nurse today to sort out medication.

I forget how it came up, but apparently iron deficiency can lead to blood sugar readings that look exactly the same as diabetes...

 

So, now booked in for an iron test, just in case it isn't diabetes at all. 

 

Also, skinny people can sometimes get Type 2 diabetes, so I'm not even sure which kind of diabetes I have... But the treatment is the same either way in the early stages, so what the heck.

2026.03.11

Mar. 11th, 2026 06:56 am
lsanderson: (Default)
[personal profile] lsanderson
Wegovy users have five times greater risk of sudden sight loss than Ozempic users, study finds
‘Eye strokes’ that reduce blood flow to optic nerve likely to be side-effect of active ingredient semaglutide, says author
Anna Bawden Health and social affairs correspondent
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/mar/10/wegovy-sudden-sight-loss-ozempic-study-semaglutide

‘My lovely distraction’: live stream of kākāpō – world’s fattest parrot – and her chicks captivates New Zealand
More than 100,000 people have tuned in to watch ‘kākāpō cam’, which captures a rare flightless bird sleeping, tidying her nest and fighting off intruders
Eva Corlett in Wellington
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/11/kakapo-cam-live-stream-parrot-new-zealand Read more... )

(no subject)

Mar. 11th, 2026 04:44 am
[syndicated profile] apod_feed

Are lasers from giant telescopes being used to defend the Earth? Are lasers from giant telescopes being used to defend the Earth?


A Most Unusual Lake

Mar. 11th, 2026 04:01 am
[syndicated profile] earthobservatory_iod_feed

Posted by Michala Garrison

The image is centered on Anuchin and Ober-See glaciers in Antarctica. They appear as bright white patches separated by brown rocky ridges. Both glaciers have ice-covered meltwater lakes draining from their termini. Lake Unter-See is the larger of the two lakes.
February 16, 2026

Scientists estimate that Earth is home to more than 100 million lakes. Among the most unusual is Lake Unter-See, one of Antarctica’s largest and deepest surface lakes, known for its distinctive water chemistry. Its ice-covered waters have exceptionally high levels of dissolved oxygen, low dissolved carbon dioxide, and a strongly alkaline (basic) pH.

The OLI (Operational Land Imager) on Landsat 9 captured this image on February 16, 2026, during the Antarctic summer. Most of the lake’s water comes from seasonal meltwater draining from the margins of the nearby Anuchin Glacier, which flows south from the Gruber Mountains in Queen Maud Land.

With mean annual temperatures of about minus 10 degrees Celsius (14 degrees Fahrenheit), Lake Unter-See remains frozen year-round, its waters sealed beneath several meters of ice. Sunlight penetrates the ice and warms the water below, but the cold surface and strong winds drive evaporation and sublimation, preventing significant surface melting. The lake’s maximum depth is thought to reach nearly 170 meters (558 feet).

The lake’s water chemistry is unusual partly because it is one of the only perennially frozen lakes with a community of large, conical stromatolites. The layered microbial reef structures grow slowly upward as photosynthetic microbes—primarily cyanobacteria—trap sediment on their sticky surfaces and form calcium carbonate mineral crusts. These conical stromatolites—as well as pinnacle and flat forms of the microbial communities—release oxygen that becomes trapped under the ice, increasing its concentration in the lake.

Lake Unter-See’s stromatolites, discovered by SETI geobiologist Dale Andersen and colleagues in 2011, offer a glimpse into a time more than 3 billion years ago, when microbes were the only form of life on Earth. The formations are thought to be modern, living examples of the organisms that likely produced some of Earth’s oldest fossils—stromatolites found in places such as southwestern Greenland and western Australia.

The scientists noted that similar periodic flooding may provide "biological stimuli to other carbon dioxide-depleted Antarctic ecosystems and perhaps even icy lakes on early Mars.”

Some Antarctic lakes, such as Lake Joyce in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, contain conical stromatolites, but they reach only a few centimeters tall. By contrast, the formations in Lake Unter-See tower up to half a meter. Scientists think Unter-See’s stromatolites grow unusually tall because they are sheltered from tides and waves beneath permanent ice, live in exceptionally clear waters with little sediment, grow toward limited light, and face little grazing. The lake’s largest creatures are tardigrades—microscopic “water bear” invertebrates known for their ability to survive in extreme environments.

Astrobiologists also point to the lake as a possible analog for the type of environment where life might have formed or survived on icy moons with oceans such as Europa and Enceladus, or perhaps on Mars, which has ice caps and glaciers.  

Yet despite its seemingly stable conditions, Lake Unter-See occasionally experiences abrupt changes. During fieldwork in 2019, researchers observed an increase in the lake’s water levels. The team, led by scientists at the University of Ottawa, later analyzed elevation data from NASA’s ICESat-2 (Ice, Cloud, and Land Elevation Satellite-2) and confirmed a 2-meter rise was caused by a glacial lake outburst flood from nearby Lake Ober-See.

The University of Ottawa team also showed that the outburst flood had released 17.5 million cubic meters of meltwater, altering Unter-See’s pH and replenishing it with carbon dioxide-rich waters that likely enhanced the productivity of the lake’s microbial life. The scientists noted that similar periodic flooding may provide “biological stimuli to other carbon dioxide-depleted Antarctic ecosystems and perhaps even icy lakes on early Mars.”

NASA Earth Observatory image by Michala Garrison, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey. Story by Adam Voiland.

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Challenge 509: Plant

Mar. 11th, 2026 04:44 pm
china_shop: New Zealand painting of flax (NZ flax)
[personal profile] china_shop posting in [community profile] fan_flashworks
Our new challenge is:

PLANT



As always, you can interpret the prompt literally or figuratively, in whatever way works for you.

Each work created for this challenge should be posted as a new entry to the comm. Posting starts now and continues up until the challenge ends at 4pm Pacific Time on Friday, 20th March. No sign-up required.

Mods will tag your work for fandom. When you've posted entries to three consecutive challenges, you will earn a name tag, and we'll go back and tag all your previous entries with your name, as well.

All kinds of fanworks in all fandoms are welcome. Please have a look at our guidelines before you play. If you have any questions or concerns, don't hesitate to contact a mod. And if you have any suggestions for future challenges, you can leave them in the comments of this post.

You can view stats for [community profile] fan_flashworks entries and search and filter them via the Community Report and Creator Report. See our FAQ post for more details.

Also, keep an eye out for the next [community profile] ffw_social post, which will go up in the next couple of days. If you haven't joined the [community profile] ffw_social comm, it's never too late to come and check it out. (Posts are locked, which means you have to join to see them.)
lizvogel: Run and find out, with cute kitten. (Run and Find Out)
[personal profile] lizvogel posting in [community profile] little_details
Okay, I thought I knew science, but after several days of researching this, all I've got is indecision and a headache.

Original fiction, unspecified not-too-far-future time.

My character is the pilot of a small cargo ship in the asteroid belt. (No FTL, no artificial gravity.) Said ship has sufficient radiation shielding to be safe under normal conditions. My idea is that there's an unusually strong solar event (solar flare? coronal mass ejection?), and he has to survive by positioning his ship on the shadowed side of an asteroid (rocks are good shielding), and use his excellent piloting skills to stay there until the storm passes.

1. Does this, theoretically, actually work?

2. I'd like the solar event to be a Coronal Mass Ejection, because some CMEs move relatively slowly, and that gives my character time to make a narratively interesting choice. But is it the CME itself that's hazardous to human life, or a sort of "bow wave" of radiation that precedes it? And if the latter, is that radiation moving at the speed of the CME, or the speed of light? (I keep thinking I have a grasp on this, and then the next source I read contradicts it.)

Guidance appreciated, fellow space enthusiasts!

Daily Happiness

Mar. 10th, 2026 07:28 pm
torachan: ryu from kimi ni todoke eating ramen (ramen)
[personal profile] torachan
1. I fried up some frozen croquettes to go with the leftover curry tonight and they were so good. Nothing like a crispy croquette fresh from the frying oil!

2. I was worried that daylight savings might throw me off my morning schedule, since I did wake up an hour late on Sunday, but yesterday and today I've woken up at my usual time, despite it technically being an hour earlier now, so fingers crossed that it continues. I like the time I wake up now because it gives me plenty of time to take a long morning walk, do all my morning chores, and have breakfast without even feeling the least bit rushed about starting work, and I really don't want to have to be waking up with an alarm in order to do that.

3. The annoying lady at work who recently moved into my office and was at the desk next to mine messaged me Friday that she is leaving the company and Monday would be her last day and she was sorry she wouldn't see me to tell me in person. I don't like, hate her or anything, but she is just low level annoying, and as seen by her text, for some reason thinks that we are closer friends than we are, so I am glad that she will no longer be at the desk next to mine.

4. I haven't seen Tuxie around today, but hopefully he will come around tomorrow like nothing happened and lounge on his cardboard scratcher again.

This week on FilkCast

Mar. 10th, 2026 06:57 pm
ericcoleman: (Default)
[personal profile] ericcoleman posting in [community profile] filk
Chris Conway, Griff the Filker, Cynthia McQuillin, S. J. Tucker, Naomi Hinchen, Carol Ferraro, Barisha Letterman, Clif Flynt, Escape Key, Duras Sisters, Suzette Haden Elgin, Dave Clement, Alexander James Adams, John McDaid, Tim Griffin

Available on iTunes, Google Play and most other places you can get podcasts. We can be heard Wednesday at 6am and 9pm Central on scifi.radio.

filkcast.blogspot.com

compare, contrast, despise

Mar. 10th, 2026 02:44 pm
solarbird: (pointed)
[personal profile] solarbird

Have I played my part well in the farce of life?

— Augustus Caesar, first Emperor of Rome

as reported by Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus
in The Life of Augustus
originally published 121 C.E., Roman Empire

Did you love my performance in Venezuela?
My performance in Iran is better, isn’t it?

— Donald Trump, President of the United States

as reported by Jonathan Carl of ABC News
originally reported March 6, 2026 C.E., United States


Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.

impatient crash

Mar. 10th, 2026 12:26 pm
calimac: (Default)
[personal profile] calimac
Where the small access street to our development meets the main artery, there's a traffic light, and the exit direction of the small access street splits into two lanes.

Therein lies the rub, because the left lane of those two is a left-turn-only lane, clearly marked with an arrow on the pavement. That leaves the right lane, which has no markings, for both going forward and turning right.

I was in my car at the front of this lane, waiting at a red light, because I was going forward. Behind me was a U-Haul truck whose driver wanted to turn right. He thought I had to turn right too - which I could have done safely, had that been my intent - and got impatient. So - since there was nobody in the left lane - he decided to go around me.

At that moment the light turned green, and - not seeing this truck pulling this dangerous maneuver - I started to move forward. And he came around and clipped me, wrecking my left headlight cover and a bunch of other stuff. So, instead of saving 3 seconds, he wasted half an hour, because that's how long it took to settle things after we pulled over.

"Why didn't you go?" he asked me.

"The light was red," I replied.

"You could have turned right safely," he said.

"I wasn't turning right. I was going forward," I replied.

"Then you should have been in the other lane," he said.

"That's a dedicated left turn lane," I replied.

He then went over and looked at it, and what he thought after seeing the arrow on the pavement - which he could easily have seen when he was behind me - I don't know.

I got very angry with him and he responded by calling the police. The cops were bemused by what was a civil dispute, not a criminal matter, and mediated our exchange of information. One of the cops advised me not to get angry, with an implication that I did so as some kind of negotiating tactic. I said I expressed anger because I was angry. He said it wasn't a big deal, insurance will cover it.

Well, it won't. I have a large deductible, my insurance doesn't cover the cost of a rental car while mine is in the shop, and that doesn't count the nuisance and fuss of dealing with all this. My usual body shop has abruptly gone out of business, to my surprise, so I had to get the insurer to find another one on their approved list. I hope the insurer agrees that I wasn't responsible for this. That the other driver tried this tight going-around maneuver in a large truck is what seemed most to impress my insurance adjuster.

2026.03.10

Mar. 10th, 2026 10:40 am
lsanderson: (Default)
[personal profile] lsanderson
Can we expect to see more U.S. citizens denaturalized?
Immigrants with citizenship and other legal status worry about losing the protections they rely on to live in Minnesota.
by Nora Hertel
https://www.minnpost.com/greater-minnesota/2026/03/can-we-expect-to-see-more-u-s-citizens-denaturalized/

Ex-Missouri house speaker sentenced 21 months for misusing Covid relief funds
John Diehl admitted using federal pandemic loans for country club dues, cars and other personal expenses
Associated Press
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/10/covid-fraud-missouri-house-speaker-john-diehl Read more... )
bluedreaming: a MEOVV member in silhouette looking away towards the sun, with bat wings (**kpop - meovv toxic)
[personal profile] bluedreaming posting in [community profile] fan_flashworks
Fandom: Fanservice Paradox
Mods please use the f: book (category) tag
Rating: T
Length: 100 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: The title is from What I Said to Myself by Han Dong, translated by Simon Patton, and Anticipation, aimless, hopeless by Sanjin Sorel, translated by Kim Burton.
Summary: It’s better to go together.

Read more... )

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