The mRNA vaccine is in me. I like xkcd's explanation of how it works. Also "definitely feeling a little sore" is right. An ibuprofen helps.

More hang drums. Also Rav Vast drums, which I recently discovered and quite like the sound of as well.

36268 The fatality rate is in the very lower end of previous estimates, and the estimate of total infections seems very high.  Yes, I think that estimate for the IFR is too small. I am still confident it is between 0.5% and 1% (but decreasing thanks to preferential vaccination of the elderly and mo...

36262 Wat, could it be that similar structures are due to being acted on by the same forces?  Like gravity and/or the electromagnetic force?  Both are long range forces that decrease proportionately with distance squared. The closest I can think of are filaments of plasma in certain discharges, but...

36247 The universe's cosmological structure seems to resemble that of the human brain. FFT does a nice job explaining the problems of the cosmic web structure acting as a brain, so I like to focus on the idea of them appearing similar. Sometimes very different processes leads to structures that res...

Good advice.

36125 140?!  I didn't even know we had names for elements that high! Ah, sorry for using confusing terms. I should have said atomic mass, not 'atomic mass number'. The r-process in neutron star mergers is the dominant way for nuclei with masses greater than about 140 to be synthesized, which corres...

36117 Wow Wat how do you get bird in flight shots? Skagit Valley to the south of me is full of marshes and farmland which make for a bird-watchers' paradise. It's not hard to get good shots out there, and it's common to see a lot of other bird watchers as well, often with very impressive equipment....

36114 Wat, are some of the elements we call "artificial" able to exist for short periods of time when stars explode? Yes, absolutely, and kilonovae (when two neutron stars merge together) are best at both producing and ejecting these heavy elements (especially with atomic masses greater t...

Some nice bird watching today. In addition to the usual eagles, harriers, and herons, there were a pair of short-eared owls skimming about.

36081 Is this accurate?  I really like it and always wanted to see a periodic table like this! It may not be perfect, since our understanding of the different ways these elements are synthesized and dispersed through the cosmos continues to be updated, but it is about as accurate as it can be given...

36028 Wow that sounds dangerous, did you have to shelter in place, Wat?  4 inches per hour is something I wouldn't want to be caught outside in! It was fine. I was back in my car and starting to drive down before conditions got too bad. Of course, the biggest concerns would be getting caught outsid...

36026 But we haven't yet identified what dark matter or dark energy are yet, it could be that some modified theory of gravity is needed (or quantum gravity) Quantum gravity is almost certainly needed at some point, but probably not in order to explain the effects of dark matter or dark energy (for ...

Is Curry not likewise invested in a particular position? Does it matter? In science we should care most about the quality of the arguments and the evidence supporting them, not the motivations of the people making them. 36021 As Curry puts it: "Relying on global climate models, which don’t adeq...