Lightning Can Trigger Nuclear Reactions, Creating Rare Atomic Isotopes (sciencemag.org) 75
sciencehabit shares a report from Science Magazine: Rare forms of atoms, like carbon-13, carbon-14, and nitrogen-15, have long been used to figure out the ages of ancient artifacts and probe the nuances of prehistoric food chains. The source of these rare isotopes? Complicated cascades of subatomic reactions in the atmosphere triggered by high-energy cosmic rays from outer space. Now, a team of scientists is adding one more isotope initiator to its list: lightning. Strong bolts of lightning can unleash the same flurry of nuclear reactions as cosmic rays, the researchers report in Nature. But, they add, the isotopes created by these storms likely constitute a small portion of all such atoms -- so the new findings are unlikely to change the way other scientists use them for dating and geotracing.
Re: (Score:1)
Re:But can it create (Score:4, Insightful)
"It's really not that big of a deal, when you consider what happens in some parts of the world. Isis killed 300+ in a mosque in Egypt. These are fellow muslims. "
Fellow? Hardly. They were Sufis, apostates.
"They are subhuman animals."
You mean like Christians, who made war among themselves for hundreds of years because of some minor differences in interpretation of non-existent gods?
Re: (Score:2)
Heavy water is made by painstakingly separating it from ordinary water. Diluted it's completely natural.
Even concentrated D2O is nearly harmless. You would need to drink a gallon or more before it had significant toxicity.
Heavy water toxicity in humans [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:3)
Heavy water is made by painstakingly separating it from ordinary water. Diluted it's completely natural.
Even concentrated D2O is nearly harmless. You would need to drink a gallon or more before it had significant toxicity.
Ok, that makes no sense: according to homeopathy, the more you dilute it, the more powerful it is. So we should keep diluting heavy water until it spontaneously explodes... or something.
Re: (Score:2)
ShanghaiBill explained:
Heavy water is made by painstakingly separating it from ordinary water. Diluted it's completely natural.
Even concentrated D2O is nearly harmless. You would need to drink a gallon or more before it had significant toxicity.
Prompting cellocgw to respond:
Ok, that makes no sense: according to homeopathy, the more you dilute it, the more powerful it is. So we should keep diluting heavy water until it spontaneously explodes... or something.
Mod parent +1 Funny, please ... !
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Heavy water is not a product of a nuclear reaction. It's produced by filtering ordinary, natural water and extracting the D2O. The water is used to slow down neutrons in a reactor. In a PWR (almost all nukes) it's kept at a high pressure and does not boil out of the system. At some point the heavy water is replaced. At this time it will only have a slightly elevated level of tritium (Half life, only 12 years
Re: There is more salty water than air. (Score:4, Informative)
You don’t need to be a nuclear engineer to know all that - you only need to be somewhat technically literate.
I will quibble with part of your comment though. Nuclear reactors do not pollute the atmosphere during routine operation. There are circumstances where reactors have released (usually small amounts of) radioactive material into the air - these things are well-studied. Also, the potentially bigger environmental concern raised by some has been the affect of increased water temperature on fish and other aquatic life due to the release of cooling water into rivers and such. Regulation, combined with monitoring, helps ameliorate this.
including ANTIMATTER (Score:1)
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2154230-lightning-leaves-clouds-of-radiation-and-antimatter-in-its-wake/
before the creationists chime in.... (Score:1)
The accuracy of c-14 dating has already been firmly established (and calibrated) through the comparison of radiocarbon dates to dendrochronological (tree ring) sequences. So no, this casts no doubt on the accuracy of the technique.
Well of course, lightning produces 1.21 Jigawatts! (Score:3, Funny)
The Doc told me so.
If it's enough power to move through time, then there's enough power there to create new isotopes!
Re: (Score:2)
A typical lightning bolt lasts about 0.2 seconds and dissipates about a billion joules of energy. So 1.2 Jigawatts would be a small bolt.
There are about 20 million cloud-to-ground lightning strikes in America per year. At a billion joules each, averaged over a year, that would be about 6 GW (or JW) of power.
Re: (Score:2)
That puts the number of strikes about 2 orders of magnitude higher than you calculate.
Strikes in the world are about two orders of magnitude greater than strikes in America because the surface area of the world is about two orders of magnitude greater than the surface area of America.
Interesting (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
It's interesting to note these scientists have just introduced the discovery of a natural phenomenon that creates rare atomic isotopes previously associated with cosmic rays entering earth's atmosphere, and are at once certain " the isotopes created by these storms likely constitute a small portion of all such atoms."
Good point; how do they know these constitute a small proportion? Just because it has to be so, because reasons?
Re: (Score:3)
Because lightning storms don't have enough power to do this consistently at high rates elsewhere it'd be very apparent after every lightning storm that a bunch of these particles got created.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
You don't understand how science applies the principle of uniformitarianism. It's not an assumption. It's a testable hypothesis. Like if physics of the past worked the same as today, then we should see "X" in the evidence, otherwise we will see something different. Whether the experiment was conducted 5 minutes ago, 500 years ago, or 5 million years ago affects the practical aspects of doing the science, not the fundamental nature of how science is performed by making predictions and then going out and
Re:Interesting (Score:4, Informative)
More on lightning here:
http://www.aharfield.co.uk/lightning-protection-services/about-lightning [aharfield.co.uk]
and here:
https://www.treehugger.com/natural-sciences/where-world-does-lightning-strike-most.html [treehugger.com]
and here:
http://geology.com/articles/lightning-map.shtml [geology.com]
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Because the effect of cosmic rays on 14C production in the atmosphere has been directly measured [wiley.com], and while there is a measurable shortfall there, the production from lightning can't amount to very much or the amount being produced from cosmic rays would be far off the observed atmospheric concentration. There's also a good historical record of 14C concentration in the atmosphere thanks to tree rings, glacial ice cores, and corals going back thousands of years. Example [pnas.org]. Other than the mess made by 14C pr
Re: (Score:2)
I spilled a glass of water on the floor earlier today. I was "at once certain" that no one would drown in the resulting puddle.
If by "interesting" you mean "I have a general distrust of everything ever including science" then sure, let's go with that.
Re: (Score:2)
I spilled a glass of water on the floor earlier today.
I'm sorry for your loss, but hey, the bright side is it could've been single malt Scotch.
If by "interesting" you mean I have a general distrust of everything ever including science" then sure, let's go with that.
Or. If it seems "thou doth protest too much," and your defensive behavior maketh you seem suspicious, my skepticism may not be completely unwarranted.
Re: (Score:2)
and your defensive behavior maketh you seem suspicious
This behaviour isn't defensive. It is "normal".
By contrast your behaviour is religiously distrustful and aggressive. Maybe you should get a science degree so you can understand why your distrust is so incredibly misplaced.
No Comments? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
One of the few articles that are actually related to science. Not a clickbait headline... and there are no comments. I get that real science isn't "sexy" but it'd be nice to see a discussion about what this discovery could mean. What are the wild ideas for using lightning to create this isotope? What are the new possibilities? I imagine that we'll be able to generate them artificially, so what can be done with them? IANA Physicist but there used to be some here, and their comments were always welcomed and interesting.
Certainly and hopefully these discoveries will bring more funding for high energy physics labs. Hell we might even see a revival of a Tesla like super tower and in so doing discover many new things about how energy and matter interact. For one the plasma form of ball lightning is a fascinating manifestation of lightning that begs greater study, we know very little about what it can do to matter.
I very much look forward to seeing scientists having bad hair days again simply because they were too close to th
Re: (Score:3)
Not a clickbait headline... and there are no comments
Holidays season. People are with their families. The few people who don't seem to have any friends are posting both critiques and distrust of science in general on Slashdot, and a few odd jobs are posting political shit.
What about an experiment (Score:3)
With a bunch of Tritium and some lightning?
Re: (Score:2)
already known to happen with deuterium and tritium, thermonuclear reactions from lightning are cited in the footnotes of that paper.
Checkmate! (Score:2)
Re:Checkmate! (Score:5, Funny)
My money's on the nutcase who wants to use his self-made rocket to prove the earth is flat and Darwin's Survival of the Smartest, all in one shot.
Re: (Score:2)
if that nutcase suceeds with his rocket jump, he could get more chicks than a slasherdotter ever will. The horniest and most attractive more likely to pass on their genes....not the smartest.
Re: (Score:2)
he's repairing it so might get a launch somewhere either legal or before "the authorities" can stop him. whether he survives or kills/maims anyone remains to be seen, of course.
Lightning, Miller-Urey, and Life Itself (Score:1)
Already well known (Score:1)
So ... (Score:3)