A bittersweet farewell to a social media manager that took what I started to the next level. Thanks for all you did @mjallende. Good news is the position is open for someone to join an amazing communications team where innovation is encouraged and the sky's the limit.
A bit of Friday news: After 11 years, my time leading WSDOT social media comes to an end next Friday. I'll have more on that next week - it's gonna be tough to say goodbye! The good news: A FANTASTIC team is still here to bring you engaging content! (1/4)
NEW @ConsumerReports study offers a rare look into the scope of Meta’s surveillance.
It goes way beyond what most may expect—Meta can know many of the websites you visit and even what you’re doing IRL.
https://t.co/yfVQrwtBUT
Iceland finally cracked open to unleash torrents of lava. While tourists have flocked to to see past eruptions, officials are warning this new eruption is not “tourist-friendly” and seems to be significantly larger than the Fagradalsfjall in 2021
Here’s what to know🧵
As we keep looking for ways to improve our website, we'd love to have you participate in a usability study. Do 6 tasks & answer a few questions. Should take less than 20 mins & at the end you can enter to win 1 in 10 $100 gift cards. https://t.co/EDFGJEVkte
First claimed successful replication of LK-99
Accomplished by a team at the Huazhong University of Science and Technology and posted 30 minutes ago.
Why this is evidence:
The LK-99 flake slightly levitates for both orientations of the magnetic field, meaning it is not simply a magnetized piece of iron or similar 'magnetic material'. A simple magnetic flake would be attracted to one polarity of the strong magnet, and repelled by the other. A diamagnet would be repelled under either orientation, since it resists and expels all fields regardless of the polarity.
Caveats
There is no way to verify the orientation of the strong magnet in this video, also, there are yet to be published experimental measured values of this sample. Diamagnetism is a property of superconductors but without measured and verified data, this is just suggestive of a result.
Take-away
If this synthesis was indeed successful, then this material is easy enough to be made by labs other than the original research team. I would watch carefully for results out of Argonne National Lab, who are reported to be working on their own synthesis of a sample.
This overall corroborates two independent simulation studies that investigated the original Korean authors claim about material and crystal structure, and both studies supported the claims.
Lawrence Berkeley National Lab: https://t.co/1Blls3VcgL
Shenyang National Lab: https://t.co/I0NHAP3KsR
The attached video shows a small flake of their sample responding to an external magnetic field. I scroll through the video to skip to the relevant part.
original video credit to: @altryne
Ted Lasso came along at a time when we needed it most.
As the late great Jim Valvano said, we need to laugh, think & cry every day. The show did that in each episode.
The ending was perfect. Except for it being the end.
Believe. Always.
Barbecue Sauce.