from the we-are-stardust,-we-are-golden-♫♪♩♬ dept.
Scientists are using computer models to answer what many believe is one of science's most puzzling questions: How did heavy metals like gold get to Earth?
There are two candidates, neither of which are located on Earth—a supernova, a massive star that, in its old age, collapsed and then catastrophically exploded under its own weight—or a neutron-star merger, in which two of these small yet incredibly massive stars come together and spew out huge amounts of stellar debris.
In a recently published paper in the journal Physical Review Letters , researchers detail how they are getting close to an answer.
"At this time, no one knows the answer," says Witold Nazarewicz, professor of physics at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams at Michigan State University. "But this work will help guide future experiments and theoretical developments."
From the paper, "Impact of Nuclear Mass Uncertainties on the r Process."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 01 2016, @04:26AM
Scrolling banner, check.
Tacky background image, check.
Under construction icon, check.
Throw in a <blink> tag and you'd have my Geocities page from back in the day.
(Score: 3, Funny) by takyon on Friday April 01 2016, @04:31AM
Earth's gold was in our nostalgia all along.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Friday April 01 2016, @05:17AM
Someone said that SoylentNews has been redesigned. In my browser it looks the same except that the link from the upper left corner to the main page, has disappeared. Is there any chance that it can be re-added? I found it more convenient than the link in the middle left under "Sections" and more convenient than editing the URL in the address bar.
(Score: 2) by rts008 on Friday April 01 2016, @01:17PM
I don't know if this helps your search for the missing link, or not:
In my browser, the link in question is now animated- zooming across the top of the page from right to left.
(Score: 1) by butthurt on Friday April 01 2016, @01:37PM
I tried viewing the site in a different browser and it works just as you describe. So that's all right then.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 01 2016, @06:30AM
I love it. Can we keep this design forever?
(Score: 2) by looorg on Friday April 01 2016, @08:05AM
I'm going to get eye-cancer from all this blinking and shit. This is anything should show that nostalgia for ye' olden days is just bullshit. What a long way design wise we have come in a couple of decades.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Friday April 01 2016, @08:42AM
Did you check the source (or viewed the site with an old browser) that there's really no blink tag? Because modern browsers don't honour it.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 01 2016, @05:19AM
aliens.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday April 01 2016, @05:28AM
Aliens are very rarely sated, but if you feed them enough humans . . . Do you know that there are dead brown dwarf stars that are composed entirely of crystalized carbon, but we earthlings might call, diamond? Just think if we could get close enough to a supernova to collect the astrophysical quantities of gold pouring out of it at super mega kelvins! Too hot to touch! To hot to look at! Too hot to, . . . where did all the humans go? Stardust to stardust, ashes to ashes. Could I interest you in a piece of selling Faceboot to a Billion Indians? Numbers almost as good, logistics slightly more probable.
(Score: 2) by rts008 on Friday April 01 2016, @03:12PM
Too much! Can't take much more!
*non-existing bad Scottish accent* I'm breaking up, Captain... :-)
OMG Alien Ponies!!!! front page...check
too much coffee...check
previously, TFA: "Study Says People Who Continuelly Point Out Typos Are Jerks"...check
hilarious typo's in Parent comment headline...check
your reply...che > system overload!!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 01 2016, @05:48AM
Satan put the gold in the ground while he was burring dinosaur bones to test our faith.
Hence the phrase: "Money is the root of all evil."
(Score: 2) by NoMaster on Friday April 01 2016, @06:05AM
He tests faith because that sort of believer's reading comprehension suits him just fine. Assuming, of course, they've ever actually read the relevant bit [biblehub.com]...
Live free or fuck off and take your naïve Libertarian fantasies with you...
(Score: 3, Funny) by looorg on Friday April 01 2016, @08:03AM
I'm going with Space Pirates burying their booty here long long ago (in a galaxy far far away) but then they lost the treasure map and couldn't find their way back.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 01 2016, @05:41PM
Actually, if I'm not mistaken, it was a gang of leprechauns.
(Score: 3, Funny) by maxwell demon on Friday April 01 2016, @08:39AM
It was produced by early alchemists. The reason why later alchemists were unable to repeat it was that the early alchemists had used up all the philosopher's stone.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday April 01 2016, @01:06PM
There's another explanation: the Midas touch.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday April 01 2016, @11:52AM
I resisted the urge to spoil the surprise, thinking, "Surely, Soylentils know the answer to this one!" Alas: Leprechauns.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Informative) by maxwell demon on Friday April 01 2016, @12:13PM
No, the leprechauns only hid it below the ground.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.