Latest news with #LuisAlvarez
Yahoo
a day ago
- Science
- Yahoo
12 Shocking Historical Discoveries That Started As Myths Or Theories And Ended Up Completely Changing What We Thought We Knew
we all know that an asteroid killed/started the extinction of the dinosaurs. The theory was first proposed in 1980 by Nobel prize laureate physicist Luis Alvarez and his geologist son Walter. They suggested that a massive asteroid impact about 66 million years ago caused sudden climate changes that wiped out most dinosaur species. Evidence for this came from a worldwide layer of iridium, a rare metal often found in asteroids. This theory was not widely embraced by the scientific community. However, in the early 1990s, scientists confirmed the theory when they discovered the Chicxulub crater in Mexico, which matched the timing of the extinction. Above is a photo of Luis and Walter Alvarez with a sample of the iridium layer deposit in 1985. Terracotta Army were only discovered a little over 50 years ago! In 1974, farmers were digging a well near Xi'an, China, when they dug up fragments of human-sized clay figures. The life-sized statues had been buried for over 2,000 years, guarding the tomb of China's first emperor, Qin Shi Huang. Historical records mentioned the emperor's tomb, but there was no known record of the vast army itself. The discovery revealed thousands of soldiers, horses, and chariots, each with unique details. The Terracotta Warriors are just part of a much larger tomb complex that spans across a 22-square-mile area. centuries, many scientists dismissed the idea that rocks could just fall from the sky, despite the fact that documentation of the phenomenon went back further than the Romans. That changed in 1803, when thousands of meteorite fragments fell near the town of L'Aigle in Normandy, France. The event was carefully studied by French scientist Jean-Baptiste Biot, who confirmed they were from space. His report convinced the scientific community that meteorites were real. From then on, meteorites were accepted as a natural phenomenon. a long time, explorers and Western scientists believed gorillas were just a myth or a legend (like Bigfoot). Stories from local African tribes mentioned large, ape-like creatures with super strength, but there was no evidence. In 1847, American missionary Thomas Savage and anatomist Jeffries Wyman traveled to Africa, where they discovered a large skull that fit no other known primate. They named the discovery "gorilla." This discovery confirmed that gorillas were real animals. But it wasn't until 1902 that Captain Robert von Beringe hunted down two gorillas and brought them back as proof. was rediscovered in the 1700s, but the discovery was linked to the nearby city of Herculaneum, which was also buried by the same eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. It started in 1709, when a worker digging a well in Herculaneum discovered the first pieces of artifacts. But it wasn't until 1738, when the Neapolitan King Charles VII sent a team to Herculaneum to unearth more artifacts for him to decorate his palace with, that a discovery of the buried city was made. This find sparked interest in the other ancient cities that might be buried under volcanic ash. A few years later, in 1748, Roque Joaquín de Alcubierre, who led the excavation of Herculaneum, began the excavation of Pompeii. Wegener first proposed the idea of a supercontinent called Pangea in 1912. He suggested that all the continents were once joined together and later drifted apart. However, many scientists didn't accept this idea at the time because Wegener couldn't explain how the continents moved. It wasn't until the 1950s and 1960s that new evidence from ocean floor studies and plate tectonics came to light. This confirmed that Pangea and continental drift were real parts of Earth's history, and the theory gained wide acceptance. 1908, the Tunguska event happened. Which, in case you don't know, was a huge explosion that flattened about 800 square miles of forest in Siberia near the Tunguska River. It was so large that shock waves were recorded in Western Europe. At first, people only knew something had happened, but they had no idea what because it happened in such a remote area with few witnesses. Investigations finally began in the 1920s, when scientists visited the site to study the damage. They confirmed the explosion was real and likely caused by a meteor or comet exploding in the atmosphere. you watched any movie made about the Titanic before 1985, they would get one important detail wrong! When the Titanic sank in 1912, several survivors reported seeing that the ship had broken in two before sinking, but many experts at the time and after dismissed this claim. So movies about it never portrayed that. For decades, the exact details of the disaster remained uncertain because the wreck had never been located. In 1985, a joint American-French expedition led by Robert Ballard finally discovered the Titanic's remains on the ocean floor. The wreck was found in two large sections, confirming what eyewitnesses had said more than 70 years earlier. As Ranker noted, one of the first times the ship was seen splitting in half in media was in the 1996 CBS mini-series, Titanic, starring a then-unknown Catherine Zeta-Jones. in the late 18th century and throughout the 19th century, there were stories and small artifacts discovered that suggested Vikings reached North America long before Columbus. Some historians believed them (based on things like how well the Vikings could navigate the seas), while others thought they were just legends or misidentified artifacts. The debate continued until the 1960s, when archaeologists discovered a Viking settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, Canada. The site contained Norse-style buildings, tools, and artifacts dating to around the year 1000. This confirmed that Vikings had explored and settled parts of North America centuries before Columbus's voyages. to its eruption in 1980, Mount St. Helens was, as the New York Times put it, "a relatively little known volcano 50 miles north of Portland, Ore." While that was likely true of the greater US, it was, of course, known to locals who lived there, Indigenous peoples who had lived in the area for centuries, and to volcanologists. It was the latter, who in a Feb. 1975 scientific report in the Journal Science (covered by the Times), warned that Mount St. Helens would have a violent eruption, "perhaps before the end of this century." In 1978, the USGS published a hazard assessment which put a violent eruption as "likely within the next 100 years" and, again, "perhaps even before the end of the century." Before the 1980 eruption, Mount St. Helens had not erupted violently since 1857. similar to gorillas, for a long time, people in the West thought giant pandas were mythical animals described in vague reports from China. Travelers and missionaries occasionally mentioned them, but without clear proof, many dismissed the stories. Even Chinese art rarely featured them. That all changed in 1869, when French missionary Armand David obtained a panda skin in Sichuan, China. This was the first physical evidence shown to Western science, confirming that giant pandas were real. The US would get its first panda in 1936, when a cub named Su Lin became the first panda to survive a trip outside of East Asia. He became an instant sensation and drew more than 300,000 visitors to see him at Chicago's Brookfield Zoo within his first six months. lastly, at some point in the future, we might discover a ninth planet in our solar system. For decades, scientists have suspected there might be a ninth planet far beyond Neptune, often called "Planet X" or "Planet Nine." This theory comes from observing unusual orbits of some distant objects in the Kuiper Belt, which seem to be pulled by the gravity of something large and unseen. In 2016, astronomers Konstantin Batygin and Mike Brown published evidence suggesting a planet about 5 to 10 times the mass of Earth could be causing these patterns. No one has directly seen Planet Nine yet, so its existence is still unconfirmed. However, the orbital data have convinced many astronomers that something big with a highly elongated path around the sun may be out there. The hypothesis that there might be a giant planet in our solar system dates back to 1915, when astronomer Percival Lowell considered it a logical reason to explain the orbit of Uranus. The search for Planet Nine is what led to the accidental discovery of Pluto in 1930. Solve the daily Crossword
Buzz Feed
a day ago
- Science
- Buzz Feed
12 Historical Discoveries That Rewrote History
Today, we all know that an asteroid killed/started the extinction of the dinosaurs. The theory was first proposed in 1980 by Nobel prize laureate physicist Luis Alvarez and his geologist son Walter. They suggested that a massive asteroid impact about 66 million years ago caused sudden climate changes that wiped out most dinosaur species. Evidence for this came from a worldwide layer of iridium, a rare metal often found in asteroids. This theory was not widely embraced by the scientific community. However, in the early 1990s, scientists confirmed the theory when they discovered the Chicxulub crater in Mexico, which matched the timing of the extinction. Above is a photo of Luis and Walter Alvarez with a sample of the iridium layer deposit in 1985. The Terracotta Army were only discovered a little over 50 years ago! In 1974, farmers were digging a well near Xi'an, China, when they dug up fragments of human-sized clay figures. The life-sized statues had been buried for over 2,000 years, guarding the tomb of China's first emperor, Qin Shi Huang. Historical records mentioned the emperor's tomb, but there was no known record of the vast army itself. The discovery revealed thousands of soldiers, horses, and chariots, each with unique details. The Terracotta Warriors are just part of a much larger tomb complex that spans across a 22-square-mile area. For centuries, many scientists dismissed the idea that rocks could just fall from the sky, despite the fact that documentation of the phenomenon went back further than the Romans. That changed in 1803, when thousands of meteorite fragments fell near the town of L'Aigle in Normandy, France. The event was carefully studied by French scientist Jean-Baptiste Biot, who confirmed they were from space. His report convinced the scientific community that meteorites were real. From then on, meteorites were accepted as a natural phenomenon. For a long time, explorers and Western scientists believed gorillas were just a myth or a legend (like Bigfoot). Stories from local African tribes mentioned large, ape-like creatures with super strength, but there was no evidence. In 1847, American missionary Thomas Savage and anatomist Jeffries Wyman traveled to Africa, where they discovered a large skull that fit no other known primate. They named the discovery "gorilla." This discovery confirmed that gorillas were real animals. But it wasn't until 1902 that Captain Robert von Beringe hunted down two gorillas and brought them back as proof. Pompeii was rediscovered in the 1700s, but the discovery was linked to the nearby city of Herculaneum, which was also buried by the same eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. It started in 1709, when a worker digging a well in Herculaneum discovered the first pieces of artifacts. But it wasn't until 1738, when the Neapolitan King Charles VII sent a team to Herculaneum to unearth more artifacts for him to decorate his palace with, that a discovery of the buried city was made. This find sparked interest in the other ancient cities that might be buried under volcanic ash. A few years later, in 1748, Roque Joaquín de Alcubierre, who led the excavation of Herculaneum, began the excavation of Pompeii. Alfred Wegener first proposed the idea of a supercontinent called Pangea in 1912. He suggested that all the continents were once joined together and later drifted apart. However, many scientists didn't accept this idea at the time because Wegener couldn't explain how the continents moved. It wasn't until the 1950s and 1960s that new evidence from ocean floor studies and plate tectonics came to light. This confirmed that Pangea and continental drift were real parts of Earth's history, and the theory gained wide acceptance. In 1908, the Tunguska event happened. Which, in case you don't know, was a huge explosion that flattened about 800 square miles of forest in Siberia near the Tunguska River. It was so large that shock waves were recorded in Western Europe. At first, people only knew something had happened, but they had no idea what because it happened in such a remote area with few witnesses. Investigations finally began in the 1920s, when scientists visited the site to study the damage. They confirmed the explosion was real and likely caused by a meteor or comet exploding in the atmosphere. If you watched any movie made about the Titanic before 1985, they would get one important detail wrong! When the Titanic sank in 1912, several survivors reported seeing that the ship had broken in two before sinking, but many experts at the time and after dismissed this claim. So movies about it never portrayed that. For decades, the exact details of the disaster remained uncertain because the wreck had never been located. In 1985, a joint American-French expedition led by Robert Ballard finally discovered the Titanic's remains on the ocean floor. The wreck was found in two large sections, confirming what eyewitnesses had said more than 70 years earlier. As Ranker noted, one of the first times the ship was seen splitting in half in media was in the 1996 CBS mini-series, Titanic, starring a then-unknown Catherine Zeta-Jones. Starting in the late 18th century and throughout the 19th century, there were stories and small artifacts discovered that suggested Vikings reached North America long before Columbus. Some historians believed them (based on things like how well the Vikings could navigate the seas), while others thought they were just legends or misidentified artifacts. The debate continued until the 1960s, when archaeologists discovered a Viking settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, Canada. The site contained Norse-style buildings, tools, and artifacts dating to around the year 1000. This confirmed that Vikings had explored and settled parts of North America centuries before Columbus's voyages. Prior to its eruption in 1980, Mount St. Helens was, as the New York Times put it, "a relatively little known volcano 50 miles north of Portland, Ore." While that was likely true of the greater US, it was, of course, known to locals who lived there, Indigenous peoples who had lived in the area for centuries, and to volcanologists. It was the latter, who in a Feb. 1975 scientific report in the Journal Science (covered by the Times), warned that Mount St. Helens would have a violent eruption, "perhaps before the end of this century." In 1978, the USGS published a hazard assessment which put a violent eruption as "likely within the next 100 years" and, again, "perhaps even before the end of the century." Before the 1980 eruption, Mount St. Helens had not erupted violently since 1857. Slightly similar to gorillas, for a long time, people in the West thought giant pandas were mythical animals described in vague reports from China. Travelers and missionaries occasionally mentioned them, but without clear proof, many dismissed the stories. Even Chinese art rarely featured them. That all changed in 1869, when French missionary Armand David obtained a panda skin in Sichuan, China. This was the first physical evidence shown to Western science, confirming that giant pandas were real. The US would get its first panda in 1936, when a cub named Su Lin became the first panda to survive a trip outside of East Asia. He became an instant sensation and drew more than 300,000 visitors to see him at Chicago's Brookfield Zoo within his first six months. And lastly, at some point in the future, we might discover a ninth planet in our solar system. For decades, scientists have suspected there might be a ninth planet far beyond Neptune, often called "Planet X" or "Planet Nine." This theory comes from observing unusual orbits of some distant objects in the Kuiper Belt, which seem to be pulled by the gravity of something large and unseen. In 2016, astronomers Konstantin Batygin and Mike Brown published evidence suggesting a planet about 5 to 10 times the mass of Earth could be causing these patterns. No one has directly seen Planet Nine yet, so its existence is still unconfirmed. However, the orbital data have convinced many astronomers that something big with a highly elongated path around the sun may be out there. The hypothesis that there might be a giant planet in our solar system dates back to 1915, when astronomer Percival Lowell considered it a logical reason to explain the orbit of Uranus. The search for Planet Nine is what led to the accidental discovery of Pluto in 1930.
Wall Street Journal
11-07-2025
- Science
- Wall Street Journal
‘Collisions' Review: The Explosive Mind of Luis Alvarez
We tend to think of the great scientists—physicists especially—as high, cold heroes of disembodied thought, existing in their own spheres and unconcerned with the petty matters of this world. Einstein is the very model of the absent-minded professor, with his shock of white hair and basset-hound eyes and gnomic utterances on the doings of God, with whom he seemed to be on intimate terms. And then there is Luis Alvarez (1911-88), whose range of interests, activities and achievements, as explored in Alec Nevala-Lee's 'Collisions: A Physicist's Journey From Hiroshima to the Death of the Dinosaurs,' is mind-boggling. Alvarez promoted the development of radar during World War II. He worked at Los Alamos on the building of the first atomic weapons and flew in a plane near Hiroshima to observe the effects of the detonation of the first bomb. He invented an X-ray method of searching for hidden chambers in the Pyramid of Khafre. He did important work on the construction of bigger and better particle accelerators. Oh, and he also put forward a counter-theory to the Warren Commission's verdict on the assassination of JFK. Enough, you say, surely enough. However, in the last decade of his life Alvarez joined with his geologist son, Walter Alvarez, to propound the notion that the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction, which saw off the dinosaurs, was caused by the collision between Earth and a very large meteorite. The theory, published in 1980 in a paper by the Alvarezes—co-authored with two nuclear chemists, Frank Asaro and Helen Michel—led to much controversy and many ill-tempered squabbles among geologists, some of whom were for it and many against. Then came the identification of an impact crater more than 100 miles wide on the Yucatán Peninsula, which settled the matter for all but a few unrelenting skeptics. Alvarez, who had a Spanish grandfather, was an all-American boy right down to his fingertips—in his early years he was known as Sonny. He was born in San Francisco, and at the age of 15 moved with his family to Minnesota, where his father, a successful physician, took a position as a researcher at the Mayo Clinic.
Wales Online
09-07-2025
- Wales Online
Five simple Wi-Fi tricks to get the best speed in your home - and they're all free
Five simple Wi-Fi tricks to get the best speed in your home - and they're all free Your router's position can have a massive impact on your broadband speed - so there's a few simple changes you can make to ensure you're not missing out on the fastest speeds There are some straightforward steps you can take to ensure your Wi-Fi keeps up (Image: Luis Alvarez via Getty Images ) Millions of UK households are now dependent on a reliable broadband connection for streaming, gaming and remote working. However, many are not receiving the download speeds they need or deserve. This can be a source of frustration, but there are some straightforward steps you can take to ensure your Wi-Fi keeps up with your daily digital demands. While your download speeds will be determined by your provider and how much you're willing to pay, the location of your router in your home can significantly impact those crucial speeds. A few simple adjustments could potentially enhance your tech service at no extra cost. If your internet connection feels as slow as molasses, here are some top tips for getting things back up to speed, reports the Express. Even better these tips are free to do and it can depend on where you keep your Wi-Fi router (Image: UK ) Relocate your router Article continues below If your downloads are disappointing, the first thing to do is assess the position of your router. If it's hidden away in a cupboard, tucked behind the television, or stashed under the stairs, it's time for some immediate changes. To achieve the best signal, ensure that the blinking black box is out in the open, centrally located and, if possible, elevated from the floor. It's also ill-advised to place it near devices, such as baby monitors or cordless phones, as these gadgets emit their own signals which can interfere with Wi-Fi and slow things down. Steer clear of windows It's advised to keep the router in an open space, but that doesn't mean it should be placed on a window sill. Being near glass is not a good idea. Firstly, some of the crucial signal emitted from the router will be directed outside rather than reflecting off walls and back into the room. Then there's the issue of sunlight. Like all technology, Wi-Fi routers really dislike getting hot, and if they overheat, things can slow down or shut down completely. If your router is on the window sill, we recommend relocating it as soon as possible. Microwaves are your Wi-Fi's nemesis Kitchens are a really poor place to have your router as they are filled with metal objects that can seriously interfere with the signal. If you have a microwave constantly preparing your evening meal then this can seriously disrupt speeds. These popular appliances actually use the same 2.4 Ghz frequency as Wi-Fi routers. This means things can clash, disrupt and even shut down your internet connection. Beware of pets Your cat or dog probably won't affect your downloads but if you have fish in the careful. Wi-Fi really, really dislikes water, and if your router is by a large tank of water, it could be the reason your streaming is faltering. Ensure things are kept clear of any aquatic life and you might find things get an instant speed boost. Give it a reboot, but don't leave it off A simple reboot of your Wi-Fi router can often do the trick. The age-old method of turning it off and on again can indeed resolve problems, eliminate glitches, and restore speed. Most internet service providers suggest switching off the router, pausing for a minute, then powering it back up. If your router is playing up then try rebooting it (Image: Getty ) Article continues below Bear in mind that a full reboot may take up to 5 minutes to complete, so avoid hitting the power button if you're about to hop onto a work Zoom call. Whilst a restart can be beneficial, it's not advised to switch off the router overnight as it could miss crucial updates. Continually powering down and restarting can also signal to the ISP that there's a problem with the line, potentially leading to emergency speed restrictions being implemented and actually slowing things down.
Yahoo
05-07-2025
- Yahoo
Good samaritan who helped 9-year-old after shark attack now detained by ICE — facing possible deportation
A good samaritan who sprang into action to help save a nine-year-old girl after a shark attack in Florida is now being held by ICE agents and is at risk of being deported. Luis Alvarez, 31, was one of several men who intervened in the incident, in Boca Grande, in which the child was attacked by a suspected Bull shark while snorkeling near to the shore. Just days after his heroic actions, Alvarez was stopped about 1:30 a.m. on June 14 while driving without his headlights on. When asked for his license, Alvarez gave officers a picture of his Employment Authorization Card on his phone. According to the arrest report, obtained by USA Today, he told the arresting officer in Spanish that he had been in the country for two and a half years and had never had a driver's license. Alvarez, who is originally from Boaco, Nicaragua, was arrested on a charge of driving without a license and issued a warning for not having his headlights on. He is currently being held at the Collier County Jail by ICE, and may be facing deportation. He is scheduled to go before a judge on July 9, according to court records. Though he has no history of arrest in Collier County, court documents show that Alvarez has been arrested on similar charges of not having a valid license four times in nearby Lee County, Florida. He paid fines or had adjudication withheld by three different judges. In the most recent case, however, the judge issues a D6 suspension in June 24, meaning he had not paid his fine and was unable to apply for a license, according to USA Today. On June 9, nine-year-old Leah Lendel was swimming near shore when she was attacked by a shark, which partially severed her hand, her mother, Nadia Lendel, told NBC Miami at the time. "And then she flies out and like I look over, I don't know if I heard a yell or what, but she went that and I see her hand hanging, like a piece and there's blood everywhere," her mother told police through tears. Police body camera footage captured the moments following the horrifying attack, as rescue crews and several men, including Alvarez, came to the girl's aid. The men wrapped the youngster's hand in towels before she was airlifted to a hospital for emergency surgery. According to her family, the surgeons were able to fix her hand, though she will still require therapy in order for her it to function properly again. Raynel Lugo, who also helped during the attack, told Fox4 News that Alvarez went into the water first to scare the shark. "He jumped in that area to bring her out when I was assisting Leah," Lugo told the outlet. "He went deep underwater, not even caring about the shark. He went really deep. He probably faced the shark."
