STEM Saturday on the Steem blockchain, Week #47: A blackhole incubates new stars; an elephant peels banana peels; a web site for aviation enthusiasts; and more advances in AI

STEM Saturday Digest - April 15, 2023

This week's topics come from the fields of astronomy, biology, entertainment technology, and artificial intelligence.

Please visit the /promoted page to view this week's STEM Saturday post promotions.

This was the 47^th week of our post promotions for STEM Saturday on the Steem blockchain, and our little community now occupies the top of the /promoted page for the 47^th consecutive Saturday. Promotion prices and competition for the top of the /promoted page remain low, so I filled the page with Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) posts again this week.

If you are a STEM enthusiast, please consider following the authors that you'll find in this article and also consider joining our community. If you would like your own post to be considered for STEM Saturday post promotion, please see the guidelines at the end of this post.

This week's promotions included the following posts (in alphabetical order, by author). Each author has been set as a 5% beneficiary on this post. All posts were passed through three different online plagiarism checks and three different checks for AI detection.

In an April 6 article, NASA announced the discovery of a supermassive black hole that is not anchored to a particular galaxy. The black hole measures 20 million solar masses, and it's moving so quickly that it leaves a wake of destruction behind it. Because it is moving so fast, it is unable to absorb all of the matter that it passes, and so - like the trail of froth behind a boat, it is leaving behind a trail of newborn stars that is 200,000 light years in length. Scientists speculate that this black hole is not anchored to a galaxy because of a rare - billiard ball type - interaction among three black holes about 50 million years ago.

Click through for more from @jorgebgt.

Meet Pang Pha, an Asian elephant at the Berlin Zoo who knows how to peel bananas. She accomplishes this by breaking the banana, tossing it on the ground, and peeling it with the tip of her trunk. Interestingly, she doesn't peel all bananas, but rather it depends upon the ripeness. The elephant will peel yellow bananas with brown spots, eat green or yellow bananas without peeling, and she refuses overripe bananas. Additionally, she only does this when fed separately from the other elephants. This skill has been observed in other elephants, but never at zoos in Berlin or Vienna. Scientists speculate that she may have learned the skill from humans, but they have little evidence to support this belief.

More from @sarahjay1, including a video, here.

An entertaining indoor pastime can be had by visiting the site, FlightRadar24. On this site, you can watch flights in real time in the air near your location and on the ground at the airports. You can even see when the planes are taking off and landing. The site also provides filtering capabilities, allowing the viewer to filter flights by "airline, airport, or aircraft category." What you see on this web site might even be a fun topic for a Steem blog!

Here is the article from @tanveer741.

Recent advances in the field of AI lead to improvements in the ability of employees to optimize workflow and tasks as well as reducing the need for repetitive work. Emerging tools include the now well-known ChatGPT, and Google Bard, as well as other tools like Ai-Descartes, an Open Source project to create an AI scientist. The latter project is organized by IBM and The University of Maryland. As with AI-Descartes, Corporate/academic partnerships can be expected to provide many other of the coming advances. This article argues that we should embrace the advances and focus on legislative, technological, and philosophical solutions as a means to adapt whenever problems arise.

Go here to read the rest from @truth2.

The Community

The Popular STEM community is intended to be a place for accessible STEM conversations (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics). If you have an interest in STEM topics, please come join us!

About STEM Saturday

If members would like to have your own STEM content considered for future promotions, please come join us and start contributing. I don't know how long I'll be continuing the tradition, but while I do, here are the minimum requirements for consideration (subject to change without notice ;-).

1. Original, plagiarism-free content
2. Minimum word count: currently 300 words, but this may be adjusted.
3. The content must not be cross-posted on other web sites or blockchains. Correct use of the #steemexclusive tag is encouraged.
4. English language. (sorry, it's the only one I know)
5. Because a post leaves /promoted at payout time, posts created shortly before STEM Saturday may be more likely to be chosen than older posts.

All community members are invited to create original and exclusive content that can be considered for future promotions.

Please help grow the science & technology audience on the Steem blockchain by following the Science and Technology on the Social Blockchain Facebook page then liking & sharing our links!

Visit the /promoted page and #burnsteem25 to support the inflation-fighters who are helping to enable decentralized regulation of Steem token supply growth.)