> They chose the Sunshine State because of its propensity to produce frequent thunderstorms
made me giggle
Ultraviolet corona discharges on treetops during storms
31–40 of 69 posts
Re: Ultraviolet corona discharges on treetops during storms
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry, in what way is this not a photograph? Are you saying that a video is not a sequence of photographs, that UV photons captured by a sensor don’t count because human retina sensitivity is low in that range, or some hopefully-less-semantic argument?
The headline suggests that people have seen treetops glowing and it just hasn’t been captured on video before. The actual pictures and video is of something that nobody could have seen with their eyes.
This reminds me of a chat room interaction I had maybe 25 years ago. The other person was adamant that humans can't see the infrared from TV remotes, and I was adamant that I could. It was pretty a widespread belief (even in school science books) at that time that humans couldn't see infrared. Since then more science was done to prove that, in fact, some humans can see some infrared under some conditions.
I share that mainly to state that humans are amazing and have a wide and inconsistent range of capabilities (and sometimes even mutating into new capabilities!) Personally, I will always hesitate to say "nobody" and I lean towards "no typical human" instead. :)
Re: Ultraviolet corona discharges on treetops during storms
#33There is in fact no photograph of treetops glowing. There is a digital UV-wavelength video of the corona, and a visible-wavelength video of the trees. The paper [1] contains a sole picture with tiny circles indicating where the UV-video detected corona events, overlaid over a frame of the visible-wavelength video. The paper does also contain a video [2] which overlays a somewhat processed version of the UV video over…
While we're being unreasonably pedantic, it also wasn't caught on film because it was a digital camera.
Re: Ultraviolet corona discharges on treetops during storms
#34Fun fact. Lightning strikes stimulate fungi to produce more mushrooms. Some shiitake and nameko cultivators in Japan have started using electrical shockwaves and gotten dramatically improved yields (sometimes over 200%). Interestingly enough the idea came from Japanese folklore rather than this science
It's possible that this is an evolved response. Lightning hitting a tree will turn it into bark which is an excellent medium for white rot fungi. Lots of mushrooms might maximize the chance to get your spores there. Alternatively, it might mean you're dying soon and should seed out while you can.
We think of lightning strikes as rare events but when it comes to late-successional trees, they are actually one of the main disturbances. Some trees like Dipteryx oleifera have shown fascinating adaptations to lightning strikes. This tree is highly resistant to its negative effects and promotes the growth of many lianas (woody vines) that make it so when the tree is struck, so are many of its neighbors. After being struck it shows dramatically increased growth to outgrow its now-damaged neighbors
Re: Ultraviolet corona discharges on treetops during storms
#35There is in fact no photograph of treetops glowing. There is a digital UV-wavelength video of the corona, and a visible-wavelength video of the trees. The paper [1] contains a sole picture with tiny circles indicating where the UV-video detected corona events, overlaid over a frame of the visible-wavelength video. The paper does also contain a video [2] which overlays a somewhat processed version of the UV video over…
That's some weird semantic nitpicking. Wikimedia has a category of "photographs of the Sun": https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Photographs_of_t... Do you think they are not photographs of the Sun because these are not what I see if I look at the sun with my eyes? (In which case I'll see pure white then perma black, I assume.)
They're the same as looking at the sun with your eyes. You won't go blind looking directly for a short time. It's just best not to stare for a long time.
Re: Ultraviolet corona discharges on treetops during storms
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry, in what way is this not a photograph? Are you saying that a video is not a sequence of photographs, that UV photons captured by a sensor don’t count because human retina sensitivity is low in that range, or some hopefully-less-semantic argument?
Maybe they take issue with the word "glowing", which doesn't usually refer to invisible electromagnetic radiation
I was going to say the same.
It's true that the image isn't fiction or a purely fabricated "artists rendering" from data. But it's also true that "filmed" and "glowing" are unusual ways to refer to what happened.
You don't usually say filmed when talking about recording uv or microwaves etc. You technically could, and probably back when film was actually how uv was recorded a few people working in the field probably did, but almost no one else does, or no one at all since decades, which means the author of the title is the one out of step, not the people reading it.
They actually recorded something, and this title is misleading. Both things are true.
Re: Ultraviolet corona discharges on treetops during storms
#37I've seen these images before, or some very similar images. So this is based on old photos or it has indeed been done before.
A lot of the PopSci sites rotate articles so that one will publish something followed by another some time later.
Also: "made their way down the nation’s eastern coast in June 2024", so it's possible the PopSci articles were based on early releases about this study and this is the actual study being finalized and released officially????
Re: Ultraviolet corona discharges on treetops during storms
#38Will head hair on humans do this too?
Wouldn't we smell it if it did?
Re: Ultraviolet corona discharges on treetops during storms
#39There is in fact no photograph of treetops glowing. There is a digital UV-wavelength video of the corona, and a visible-wavelength video of the trees. The paper [1] contains a sole picture with tiny circles indicating where the UV-video detected corona events, overlaid over a frame of the visible-wavelength video. The paper does also contain a video [2] which overlays a somewhat processed version of the UV video over…
I've taken the "captured on film" out of the title above and used representative language from the article. If someone can suggest a better (more accurate and neutral) title, we can change it again. (But the subject is interesting whether on film or not, let alone "for the first time".)
Re: Ultraviolet corona discharges on treetops during storms
#40There is in fact no photograph of treetops glowing. There is a digital UV-wavelength video of the corona, and a visible-wavelength video of the trees. The paper [1] contains a sole picture with tiny circles indicating where the UV-video detected corona events, overlaid over a frame of the visible-wavelength video. The paper does also contain a video [2] which overlays a somewhat processed version of the UV video over…
That's some weird semantic nitpicking. Wikimedia has a category of "photographs of the Sun": https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Photographs_of_t... Do you think they are not photographs of the Sun because these are not what I see if I look at the sun with my eyes? (In which case I'll see pure white then perma black, I assume.)
Lol.
At work, some guy has been pushing a 2-day feature into its 5th week now, with questions like "what do you mean by (database) table?" "Is a database table?"
Etc...
We have to fill-in RFDs to answer those kind of questions, so the process is massively slow and st...(expunged due to HN guidelines).
So yeah, some people really love their semantics and are willing to do whatever it takes to keep it that way.
[You can take a guess at where this startup will be in 2-3 years ...]