Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. announced a new chairman and chief executive, unveiling a surprise plan to replace Daniel

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A well-known biochemist has shared a compelling analysis of what “probably” caused the Titan submersible to implode. Philip E. Mason, who goes by the username Thunderf00t on YouTube, said the main reason why the tiny OceanGate vessel failed was “so painfully simple” that he initially thought he must be making a “boneheaded mistake” in his calculations. However, he acknowledged, his theory behind the sub’s tragic destruction contradicts the widely-reported suggestion that it was like a "Coke can" which suddenly burst due to the high surrounding pressure. In a video posted on Monday, Mason suggested that “by far the most probable” cause of the catastrophe was a “single pinhole leak” which, at such a profound depth (the Titan is believed to have been 3,500 metres below sea level when contact was lost), would have been fatal. It is worth noting that authorities have not yet confirmed the cause of the disaster, which claimed the lives of all five people on board, and Mason's conclusions are based on his own scrutiny of the available information and his particular expertise. Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter “So how quickly would a single pinhole leak sink a sub like this?” the YouTuber asked in his lengthy tutorial. The answer, he pointed out, would greatly depend on the size of the leak. If it measured one 10th of a millimetre by one 10th of a millimetre, the vessel would take several hours to go down, he said. However, if the leak measured 1mm by 1mm, it would only take about 10 minutes for the sub to completely fill with water, and if it was 1cm by 1cm, around 10 seconds. Mason then pointed out that water entering any sized leak at that depth would be transformed by the pressure into a sort of “cutting jet”. “Faced with a soft material like plastic, a hair-sized leak would rapidly transform into [...] a millimetre-sized leak and then a centimetre-sized leak,” he explained. Why the Titan sub failed www.youtube.com He then set out why it was likely that the Titan suffered such a leak, pointing to the materials used to make it. He noted that most deep-sea submersibles essentially consist of a ball which is made up entirely of the same material, namely, metal. “No joints, nothing fancy, maybe a couple of seals – one for where you get in and out of the sub and one for mounting a window,” he said. And yet, the Titan was different. “The ends were made up of a metal, titanium,” the YouTuber said. But the problem was that the middle of the sub wasn’t: it was made out of a carbon fibre composite. The two materials have distinctly different compressibilities, with carbon fibre being much easier to squeeze than titanium. “Having a joint where one side will expand or construct more than the other can be a real problem,” Mason stressed. On the surface, when the different components of the vessel were sealed, it wouldn’t have mattered that the materials were different, he continued. However, once the Titan got down to its deepest point, the carbon fibre would have “wanted to shrink” while the titanium wouldn't have changed at all. He then played a clip showing the creation of the sub, in which OceanGate CEO, Stockton Rush, admitted that the carbon fibre and titanium components were held together with a “peanut butter”-like “glue”. Rush, who lost his life along with five others in the Titan disaster, then said ominously: “It’s pretty simple but if we mess it up, there's not a lot of recovery.” Analysing the vessel's construction, Mason then said he was “honestly stunned it survived any dives”. “The bottom line is the tube is more compressible than the end caps,” he continued. “The only way this could have possibly worked is if they used some exotic alloy of titanium, like they do with bone replacement joints, and it doesn't look like they did that.” Turning to what ultimately destroyed the Titan, he concluded: “What you're probably more looking at is the differential compression of the carbon fibre composite and the titanium resulting in a crack.” In other words, “a pinhole leak, which would rapidly widen due to the rapid ingress of the water, further widening the crack and the rapid flooding of the sub in probably a fraction of a second. “And when that water hammer hits the end of the sub, it's likely that the sub broke into pieces.” Wrapping up his video, he said: “It's a mind-blowingly simple explanation based around the most likely failure points.” Investigators are continuing to examine wreckage from the submersible which was recovered from the ocean floor at the end of June. They have yet to determine the cause of the explosion and, last week, the Marine Board of Investigation’s (MBI) chairman Captain Jason Neubauer said: “There is still a substantial amount of work to be done to understand the factors that led to the catastrophic loss of the Titan and help ensure a similar tragedy does not occur again.” Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Scientists have been studying a “space ghost” which could be due to explode in just a few decades, changing the night sky forever – if it hasn’t already, that is. The object in question is a large star called Betelgeuse and the scientific community is divided over whether or not it’s already become a supernova. One theory states that the light from Betelgeuse takes so long to reach Earth it could mean the huge explosion has already taken place. Betelgeuse has been a supergiant red star for an estimated 40,000 years, but that could change relatively soon. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Michael Shara is the curator of astrophysics at the American Museum of Natural History. He told the US Sun: "Betelgeuse lies somewhere between about 450 and 550 light years from Earth." He went on to say: "Betelgeuse’s position appears to change slightly, as seen from Earth, between June and December, when the Earth is on opposite sides of its orbit around the Sun. "That tiny change in position is a direct measure of the distance to Betelgeuse." He went on to expand on the theory by saying: "Let's assume that Betelgeuse is precisely 500 light years distant. "If Betelgeuse exploded as a supernova anytime in the past 499 years, the light from that event has not yet had enough time to reach Earth…so we have no way of knowing if Betelgeuse has already blown up. "If, for example, Betelgeuse blew up in 1600 AD, we won’t know about it until the year 2100. But if it blew up on August 1, 1523, then on August 1, 2023 it will become about as bright as the full Moon. "The only naked eye supernova of the past century occurred in 1987… all astronomers would be thrilled and delighted if Betelgeuse (or another dying star) graced our night sky with a supernova in the coming decades." Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Faced with mounting pressure over planet-heating pollution, Gulf Arab energy giants are turning to humble tech start-ups as they search for ways to remove...

(Bloomberg Markets) -- In Morocco trucks from a Connecticut logistics company ferry car parts and clothing across the Strait of

Listen to The Big Take podcast on iHeart, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Terminal. The “Black Summer” bushfires devastated Australia

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New rules on curbing methane emissions in Europe’s energy sector may actually boost the case for liquefied natural

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Instagram has now launched Threads on the web for everyone. The company launched Theads in early July, and it swiftly became the fastest-growing app in the world. But it has long been without key features of its rival Twitter, seemingly as a result of being released in a rush to capitalise on chaos at that company since Elon Musk bought it late last year. Those missing features have included a web version of the network, so that it can be viewed on desktop computers and other platforms. Now Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, has announced that the web experience is available for everyone at threads.net. “Let us know what you think,” he said in his announcement. On the site, one user pointed out that Mr Mosseri’s claim that it was “live for everyone” missed out the people of the European Union. Mr Mosseri confirmed that was still the case, writing that it was “unfortunate”. Instagram has never launched Threads in Europe. It has said that it is worried about regulatory uncertainty – over fears about upcoming rules including the Digital Markets Act – but it might also be an attempt to lobby against those same rules. As well as the web version. of Threads, Instagram has been scrambling to add missing new features to the site. Those have included a chronological feed and the addition of alt text on images. Many more are still waiting to be added, however. Threads does not have a proper search option, for instance – but Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg has indicated that is also being worked on. Read More Meta could finally launch Threads feature everyone is waiting for Mark Zuckerberg hits out at Elon Musk for wasting time over cage fight Zoom CEO raises eyebrows by saying people need to go back to the office