Prepare for the Paris Paralympics with tales of genuine bravery | Podcast

Posted on August 22, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

IIf there’s one thing you should know about me, it’s that I’m really into drugs. I read Empire of Pain by Patrick Raddon Keefe earlier this year, which has long been on my “to-read” pile, and found its story of the rise and growth of the Sackler drug dynasty to be truly horrifying (although isn’t artist turned oxycodone campaigner Nan Goldin a total hero?).

Naturally, I script This week, I’m writing about the new Atlantic miniseries, Brain Drugs and the Stories to Tell Them. It’s sensitively done, but all of this stuff is scary. The story of two brothers who are treated for the same heroin addiction but end up living very different lives will stay with me for a while. As with Dan Taberski’s recent series, Hystericalis about a group of girls who simultaneously develop a Tourette’s syndrome-like condition, but while it features real people battling an incredibly difficult illness, we’re also never far from bigger questions about how we think about mental health and the self.

Read on for this week’s picks, from con man dads to gritty Paralympic shows, plus five podcasts we recommend for fans of classic film, from old Hollywood hits to the history of Hammer horror.

Hannah J. Davis
Newsletter Deputy Editor

This week’s picks

Michael Jordan and Gary Binder. Photo: Public Relations

#1 Dad
Widely available, all episodes available now
Comedian Gary Vidor hasn’t spoken to his con man father in 24 years. As a child, his dad made him pose as a young journalist to sneak into Michael Jordan’s locker room (above) and help him photocopy dollar bills to earn money for his school lunches. In this wild journey, Gary tries to track down his dad, find out if he’s still the same fake accent, court-waging man he always was, and hope it doesn’t tear his family apart. Alexi Duggins

Fraud Clinic
Widely available, with weekly episodes
Nick Stapleton, presenter of BBC One’s Bafta award-winning show Scam Interceptors, tries his hand at helping members of the public in this investigative show. The opening double feature features a startling interview with the man alleged to be the mastermind behind a £100,000 theft, and he’s just so keen to have a fun conversation about podcasting equipment that it’s mind-blowing to listen to. advertisement

Head Number 7
Widely available, with weekly episodes
You’d think that if you were to donate your body for scientific research, Harvard Medical School would manage it. So when families found out that parts of their loved ones’ bodies had been sold and misplaced, it became a horrific scandal. Now, DNA expert Dr. Tuli King is asking where the bodies went, starting with the NYPD officer’s noticeably large head. Hannah Verdier

Don’t drink milk
Widely available, with weekly episodes
Sex, drugs and turf are promised in the second series of this series which explores the unexpected backstories of familiar things. Reality TV and the missionary position will make an appearance, but first Rachel Stewart heads to Scotland to put an entertaining spin on witch hunting and investigate the history of misogynistic medieval conspiracies. HV

Rising Phoenix: What does it take?
Widely available, with weekly episodes
It’s a cliché to say anything Paralympic-related is inspiring, but this podcast, full of courage and humour, is just that: armless archer Matt Stutzman and fellow medallist Michael Johnson interview athletes including Kadeena Cox, who talks about her determination to return to sport after suffering a stroke and being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at age 23. HV

There is a podcast

Marilyn Monroe in Some Like It Hot, explored in detail on the Unspooled podcast. Photo: United Artists/All Star

this week, Graham Virtue Pick the top 5 A podcast for classic film fansFrom highlights of the Hammer Horror catalogue to series re-evaluating films like Some Like It Hot.

Keep this in mind
Meticulously written and narrated by film historian Karina Longworth, recent seasons of this riveting show charted the rise and fall of the erotic thriller of the 1980s and 1990s. But YMRT became an early big hit with Longworth’s immersive dive into Hollywood’s Golden Age, unravelling rumors surrounding doomed starlets and spotlighting the sins of amoral moguls. To mark its 10th anniversary earlier this year, the “lost” first episode, long in limbo due to music licensing issues, was remastered and re-released. An insightful profile of Vertigo star Kim Novak will have you revisiting her lavish 200-plus-movie back catalogue.

Hammer House
Most profiles of the British film studio Hammer focus on its golden age of illuminating, badly received horror films from the mid-1950s through the 1970s. But the biweekly podcast The House of Hammer has been patiently working its way through the studio’s filmography chronologically since 1934, applying detailed context and affectionate irony to forgotten films like the nylon-smuggling crime drama River Patrol (1948). Between hosts Sev Moore, Ben Taylorson, Adam Roche, and a first-person voice, Smokey, the overall atmosphere is laid-back and welcoming. But things have certainly heated up over the past year, as the show has tackled such foundational Hammer texts as The Quatermass Experiment (1955), The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), and Christopher Lee’s immortal Dracula (1958).

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Rewound
Are there any so-called classic films that should be left out? When the slickly produced Unspooled first launched in 2018, film critic Amy Nicholson and actor/writer/comedian Paul Scheer aimed to take a fresh look at the prestigious Motion Picture Association of America’s 2007 Top 100 Movies list. Two years later, the affable but studious hosts have removed 60 titles from the original ranking and added new ones in an attempt to formulate a more representative selection of films (intended to be launched into space to educate and entertain passing aliens). But it’s worth scrolling through Unspooled’s extensive list of episodes, all the way back to the early days when the pair debated the value of hallowed titles like Ben-Hur, The African Queen, and Some Like It Hot.

movie theatre
Consciously or not, many podcasts about classic movies try to evoke the decadent cocktail-and-cigarette spirit of Old Hollywood, often using seductive sound mixes to help you forget the decades that have passed. The Movie Palace is more down to earth, but what it lacks in sonic flourishes it more than makes up for in thoughtful discussion. In each episode, Dr. Carl Sweeney invites a knowledgeable guest to discuss a notable film, from influential noir to fraught westerns. The result is a concise, accessible primer on classic cinema. Hitchcock appears repeatedly throughout the show’s 130-plus episodes, particularly in a comprehensive eight-part miniseries analyzing Psycho.

The conspiracy deepens
Not all film podcasts have a direct connection to Hollywood’s Golden Age, but US network Turner Classic Movies’ The Plot Six is hosted by Ben Mankiewicz, the grandson of Citizen Kane screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz, the subject of David Fincher’s 2020 biopic Mank. Previous seasons of The Plot Six have delved into the careers of Peter Bogdanovich (a director obsessed with Hollywood’s past) and righteous blaxploitation powerhouse Pam Grier. But the current episode, Unlocking the Mystery of John Ford, seeks to assess the notoriously difficult but Oscar-winning king of 20th-century filmmaking, with the help of previously unreleased interviews with co-stars such as John Wayne, Henry Fonda and Jimmy Stewart.

Give it a try…

after schoolOur newsletter for the general public, Decoding Gen Z, “ ,” will be delivered in podcast form.
Frank Skinner and Faye Ripley star in Radio 4 workplace comedy Good People.

Source: www.theguardian.com

Review of the Pixel 9 Pro XL: Google’s Superphone with AI capabilities competes with the best available.

Posted on August 22, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

Google’s latest flagship phone is a significant advancement, focusing on battery life, camera quality, and intelligent features. It represents a new era of Android devices that can run Google’s Gemini AI system along with a next-generation conversational voice assistant.

Priced starting at £1,099 ($1,099/AU$1,849), the Pixel 9 Pro XL is Google’s largest phone offering. This year, a smaller 9 Pro model with identical specifications and cameras is also available for £999 ($999/AU$1,699). The XL variant caters to users who prefer a large screen and extended battery life.

Featuring a bold design with a noticeable camera bar reminiscent of Google’s Nest Doorbell, the Pixel 9 Pro XL stands out visually. Its aluminum body with flat edges bears similarities to Apple’s iPhone 14 Pro Max.

The Pixel 9 Pro XL boasts a large, vibrant 6.8-inch screen, ideal for multimedia consumption and outdoor use. Photo: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian

Equipped with Google’s Tensor G4 chip, the Pixel offers faster browsing and app launching compared to its predecessor. The phone efficiently handles games and apps, leveraging AI enhancements to boost performance.

Notably, the Pixel 9 Pro XL delivers extended battery life, lasting up to 52 hours under mixed usage conditions, setting it apart from competitors in the market.

The ultrasonic fingerprint scanner on the Pixel 9 Pro XL offers enhanced speed and accuracy, providing a seamless user experience. Photo: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian

Specifications

Screen: 6.8-inch 120Hz QHD+ OLED (486ppi)
Processor: Google Tensor G4
RAM: 16GB RAM
Storage: 128, 256, 512GB or 1TB
Operating System: Android 14
Camera: 50MP + 48MP Ultra Wide + 48MP 5x Telephoto, 42MP Selfie
Connectivity: 5G, eSIM, Wi-Fi 7, UWB, NFC, Bluetooth 5.3, GNSS
Water Resistance: IP68 (1.5m for 30 minutes)
Size: 162.8 x 76.6 x 8.5mm
Weight: 221 grams

Source: www.theguardian.com

Opponents of Rio Tinto lithium mine targeted with anonymous death threats

Posted on August 22, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

circleWhen Aleksandar Matkovic initially received a life-threatening message, he believed it was a prank. The message, sent to his Telegram account just after midnight on August 14, stated, “We’re going to chase you until you disappear, you bastard,”.

“Initially, I brushed it off as a joke, but then the next morning I received another message: ‘How’s the fight against Rio Tinto going?’ It came from an unfamiliar profile, and the app indicated the sender was only 500 meters away,” recounted Matkovic, a prominent activist involved in protests against proposed lithium mines in Serbia. “Keep away,” he added.

While in Split visiting a friend, Matkovic, who resides in Belgrade, felt as though he was being followed, especially given the recent mass protests against Rio Tinto’s plan to construct a $2.4 billion lithium mine in Serbia’s Jadar Valley.

“I scanned the area and thought, ‘What is happening?’ It was unsettling, contemplating the possibility of someone tailing me, so I reached out to my lawyer. Soon thereafter, I received a third, more menacing message,” he shared.

The third message, written in German, stated: “We are aware of your ties to the leaders of the uprising. It all commenced with you. Even if you commit a heinous act and vanish, we will hunt you down. However, you won’t be able to turn to the authorities for help, because you know it’s futile. Rest assured, if you value your life and freedom, stay out of the public eye for some time. Conduct yourself impeccably on social media. Understand that you must fear for your safety and that of your sibling.”

Following this, Matkovic reported the threat to Belgrade police, who are presently investigating the matter based on the threat and related documents seen by the Guardian.

This rapidly evolving situation is intricate and carries repercussions beyond the Belgrade prosecutor’s office.

The opposition to the lithium mine in Serbia has evolved into a focal point for societal discontent, uniting ultranationalists, environmentalists, leftists, and individuals concerned about economic ties with the West and the domestic environment. Groundwater contamination is a pressing issue.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic recently issued a warning, accentuating the reported plotting of a “color revolution” by the opposition in the Balkans.

Serbia, a former Yugoslav republic, boasts substantial lithium reserves crucial for electric vehicle batteries. The EU has committed to banning a minimum of 10% of critical minerals, including lithium, from European mining operations by 2030.

Julia Poliscanova, director of vehicles and supply chains at the think tank Transport and Environment, emphasized the necessity of lithium for European transport electrification. She stressed the importance of sourcing lithium sustainably and responsibly to support Europe’s transition towards electric mobility.

In response to the threats against Matkovic, Rio Tinto denounced violence, affirming, “Rio Tinto vehemently condemns any direct or implicit threats of violence, whether online or in person, against individuals engaged in discussions regarding the Jadar project.”

Rio Tinto employees have faced online threats and intimidation during local protests, highlighted a company spokesperson.

To safeguard himself and his family following multiple distressing emails, Matkovic has taken precautions, including seeking refuge at various European embassies in Belgrade. Additionally, he intends to request intervention from the UN Special Rapporteur on environmental activists.

“Since August 14th, my life has been a precarious blend of normalcy and turmoil,” Matkovic reflected. “How does this fit into our strategy for combating climate change? What does the green transition we aspire to entail if it necessitates violence?”

Source: www.theguardian.com

Humpback whales employ unique tools for their tasks

Posted on August 22, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

Humpback whale (Megaptera novaegangliae) Whales build so-called “bubble nets” as tools to hunt, but researchers from the University of Hawaii and the Alaska Whale Foundation have found that these marine animals not only build bubble nets, but also manipulate these unique tools in a variety of ways to maximize food intake in their Alaskan feeding grounds. This novel study sheds light on a behavior critical to whale survival and makes a compelling case for including humpback whales among the rare animals that manufacture and use unique tools.

Although some animal species use tools to forage, only a few manufacture or modify tools. Humpback whales are one of these rare species, as they manufacture bubble net tools while foraging. Using animal tags and unmanned aerial system technology, Sabo others. Investigating the bubble nets made by solitary humpback whales (Megaptera novaegangliae) while feeding on krill in the Pacific Ocean, whale nets in southeast Alaska. They demonstrate that the nets are composed of internal tangential loops, suggesting that the whales actively control the number of loops, the size and depth of the net, and the horizontal spacing of adjacent bubbles. They argue that the whales adjust structural elements of the net to increase the amount of prey they catch in a single lunge by an average of seven-fold. Image credit: Szabo others., doi: 10.1098/rsos.240328.

“Many animals use tools to find food, but few actually make or modify their own tools,” says Lars Bader, a professor at the University of Hawaii.

“We discovered that solitary humpback whales in southeast Alaska build complex bubble webs to capture krill.”

“These whales expertly blow bubbles in patterns that form nets with internal loops, actively controlling details such as the number of loops, the size and depth of the net, and the spacing of the bubbles.”

“This method allows them to catch up to seven times as many prey in one feeding dive without expending any extra energy.”

“This impressive behaviour puts humpback whales in a rare group of animals that make and use their own tools to hunt.”

The marine mammals known as cetaceans include whales, dolphins and porpoises and are notoriously difficult to study.

Advances in research tools are making it easier to track and understand whale behaviour, and in this case, Professor Bader and his colleagues used specialised tags and drones to study the whale's movements from above and below the water.

“We attached non-invasive suction cup tags to whales in southeast Alaska and flew drones over humpback whales as they hunted alone in bubble nets to collect data on their underwater movements,” said Dr William Goff, also from the University of Hawaii.

“The tools are great, but it takes practice to hone them.”

“Whales are a difficult group to study and successful tracking with tags and drones requires skill and precision.”

“This little-studied foraging behavior is unique to humpback whales.”

“It's really amazing to see these animals in their natural habitat, doing things that only a handful of people get to see.”

“And then it's rewarding to be able to go back to the lab and look at the data and find out what they're doing underwater after they're out of sight.”

a paper The study was published in the journal Royal Society Open Science.

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A. Sabo others2024. Solitary humpback whales manufacture bubble nets as a tool to enhance prey intake. R. Soc. Open Science 11(8):240328;doi: 10.1098/rsos.240328

This article is based on a press release provided by the University of Hawaii.

Source: www.sci.news

Research indicates TRAPPIST-1 system developed through a two-stage formation process

Posted on August 22, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

TRAPPIST-1 is an ultracool dwarf star located 38.8 light-years away in the constellation Aquarius that hosts seven planets. The period ratios of the neighboring planets are closer as they move away from the star: 8:5, 5:3, 3:2, 3:2, 4:3, 3:2. This compact resonant configuration is a clear indication of disk-driven migration, but the desired outcome of such an evolution would be the establishment of a first-order resonance, rather than the higher-order resonances observed in the inner system. Astronomer Gabriele Pichierri of the California Institute of Technology and his colleagues explain the orbital configuration of the TRAPPIST-1 system with a model that is largely independent of the specific disk migration and orbital circularization efficiency. Two key elements of the team's model are that, along with the migration, the inner boundary of the protoplanetary disk retreated over time, and that the TRAPPIST-1 system initially separated into two subsystems.

This artist's rendering shows TRAPPIST-1 and its planets as seen on the surface. Image courtesy of NASA / R. Hurt / T. Pyle.

“When all we had to analyse was the solar system, we could simply assume that planets formed where we see them today,” Dr Pichieri said.

“But when the first exoplanet was discovered in 1995, we had to rethink this assumption.”

“We're developing better models of how planets form and how they come to be oriented in the way that we found them.”

Most exoplanets are thought to form from a disk of gas and dust around a newly formed star, and then migrate inwards, approaching the inner boundary of this disk.

This results in a planetary system assembled much closer to the host star than is the case in our solar system.

In the absence of other factors, planets tend to move away from each other at characteristic distances based on their mass and the gravitational force between them and their host star.

“This is the standard transition process,” Dr. Pichieri said.

“The positions of the planets form resonances between their respective orbital periods. If you divide the orbital period of one planet by the orbital period of its neighbor, you get a simple integer ratio like 3:2.”

For example, if one planet takes two days to orbit a star, the next planet further away takes three days.

If the second planet and a more distant third planet were also in 3:2 resonance, the third planet's orbital period would be 4.5 days.

“The exoplanets behave nicely in simpler predicted resonances, so to speak,” Dr Pichieri said.

“But the inner ones have slightly more exciting resonances. For example, the orbital ratio of planets b and c is 8:5, and the ratio of c and d is 5:3.”

“This subtle difference in the outcome of TRAPPIST-1 assembly is puzzling and represents a unique opportunity to tease out in detail what other processes were at work in its assembly.”

“Moreover, most planetary systems are thought to have begun in such resonances, but have experienced significant instabilities during their lifetimes before we observe them today.”

“Most planets would become unstable or collide with each other, and everything would be in chaos. For example, our solar system was affected by such instability.”

“But we know there are some systems that are more or less pristine specimens that have remained stable.”

“They effectively represent a record of its entire dynamical history, and we can try to reconstruct it. TRAPPIST-1 is one of them.”

The challenge then was to develop a model that could explain the orbits of the TRAPPIST-1 planets and how they got to their current configuration.

The resulting model suggests that the inner four planets evolved alone within the originally predicted 3:2 resonant chain.

As the disk's inner boundary expanded outward, the orbits loosened from the tighter 3:2 linkage into the configuration observed today.

The fourth planet was originally located on the inner boundary of the disk and moved outward with the disk, but was pushed back inward at a later stage when three more outer planets joined the planetary system.

“By observing TRAPPIST-1, we were able to test an exciting new hypothesis about the evolution of planetary systems,” said Dr Pichieri.

“TRAPPIST-1 is very interesting because it's a very complex, long chain of planets, and it's a great example for testing alternative theories about the formation of planetary systems.”

of Survey results Published in a journal Natural Astronomy.

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G. Pichieri othersDuring the recession of the inner edge of the disc, the TRAPPIST-1 system forms in two steps. Nat AstronPublished online August 20, 2024, doi: 10.1038/s41550-024-02342-4

Source: www.sci.news

Research shows that Clovis people utilized planted pikes for hunting large herbivores

Posted on August 22, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

Historical and ethnographic sources document that portable pole-hafted weapons, or spears, were used for hunting and defense against large game in North and South America, Africa, Eurasia, and Southeast Asia for several millennia during the Late Holocene. Given the dominance of large game in North America during the Late Pleistocene, centuries when Clovis points emerged and spread across much of the continent between 13,050 and 12,650 years ago, pole-hafted weapons may have been used for hunting large herbivores or for defense against large carnivores.

A Clovis point with distinctive grooved flake scars. Image courtesy of S. Byram.

“This ancient Native American design was a remarkable innovation in hunting strategy,” said Dr Scott Byrum, a researcher at the University of California, Berkeley.

“This unique indigenous technology provides a window into hunting and survival techniques that have been used for thousands of years in many parts of the world.”

The team's discovery may help solve a mystery that has plagued archaeological communities for decades: how North American communities actually used Clovis stone tools, the most commonly unearthed remains from the Ice Age.

Clovis Points are named after the town of Clovis, New Mexico, where they were first discovered about a century ago. Clovis Points are formed from rocks such as chert, flint, and jasper.

They range in size from the size of a person's thumb to the size of a medium-sized iPhone, and have a clearly defined, sharp edge and grooved indentations on either side of their base.

Thousands of fossils have been discovered across the United States, some of which have been unearthed within preserved mammoth skeletons.

“Clovis points are often the only part recovered from a spear,” said Dr. June Sunseri of the University of California, Berkeley.

“The elaborately engineered bone hafts at the ends of the weapons are sometimes found, but the wood at the bases of the spears, and the rosin and string that made them work as a complete system, have been lost over time.”

“Furthermore, research silos limit such systems thinking about prehistoric weaponry, and if stone experts are not bone experts they may not get the full picture.”

“We need to think beyond simple artifacts. The key here is looking at this as an engineered system that requires multiple types of expertise in our field and in other fields.”

Building tools into powerful and effective systems would have been a priority for communities 13,000 years ago.

Tools had to be durable; there were only a limited number of suitable rocks that people could use to cross the land.

They might travel hundreds of miles without obtaining a long, straight stick suitable for making a spear.

“So obviously you don't want to risk throwing or breaking your gear when you're not sure if you're going to catch the animal,” Dr Byrum said.

“People who analyse metal military artefacts know about it because it was used to halt horses in war.”

“But before that, it wasn't really known for other situations, like wild boar hunting or bear hunting.”

“It's a common theme in literature, but for some reason it hasn't been talked about much in anthropology.”

To evaluate their spear hypothesis, the researchers built a test platform to measure the force that the spear system could withstand before the tip broke off or the shaft stretched.

A low-tech, static version of an animal attack using reinforced replica Clovis point spears allowed us to test how different spears reach their breaking point and how their extension systems respond.

This builds on previous experiments in which researchers fired stone-tipped spears into clay and ballistic gel, which may have been as painful as a needle prick to a nine-tonne mammoth.

“The energy that a human arm can generate is completely different from the energy that a charging animal can generate. It's an order of magnitude different,” Dr Jun said.

“These spears were designed to protect the wielder.”

“The sophisticated Clovis technology, developed uniquely in North America, is a testament to the ingenuity and skill used by indigenous peoples to coexist with ancient lands and now-extinct megafauna,” said Kent Lightfoot, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

Team result Published in a journal PLoS One.

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RS Byram others2024. Clovis projectile points and foresharps subjected to reinforced weapon compression: modelling the encounter between Stone Age spears and Pleistocene megafauna. PLoS One 19 (8): e0307996; doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0307996

This article is a version of a press release provided by the University of California, Berkeley.

Source: www.sci.news

The 1.5°C target may be out of reach, but climate action is still crucial

Posted on August 22, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

AP Photo/François Mori, File/Alamy

As a COP₂₆ During climate change negotiations in Glasgow, UK, in November 2021, a new slogan entered the vocabulary: “Stay at 1.5°C.” The phrase, on everyone’s lips from politicians to climate scientists, was aimed at maintaining the goals set as part of the Paris Agreement at the COP six years ago._{twenty one}In hindsight, this ambition was probably already fizzling out, destined to remain merely an empty slogan.

New Scientist The argument began in 2022, when expert opinion did not reflect their personal views or the data we were seeing. Scientists felt trapped and unable to speak out because limiting warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels is still possible according to the laws of physics, but not realistic given the political, social and economic upheaval.

Since then, there has been a growing recognition that 1.5°C is unattainable, but there was no frank discussion of what that meant. Now, for the first time, researchers have explicitly rejected that, saying that 1.6°C is the best we can hope for, and that higher temperatures are more likely (see “Best-case scenario for climate change now is 1.6°C warming”).

Will policymakers finally realize that platitudes and slogans are not enough to combat climate change? Promises to “maintain” these targets are meaningless if we do not achieve the only means of preventing rising temperatures — reducing emissions of carbon dioxide and other global-warming greenhouse gases to net zero.

Unfortunately, the phrase “net zero” is losing its original meaning as a description of atmospheric physics, and instead being used by many to mean “environmental policy I don’t like.” This is dangerous, because extreme temperature changes have locked us in a vicious cycle of emissions that only a net-zero energy system can break (see “Efforts to combat extreme temperatures are making the situation worse”). If we are to have any hope of limiting warming, we need to learn from the failure of “stay 1.5°C” and not let “net zero” become meaningless.

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Source: www.newscientist.com

COVID-19 vaccines may be less effective due to intestinal parasites

Posted on August 22, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

Duodenal hookworms (Ancylostoma duodenale) cause one of the most common intestinal parasitic infections worldwide.

Katerina Conn/Shutterstock

People with intestinal parasitic infections, quarter This has been suggested by experiments in mice infected with the parasite, which had significantly weaker immunity after receiving a COVID-19 vaccination compared to mice not infected with the parasite.

Previous studies have shown that people with intestinal parasitic infections have a weakened immune response to vaccines for diseases such as tuberculosis and measles because the parasites suppress the processes that vaccines trigger to confer immunity, such as activating pathogen-killing cells. Intestinal parasitic infections are most common in tropical and subtropical regions, where they often occur because of limited access to clean water and sanitation.

Scientists have not tested whether these pathogens reduce the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines. Michael Diamond Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, vaccinated 16 mice with a COVID-19 mRNA vaccine, half of which had been infected 12 days earlier with an intestinal parasite that lives only in rodents. They gave each mouse a booster shot three weeks after the first vaccination.

About two weeks after the booster shot, the researchers analyzed the animals' spleens to measure concentrations of CD8+ T cells, specialized white blood cells that are important for eliminating other cells infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus. They found that the spleens of mice infected with the intestinal parasite had about half the number of cells as mice without the parasite, suggesting a weakened immune response to the vaccine.

The researchers repeated the vaccination process in another group of 20 mice, half of which were infected with the intestinal parasite, exposing them to the highly infectious Omicron variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. After five days, the lungs of vaccinated rodents infected with the intestinal parasite had, on average, about 20% more virus than uninfected ones.

These findings suggest that intestinal parasites may reduce the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines in people, but different types of intestinal parasites are known to affect immunity differently, the researchers say. Keke Fairfax The University of Utah researchers said it's unclear whether the parasite's infection in humans would have the same effect on vaccinating against COVID-19 as it did in mice, and the situation is further complicated by the fact that humans tend to harbor multiple types of intestinal parasites at the same time, they said.

Still, understanding how to alter the immune response to vaccination is important given the prevalence of parasitic infections, and these findings suggest that researchers may need to further evaluate the vaccine's effectiveness in parts of the world where a high proportion of the population is infected with intestinal parasites, Fairfax says.

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Source: www.newscientist.com

AI models do not learn in the same way humans do

Posted on August 21, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

AI programs quickly lose the ability to learn new things

Jiefeng Jiang/iStockphoto/Getty Images

The algorithms that underpin artificial intelligence systems like ChatGPT are unable to learn as they are used, forcing tech companies to spend billions of dollars training new models from scratch. This has been a concern in the industry for some time, but new research suggests there's an inherent problem with how the models are designed – but there may be a solution.

Most AI today is so-called neural networks, inspired by how the brain works, with processing units called artificial neurons. Typically, AI goes through distinct stages during its development: First, the AI is trained, and its artificial neurons are fine-tuned by an algorithm to better reflect a particular dataset. Then, the AI can be used to respond to new data, such as text inputs like those entered into ChatGPT. However, once a model's neurons are set in the training phase, they can no longer be updated or learn from new data.

This means that most large AI models need to be retrained when new data becomes available, which can be very costly, especially when the new dataset represents a large portion of the entire internet.

Researchers have wondered whether these models might be able to incorporate new knowledge after initial training, reducing costs, but it was unclear whether this was possible.

now, Shivhansh Dohare Researchers at the University of Alberta in Canada tested whether the most common AI models could be adapted to continually learn. The team found that when exposed to new data, a huge number of artificial neurons became stuck at a value of zero, causing the AI models to quickly lose the ability to learn new things.

“If you think of it like a brain, it's like 90 percent of the neurons are dead,” D'Hare says. “You don't have enough neurons to learn with.”

Dhare and his team started by training their AI system from the ImageNet database, which consists of 14 million labeled images of simple objects like houses and cats. But instead of training the AI once and then testing it multiple times to distinguish between the two images, as is the standard approach, they retrained the model for each image pair.

The researchers tested different learning algorithms in this way and found that after thousands of retraining cycles, the networks were unable to learn and their performance deteriorated, with many neurons becoming “dead” – that is, having a value of zero.

The team also trained the AI to simulate the way ants learn to walk through reinforcement learning, a common technique that teaches an AI what success looks like and helps it figure out the rules through trial and error. They tried to adapt this technique to allow for continuous learning by retraining the algorithm after walking on different surfaces, but they found this also led to a significant decrease in learning ability.

The problem is inherent to the way these systems learn, D'Hare says, but there is a workaround: The researchers developed an algorithm that randomly turns on some neurons after each training round, which seems to mitigate the performance degradation. [neuron] “When it dies, you just bring it back to life,” D'Hare says, “and now it can learn again.”

The algorithm seems promising, but needs to be tested on larger systems before it can be trusted to be useful, he says. Mark van der Wilk At Oxford University.

“Solving continuous learning is literally a billion-dollar problem,” he says. “If you have a true comprehensive solution that allows you to continuously update your models, you can dramatically reduce the cost of training these models.”

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Source: www.newscientist.com

Children and teenagers experience varying symptoms from Long Corona

Posted on August 21, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

The impact of the long corona pandemic appears to vary by age

Damir Cudic/Getty Images

Symptoms of long COVID appear to be very different in young children and adolescents, and a better understanding of how the symptoms manifest could aid in diagnosis.

So far, most research on long-COVID has focused on adults, in part because of a “misconception that children can't get long-COVID,” he said. Rachel Gross At New York University.

Gross and his colleagues are currently following 751 children ages 6 to 11 and 3,109 children ages 12 to 17 whose parents say they had previously been infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

The researchers defined long COVID as having at least one symptom that lasted more than a month, started or worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic, and was present at the time of the study.

Among young children, these symptoms primarily included sleep problems, difficulty concentrating, and abdominal problems such as pain, nausea, vomiting, and constipation.

The symptoms were uncommon among about 150 children of the same age who had not previously been infected, and were confirmed by the absence of antibodies against the virus in their blood samples.

In contrast, symptoms in the 1,300 uninfected young people typically included pain, fatigue and loss of smell or taste.

It's unclear why symptoms differ across different age groups, but Gross said it could be due to differences in hormones or immune systems, or that teenagers may simply be better able to vocalize their symptoms than younger kids. Danilo Buoncenzo A study from the Gemelli University Hospital in Rome, Italy. For example, a teenager may complain of fatigue, but a caregiver may only notice lingering symptoms in a younger child when they vomit.

Armed with this data, the researchers developed a score that ranks how likely a young person's symptoms are to have long-Covid. Currently, diagnosis depends on doctors ruling out other illnesses and recognizing that long-Covid can take many different forms. “Doctors would prefer a score or more objective criteria. Such a tool would definitely help clinicians at least recognize that a child may have long-Covid,” Buoncenso said.

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Source: www.newscientist.com

Childline Empowers Teens to Combat Financial Sextortion amid Growing Concerns

Posted on August 21, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

Recently, ChildLine counselors have been receiving an alarming number of calls regarding a specific issue.

In one case, a 17-year-old boy reached out for help after being blackmailed for sending intimate images to someone he thought was his age. This type of sextortion, driven by financial motives, is becoming more prevalent among UK teenagers.

Childline supervisor Rebecca Hipkiss revealed that these incidents have increased significantly over the past year, with over 100 cases reported. Victims often feel embarrassed and fear the repercussions of having their personal images shared with their friends and family.

Childline, operated by the NSPCC children’s charity, offers a “Report Remove” service to help victims of sexual blackmail take control of their images online. The service creates a digital fingerprint of uploaded images to prevent them from being circulated on major platforms.

With the rise of sophisticated AI tools, teenagers are now facing threats of deepfake content being created using their photos. These fake images are then used to extort money from victims, causing significant distress.

Victims of sex blackmail often feel helpless and worried about the consequences of these incidents. Childline advises them not to pay the scammers and to report the extortion attempts to the authorities.

It’s crucial for teens to be cautious and set boundaries in their online interactions. Understanding the risks and knowing when to say no are essential in protecting themselves from falling victim to such scams.

Source: www.theguardian.com

Latest Research Findings in BBC Science Focus Magazine

Posted on August 21, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

13,000 years ago, humans had to come up with creative ways to survive in icy environments. Recent studies suggest that their solutions were more inventive and brutal than previously thought: Ice Age hunters likely used weapons to impale prey such as mammoths and sabre-toothed tigers.

This discovery could potentially resolve a long-standing debate regarding the purpose of ancient tools known as Clovis points. These sharp rocks, made of materials like chert and flint, have been found throughout the United States in various sizes. While it was initially believed that Clovis points were used as spear tips by skilled hunters for hunting large animals like mammoths and bison, a new study suggests a different perspective.

Published in the journal PLoS One, the study conducted by archaeologists from the University of California, Berkeley proposes that these weapons were used to ensnare and wound charging animals, and possibly even defend against sabre-toothed cats.

So how did this hunting method work? Hunters likely positioned the sharpened spear in the ground at an angle, allowing the animal’s momentum to drive the spear deep into its body upon impact. This innovative technique provided a strategic advantage in hunting large animals, making it more effective than traditional spear-throwing.

“This ancient Native American design represents a significant advancement in hunting strategies,” stated Scott Byrum, a contributing researcher. John Myers, the lead author of the study, emphasized the importance of understanding ancient survival techniques that have been utilized worldwide for millennia.

To validate their findings, the researchers conducted experimental simulations of the hunting technique in addition to analyzing historical records and literature. This process led to a better understanding of how Clovis points were used to hunt mammoths during the Ice Age.

A replica of an ancient Clovis point shows distinctive flutes near its base. These may have been the weapons used to kill the mammoth. – Photo by Scott Byrum

Recreating this ancient hunting technique through experimental models enabled researchers to gain insight into the effectiveness and practicality of pike hunting. Byrum and his team aim to further test their theory by creating a simulated mammoth to assess the durability and impact of the Clovis point.

This method of impaling prey, known as pike hunting, has historical precedence in warfare and hunting practices. During the Ice Age, this technology was crucial for survival as it allowed hunters to reuse their weapons and avoid the challenge of finding suitable materials for crafting new spears in harsh winter conditions.

By discovering how Clovis points were utilized in hunting, researchers have shed light on the coexistence of early humans with large extinct animals. This new perspective highlights the innovative strategies employed by ancient hunters and deepens our understanding of human history.

Read more:

Source: www.sciencefocus.com

New Images of UGC 4879 Captured by Hubble Space Telescope

Posted on August 21, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

Hubble astronomers have released a stunning new image of the dwarf irregular galaxy UGC 4879, taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.

This Hubble Space Telescope image shows irregular dwarf galaxy UGC 4879, about 3.6 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble Space Telescope / K. Chiboucas, NOIRLab and Gemini North / M. Monelli, Canarian Astrophysics Institute / Gladys Kober, NASA and Catholic University.

UGC 4879 is an irregular dwarf galaxy in the constellation Ursa Major.

Also known as VV124 and LEDA 26142, this galaxy is quite isolated.

It lies 3.6 million light years from our Milky Way galaxy and 3.9 million light years from the Andromeda galaxy.

Dwarf galaxy Leo A, located about 1.6 million light-years away, is UGC 4879's closest neighbor.

This isolation makes UGC 4879 an ideal laboratory to study primordial star formation, without the complications of interactions with other galaxies.

There are only two other galaxies in the Local Group that have a similar, though slightly lower, isolation to UGC 4879: DDO 210 and SgrDIG, which are located in the opposite direction from UGC 4879.

“UGC 4879 is an isolated dwarf galaxy that lies just outside our Local Group of galaxies,” Hubble astronomers said in a statement.

“Because of its isolation, we are studying UGC 4879 to determine whether it is an old, relatively undisturbed galaxy.”

“Theories suggest that the least massive dwarf galaxies may have formed first.”

“If UGC 4879 is a relic from the early universe, it may offer clues about the hierarchy and evolution of galaxies, galaxy clusters, and even the universe itself.”

This image of UGC 4879 combines data from two Hubble observing programs focused on learning more about how dwarf galaxies form and evolve.

Source: www.sci.news

Scientists are puzzled by mysterious object speeding through galaxy at over a million miles per hour

Posted on August 21, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

An object moving through space at close to 1 million miles per hour has been detected, moving so fast that it is leaving the Milky Way galaxy. Scientists are now trying to identify this mysterious object.

Currently located 400 light-years away, the object known as CWISE J1249 is unlikely to be a spacecraft due to its massive size. It is approximately 30,000 times the mass of Earth, making it about 8% of the mass of the Sun.

This unusual size places J1249 somewhere between a star and a planet, as described by Dr. Darren Baskill, a lecturer in astronomy at the University of Sussex. According to Dr. Baskill, stars moving at such high speeds are rare.

The object’s speed is so rapid that it could exit the Milky Way galaxy in just a few tens of millions of years, which is a short period considering stars’ long lifespans.

This massive object, flying at 0.001% of the speed of light, has the potential to escape the galaxy and venture into intergalactic space.

Discovered by citizen scientists contributing to NASA’s Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 project, J1249’s speed is approximately 2.6 times faster than any space probe ever launched.

A new study, pending peer review, confirms these findings and further characterizes the object discovered through the initiative.

The object, with an unusual composition compared to stars and brown dwarfs, may be the first star of its kind in the galaxy, based on NASA’s observations.

Researchers believe the high-speed movement of the object may be linked to a supernova explosion in a binary star system or encounters with black holes in a star cluster.

Dr. Baskill suggests that gravitational slingshots could explain the extreme speed of J1249, potentially originating from the galaxy’s dense center and accelerated through gravitational interactions.

About our experts:

Dr. Darren Baskill is an Outreach Officer and Lecturer at the University of Sussex School of Physics and Astronomy, with a background in organizing astronomy-related events and competitions.

For more information, visit the University of Sussex website.

Source: www.sciencefocus.com

A Delightful Nuclear Disaster in the Lake District: Atomfall brings a very British Fallout to life | Games

Posted on August 21, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

circleWhen Atomfall was first revealed at the Xbox Games Showcase in June, many people asked, “Is this the British Fallout?” “In some ways it is, and in some ways it’s not,” says Ben Fisher, vice head of design at Rebellion, the Oxford-based studio that developed Atomfall as well as games like Sniper Elite 5 and Zombie Army 4. He explains that Rebellion head Jason Kingsley’s original idea was to look at Fallout’s free-form, self-guided experience and think about how it could be applied to something more familiar.

The difference with Atomfall is in its structure. “It’s a much denser experience,” Fisher says. “One of our benchmarks is Fallout: New Vegas, which is a denser experience than Fallout 3 or 4 in that it’s primarily one interconnected storyline, with layers driven by the player’s choices.” Rather than one giant open-world map, Atomfall features a series of interconnected maps, similar to the levels in the Sniper Elite games. “That’s what we’re good at,” Fisher says, adding that many of the game’s most interesting secrets are buried in bunkers deep underground.

Buried secret…Atom Fall. Photo: Rebellion

Atomfall tells an alternate history of the Windscale fire, Britain’s worst nuclear disaster, which occurred in 1957, which led to a large swath of the Lake District being placed under long-term quarantine in the game’s world. Atomfall’s Windscale factory is in a slightly different location to the real factory (now renamed Sellafield), which is part of a science park and where sinister secret experiments take place. Players wake up in a quarantined area five years after the disaster, but with no idea who they are. “Your role in the game then is to uncover what happened and, to some extent, decide what to do about it,” says Fisher.

The feel of the gameplay is reminiscent of the film Children of Men. “It’s a desperate battle for survival,” Fisher says. “You’re not a master assassin; it’s more like a pub brawl.” Players must craft weapons like hatchets, Molotov cocktails and bows and arrows, but because Atomfall is set in Britain there are very few guns or ammo, although there are cricket bats. “The fights are intense,” Fisher says. “It’s kill or be killed, and you or your enemy go down quickly.”

But far from gritty realism, Atom Fall boasts influences from pulp novels, with Fisher citing The Quatermass Experiment, The Prisoner, classic Doctor Who and The Wicker Man as major inspirations. “The Day of the Triffids was also a big inspiration,” he adds. “The idea of a feel-good catastrophe, of waking up in the middle of something and not knowing what’s happened.” It’s no coincidence that there’s a village called Wyndham, where you can also encounter a strange, deadly plant.

Folk horror runs deep in Atomfall. Some villagers trapped in the quarantine zone have rekindled an old pagan cult that dates back to the dissolution of the monasteries. “There was an old monastery, and the monks may have been worshipping things they shouldn’t have been worshipping,” Fisher hints, adding that the cult is based on ancient British symbolism, such as the Green Man. This is just one of the factions you can ally with in the game. The other is the Protocols, a remnant of the military sent to control the population after the disaster. But after five years of isolation from the outside world, the soldiers have become more authoritarian. “They’re kind of a warlord at this point.”

Other beings players might face include a fire-breathing ’50s robot from a British Atomic Research Department facility, disaster-related wildlife and flocks of bats, rats and crows that have “gone a bit crazy”, says Fisher. There’s also a local vicar and a jolly woodland witch, while the game’s bandits are a cross between Morris dancers and football hooligans. “There’s a distinctive Britishness that comes through in the features,” he says, adding that it could be the first game to include a Last of the Summer Wine Easter egg.

Freedom is at the core throughout. “We don’t offer a main quest in the traditional sense,” Fisher says. “We’ve made the game structure around discovering clues and piecing them together to figure out what you can do next.” After that, what you do with that information is entirely up to you. “We even allow you to kill every single character in the game,” Fisher says. “Nobody has plot armor.”

Source: www.theguardian.com

“Pakistani Businesses Face Internet Speed Challenges, Attribute Issues to Firewall Testing” – Global Development

Posted on August 21, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

debtOr when he advertised a free online tech-skills class, it got hundreds of likes on Facebook and eventually 1,500 people signed up. But on the first day last week, only a handful of those registrants were able to log in to the live session, and the internet was moving at a snail’s pace.

“We received hundreds of complaints,” said Warda Noor, founder and course instructor at XWave, an IT training company based in Raya, Punjab province, Pakistan.

What is the domestic internet speed? Dropped The Wireless and Internet Service Providers Association of Pakistan (Wispap) said internet connection speeds have fallen by 30-40 percent in the past few weeks, costing Pakistani businesses hundreds of millions of dollars, according to IT companies.

Those who were able to connect to Noor’s lecture complained of audio dropouts and poor connection. “We were forced to cut the two-hour lecture to one hour, and the Q&A portion of the program was cut,” she said.

Although live sessions have now been replaced with recorded lessons, Noor says it’s “just not the same.”

Many in the IT and software industry believe the turmoil is due to the government’s testing of a new nationwide Internet firewall.

“On the one hand, the new government is promising an information technology revolution in Pakistan, but on the other hand, it is completely suppressing it,” Noor said.

The government has repeatedly denied responsibility for the problem but has acknowledged plans for a firewall to regulate and block malicious content and protect government networks.

Information Technology Minister Shaza Fatima Khawaja said on Sunday that her team had been working “tirelessly” with internet service providers to resolve the issue. Blaming Pakistan for its “large population” To put strain on the network.

“Given the cyber attacks Pakistan is facing, it is the government’s right to take steps to safeguard its national interests,” she said.

Khawaja said the firewall would give the Pakistani government access to those conducting “anti-national propaganda.” Iran, China, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and several other countries already have such firewalls in place.

After the arrest of former Prime Minister Imran Khan last year sparked riots, the Pakistani government blocked and slowed down social media sites that had fostered support for Khan.

Platform X has been blocked since the February election over “national security” concerns, and supporters of Khan’s party point out that he is the most popular Pakistani on the platform, with nearly 21 million followers.

If the new firewall is the cause of the massive chaos the country is experiencing, there should have been some kind of warning. Pasha The association has approximately 1,500 member software and IT companies.

“It makes sense to take steps in the interest of national security, but in retrospect it could have been better planned and managed,” he said.

Azam Mughal, a cybersecurity expert at P@SHA, said his members are reporting huge financial losses. “International clients are telling these companies that they no longer want to commission projects from them because in the tech world, everything has to be delivered on time,” Mughal said.

He said companies could have been given warning: “Whenever new software is implemented, it is tested in a close lab environment to anticipate any initial struggles. But that was not done.”

“Our investigation found that internet outages over the past few months have cost the country up to $300 million in losses,” he said.

Pakistan recorded $298 million IT exports were worth £228 million in June, up 33% from a year ago. IT exports were worth $3.2 billion in the financial year that ended in June, up from $2.5 billion in 2023.

Source: www.theguardian.com

OpenAI Enters into a Multi-Year Content Partnership with Condé Nast | Technology Sector

Posted on August 21, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

Condé Nast and OpenAI have announced a long-term partnership to feature content from Condé Nast’s brands such as Vogue, Wired, and The New Yorker in OpenAI’s ChatGPT and SearchGPT prototypes.

The financial details of the agreement were not disclosed. OpenAI, backed by Microsoft and led by Sam Altman, has recently signed similar deals with Axel Springer, Time magazine’s owner, Financial Times, Business Insider, Le Monde in France, and Prisa Media in Spain. This partnership allows OpenAI to access extensive text archives owned by publishers for training large language models like ChatGPT and real-time information retrieval.

OpenAI launched SearchGPT, an AI-powered search engine in July, venturing into Google’s long-dominant territory. Collaborations with magazine publishers enable SearchGPT to display information and references from Condé Nast articles in search results.

OpenAI’s Chief Operating Officer, Brad Lightcap, expressed the company’s dedication to collaborating with Condé Nast and other news publishers to uphold accuracy, integrity, and respect for quality journalism as AI becomes more assimilated in news discovery and dissemination.

Condé Nast CEO Roger Lynch mentioned in an email reported by The New York Times that this partnership will help offset some revenue losses suffered by publishers due to technology companies. He emphasized the importance of meeting readers’ needs while ensuring proper attribution and compensation for the use of intellectual property with emerging technologies.

On the contrary, some media companies like The New York Times and The Intercept have taken legal action against OpenAI for using their articles without permission, indicating an ongoing legal dispute.

Source: www.theguardian.com

New study finds that climate change influenced the demographics of prehistoric hunter-gatherers

Posted on August 21, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

Using the large number of human fossils found in Ice Age Europe, paleoanthropologists have identified a population turnover in Western Europe 28,000 years ago, isolation between western and eastern refugia between 28,000 and 14,700 years ago, and a bottleneck during the most recent Ice Age.

Artistic reconstruction of an Ice Age hunter-gatherer group. Image courtesy of Tom Björklund.

“Around 45,000 years ago, the first modern humans migrated into Europe during the Ice Age, marking the beginning of the so-called Late Paleolithic period,” said Dr Hannes Lassmann, a researcher at the University of Tübingen.

“These early populations continuously inhabited the European continent, even during the so-called Last Glacial Maximum about 25,000 years ago, a time when glaciers covered much of northern and central Europe.”

“Archaeologists have long debated how climate change and the resulting new environmental conditions affected the demographics of hunter-gatherers at the time.”

“The limited number of available fossils and the often poor molecular preservation for ancient DNA analysis have made it very difficult to draw conclusions about the influence of climatic factors on migrations, population growth, decline and extinction.”

Because teeth make up a large part of the fossil record and preserve genetic traits in their morphology, Dr. Rathman and his colleagues compiled a large dataset of 450 dentitions dating from 47,000 to 7,000 years ago.

They focused on morphological features of the teeth – small variations within the dentition, such as the number and shape of cusps on the crowns, the pattern of ridges and grooves on the chewing surfaces, and the presence or absence of wisdom teeth.

“Because these traits are heritable, they can be used to trace the genetic relationships of Ice Age humans without the need for well-preserved ancient DNA,” Dr Lassman said.

“These features are visible to the naked eye, so we also looked at hundreds of publicly available photographs of the fossils.”

The results show that between about 47,000 and 28,000 years ago, during the Middle Glacial Period, populations from Western and Eastern Europe were well connected genetically.

During the subsequent Late Glacial Period, between 28,000 and 14,700 years ago, the researchers found no genetic link between Western and Eastern Europe.

Furthermore, the analysis shows that both regions have experienced significant declines in population size and loss of genetic diversity.

“This dramatic population shift was likely caused by major climate change,” Dr Rathman said.

“Temperatures during this period fell to their lowest values for the entire Upper Paleolithic, culminating in the Last Glacial Maximum, when ice sheets reached their maximum extent and covered large parts of northern and central Europe.”

“The worsening climate changed the vegetation from steppe to primarily tundra, affecting the habitat of prey animals and, consequently, the hunter-gatherers who depended on them.”

“Our findings support the long-held theory that humans were not only pushed southward by the advancing ice sheet but also isolated into isolated refugia with more favourable environmental conditions,” said Dr Judith Beier, also from the University of Tübingen.

Another notable finding of the study is the discovery that Western European populations became extinct during the transition from the Middle to Late Neoglacial and were replaced by new populations migrating from Eastern Europe.

After the Late Glacial Period, temperatures rose steadily again, the glaciers retreated, grassland and forest vegetation returned, and previously abandoned areas could be recolonized for the first time.

The team observed that during this period, the populations of Western and Eastern Europe, which had previously been isolated and significantly declining, began to grow again and migration between the regions resumed.

“Our new method makes it possible for the first time to reconstruct complex prehistoric demographic events using morphological data,” said researcher Dr Maria Teresa Vizzarri from the University of Ferrara.

“To our knowledge, this has never been accomplished before.”

“Our study provides important insights into the demographic history of Ice Age Europeans and highlights the profound impact that climatic and environmental change had on prehistoric human life,” Dr Lassmann said.

“If we want to tackle the complex environmental challenges of the future, we need to urgently learn from the past.”

of Survey results Published in the journal Scientific advances.

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Hannes Lassmann others2024. Human demography in Late Paleolithic Europe inferred from fossil dental phenotypes. Scientific advances 10(33);doi: 10.1126/sciadv.adn8129

This article has been edited based on the original release from the University of Tübingen.

Source: www.sci.news

Study finds air pollution may intensify summer thunderstorms

Posted on August 21, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

Researchers from James Madison University conducted a comprehensive study of thunderstorm environments in two distinct geographic regions: Washington, DC, and the Kansas City metropolitan area.

Air pollution is increasing the intensity of summer thunderstorms. Image courtesy of ELG21.

Land cover and atmospheric boundary layer characteristics modify thunderstorms and their characteristic phenomenon: lightning.

The most intense thunderstorm contrasts on Earth occur along continental and oceanic boundaries.

Generally, lightning strikes land at an order of magnitude more than it strikes sea.

The thermodynamic properties of the atmosphere vary significantly with different land covers over the Earth’s surface.

“Pollutants act as cloud nuclei,” said Mace Bentley, a professor at James Madison University and lead author of the study.

“Updrafts carry them into the clouds, and the updrafts and downdrafts separate the polluting particles, dispersing the electrical charges in the clouds and encouraging lightning to form.”

For the study, the authors surveyed nearly 200,000 thunderstorm events in the Washington, DC, area and more than 300,000 in the Kansas City area.

Using 12 years of lightning data from the National Lightning Detection Network and data from hundreds of air pollution monitoring stations in two cities, they found that in highly volatile environments, increased pollution increases the frequency of anti-ground lightning strikes.

“Our analysis identified a total of 196,836 thunderstorm events in the Washington DC area, while 310,209 thunderstorms were identified from the Kansas City lightning database,” the researchers said.

“In Washington, DC and Kansas City, more than 37.7% and 39.2% of all thunderstorm events, respectively, consisted of 10 or more flashes.”

“Evidence suggests that thunderstorm environments during mild warm-season synoptic weather are substantially different in terms of thermodynamics, aerosol properties, and aerosol concentrations in the Washington, DC, and Kansas City regions,” the researchers added.

“However, thunderstorm intensity, as measured by flash counts, appears to be controlled by similar thermodynamic and aerosol relationships despite differences in the surrounding environments.”

“When we look at the environments in which thunderstorms occur, we find a statistically significant positive correlation between convective available potential energy and the number of lightning events.”

“Aerosol concentration also appears to be a more important quantity than particle size when it comes to lightning enhancement.”

Scientists are now conducting a similar study in Bangkok, Thailand, a megacity that is more polluted than Washington, DC, or Kansas City and sits in a hot, tropical climate.

The results so far are similar, but these storms are showing a higher incidence of lightning.

“It appears that urban pollution can enhance thunderstorms and lightning wherever you go in the world,” Prof Bentley said.

of study Published in a journal Atmospheric Research.

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Mace Bentley others2024. Towards elucidating the relationship between thunderstorms and aerosols: An observational study centered on Washington, DC and Kansas City, Missouri. Atmospheric Research 304: 107402; doi: 10.1016/j.atmosres.2024.107402

Source: www.sci.news

Astronomers Spot Tiny Mark on Polaris’s Surface

Posted on August 21, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

Astronomers Center for High Angular Resolution Astronomy (CHARA) Array observed Polaris, the nearest and brightest classical Cepheid star, which is part of a triple star system.

This false-color image of Polaris taken by the CHARA array in April 2021 reveals large bright and dark spots on the star's surface. Image credit: Evans others., doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ad5e7a.

PolarisCepheid variable, also known as Polaris, Polaris, Alpha Ursa Minoris, HR 424 or HD 8890, is a type of star known as Cepheid variables.

Astronomers use these stars as “standard luminaries” because their true brightness is determined by their pulsation period: brighter stars pulsate more slowly than fainter stars.

How bright a star appears in the sky depends on the star's actual brightness and its distance.

Because astronomers know a Cepheid star's true brightness based on its pulsation period, they can use it to measure the star's distance to its host galaxy and infer the universe's expansion rate.

Dr. Nancy Evans of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and her colleagues observed Polaris using the six-telescope CHARA Optical Interferometer Array on Mount Wilson in California.

Their goal was to map the orbit of a nearby, faint companion star that orbits the North Star every 30 years.

“Binary systems are extremely difficult to resolve at their closest approach due to the small distance between the two stars and the large difference in brightness,” Dr Evans said.

The researchers were able to track the orbit of Polaris's nearby companion star and measure its change in size as Polaris pulsates.

From its orbital motion, we know that Polaris has five times the mass of the Sun.

Images of Polaris reveal that its diameter is 46 times that of the Sun.

CHARA's observations also revealed for the first time what the surfaces of Cepheid variables look like.

“CHARA images revealed large bright and dark spots on Polaris' surface that change over time,” said Dr. Gail Schaefer, director of the CHARA array.

“The presence of sunspots and the rotation of the star could be related to the 120-day variation in the measured speed.”

“We plan to continue photographing the North Star,” said University of Michigan professor John Monnier.

“We hope to better understand the mechanisms that produce the spots on Polaris' surface.”

Team paper Published in Astrophysical Journal.

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Nancy Remage Evans others2024. Orbit and dynamic mass of Polaris: Observations with the CHARA array. ApJ 971, 190;doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ad5e7a

Source: www.sci.news

Evidence of Indigenous Canines in Jamestown Colony during the 17th Century Unearthed through Ancient DNA Analysis

Posted on August 21, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

Multiple studies have demonstrated that European colonization of the Americas caused the extinction of most mitochondrial lineages of North American dogs between 1492 and present, and that they were replaced by European lineages. Historical records indicate that colonists imported dogs from Europe to North America, and that they became objects of interest and exchange as early as the 17th century. However, it is unclear whether the oldest archaeological dogs found from the colonial period were of European, Native American, or mixed ancestry. To determine the ancestry of dogs from the Jamestown Colony in Virginia, scientists sequenced ancient mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from six archaeological dogs dating from 1609 to 1617.

Lithograph “Indian Dog with Rabbit” by John Woodhouse Audubon.

Europeans and Native Americans treasured dogs as pets, used them for similar tasks, and as symbols of identity.

As a result, the dogs reflected the tensions between European and Native American cultures: settlers described Native American dogs as mongrels to emphasize their perception that Native Americans would not breed or own dogs.

Indigenous peoples perceived European dogs as a direct threat to their existence and took steps to restrict their use.

“Previous research had suggested that there were many indigenous dog species in the continental United States, but that they had gone extinct,” said Ariane Thomas, an anthropologist at the University of Iowa.

“We wanted to understand what it meant: when did it happen, were the dogs culled, were they in competition with European dogs or were they sick?”

Dr. Thomas and his colleagues focused on the Jamestown Colony in Virginia because of the number of dog remains found at the site and evidence of Native American influence.

They were able to identify and analyze 181 bones representing at least 16 different dogs.

Of these, the researchers selected 22 sites that span multiple points in Jamestown's early settlement, from 1607 to 1619.

To better understand the ancestry of these dogs, they extracted and sequenced ancient mtDNA.

Based on body size estimates alone, the researchers found that most of the Jamestown dogs weighed between 10 and 18 kg (22 and 39 pounds), comparable to modern beagles and schnauzers.

Additionally, many of the dog bones bore signs of human damage, including burn marks and cuts.

“Cut marks and other signs of butchery found on the dogs indicate that some of these dogs were eaten,” Dr Thomas said.

“This suggests that when settlers arrived, they did not have enough food and had to rely on the native dogs of the area.”

“Furthermore, DNA sequencing demonstrated that at least six of the dogs showed evidence of Native American ancestry.”

“Our findings indicate that there were indigenous dogs in the region and that they did not quickly become extinct when Europeans arrived.”

“While it is not surprising that dogs could be identified with Native American ancestry, our results suggest that settlers and Native American tribes may have been exchanging dogs and had little concern about potential interbreeding.”

of Survey results Published in the journal American Antiquity.

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Ariane E. Thomas othersTsenacomoco Dogs: Ancient DNA reveals presence of local dogs in Jamestown Colony in the early 17th century. American AntiquityPublished online May 22, 2024, doi: 10.1017/aaq.2024.25

Source: www.sci.news

Civilization 7 ushers in a new era, bringing the tumultuous history of humanity to life in a more accessible manner | Gaming

Posted on August 20, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

IIt’s been eight years since Civilization 6 launched, the latest in the long-running strategy game series in which you lead a nation from the first town in prehistoric times through centuries of development to the space age. Since 2016, the game has accumulated a plethora of expansions, scenario packs, new nations, modes, and systems for players to master, but Dennis Shirk, series producer at Firaxis Games, feels like he’s had enough. “It was getting out of hand,” he says. “It was time to build something new.”

“Even completing the whole game is a struggle,” says designer Ed Beach, citing a key problem Firaxis is trying to solve with the upcoming Civilization 7. While the early turns of Civilization 6’s campaign may be quick, when you’re only deciding what the inhabitants of a single town will do, “after a while you explode with the number of systems, units, and entities you have to manage,” Beach says. From turn one to victory, a single campaign can take more than 20 hours, and as you start to fall behind other nations, you might want to start over long before you see the endgame.

To that end, Civilization 7’s campaign is split into three eras — Ancient, Exploration, and Modern — with each era ending in a dramatic explosion of global crisis. “By dividing the game into chapters, we’re giving people a better sense of history,” Beach says.

Mongolian city in Civilization 7. Photography: Firaxis Games

When you start a new campaign, you choose a leader and civilization to rule, and lead your people to establish their first settlements and encounter other peoples in a largely undeveloped land. Choose which technologies to research, which cities to expand, and who to befriend or conquer. Every turn completed and every scientific, economic, cultural and military milestone passed adds points to a meter running in the background. When the meter reaches 200, you and all other surviving civilizations on the map will move on to the next era.

Choose and lead a new civilization as you move from Ancient to Exploration and from Exploration to Modern. You’ll keep all the cities you previously controlled, but you’ll have access to different technologies and attributes. This may seem odd, but it’s designed to reflect history – think of London, once ruled by the Romans, then replaced by the Anglo-Saxons. No empire lasts forever, but not all fall.

Dividing Civilization 7 into chapters also gives the campaign a new rhythm. As you approach the end of an era, you start to face global crises. In ancient times, for example, you see a surge of independent factions similar to the tribes that toppled Rome. “We don’t call them barbarians anymore,” Beach says. “It’s a more nuanced way of describing it.” These crises increase and intensify until you reach the next era. “It’s like a sci-fi or fantasy series that has a big, crazy ending, and then the next book is a calm, feel-good beginning,” Beach says. “There’s a moment of relief when you get to the next era.”

Veteran players will recognize the flow of Civilization 7’s franchise-wide offerings, but this new structure is certainly a radical change, introducing more chaotic and dramatic moments to every campaign. Whereas previously you were assured of victory (or defeat) after a few hours of play, each new era brings with it climactic crises and plenty of opportunities for game-changing moments. “Not everyone will survive,” Shirk says. “It’s a lot of fun to play.”

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Civilization 7 is scheduled to release on February 11, 2025 for PC, Mac, Xbox, PlayStation 4/5, and Nintendo Switch.

Source: www.theguardian.com

New Fish Species Found in Mauritanian Waters by Marine Biologists

Posted on August 20, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

A new species of three-bearded rockfish has been described from a specimen taken from a depth of 595 metres in the Tanoudre Valley, off the coast of Mauritania.

Guidelopsarus mauritanicus Hiding under a branching whitish bryozoan Serena reference. Lucida Image courtesy of Tomas Lundelf, University of Gothenburg.

order Cod These include some of the most important species for commercial fisheries today.

There are also small species in this genus, such as the Three-bearded Bulbul. Guide Lopezal Although it has little commercial value, its range is surprisingly wide.

“More than a quarter of all commercially caught marine fish in the world belong to the cod family. Cod family” These include fish species such as Atlantic cod, Alaskan pollock and haddock, which are particularly economically important,” said Dr. Alexander Norn, researcher at Senckenberg am Meer and the University of Bremen.

“However, the Gadidae family also includes much smaller, little known and less studied fish families, such as the Sardinae (Guidelopsalidae), of little commercial value but astonishingly wide in scope.”

The newly described species lives in deep-sea coral reefs off the coast of Mauritania.

“This is the site of the world's largest deep-sea coral reef system, the Mauritanian Wall. The reef stretches for at least 580 kilometres and is 80-100 metres high,” the biologists said.

Scientific Name Guidelopsarus mauritanicus The new species is just 7.3 centimetres long.

this is, Guide Lopezal The species was collected from Tasmania, the most remote geographic location of the samples the team studied.

“Guidelopsarus mauritanicus “It can be distinguished from other fish of the same species based on a combination of different characteristics, including large eyes, a head that takes up a quarter of its body length, long, slender pelvic fins and pink body colour,” Dr Norn said.

“Genetic analysis confirmed that this is a previously undescribed species.”

“Guidelopsarus mauritanicus They were caught with the help of grubs, along with a variety of live deep-sea animals, including framework-forming stony corals and other corals. Desmophyllum pertussum or red deep sea gorgonian Swiftia PhaetonIt also contains colonies of large sponges, bryozoans, starfish, annelids, decapod crustaceans, snails and bivalve mollusks.”

“Also, in the video footage, Guidelopsarus mauritanicus They live exclusively in deep sea coral ecosystems. One of the specimens we saw had whitish spots on its skin. This was the only fish we could see hiding under a branching, whitish bryozoan. Serena reference. Lucida.”

a paper The article describing this discovery Journal of Fish Biology.

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Alexander H. Norn others. Guidelopsarus mauritanicus (Gadiformes, Gaidropsaridae) A new species of three-baleen redfish from a deep-sea coral ecosystem. The biogeographical distribution of the genus is genetically verified, and notes on its ecology and behavior are provided. Journal of Fish Biology Published online August 16, 2024; doi: 10.1111/jfb.15859

Source: www.sci.news

Review of Tactical Breach Wizards: A Fun and Intense Strategy Game that Rivals XCOM 2

Posted on August 20, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

aThe best place to start with Tactical Breach Wizards, a game that relies heavily on glimpses into the future, is a little further down the line. Let’s start with the fact that this special ops tour of magical mystery is the most important turn-based tactics game since the classic XCOM 2. Its blend of inventive, flexible puzzles and highly entertaining writing is enough to warrant active play on anyone’s console. But what makes the game worthy of Special Arcane Service is how boldly it critiques the murky morality of military-themed games.

In Tactical Breach Wizards you take command of a ragtag team of witch detectives, necromancers, time-manipulating wizards and druid hitmen and use your team’s diverse abilities to overcome escalating tactical siege scenarios. A typical level requires you to break into and enter a room, neutralize six enemies, seal a door to stop reinforcements, and reach a computer that will open a passage to the next room.

This is a simplified example of the format where you don’t have to worry about base management or higher layers of strategy. Instead, it focuses on creatively using magical powers to resolve scenarios as cleanly as possible. Jen, a freelance storm witch, casts lightning spells that can push people away without causing damage and knock out enemies by pushing them into objects or out of windows. Zan, a naval seer, can foresee events a second ahead, allowing him to roughly predict how his enemies will attack, but also to set up ambushes or give his teammates extra actions. Combining powers to maximize efficiency is a key tactic, for example, using Zan’s time boost ability to have Zan use his lightning power twice.

Each room you enter introduces a new ability, enemy, or idea that increases the challenge and your ability to face it. For example, you can recruit the necromancer Dessa to kill people and resurrect them to heal them, or place interdimensional portals in your walls to push through enemies and eliminate them quickly.

Tactical Breach Wizards wants to maximize the puzzle potential by having you move lots of small enemies around a room. But unlike XCOM, it doesn’t extend lateral thinking with brute force. Most scenarios are relatively easy to solve, as you can undo decisions you made on any given turn. However, each stage also has bonus objectives, such as completing a stage without taking any damage at all. Rather than punishing mistakes and killing your allies, Tactical Breach Wizards gently guides you towards excellence.

This more tolerant attitude is also reflected in the game’s themes. Tactical Breach Wizards is never a serious game – evidenced by objectives like “jump through the Pyromancer’s window” and the fact that Zan’s “assault rifle” is a machine gun frame with a wizard’s wand rather than a barrel – but it does treat its characters and the problems they face seriously. One of my favorite bits is the heartfelt exchange that happens every time the team gathers to breach another door. Not only is it a great joke, but the conversation that follows is also incredibly witty and offers great insight into each wizard’s inner life.

But the game’s most impressive trick is how it spins a truly intriguing spy thriller out of its ridiculous concept, while refusing to abide by the uncomfortable ethics of modern military games. The team is made up of rebels and outcasts rather than government-sanctioned wizards, and their enemies are enforcers of a religious dictatorship and people hired by private military companies (plus a traffic warlock called Steve). Even when facing these foes, the team only follows non-lethal rules of engagement. You might wonder how they can do this when people are constantly being kicked out of windows, and the answer is simple: they’re wizards.

This is a nearly perfectly balanced game, with nothing wasted. do not have A wicked ode to turn-based tactics, it embraces the genre’s creative puzzles while rejecting its worst excesses. In Tactical Breach Wizards you can see into the future, raise the dead and smash windows with a witch’s broomstick, but the most powerful magic of all is empathy.

Source: www.theguardian.com

Tesla announces minimum tariffs for Chinese-made cars exported to EU

Posted on August 20, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

The European Commission has updated its extensive investigation into Chinese government subsidies for electric cars. They have announced that Tesla will be subjected to a 9% tax on Chinese-made cars exported to the EU.

The tariffs imposed on Tesla are significantly lower than the average of 21.3% on cooperating companies and 36.3% on non-cooperating companies. These tariffs were applied after Tesla requested individual action as part of the broader EU investigation.

Compared to the 100% tariffs imposed by the US, the 9% EU tariffs are relatively low and will be added on top of the existing 10% tariffs on EVs from China.

EU officials visited Tesla’s Shanghai facility in June and stated that the company has benefitted from low-cost batteries and Chinese government subsidies, including cheap land and export subsidies.

The 9% tariffs are expected to be in effect by October 31st, pending approval from EU member states.

Furthermore, the European Commission announced a slight reduction in tariffs on Chinese-made EVs after discussions with the companies. Under the latest proposal, BYD would face a 17% tariff, Geely 19.3%, and SAIC 36.3%. These tariffs have been revised downwards since the provisional measures were first announced and could change again.

EU officials confirmed that companies will not have to pay provisional tariffs until the deadline, as concluded that European automakers are under a “threat of harm” rather than actual harm like factory closures or job losses.

EU officials emphasized the need for action to prevent the surge in Chinese EV exports from causing significant harm to EU producers. They stated that their laws allow them to act before actual harm occurs in terms of job losses or factory closures.

The Kiel Institute for the World Economy estimated that China’s EV support will reach $5.6 billion by 2022, when direct payments to manufacturers are phased out.

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BYD has been the largest beneficiary, receiving $3.7 billion in support, while Tesla received about $426 million for its Shanghai factory.

According to a report by China trade website Soapbox, 45% of Beijing’s electric car exports between June 2020 and June 2024 were headed to the EU.

Chinese manufacturers ramped up exports in April ahead of expected tariffs, with import registrations of Chinese-made EVs increasing from April to May before declining, as shown by customs data.

Source: www.theguardian.com

The Reasons Behind My Ongoing Focus on Elon Musk in the World of Technology

Posted on August 20, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

“I Last week, I sent out TechScape to our readers, hoping to take a break from writing about Elon Musk. However, my news editor had other plans: “Can you keep an eye on Elon Musk’s Twitter feed this week?”

Reading Musk’s tweets, I felt like my brain was melting. Even though I’d covered him for years, his online presence surprised me. From promoting Tesla and SpaceX to sharing cheesy nerdy jokes and diving into right-wing politics, his chaotic behavior had a new twist.

His briefest overnight break came on Saturday night, when he retweeted controversial content and then dived back in hours later with more questionable tweets.

Musk’s involvement in UK politics pushed him further into the far-right spectrum. Engaging with controversial figures like Lauren Southern and supporting Britain First’s co-leader, Musk’s online persona was more divisive than ever. Now, they are his supporters.

Well, that’s fine.

Today I’ll give you a good example from the world of AI that shows the difference between a scientific press release and a scientific paper. University of Bath’s press release claims AI poses no existential threat to humanity, but the actual research paints a different picture.

The study questions the capabilities of large-scale language models, suggesting that they are not as groundbreaking as claimed.

While the press release version is attention-grabbing, the scientific paper delves deeper into the limitations of AI capabilities. It highlights the challenges of ensuring AI safety in the face of emergent capabilities.

The paper reveals that emergent AI capabilities might not be as groundbreaking as they seem and are more controllable than believed. This sheds light on the complexity of AI safety in the face of evolving technology.

The pain of training

Nvidia’s use of YouTube data to train AI has led to legal troubles. A federal lawsuit alleges Nvidia stole videos from YouTube creators to train its AI, sparking a debate about intellectual property rights.

This lawsuit underscores the challenges AI companies face when sourcing training data. While some companies openly disregard copyright restrictions, others like Nvidia face legal battles over data usage.

On the other hand, companies like Google have a different approach due to their dominant position in the tech industry. Many websites allow Google to use their content for AI training to maintain visibility in search results.

Ask Me Anything

In my final TechScape after 11 years at the Guardian, I’m answering readers’ questions. Feel free to ask me anything tech-related, and I’ll do my best to provide insights and recommendations.

The Wider TechScape

Source: www.theguardian.com

The Boeing spacecraft: What went wrong?

Posted on August 20, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

The astronauts launched aboard the Starliner on June 5. The following day, they faced difficulties.

As Starliner neared the International Space Station, five of its 28 Reaction Control System thrusters failed, causing a nearly one-hour delay in the docking process.

Located on the spacecraft’s service module, these thrusters are crucial for maneuvering the capsule in orbit, especially during docking and undocking with the space station.

Although all four thrusters were eventually fixed, prompting NASA to launch an investigation into the cause of the failure.

Engineers from NASA and Boeing have been testing the thruster performance using a test engine at the White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico, under conditions similar to those experienced by the capsule during its journey to the space station.

Mission managers also performed a “hot fire test” by firing Starliner’s thrusters briefly while docked to the space station.

Initial results revealed that most of the thrusters operated normally, but a small Teflon seal expanding at high temperatures potentially blocked propellant flow to the thruster, leading to the docking issues.

Steve Stich, NASA’s commercial crew program manager, mentioned the need for further testing to ensure ground tests accurately simulate on-orbit conditions. They also want to understand how the thruster issues impact Starliner’s ability to undock safely from the space station.

Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore at Space Launch Complex 41 in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on June 5.
Chris O’Meara/AP Files

Additionally, the team is monitoring the spacecraft’s propulsion system for slow helium leaks.

Despite knowing about a helium leak before Starliner’s launch, officials discovered two more leaks in the capsule’s service module shortly after liftoff.

NASA confirmed that the propulsion system was stable and that the rate of helium leaks was not critical for the spacecraft’s return to Earth.

Further testing and analysis were conducted by additional propulsion experts hired by the company earlier this month.

The decision to return Wilmore and Williams aboard Starliner or use SpaceX for their return will determine their orbital stay extension into the new year, potentially until February for Wilmore, who could return with two other crew members aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft.

NASA is expected to announce its decision on the astronauts’ return in the coming days.

Source: www.nbcnews.com

BBC Science Focus Magazine Unveils New Book: Endless Power

Posted on August 20, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

Dark Empath

A surprising study finds that people with dark personality traits can also be highly empathetic – but does this make them more dangerous? that's right What goes on in the mind of a dark empath?

Lionsman Mushroom

Lion's Man is making waves right now. This hairy mushroom's health-boosting and disease-preventing properties are being lauded across the internet and it's widely available as a supplement, taking the health food world by storm. But is all the hype real? Food and nutritionist Dr Emma Beckett delves into the science behind Lion's Man's claims for immunity, inflammation, gastrointestinal health, mental health, cognition, heart health, diabetes and cancer – and of course the side effects.

Deep Sea Creatures

Discover some weird and wonderful creatures that live in the darkest depths of the ocean and the extraordinary vision they've evolved. To find prey or avoid predators, these incredible eyes can detect bioluminescence, or the last vestiges of the sun's light dripping into the pitch black ocean.

Black hole collision

Just as runners “hit the wall” at the end of a race, supermassive black holes come to a near-complete halt as they hurtle towards each other. Is it dark matter that gets them over this final hurdle and allows them to collide?

plus

Questions and Answers: Expand your science knowledge bit by bit. This time we will be covering topics like: What is the most secret weapon we know? How to overcome the fear of rejection? What is the strongest substance in the universe? Do we all have lizard brains? Can we really absorb microplastics through our skin? And many more!
Polluted Rivers: This year's men's triathlon was postponed due to concerns about the quality of the Seine's water. Meanwhile, in Britain, seas and rivers are being used as dumping grounds for untreated sewage. terrible it is?
Scientific Hacks for Better Sleep: Did you know the secret to better sleep is to fall asleep faster? Here are 8 science-backed tips to help you fall asleep quickly and restfully every night.

Issue 409 will be released on Tuesday, August 20, 2024

Don't forget BBC Science Focus It is also available on major digital platforms. Android, Kindle Fire and Kindle e-Reader,and iOS App For iPad and iPhone.

Source: www.sciencefocus.com

Study finds that Chicxulub asteroid, which caused dinosaur extinction, originated from beyond Jupiter.

Posted on August 20, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

The asteroid, called the Chicxulub impactor, was a carbonaceous asteroid that formed outside the orbit of Jupiter. New Paper Published in the journal Science.

Ankylosaurus magniventrisA Tyrannosaurus, a type of large armored dinosaur, witnessed the impact of an asteroid that fell on the Yucatan Peninsula 66 million years ago. Image by Fabio Manucci.

About 66 million years ago, a 10-kilometer-wide asteroid struck Earth near what is now a small town called Chicxulub in Mexico.

This impact released incredible amounts of climate-changing gases into the atmosphere, setting off a chain of events that led to the extinction of the non-avian dinosaurs and 75% of life on Earth.

Evidence includes the presence of high concentrations of platinum group elements (PGE) in the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary layer, including iridium, ruthenium, osmium, rhodium, platinum, and palladium, which are rare on Earth but common in meteorites.

These elevated PGE levels have been found worldwide, suggesting that the impact spread debris around the world.

Some have proposed large-scale volcanism in the Deccan Traps igneous province of India as an alternative source of PGEs, but the specific PGE ratios at the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary are more consistent with an asteroid impact than volcanism.

However, little is known about the nature of the Chicxulub impactor, including its composition and extraterrestrial origin.

To answer these questions, Dr Mario Fischer-Gödde from the University of Cologne and his colleagues measured ruthenium isotopes in samples taken from three sites at the Cretaceous-Palaeogene boundary.

For comparison, the team also analysed samples from five other impacts that occurred between 36 million and 470 million years ago, an ancient impact spherule from 3.5 to 3.2 billion years ago, and two carbonaceous meteorites.

The researchers found that the ruthenium isotope signature of samples taken from the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary was uniform and matched very closely to that of carbonaceous chondrites rather than those from Earth or other types of meteorites, suggesting that the Chicxulub impactor likely came from a carbonaceous-type asteroid that formed in the outer solar system.

The other five impact structures have isotopic signatures more consistent with silicic asteroids that formed closer to the Sun.

The ancient spherulitic samples are consistent with a carbonaceous asteroid impact during the final stages of Earth's accretion.

“The composition of this asteroid is consistent with that of carbonaceous asteroids that formed outside Jupiter's orbit during the formation of the solar system,” Dr Fischer-Gödde said.

“Asteroid impacts like Chicxulub turn out to be very rare and unique events in geological time,” said Professor Carsten Müncher from the University of Cologne.

“The fate of the dinosaurs and many other species was sealed by this object that came from the outer solar system.”

_____

Mario Fischer-Gedde others2024. Ruthenium isotopes indicate that the Chicxulub impactor was a carbonaceous asteroid. Science 385 (6710): 752-756; doi: 10.1126/science.adk4868

Source: www.sci.news

After four years, Fortnite makes a comeback on mobile thanks to EU legislation

Posted on August 20, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

“Fortnite” is making a comeback on mobile phones after four years of being absent from Apple and Google app stores. Android users worldwide can now download the new app store from the company to access the game along with two other titles from Epic Games.

In the EU, only iPhone users can enjoy the relaunch, as Epic Games embraces the looser regulations imposed on Apple by the Digital Markets Act (DMA).

Founder Tim Sweeney expressed gratitude to the European Commission for enabling competition between app stores and preventing Apple and Google from hindering it. The three games will also be available in Alt Store PAL, the largest independent app store in the EU under Apple’s new terms.

This marks the end of a long-standing battle between Sweeney and mobile platforms regarding revenue sharing. In 2020, Epic took action by allowing users to make in-game purchases directly from the company to avoid the 30% fees charged by Apple and Google, leading to the game being blocked from their App Stores.

Despite the relaunch, Sweeney mentioned that the battle is not over, as both companies still impose hurdles for users to install alternative app stores. Epic is also working towards making Fortnite available to mobile users in the UK following similar legislation to the EU’s DMA.

Apple’s control over user activities on iPhones has been loosened by regulations, but the company continues to tighten restrictions in other areas. Patreon, a creator economy service, was recently instructed by Apple to end a longstanding exception to the 30% commission rule.

By November 2024, Patreon will phase out its in-app purchase system and implement a 30% fee on new memberships purchased through the App Store. Patreon creators can either increase subscription fees by 30% or absorb the loss from the additional fee.

Source: www.theguardian.com

Hubble Space Telescope captures photo of obscure barred spiral galaxy

Posted on August 20, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

Astronomers have created a beautiful image of the barred spiral galaxy UGC 11861 using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.

This Hubble Space Telescope image shows UGC 11861, a barred spiral galaxy in the constellation Cepheus, 69 million light-years from Earth. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / C. Kilpatrick.

11861 posts It is located in the northern constellation Cepheus and is about 69 million light years away from Earth.

The galaxy, also known as LEDA 67671, IRAS 21557+7301, or TC 609, is classified as a barred spiral galaxy and a candidate active galactic nucleus.

UGC 11861 is Composed It consists of an exponential disk, a central box-shaped structure, and two broad spiral arms.

“The galaxy is actively forming new stars amidst clouds of gas and dark dust grains, visible as glowing blue spots in the outer arms,” Hubble astronomers said in a statement.

“As a result of this activity, three supernova explosions have been observed in and near UGC 11861, in 1995, 1997, and 2011.”

“The first two were both Type II supernovae, the kind that result from the collapse of a massive star at the end of its life.”

“This Hubble image was made from data collected to study a Type II supernova and its environment.”

The color image of UGC 11861 was created from images taken separately in the visible and near-infrared regions of the spectrum. Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS).

Two filters were used to sample different wavelengths, and color was generated by assigning a different hue to each monochromatic image associated with an individual filter.

“UGC 11861 is located 69 million light-years from Earth, which may seem a very long distance, but it was just the right distance for the Hubble Space Telescope to capture this spectacular photo of the galaxy’s spiral arms and the short, bright bar at its center,” the astronomers wrote.

Source: www.sci.news

Review of Vision Pro: Apple’s cutting-edge headset exceeds expectations

Posted on August 20, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

ohOn a sweltering summer day in London, I found myself working in the middle of snow-covered Yosemite National Park, surrounded by floating apps and browser windows. Later, I’d reminisce about holidays from years ago, staring out at windswept Oregon beaches, sitting in a speeder on Tatooine watching Rogue One in 3D, and spending the night with a guided meditation.

These are the sort of immersive experiences Apple’s latest, and most expensive, gadget offers, blending the real and virtual worlds, all controlled by your eyes and hands. The Vision Pro may resemble virtual reality headsets like Meta’s Quest series, but it aims to be something much more.

But with a prohibitive price tag of £3,500 (€3,999 / $3,499 / AU$5,999) that most buyers won’t even consider, this cutting-edge tech marvel is best thought of as a glimpse into the near future of computing.

You can use your Mac’s screen, keyboard, and trackpad streamed to a simulated 4K display, alongside other windows and apps. Photo: Martin Godwin/The Guardian

Put on the headset and you’re transported to a photorealistic exotic location, or use the Digital Crown to increase or decrease immersion, seamlessly blending reality and the virtual world. The real world is sent through the camera to a crystal-clear display and displayed as pass-through video — far better than the competition, and so clear that you can read on your phone without taking off the headset.

Your content appears in a floating window fixed in 3D space, as big or small as you like. Even if you walk by the window, your content stays where you were and is instantly visible when you return. Just see the content you want and select it with a pinch of your fingers. Type directly by “touch” on the hover keyboard or scroll through sites like a giant virtual iPad.

Step into an immersive experience and go one step further by walking with dinosaurs, exploring the solar system or flying along neon-lit highways in rhythm games.

Third-party apps offer a variety of mixed reality and immersive experiences. astronomy (Top left), Jetpack Joyride 2 (Top right), Disney+ (Bottom left) and Luna (Bottom right). Photo: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian

Heavyweight Technology

Vision Pro is the pinnacle of headset tech: The same M2 chip found in the 2022 MacBook Air runs apps, and its R1 chip processes input from the headset’s 12 cameras, five sensors, and six microphones. Combined, this delivers a smooth experience in both the real and virtual worlds displayed on two high-resolution Micro-OLED displays in front of your eyes.

The exterior cameras and sensors create a map of the real world, including objects like furniture and walls, and track the user’s position and hand movements. The interior camera monitors eye movements to interact with buttons and objects, making sure what you’re looking at is clear. The headset also features “Optic ID,” an alternative to Face ID, to seamlessly unlock and authenticate payments by scanning your iris.

The experience is exponentially better than anything that came before, and at times, it’s magical.

The various parts of the Vision Pro attach to each other via magnets and quick-release clips, including two types of straps. Photo: Martin Godwin/The Guardian

All the technology packed into the Vision Pro creates one major problem: weight. At up to 650 grams, it’s heavier than Apple’s largest iPad Pro and competing headsets like the Quest 3, which weighs 515 grams. And that doesn’t include the 353 gram battery, which connects to the headset with a cord so you can put it in your pocket or keep it on the desk in front of you.

During the ordering process, your face is scanned with an iPhone and a custom fit is created from nearly 200 combinations of strap sizes, “light seals” and cushioning, making it more comfortable than any other headset and leaving no goggle marks on your face.

What remains is the strain on my neck. After wearing the headset daily for a month, I can now manage sessions up to about two hours long. However, I still feel like I’ve given my neck a workout, and wearing it for long periods without taking proper breaks causes the same neck, shoulder and back pain I get when I’m hunched over a laptop all day.

The battery lasts for about 2-3 hours, which is plenty long enough for you to easily charge it while sitting at your desk or on the couch, but this headset isn’t designed to be easily shared, and even if you manage to get a good fit on your guest’s face, you’ll need to redo the eye-tracking setup for five minutes to get it to work temporarily.

We’re only scratching the surface in productivity improvements

I placed my Mac display in the center with various windows around it, and some behind and above it, and the screenshots in the headset don’t do justice to how it will look in person. Photo: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian

The Vision Pro is different from other headsets in that it’s fully integrated into the Apple ecosystem — more like a Mac than an iPhone — allowing you to create an entire app and productivity environment anywhere, without the need for multiple monitors.

It comes with many familiar apps, including Apple’s Mail, Messages, Notes, Keynote, Freeform, and Photos, and many others are available as “compatible” apps, including Microsoft’s Word and Excel, but it doesn’t include Google apps like Gmail or Drive, and only some of them work properly as web apps in Safari.

The headset tracks your hand movements relative to virtual objects, and here we see the common two-handed pinch-to-zoom gesture to increase the size of a photo. Photo: Martin Godwin/The Guardian

Using the Vision Pro as part of a productivity setup is great, but that’s only scratching the surface of what the headset can do.

Apps for Vision Pro are varied: some simply drag 2D experiences into the 3D space of the headset, like games played on a TV screen placed within the environment, while others are fully immersive environments you can walk around in.

The Apple TV app lets you enter a virtual cinema and choose your row and seat, while Disney+ lets you sit on a couch in Avengers Tower or the aforementioned speeder on Tatooine. On both services, the 3D movies look especially good.

But where Vision Pro really shines is when you combine real and virtual worlds, such as playing on a virtual chessboard placed on a table in front of you. Apple’s Encounter Dinosaur demo experience shows what’s possible by creating a portal to a prehistoric land that’s fixed to the actual wall of a room. A butterfly emerges from the portal and lands on your outstretched finger. The dinosaur then comes into view and locks eyes with you. The dinosaur’s head and eyes follow you as you move around the room, before scaring off rival dinosaurs and roaring at you.

There are only a handful of truly great experiences available on the App Store right now, but most of the best ones are controlled directly by your hands and body. Other headsets can do similar things, but none do it as easily, accurately, or with the same high fidelity as Vision Pro.

Relive your memories like never before

When you view your holiday panoramas with Vision Pro, the photos expand all around you, filling your field of vision completely for an immersive experience. Photo: Apple

One of the most unexpected and wonderful things about Vision Pro is its ability to relive past moments through photos, videos, and panoramas.

Loading a panorama photo made me feel like I was standing in Death Valley again, enjoying the dramatic colors of a sunset over the vast desert. Or sitting in a packed Capital One Arena watching the Washington Capitals play ice hockey. And a photo I took from the top of Seattle’s Space Needle gave me the same feeling of height dread I had when I took it seven years ago.

Vision Pro can also display spatial and 3D videos shot with a headset or iPhone 15 Pro. These look like the little holograms you often see in sci-fi, giving you a real sense of depth and the feeling of being back in the moment, but it takes practice to get it right

Source: www.theguardian.com

New study indicates that increased UV exposure may be beneficial for health in sun-deprived nations

Posted on August 20, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

A recent study indicates that individuals in the UK Biobank who utilized solariums and resided in regions with high annual average residential shortwave radiation were at a decreased risk of death from various causes, including cardiovascular disease and cancer. Solarium users also exhibited a lower risk of non-cardiovascular/cancer mortality.

Higher exposure to UV light was associated with lower all-cause mortality, cardiovascular disease mortality, and cancer mortality.

“In the UK and other nations with substantial European descendant populations, the emphasis of public health messaging has been on the dangers of ultraviolet (UV) exposure,” stated Professor Chris Dibben from the University of Edinburgh and his team.

“This is particularly concerning considering the established connection between UV radiation and melanoma development.”

“New findings suggest that the benefits of UV exposure might outweigh the risks, especially in low sunlight settings.”

“Among a group of Swedish women, those with higher sun exposure had a longer life span compared to those who avoided the sun.”

“The reduction in mortality rates is mainly linked to decreased cardiovascular and non-cardiovascular/non-cancer mortality.”

“In a study of Swedish women with moderate sun exposure habits, fair-skinned women had an 8% lower overall mortality rate compared to non-fair-skinned women.”

The study utilized genetic and health data from UK Biobank to examine UV exposure in 395,000 individuals in the UK.

Participants were limited to individuals of European descent with fair skin due to the impact of skin pigment on the body’s response to UV radiation.

Researchers utilized two criteria to identify individuals with higher UV exposure levels.

They assessed participants’ geographical locations to determine their average yearly solar energy exposure and whether they utilized sunbeds.

Living in regions with elevated UV levels, like Cornwall, was correlated with a lower risk of dying from cardiovascular disease and cancer (19% and 12% respectively) compared to regions with lower UV levels, such as Edinburgh and Glasgow.

Use of sunbeds was connected to a 23% reduced risk of cardiovascular disease death and a 14% lower risk of cancer-related death compared to non-users.

Given that sunbed users might also engage in more sunbathing, this result could reflect broader sun-seeking behaviors.

Individuals with higher estimated UV exposure showed a slightly greater risk of melanoma diagnosis but not an increased risk of mortality from melanoma.

“Our study contributes to the mounting evidence indicating that relatively high UV exposure in low-light environments could be advantageous for health,” Prof Dibben remarked.

“While increased UV radiation exposure may elevate skin cancer risk, this risk seems to be outweighed by the considerable reduction in cancer and cardiovascular-related disease mortality.”

“Dermatologists have traditionally only considered sunlight’s potential harm to the skin based on experiences of white individuals in sunny nations like Australia,” noted Professor Richard Weller from the University of Edinburgh.

“It is essential to safeguard your skin during periods of very high UV index, but this study indicates that the balance of benefits and risks from sun exposure in the UK may differ significantly from sunnier locales.”

Reference: Survey results Published in the journal Health and location.

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Andrew C. Stevenson others2024. Higher UV exposure is associated with reduced mortality: analysis of data from the UK Biobank cohort study. Health and location 89: 103328; doi: 10.1016/j.healthplace.2024.103328

Source: www.sci.news

Astrophysicists find denser molecular clouds do not increase efficiency of star formation.

Posted on August 20, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

Despite recent progress, the question of what controls the star formation efficiency in galaxies remains one of the most debated in astrophysics. According to the dominant view, star formation is controlled by turbulence and feedback, with a star formation efficiency of 1-2% per local free-fall time. In an alternative scenario, the star formation rate in the Galactic disk is proportional to the mass of dense gas above a critical density threshold. In a new study, astrophysicists from Université Paris-Sacra show that Michael Mattern and his colleagues aimed to distinguish between the two images with high-resolution observations. Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) tracks dense gas and young stars in a comprehensive sample of 49 nearby dense molecular clouds.

This composite image shows RCW 106, a star-forming region in the southern constellation Norma, about 12,000 light-years from Earth. The image overlays a red map of dense gas taken by APEX’s ArTéMiS camera on top of an optical image taken by ESO’s VLT Survey Telescope. Image credit: ESO / M. Mattern others.

Understanding what controls the efficiency of star formation in galactic giant molecular clouds is a fundamental unsolved problem in star formation research.

The star formation rate at multiple scales in galaxies is known to be strongly correlated with the mass of available molecular gas.

Overall, star formation is observed to be a very inefficient process.

“The glowing red clouds seen in the image above indicate regions of dense gas where new stars are being born in the RCW 106 region,” the astronomers said in a statement.

“But only 1 percent of this gas actually forms stars, and we don’t know why this percentage is so low.”

“We know that star formation occurs when regions of these giant clouds of cold gas come together and eventually collapse, and new stars are born. This happens at a critical density.”

“But beyond that density, could even more stars be formed in even denser regions? And could this help explain the 1% mystery?”

Their new results suggest that this is not the case: the dense regions are not efficient for star formation.

According to the team, this can probably be explained by these dense clouds breaking up into filaments and nuclei from which stars form, but many questions remain.

“Our results suggest that the star formation efficiency does not increase as the density passes a critical threshold, supporting a scenario in which the star formation efficiency in dense gas is nearly constant,” the researchers said.

“However, measurements of star formation efficiency tracked by young class I stars in nearby clouds are inconclusive, as they are consistent with both the existence of a density threshold and its dependence on density above the threshold.”

“Overall, we suggest that the efficiency of star formation in dense gas is determined primarily by the physics of filament fragmentation into protostellar cores.”

of study will be displayed in journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.

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M. Mattern others2024. Understanding star formation efficiency in dense gas: Initial results from the ArTéMiS CAFFEINE survey. A&Ain press; arXiv: 2405.15713

Source: www.sci.news

The South American lungfish has the largest genome ever sequenced to date.

Posted on August 20, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

Researchers from the University of Konstanz and other institutions Africa(Protopterus annectens) and South American lungfish (Lepidosiren paradoxa)The genome of the South American lungfish (approximately 91 gigabases, about 30 times the size of the human genome) is the largest animal genome sequenced to date. Australia(Neoceratodus forsteri) African lungfish.

South American lungfish (Lepidosiren paradoxaImage courtesy of Katherine Seghers, Louisiana State University.

Lungfish are freshwater vertebrates belonging to the order Dipnoi (Pulmonaceae) and have existed for 400 million years, from the Devonian to the present day.

Some people consider lungfish to be “living fossils” because their morphology has changed very little over the years.

They, like all terrestrial vertebrates, have the ability to breathe air through lungs similar to our own.

Only six species of lungfish remain today: four live in Africa, one in South America, and one in Australia.

“These ancient 'living fossils' still resemble their ancestors so closely that they seem to have been forgotten during evolution,” said biologist Axel Meyer of the University of Konstanz and his colleagues.

“Since our genetic material, DNA, is made up of nucleobases and the sequence of these nucleobases contains the actual genetic information, a comparative analysis of the lungfish genome will only be possible if we know its complete sequence.”

“We already knew that the lungfish genome was large, but until now it was unclear how large it really was and what we could learn from it,” the researchers added.

“Sequencing the lungfish genome has therefore been very labor-intensive and complex, both from a technical and bioinformatics point of view.”

In a new study, scientists have sequenced the genome of African and South American lungfish.

“The South American species' DNA is 91 gigabases (or 91 billion bases), the largest of any animal genome and more than twice the size of the genome of the previous record holder, the Australian lungfish,” Dr Meyer said.

“Eighteen of the South American lungfish's 19 chromosomes are each larger than the entire human genome, about 3 billion base pairs in length.”

The largest genome sequence to date, that of the Australian lungfish, was also sequenced by the same team.

“Autonomous transposons are responsible for the large size of the lungfish genome over time,” the authors write.

“These are DNA sequences that are 'replicated' and change position in the genome, which causes the genome to grow.”

“Although similar phenomena have occurred in other organisms, our analysis shows that the South American lungfish has by far the fastest rate of genome expansion ever recorded; every 10 million years, its genome has expanded to a size equivalent to the entire human genome.”

“And it continues to grow. We now have evidence that the transposon responsible is still active.”

“We have identified a mechanism for this enormous genome growth. This extreme expansion is due, at least in part, to the very low presence of piRNAs.”

“This type of RNA is normally part of the molecular mechanism that silences transposons.”

Team paper Published in the journal Nature.

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M. Chartres othersAll lungfish genomes provide information on genome expansion and tetrapod evolution. NaturePublished online August 14, 2024, doi: 10.1038/s41586-024-07830-1

Source: www.sci.news

NASA Inspector General Criticizes Boeing’s Quality Control With Scathing Review

Posted on August 20, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

Many of the deficiencies identified in the report were not addressed.

Boeing’s response processes for past defects have been ineffective, and the company has not been responsive in taking corrective action for recurring quality control issues,” the company stated.

When asked for comment, a Boeing representative directed NBC News to NASA.

In a written response included in the report, Katherine Corner, deputy administrator for NASA Headquarters’ Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate, emphasized NASA’s commitment to the highest technical and programmatic standards.

NASA is dedicated to ensuring that its personnel and contractors are qualified, well-trained, and prioritize mission safety,” Corner expressed.

The report suggested various recommendations, such as imposing financial penalties on Boeing for not meeting quality control standards. However, NASA opted not to levy any financial penalties.

The Space Launch System, standing at 322 feet tall, along with the Orion spacecraft, aims to launch astronauts to the moon to establish a base on its surface.

NASA successfully conducted an uncrewed test flight of the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft in 2022 (Artemis I mission). The following year, four astronauts are scheduled for a crewed flight around the moon (Artemis II mission).

Aside from the first-generation SLS rocket, NASA is also working on a more powerful model capable of carrying more cargo to the moon, led by Boeing as the prime contractor for the enhanced upper stage, known as the Space Launch System Block 1B, with work commencing in 2014.

Originally, an improved rocket system was planned to transport Artemis 2 astronauts into lunar orbit, but this timeline adjustment delayed development and raised costs, as stated by the inspector general.

According to a new report, the Block 1B version of the SLS could potentially cost up to $5.7 billion per launch.

This assessment marks a setback for NASA’s lunar return program, plagued by delays and budget overruns. Over the span of more than a decade, the agency has invested over $42 billion in the Space Launch System and Orion spacecraft.

Last year, NASA’s inspector general estimated each Artemis launch to cost $4.2 billion.

Source: www.nbcnews.com

Study suggests a remarkably faraway asteroid could have been responsible for dinosaur extinction

Posted on August 20, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

Research has shown that the asteroid responsible for the mass extinction that annihilated the dinosaurs 66 million years ago originated from a distant region in the solar system, unlike most asteroids that have collided with Earth.

According to European and American researchers, the dinosaur-killing asteroid formed in a cold area outside Jupiter’s orbit and contained high levels of water and carbon. Survey results The study detailing these findings was published in the journal Science on Thursday.

In their analysis of objects that have struck Earth in the last 500 million years, the researchers noted that only asteroids rich in water have caused mass extinctions like the one that wiped out the dinosaurs. Co-author François Tissot, a professor at the California Institute of Technology, explained that asteroids originating closer to the sun were significantly drier.

Tissot further stated, “All other impacts that occurred were from objects closer to the sun and just happened to hit that specific spot, so the asteroid responsible for the dinosaur extinction is truly unique in both its characteristics and origin.”

This catastrophic asteroid created the Chicxulub crater in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. While direct samples of the asteroid itself were unattainable due to its fragmentation, researchers were able to analyze particles that were dispersed upon impact and settled in Earth’s strata.

The researchers specifically examined ruthenium, a rare element on Earth that can be linked back to the asteroid.

The study confirmed earlier conclusions that classified the asteroid as a carbonaceous, or C-type, asteroid, though some theories proposed it could have been a comet that caused the dinosaur extinction.

Tissot explained, “Comets originate from great distances from the sun and are primarily composed of ice and dust. While the ruthenium levels of a comet have not been measured, based on research indicating other elements, it seems highly improbable that the extinction-causing object was a comet.”

According to Tissot, this study represents progress in understanding the evolution of Earth.

“By delving into Earth’s history, we now have a comprehensive look at its evolution,” he remarked. “This allows us to pose new questions about our planet.”

Source: www.nbcnews.com

The Northeast Experienced Two Rare Once-in-1,000-Year Rainfall Events in a Single Night.

Posted on August 20, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

Over the weekend, a storm hit the Northeast, causing an extraordinary amount of rainfall in two locations on the same night, a rare occurrence that is expected once in a thousand years. The storm resulted in at least three fatalities and widespread flooding. In areas like Oxford and Southbury, Connecticut, 10 inches of rain fell in a span of 12 hours on Sunday. Similarly, Stony Brook, New York, received about 6.7 inches of rain in just three hours Sunday night. The likelihood of both events taking place in any given year is approximately 0.1%. According to federal rainfall probability data, these incidents are significant and not a common occurrence.

Nick Basile, the director of the State Weather Risk Communication Center at the University at Albany in New York, mentioned that experiencing extreme rainfall levels in two different areas in such close succession is noteworthy. While it is challenging to determine the direct impact of climate change on specific events, experts suggest that the combination of extreme rainfall events supports a broader trend in the Northeast, where intense storms are becoming more frequent.

Mark Wysocki, a retired New York state meteorologist, explained that thunderstorms are now producing heavier amounts of rainfall compared to the past. The Northeast has witnessed a considerable rise in extreme precipitation, with the 2023 National Climate Assessment reporting a steep increase in the number of events with significant rainfall.

Members of the Beacon Horse Company rescued people from the Brookside Inn in Oxford, Connecticut on Sunday.Beacon Hose Co. via The Associated Press

The impact of climate change on the behavior of the jet stream may be contributing to the prolonged presence of storms in certain areas, bringing in more moisture and causing heavier rainfall. However, researchers are still in the early stages of studying this phenomenon, making it challenging to draw definitive conclusions.

With infrastructure not designed to handle such intense rainfall, cities in the Northeast face significant challenges during severe weather events. Flash flooding becomes a major concern, prompting calls for better urban planning and infrastructure upgrades.

In Connecticut, tragic deaths occurred as a result of the storm, with two individuals swept away by floodwaters and another person killed by a fallen tree. The storm led to evacuations, water rescues, and disruptions in transportation. Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont announced the prolonged closure of more than a dozen roads in the aftermath of the storm.

Source: www.nbcnews.com

Monday will see a rare blue moon and supermoon dominating the sky

Posted on August 20, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

Skywatchers on a budget will be excited for a night of celestial luck on Monday, as they have the chance to witness a supermoon and a seasonal blue moon together.

NASA explains that a blue moon, by its technical definition (the third full moon in a season of four), occurs approximately once every 10 years.

A supermoon happens when the moon is full at its closest point to Earth in its orbit. These occurrences vary, with the most intense supermoons appearing around 14 percent larger than when the full moon is farthest from Earth. While this supermoon may not be among the most intense, it still qualifies as a supermoon according to NASA.

The moon’s colors will appear off-white and grey, with hints of brown and yellow.

As per NASA, a “super blue moon” can happen every 20 years. NASA’s FAQ confirms: It’s set to be a bright Monday night.

People watch as a super blue moon rises behind Nacka in Stockholm on Monday.
Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP-Getty Images

With the new blue moon definition (the second full moon in a month with two full moons) and the traditional seasonal blue moon definition, a super blue moon can be expected once every five years.

The next occurrence of a moon similar to Monday’s, as a supermoon coinciding with a seasonal blue moon, is scheduled for August 21, 2032, according to NASA. The next supermoon aligned with a monthly blue moon will take place in January 2037.

Monday’s super blue moon also acts as an indicator for the remaining 30 days of summer, which ends on September 21st.

“Seasonal blue moons consistently occur roughly a month before the vernal equinox or summer solstice,” NASA highlights in an FAQ.

Many Americans anticipating this unique celestial event may face disappointment as the National Weather Service forecasts thunderstorms overnight from the northern Mid-Atlantic to New England, with a chance in the High Plains regions.

For those in the San Francisco Bay area, where the moon is expected to be visible, skies are predicted to be mostly clear, ensuring that “the supermoon will be visible tonight,” as stated by the National Weather Service.

During the Giants-Chicago White Sox game, scheduled to commence an hour before sunset, Denver’s Blue Moon Brewing is organizing a post-game drone spectacle for fans at Oracle Park.

“Once the Giants-White Sox game concludes, the stadium lights will dim, and the sky above Oracle Park will illuminate with a drone show titled ‘Once in a Blue Moon,’ as confirmed by the brewery in a statement.

Source: www.nbcnews.com

Prehistoric Lovebirds Thrived in Humanity’s Birthplace 2.5 Million Years Ago

Posted on August 20, 2024 by Igor Mitreski

Paleontologists have discovered the fossilized bones of a new species of parrot. Agapornis The event will take place in three regions of the UNESCO World Heritage Site “The Cradle of Humankind” in Gauteng, South Africa.

Rebuilding the couple's lives Agapornis longipes People forage on the ground during the dry season in the Early Pleistocene period of the Cradle of Humankind, Gauteng, South Africa. Image by Martina Cadin.

“Lovebirds (Genus Agapornis“Psittacidae (parrots) are small parrots endemic to sub-Saharan Africa and Madagascar,” said Dr Marco Pavia from the University of Turin and his colleagues.

“It currently includes nine species that live in woodlands and wooded savannahs, breed in tree cavities, and feed mainly on grass seeds and fruits collected on the ground and, to a lesser extent, on trees.”

“Genetic data suggest that parrots colonized Africa during the late Eocene and early Oligocene. Agapornis They first migrated into Africa from Australasia during the Late Oligocene/Early Miocene, about 24 million years ago.”

“Psittacula Crameri “It is the most recent parrot to have dispersed across the continents around the boundary between the Pliocene and Pleistocene epochs (2.5 to 1.5 million years ago).”

“The fossil record of African parrots is very scarce, with the oldest dating back to the early Pliocene period of the Langebaanweg.”

“Surprisingly, most of the African fossils AgapornisThe oldest one is Agapornis Attenborough It was described from the Early Pliocene of the Langebaanweg in South Africa.”

The newly identified species is Agapornis longipesIt lived in South Africa about 2.5 million years ago.

The fossils have been found at Kromdraai, Cooper Cave and Swartkrans sites in South Africa.

The specimen includes all major wing bones (humerus, ulna, carpometacarpals), tarsometatarsus, a fragmentary mandible, and a coracoid.

“The fossils were recovered from three sites in the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Cradle of Humankind, a key area for understanding early human evolution in Southern Africa,” the paleontologists said.

“The Cradle of Humankind contains several hominin fossil sites dating from the Late Pliocene to the Late Pleistocene, and their study has shed light on the paleoecological and paleoenvironmental context surrounding the emergence of the genus Homo in the region, and its relationship to the contemporary species Australopithecus and Paranthropus.”

“The three fossil sites – Swartkrans, Cooper's Cave and Kromdraai – are located in the southern part of the Cradle Range, approximately one kilometre east and one and a half kilometres northeast of Sterkfontein Cave respectively, and are separated by a few hundred metres from each other,” the researchers added.

Agapornis longipes It is distinct from nine extant species. Agapornis Genus and extinct Agapornis atlanticus and Agapornis Attenborough It is known for several morphological characteristics and for having the smallest humerus-to-tarsometatarsal ratio. Agapornis seed.

“Except for one. Agapornis “These species feed primarily on grass seeds and then fruits and are generally associated with the presence of grasslands, permanent water sources and tall trees that provide either natural cavities or holes excavated by other birds such as woodpeckers or barbets,” the researchers said.

“The long, slender legs Agapornis longipes This may be related to feeding adaptations of this extinct species.”

“Indeed, modern species with a low humerus-to-tarsometatarsus ratio typically gather food on the ground, while others also gather seeds and fruits from trees.”

“We assume that Agapornis longipes As suggested by paleoenvironmental reconstructions, it used its longer legs to feed on grass seeds at ground level in the tall grass, dense prairie of the paleo-Blue Bank Valley.”

“The present-day environment in this region of the Cradle of Humankind and South Africa is not significantly different from that of the Early Pleistocene, and the extinction of lovebirds from this region during the Pleistocene is likely related to changes in microclimatic conditions and the extinction of specific food resources, rather than changes in general environmental conditions.”

This new species is paper In the journal Geobios.

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Marco Pavia othersLovebirds (birds, parrot family, AgapornisThis fossil was discovered in the Plio-Pleistocene era (Gauteng, South Africa), the birthplace of humankind. GeobiosPublished online August 9, 2024; doi: 10.1016/j.geobios.2024.05.006

Source: www.sci.news