It’s not just called go juice. Caffeine is the most popular performance-enhancing drug in the world. It’s not a nutrient, but a drug, and it’s the most widely consumed psychoactive stimulant by humanity.
In the UK, 98 million cups of coffee are consumed every day. Apart from kickstarting your morning, it has been shown to enhance motor skills like muscle strength and endurance, as well as cognitive skills such as attention, reading speed, and problem-solving abilities.
“There’s a long list of substances believed to enhance performance,” says James Betts, Professor of Metabolic Physiology at the University of Bath. “But I would put caffeine at the top of that list because its effects are so powerful and consistent, affecting almost every tissue in the body.”
Fun fact: Coffee beans are actually seeds from the fruit of the coffee tree – Credit: Sam Brewster
These effects are driven by a diverse biology. Caffeine stimulates the nervous system, increases adrenaline, reduces fatigue, promotes fat burning for energy, and helps conserve glycogen stores, thus improving endurance.
Additionally, it blocks adenosine receptors, a neurotransmitter promoting sleep. This is why coffee makes us feel alert and energized. However, excessive caffeine consumption can lead to irritability, anxiety, and insomnia.
It’s important to time your caffeine intake correctly for optimal effects. Research by Betts suggests that consuming strong coffee after a night of poor sleep can impair blood sugar control over time.
Poor blood sugar control can increase the risk of diseases like type 2 diabetes and heart disease, emphasizing the importance of strategic caffeine consumption.
For improved performance during workouts or activities, Betts recommends consuming coffee 45 to 60 minutes before starting. The effects of caffeine are long-lasting, lasting up to one to two hours in heavy consumers and four to six hours in moderate consumers.
In the 16th century, coffee was banned in Mecca because it was believed to stimulate radical thinking – Photo credit: Getty
While caffeine can enhance cognitive tasks, excessive consumption can lead to poor academic performance due to disrupted sleep quality and daytime sleepiness.
Overall, Betts believes caffeine consumption, especially in the morning, is beneficial for waking up and functioning well throughout the day. It has been linked to preventing various diseases and promoting a healthy, active lifestyle.
About our experts
James Betts is a Professor of Metabolic Physiology at the University of Bath with expertise in nutrition, exercise, and metabolism.
WWhen the baby parrots were delivered to Alice Soares de Oliveira’s desk, they had no wings and could barely open their eyes. The pair, housed in a dirty cardboard box, were just a month old and showed signs of not feeding well.
The parrot, along with two young toucans who arrived just under a month later, were victims of wildlife traffickers. They were all put up for sale on social media, probably snatched from their mother’s nest by poachers.
They were taken to Soares de Oliveira, a veterinarian. CeMaCAS, Wildlife Conservation Center in a forest on the outskirts of Brazil’s largest city, São Paulo, after being rescued by police surveillance networks on platforms such as Facebook and WhatsApp.
Illegal advertising of snakes for sale online in Brazil. Photo: Provided by RENCTAS
Social media has become an important tool for wildlife traffickers, experts say. For example, more people are using Facebook to promote the sale of endangered animals and their byproducts, often switching to messaging apps like WhatsApp to complete the sale.
Report published in October The Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime flagged 477 advertisements for 18 protected animals in Brazil and South Africa alone in three months this year. 78% of this was on social media.
The illegally traded parrot arrives at the CeMaCAS conservation center in poor condition after being rescued by the police. Photo: undefined/provided by CeMaCAS
Simone Haytham, director of environmental crime at the Global Initiative, said traders moved online after authorities cracked down on street markets. “The online space now provides a means for many of the world’s most endangered and most highly protected species to find consumers,” she says. “There’s a huge treasure trove of endangered species available for purchase online, but it’s no easy feat.”
Crawford Allan, vice president of nature crime at the World Wildlife Fund, said the pandemic has “systemized” wildlife crime online. “A lot of the public markets were closing down,” he says. “People couldn’t move, a lot of things went online, and it became the norm.”
Laws regarding the sale of wild animals vary by jurisdiction and species, so social media companies face a difficult situation in determining whether such ads are illegal. Nevertheless, experts say tech companies need to do more to determine when posts are risky.
Global Initiative combines AI technology and human analysis to detect suspicious ads online. The company’s reporting system, part of a project called Eco-Solve, covers Brazil, South Africa and Thailand, and will soon be expanded to India, Indonesia and the UAE.
Richard Scobie, executive director of TRAFFIC, an organization focused on wildlife trafficking, said advertising on social media allows sellers to “circumvent” the law and sell goods without telling buyers where they come from. He says it happens often.
“Companies need to allocate far more resources to regulating how users illegally trade wildlife parts and derivatives on their platforms,” he says. “Social media companies are working to combat illegal transactions on their platforms…but there is much more they can do.”
Some tech companies are taking steps to combat this problem. In 2020, Facebook introduced tags for some search terms to warn users of the dangers of wildlife trafficking, and meta was removed. 7.6 million posts in 2023according to the Coalition Against Online Wildlife Trafficking.
The coalition is a voluntary association that includes most of the major social media companies in the United States and China.
It announced that in 2021, 11.6 million posts were blocked or deleted by members.
Parrots illegally traded after being recovered at CeMaCAS. Photo: undefined/provided by CeMaCAS
WWF’s Alan was a founding member of the federation and continues to oversee its activities. He said tech companies have been receptive to activists’ attempts to clamp down on their activities, but job cuts in the industry are hurting progress.
“As a conservation organization, we always feel that people need to do more, but we also understand that they are dealing with terrorism, child safety and all the evil in the world that flows through social media channels. They have bigger and scarier problems to deal with,” he added.
“I feel that some companies have found a balance. Others haven’t. They’re not working hard enough or they’re inactive for some reason, so they step up and do more. You need to make an effort.”
A spokesperson for Meta, which owns Facebook and WhatsApp, said: “We do not allow activities related to the purchase, sale, lottery, gifting, transfer or trading of endangered or protected species on our services.
“We use a combination of technology, team reviews, and user reports to identify behavior that violates our Terms of Service and respond to valid requests from law enforcement.”
Wildlife trafficking threatens biodiversity and can lead to the extinction of certain species. According to 2023 Forensic Science International articlesapproximately 5,209 animal species are endangered or nearly endangered due to “use and trade.”
Illegal online advertising of macaws for sale in Brazil. Photo: Undefined/Courtesy of RENCTAS
Mr Haytham said: [being advertised for sale online] It is protected as it is on the verge of extinction. They are protected because trade poses a major threat to their survival. ”
Soares de Oliveira of São Paulo believes the birds in his care have a bright future. Veterinarians at CeMaCAS care for hundreds of birds and animals at a time. She is confident that the parrot and toucan will make a full recovery and be released back into the wild.
“They are in the middle of rehabilitation. They are still young so we are monitoring them, but I think they will be able to live a free life in three months,” she says.
Find more coverage of extinction ages here and follow biodiversity reporters Phoebe Weston and Patrick Greenfield on the Guardian app for more nature coverage.
“Everyone remembers the first Nokia,” says Mark Mason, who joined the carrier’s design team during its heyday in the 1990s. “When you say that name, it brings back memories.”
This is not as far-fetched as it sounds. In 1998, the Finnish consumer electronics manufacturer was the world’s best-selling mobile phone brand, accounting for 40% of the global market and 70% of the UK market.
Nokia’s cultural influence will be properly recognized for the first time in January, when the company’s design archive will be on display. Finland’s Aalto University has acquired the archive and will make it available through selected portals online as well as displaying it on its campus in Espoo.
Nokia’s influence on Finland is indisputable, but the Finnish Institute for Economic Research (Etla) reports that Nokia has contributed A quarter of Finland’s economic growth from 1998 to 2007 – The brand’s international pop culture value is also undeniable.
“Nokia was one of the first telcos to truly emphasize design and difference, offering everything from very affordable phones to the latest cutting-edge phones.” says technical editor Jonathan Bell. wallpaper* magazine. “In the world before Apple, Google, and even Samsung, they stood above all the other players.”
Nokia’s factory ringtone – Gran Valse from 1902 by Francisco Tarrega – became very popular in the 1990s and 2000s. the bird learned to sing it. In 2009, it was reported that the song was listened to an estimated 1.8 billion times a day worldwide. This equates to 20,000 times per second.
Keanu Reeves uses the famous “banana” cell phone, the Nokia 8110, in 1999’s The Matrix. Photo: Landmark Media/Alamy
The Nokia 8110 handset (better known as Banana) starred in the 1999 film. matrix. The brand quickly became endowed with cultural prestige.
Style journalist Murray Healy face He was a magazine editor during Nokia’s heyday in the 1990s, and currently serves as the editorial director of a fashion magazine. perfection. “In the late ’90s, when cell phones were boring, serious, precious, expensive mini-monoliths associated with yuppies, here came this cheap, curvaceous, happy-looking, slightly toy-like device,” he says. says. “It’s pocket-sized, the battery lasts forever, and it doesn’t seem to break down.”
Healy says the Nokia 3210, launched in 1999, was key in ushering in a culture of complete customization with its colorful, changeable chassis. “You can also print the name of your favorite band on it.”
Nokia was also the first mobile phone manufacturer to support SMS texting, and its mobile keypads were perfectly designed for it.
“All of these factors made the product immediately appealing to a youth market that was already adept at avoiding exorbitant call charges with text messages,” Healy says.
Mason, who spent 20 years at Nokia and is now a design expert at the British Design Council, says it was a great time for creativity. “We created a design language early on that put humans at the center. Our slogan was ‘Human Technology’ and Nokia’s slogan was ‘Connecting People.’ Everything we did was centered around that. The keyboard was also curved like the Mona Lisa’s smiling face. When you looked at it, it smiled back at you. “
Aalto University’s archives contain marketing images, sketches, market profiling and presentations that provide new insights into what was once one of the world’s most innovative companies.
Anna Valtonen is the lead researcher at the Nokia Design Archive and a former designer at the company. Her favorite piece on the record is an audiotape in which the designer explains what she’s been working on. “Combined with visual material, it creates a more human story. It not only gives color to the document, but also outlines what the designer was trying to achieve.”
By 1999, Nokia’s operating profits reached $4 billion, but the good times didn’t last long.
Ben Wood, Chief Analyst and Head of Marketing at CCS Insights, said: “This is the sad story of a once-great company that not only defined but dominated an industry for more than a decade, but was forgotten sooner than anyone imagined.”
Nokia’s decline was due to a combination of factors. Complacency played a big role. The company could not accept the competitive threat posed by new approaches, especially more powerful touchscreen smartphones such as the iPhone.
Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel holds a Nokia slide-out phone in Berlin in 2013. Photo: Fabrizio Bensch/Reuters
Since 2007, Nokia’s market value has fallen by about 90% and it was acquired by Microsoft in 2013.
Nokia’s design archive is a window into an optimistic era, when personal devices and technology were seen as purely positive additions to family life and well-being. But the clunky, bulky phones are finding a new audience among young people whose parents grew up with the brand and now want their children to have less access to social media.
Nokia devices are manufactured by Finnish independent mobile phone manufacturer Human Mobile Devices (HMD), which has been in production since 2016 and whose staff is mostly made up of former Nokia employees.
Valtonen said working with the archives gave him a sense of more than nostalgia. “It gave me a feeling of optimism and forward-looking thinking more than anything else. There are so many changes happening in technology at such a fast pace that it’s important to take a moment to pause and take a look behind the scenes. It’s great to get a glimpse of all the work being done, and I hope this material inspires people and makes them realize the potential for innovation.”
Mason’s hope is unashamedly nostalgic. “I can’t be too excited about my time at Nokia. It’s like a family and I’ve created a design icon. I hope people dig their old phones out of their drawers. – You’ll probably still be able to use it. If you cut me, you’ll have bright blue Nokia blood.”
The impacts of climate change are widespread, ranging from biodiversity loss to extreme weather events, rising sea levels, wildfires, and mass human migrations. Each year reveals more about our impact on the environment, with some discoveries more surprising than others.
One of the most shocking revelations to join this list is the recent discovery that our greenhouse gas emissions are altering the Earth’s rotation.
As a result, Earth days are gradually becoming longer, potentially leading to significant changes in how we experience time in the future.
“It’s fascinating how our actions as humans can have such a profound impact on the entire planet through the extensive climate change we’ve triggered over the last century,” says Professor Benedict Soja, a scientist at ETH Zurich who contributed to uncovering this concerning trend.
“This effect may surpass previous significant influences on Earth’s rotation.”
Could we see more hours in a day?
We are familiar with the greenhouse effect, where gases like carbon dioxide trap heat in the Earth’s atmosphere, leading to a rise in temperatures.
Last year, global temperatures were 1.18 degrees Celsius above the 20th-century average, approaching the 1.5 degrees Celsius target set in 2015 as a limit to avoid the worst consequences of climate change.
Record melting of Swiss glaciers in 2022 – Credit: Getty Images
The primary consequence of this warming is the melting of large ice areas in the Arctic and Antarctic, with Switzerland losing 10% of its glacier mass in the last two years, Antarctica shedding 150 billion tons of ice annually, and Greenland losing 270 billion tons.
While many are concerned about the impact of this melting on coastal areas, Soja and his team posed a different question: Will this significant mass redistribution likely prevail? What will be its broad-scale impact on the planet? In a recent study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), they provided an answer.
“As the ice melts, the Earth’s mass shifts from the polar regions to the oceans,” Soja explained. “This results in the Earth becoming flatter and more oblate, with its mass moving further from the rotation axis.”
Understanding the Mechanism
Similar to any rotating object, the Earth adheres to the law of momentum conservation. Simply put, momentum must be preserved, and it depends on the moment of inertia and rotational speed. As mass moves away from the rotation axis due to melting ice, the moment of inertia increases.
Therefore, to uphold its momentum despite ice melting, the Earth’s rotation slows down, elongating our days.
Soja likens this concept to a figure skater performing a spin, where extending the arms slows down the rotation, while pulling them in speeds it up.
The study indicated that from 1900 to 2000, the climate’s impact on the length of Earth’s day ranged from 0.3 to 1.0 milliseconds per century. Since 2000, accelerated melting has raised this rate to 1.3 milliseconds per century, with a potential increase to 2.6 milliseconds per century by 2100 if emissions remain unchecked.
While these changes may seem small in our daily lives, they could have significant effects on a globally synchronized technological network.
Considerations on Time Management
Three main timescales play crucial roles in timekeeping: International Atomic Time (TAI), Universal Time (UT1), and Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). TAI relies on atomic clocks, UT1 is determined by Earth’s rotation, and UTC synchronizes the two.
Leap seconds were introduced in 1972 to align UTC with UT1 within 0.9 seconds.
Unlike predictable leap years, leap seconds are added irregularly as needed. Since 1972, 27 leap seconds have been added, with the most recent in 2016. Disruptions from leap seconds have caused issues in the digital age, impacting technology companies striving for synchronization.
Atomic clock made in Germany – Credit: Alamy
The recent discovery of Earth’s core slowing down further complicates matters. If the planet’s rotation continues to accelerate, a negative leap second may need to be introduced to UTC. This unprecedented situation poses substantial challenges as systems are unprepared for negative adjustments.
“This has never occurred before, and frankly, I don’t think anyone anticipated it,” Agnew remarked. He compares this scenario to the Y2K scare when concerns about potential computer errors surfaced at the end of the 20th century.
“The critical aspect is that we don’t know the consequences of introducing a negative leap second,” he cautioned. “The negative impacts could be unforeseen.”
According to Agnew, if the effects of climate change had not slowed down, a negative leap second would have been necessary in 2026. “Global warming might postpone negative leap seconds and eliminate their need entirely,” he noted.
While this discovery regarding climate change may offer a positive effect, considering less necessity for negative leap seconds, the implications of further greenhouse gas emissions outweigh any potential benefits. As the situation stands, negative leap seconds may still be required in 2029.
Perhaps it’s time to reconsider the current system?
Agnew proposed a solution to reduce the required precision between timescales, eliminating the need for negative leap seconds and allowing for more predictable positive adjustments.
“It could resemble a leap year. You add a fixed number of seconds at a specific time and accept that it may not be exact but is tolerable,” suggested Agnew.
This proposition aligns with the dominance of slowing over longer timescales, rather than the complex interactions involving Earth’s core or ice melting.
Efforts are reportedly underway to implement this system, with a target to eliminate the need for leap seconds by 2035. However, international agreement hurdles must be overcome. Failure to adapt before requiring a negative leap second could lead to unprecedented chaos, highlighting the urgency of the situation.
Meet the Experts
Benedict Soja: Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Geoengineering at ETH Zurich.
Duncan Agnew: Professor Emeritus at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, specializing in crustal deformation measurement and geophysical data analysis.
Elon Musk seems to have many preferences. The world’s richest man is evangelical about electric cars, space travel, and Donald Trump. Another of his interests could have a significant impact on British politics.
The billionaire is reportedly considering paying a rumored £80m to Nigel Farage’s British Reform Party, becoming its biggest donor in history.
Musk watchers say that, like many who supported Trump’s militant brand of right-wing populism, he became radicalized by frustration with the lockdowns.
Frustrated by the damage to manufacturing at Tesla car factories, he began spending more time online and testing the limits of the misinformation rules set by Twitter, as it was then known. Ta.
Now that he helped propel Trump to the White House, he is reportedly turning his attention to Britain.
Reform officials say they have no knowledge of Mr. Musk’s spending plans, which Mr. Musk also denies. But if the Tesla and X owners back up their online criticism of Keir Starmer’s government with huge donations to the Labor opposition, it could be one of the most significant political moves of this parliament.
Within two years of acquiring Company X (formerly Twitter) in October 2022, Mr. Musk has already become a darling of the international far-right, and under the banner of free speech has previously suspended his account. Thank you for reviving it. But Musk went further, using his account to amplify the messages of far-right activist and convicted criminal Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, also known as Tommy Robinson.
By the time riots erupted in British cities this year, Mr Musk had engaged in a full-scale onslaught against the Labor government, claiming “a civil war is inevitable” and echoing that position, calling the prime minister “two-tiered”. Police reportedly treated white far-right “protesters” more harshly than minorities.
But over the weekend there were hints that Mr Musk might trade words and actions regarding the UK when the Sunday Times reported: He may be about to donate £80m He was a supporter of Nigel Farage’s British Reform Party and believed that the MP would be the next British Prime Minister.
Mr Musk denied the claims on Thursday, but Reform UK has remained noticeably silent on the matter, while Mr Farage boasted last month that he was counting on the support of his “new friend Elon” in the next general election. I was doing it. A major donor to his party even said quite bullishly to the Guardian this week: “Keep an eye on this area.”
Mr Musk’s wealth has increased by $133bn (£104.4bn) so far this year, reaching $362bn from his roughly 13% stake in Tesla and ownership in a number of companies.
The reasons behind Mr Musk’s apparent hostility towards Starmer and interest in Britain may be more complex.
Various theories about why the UK has been targeted by Mr Musk include the idea that he has come to view the UK as the epicenter of what he calls the ‘waking mind virus’. , blames Musk for his estranged daughter’s gender change. .
An even more outlandish theory, based partly on Musk’s time with X, is that Musk’s tweets in response to breaking news in the UK are a result of his tendency to stay up late in the US is.
“I don’t think you should tweet after 3am,” Musk told the BBC last year.
But one of the most obvious explanations is Musk’s own liberal, ultra-free speech vision that X is the true “town square” of the internet, and Labor’s mission to crack down on online hate speech. It is related to a clear conflict between
Mr Musk is “not accountable to anyone”, Peter Kyle, the UK science and technology secretary who is directly responsible for the government’s engagement with social media companies, complained in August. Also irritating Mr. Musk, Mr. Starmer’s current chief of staff has been involved in the creation of the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), which criticizes Mr. Musk for stripping away guardrails against hate speech on Twitter. This is likely a role played by Labor Party officials, including Morgan McSweeney, who is the head of the party. . In October, Musk issued a “declaration of war” on CCDH, calling it a “criminal organization” and saying he would “go after” it.
But there is no sign that holding Mr Musk to account will stop Britain’s move into right-wing politics. Beyond the near-relentless torrent of tweets, it’s even more uncertain how Mr Musk will expand his footprint in British public life.
Mr. Musk could avoid strict regulations on overseas donations by providing the funds through Company X’s British arm or by securing British citizenship. Her father, Errol, claims he is eligible because his grandmother is British.
Mr Musk may also be tempted to take further discussions with British industry and engage further with Starmer’s government.
Mr Musk was last in the spotlight in the UK last November when he attended the first AI Safety Summit at Bletchley Park, home of the Enigma codebreakers. People who encountered him at the Bletchley summit said he was polite, talkative, surrounded by a surprisingly minimal entourage, and appeared to handle much of the official email about the event himself.
This convinced one former government adviser that discussing AI policy was probably the best way for Labor to forge a beneficial relationship with Mr Musk. The tech mogul, who founded his own AI company xAI, has consistently warned about the dangers of unchecked technology development. Speaking at the summit, he said, “There is a greater than zero chance that AI will kill us all.”
The former adviser said the creation of the UK AI Safety Institute by Rishi Sunak’s government, then the world’s first, could carry some weight for Mr Musk.
“He cares about the safety of AI, and has done so for years. A grown-up conversation with him about the UK’s world-leading work on national security risks from AI is a good place to start.” “I think Rishi Sunak will be a good ambassador even if Starmer finds out next,” the former adviser said. Politically undesirable. “Musk doesn’t suffer fools and Sunak really knows what he knows about AI.”
Another option would be to send Mr. Kyle and National Security Adviser Jonathan Powell, who were impressed with their understanding of the brief. “It would show seriousness,” the former adviser said.
Homo juruensis Emerging human species, including the mysterious Denisovans and several hominid fossils from Tibet, Taiwan and Laos, lived in East Asia from about 300,000 to 50,000 years ago.
Portrait of a young Denisovan woman based on a skeletal profile reconstructed from ancient DNA methylation maps. Image credit: Maayan Harel.
“Our research uncovered a hominin fossil record that tended to include things that were not easily attributable. homo erectus, homo neanderthalensis or homo sapiens'' said the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa. Professor Christopher Bay and Dr. Wu Xiujie from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences.
“We started this project several years ago, but we never expected that we would be able to propose a new hominin species, and even classify Asian hominid fossils into different groups. In general, this should be useful for scientific communication.”
“This research is important because it will help scientists better understand the complex story of human evolution in Asia and fill gaps in our understanding of our ancient relatives.”
reconstruction of homo floresiensis. Image credit: Elizabeth Danes.
The authors suggest that there are at least four human species. homo floresiensis, Homo luzonensis, Homolonghiand the newly established Homo juruensis — Existed in East Asia during the late Quaternary period.
Homo juruensis They lived in East Asia about 300,000 years ago, hunted wild horses in small groups, made stone tools and probably processed animal skins to survive, and disappeared about 50,000 years ago. Ta.
“The field of late Quaternary East Asian paleoanthropology is in the midst of significant and important changes, largely due to the growth of the hominin fossil record, as we look to change these evolutionary models. “This is a major contribution to how we understand and refine this approach,” the researchers said.
“This field in particular was shocked 20 years ago with the publication of this little book. homo floresiensis Fossils discovered on Flores Island, Indonesia in 2004. ”
“Just recently, another small species… Homo luzonensisAn individual living on the island of Luzon in the Philippines has been added as a new hominin. ”
“In China, Homo longhi It was published after the analysis of Harbin fossils. ”
“Fossils like Dali and Jinyushan may be tentatively included.” Homolonghi Similarly, we await further comparative analysis. ”
“More recently, after detailed studies of the Xujiayao and Xuchang fossils, we have added: Homo juruensis to these discussions. ”
Reconstruction of Homolonghi In his habitat. Image credit: Chuang Zhao.
Importantly, along with the Xiahe people, scientists have also assigned the mysterious Denisovans. Penghu CountyTam Ngu Hao 2 fossil, Homo juruensis.
Although further research is clearly needed to verify this relationship, it is primarily based on similarities between jaw and tooth fossils from these different locations.
“The East Asian hominin fossil record is a good example of how unilinear evolutionary models, such as traditional multiregionalism, cannot adequately account for the complexity of the paleoanthropological record, especially in the late Quaternary.” the authors concluded.
“Rather, the East Asian record prompts us to recognize how complex human evolution is more generally, and to revise the interpretations of various evolutionary models to better match the growing fossil record.” , it’s really forcing us to reconsider.”
Their paper Published in a magazine nature communications.
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CJ Bae & X. Wu. 2024. Understanding late Quaternary hominin diversity in East Asia. Nat Commune 15, 9479;doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-53918-7
A long-term US study found that consuming at least 5 servings of dark chocolate per week (1 serving equals a standard chocolate bar/pack or 1 oz) was associated with lower risk of type 2 diabetes compared to infrequent consumption. However, increased milk chocolate intake was associated with increased weight gain.
Consuming dark chocolate instead of milk chocolate may lower your risk of type 2 diabetes. Image credit: Sci.News.
The global prevalence of type 2 diabetes has increased significantly over the past few decades, with an estimated 463 million people affected worldwide in 2019 and projected to rise to 700 million by 2045. I am.
Type 2 diabetes is a multifactorial disease characterized by insulin resistance and impaired insulin secretion, which can lead to a number of serious complications, including cardiovascular disease, kidney failure, and vision loss.
A series of studies has highlighted the importance of lifestyle factors, such as a healthy diet, in the prevention and management of type 2 diabetes.
Higher total dietary flavonoid intake, as well as specific flavonoid subclasses, is associated with a lower risk of type 2 diabetes.
Randomized controlled trials have shown that these flavonoids exert antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and vasodilatory effects that may benefit cardiometabolism and reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes, but the data are inconsistent. It wasn’t.
chocolate made from beans cacao tree (Theobroma cacao)one of the foods with the highest flavanol content and a popular snack around the world.
However, the association between chocolate intake and risk of type 2 diabetes remains controversial due to inconsistent results obtained in observational studies.
For new research, Liu Binkai Researchers at Harvard University's T.H. Chan School of Public Health combined data from three longitudinal U.S. observational studies of female nurses and male health care workers who had no history of diabetes, heart disease, or cancer at the time of recruitment. .
They investigated type 2 diabetes and total chocolate intake in 192,208 participants and 111,654 participants over an average 25-year monitoring period using food frequency questionnaires completed every 4 years. We analyzed the relationship between chocolate subtype (dark and milk) intake.
Because weight change strongly predicts type 2 diabetes risk, the researchers also used these food questionnaires to assess participants' total energy intake.
In the overall chocolate analysis, 18,862 people developed type 2 diabetes. After adjusting for personal, lifestyle, and dietary risk factors, the authors found that people who ate all types of chocolate at least five times a week were more likely to develop type 2 diabetes than those who ate little or no chocolate. We found that the incidence was significantly lower by 10%. .
In the chocolate subtype analysis, 4,771 people developed type 2 diabetes. After adjusting for the same risk factors, those who ate dark chocolate at least five times a week had a 21% significantly lower risk of type 2 diabetes, but there was no significant association with milk chocolate intake. was not found.
Researchers also found that each additional weekly intake of dark chocolate reduced the risk of type 2 diabetes by 3% (dose-response effect).
Increased milk intake was associated with long-term weight gain, but dark chocolate intake was not.
Dark chocolate has similar levels of energy and saturated fat as milk chocolate, but the high levels of flavanols found in dark chocolate reduce the risk of saturated fat and sugar for weight gain and other cardiometabolic diseases such as diabetes. may offset the effects of
“Increased consumption of dark chocolate, but not milk, was associated with a lower risk of type 2 diabetes,” the scientists said.
“Increased milk intake was associated with long-term weight gain, but dark chocolate intake was not.”
“Further randomized controlled trials are needed to replicate these findings and further investigate the mechanisms.”
TThe first time I played with a ZX Spectrum was at the Stockport branch of Debenhams. Back in 1983, it had a great home computer section, which quickly turned into a kind of free daycare center for bored 13-year-old boys. You can be there for hours typing rude Basic programs into the machine’s array while hasty staff members scramble around trying to stop it from running. However, some computers were running games for customers to try. There I encountered Manic Miner, a legendary platformer with bizarre flashing visuals and surreal enemies. The Speccy game looked completely unique thanks to the machine’s unusual way of limiting its 8×8 sprite map to two colors. This meant that objects moving on the screen were typically patchwork collections of colored pixels, creating an effect called attribute collision. Somehow it was ugly and beautiful – and it still is.
Unboxing Spectrum, Retro Games Ltd’s latest offering of modern vintage hardware, is a surprisingly nostalgic experience. It looks exactly like the original machine I remember. It’s a black board with rubber keys, each of which displays basic programming commands as well as numbers and letters. “Rem,” “Rand,” and “Gosub” are mystical words from the era of home programming. There’s a USB cable to connect (but you’ll need your own USB plug) and an HDMI lead, but no joystick. This machine is compatible with most USB gamepads. You just need to configure the button yourself. It’s a little time consuming, but worth it if you can’t stand using rubber buttons to control games.
Classic… Head Over Heels by Spectrum. Photo: Retro Games Ltd
Once you load it, you’ll be presented with a modern home screen displaying a carousel of built-in games. There are 48 to choose from, from classic titles like The Lords of Midnight, Head Over Heels, Manic Miner, and The Hobbit to the latest titles created by modern programmers in the Speccy fan scene. These are fascinating projects, including the top-down sci-fi blaster Alien Girl: Skirmish Edition and the tomb raiding romp Shovel Adventure. If you run out of internal power, you can also download Spectrum Game Roms from your PC to a USB stick, plug it in, and run it here. However, if you’re not a modern open source fan and are looking for a classic Speccy title – a game made with – then you’re in questionable legal territory.
As before, there are a number of screen settings so you can add CRT effects to give you a more authentic 1980s TV experience, but honestly, you can’t watch “Horace Goes Skiing” on a 55-inch LED display. There’s nothing to reduce the intense confusion when playing. What surprised me is that these games still have a lot of visual appeal. The students and teachers wandering the halls of School Days are full of personality, from a hulking bully to an aging history teacher. Sandy White’s Ant Attack maintains its rugged beauty, with geometric walls and giant, scurrying ants giving it an old-fashioned sense of alienation and fear. Ocean’s relatively sophisticated isometric adventures The Great Escape and Where Time Stood Still pack an incredible amount of detail into their largely black-and-white worlds. It’s nice to see them again.
The legendary… Spectrum Manic Minor. Photo: Retro Games Ltd
As with most other retro game consoles, modern game features like save points (which are a bit difficult to navigate but work) and the ability to rewind to the seconds before you got hit by a car in Trashman has been added. . But I also like the fact that every time I select a game, the original illustrated loading screen appears for a few seconds. These pictorial delights were an important part of the initial experience, as the tape would be watched for up to five minutes before it was finally loaded. What matters is whether they are preserved or not.
The original computing power of the ZX Spectrum is also retained. Selecting classic mode switches the console to the old boot screen and allows you to actually program. This is a feature that I fully utilize.
Classic Spectrum Basic program. Photo: Retro Games Ltd
Who is this for? Obviously the target audience is people like me who were there in the beginning and remember playing a lot of these games 40 years ago. Indeed, there are free Spectrum emulators available online if you know where to look. You don’t mind risking malware infection every time you search a ROM site. But part of the nostalgic gaming experience is sitting in front of the TV and watching recreations of machines you remember. And in “The Spectrum,” you also get the legendary rubber button, which presses under your finger when you hammer the leg sweep button in “The Way of the Exploding Fist.” I feel it.
Bitcoin has surpassed $100,000 for the first time, reaching a new high amid a euphoric surge triggered by President Donald Trump’s election win.
The largest and most valuable cryptocurrency in the world, known for its market volatility, has been on the rise in recent weeks due to expectations of a new era of deregulation and supportive policies under the incoming administration.
On Wednesday, it hit a record high of $103,619, marking a 45% increase since Election Day. Other cryptocurrencies are also experiencing similar gains.
“We are witnessing a paradigm shift. After four years of political purgatory, Bitcoin and the entire digital asset ecosystem are about to enter the financial mainstream,” said Mike Novogratz, founder and CEO of Galaxy Digital, a US cryptocurrency company.
“This momentum is driven by institutional adoption, advancements in tokenization and payments, and a clearer regulatory path,” he added.
President Trump has nominated crypto lobbyist Paul Atkins to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), signaling a more favorable stance towards cryptocurrencies.
“Congratulations Bitcoiners!!! $100,000!!! You’re welcome!!! Together we will make America great again!” President Trump tweeted on his social media platform, Truth Social.
Reaching a six-digit price is a significant milestone for Bitcoin, which was created in 2008 and remains shrouded in mystery surrounding its creator Satoshi Nakamoto.
Supporters see Bitcoin and the broader crypto space as the future of finance, although its volatile valuation and slow adoption for everyday transactions raise concerns.
“Bitcoin surpassing $100,000 signifies changing trends in finance, technology, and geopolitics,” said crypto analyst Justin Danesan based in Hong Kong.
“People who were once considered fantasy now exist in reality,” he added.
Trump, who once called Bitcoin a “scam,” has shifted his stance to a more supportive position, touting it as a symbol of free trade and innovation.
Atkins, the former SEC commissioner and crypto advocate, is seen as bringing a fresh perspective to digital asset regulation in the US.
“Atkins’ familiarity with the digital asset ecosystem can lead to new opportunities for US cryptocurrency innovation,” said Kristin Smith, CEO of the Blockchain Association.
Cryptocurrency stocks are on the rise alongside Bitcoin prices, with companies like MicroStrategy heavily investing in Bitcoin.
Trump has also announced his own virtual currency venture, World Liberty Financial, showing growing support for cryptocurrencies.
Just like iconic duos such as fish and chips, Batman and Robin, and Jack and Jill, humans and dogs have always been destined to be together. But when did this special bond first form? Scientists may have finally discovered the answer.
A recent study led by researchers from the University of Arizona delved into archaeological sites in Alaska, unveiling that the connection between humans and the ancient ancestors of dogs traces back as far as 12,000 years ago.
“This study provides evidence that humans and dogs shared a close relationship in the Americas earlier than previously thought,” stated the lead author of the study, François Lanoe, Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Arizona. François Lanoe
Initial excavations in 2018 uncovered the lower leg bones of an adult dog dating back 12,000 years in Alaska, shedding light on the close relationship between humans and dogs during that era, especially with signs of possible domestication on the rise.
A more recent excavation in June 2023 unearthed an 8,100-year-old dog jawbone in the same region, providing further evidence of the early human-canid bond. Chemical analysis of the bones revealed evidence of a diet consisting of salmon, suggesting human involvement in the dog’s lifestyle.
While these findings hint at the earliest known relationship between humans and dogs, researchers remain cautious due to the age of the specimens and uncertainties regarding their genetic relation to modern dog populations.
As research continues to unfold, the team hopes to clarify the intricate history behind the companionship between humans and canids, ensuring they are on the right evolutionary path.
The Guardian has uncovered that artificial intelligence systems utilized by the UK government to identify welfare fraud exhibit bias based on individuals’ age, disability, marital status, and nationality.
A review of a machine learning program used to analyze numerous Universal Credit payment claims across the UK revealed that certain groups were mistakenly targeted more frequently than others.
This revelation came from documents published under the Freedom of Information Act by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). A “fairness analysis” conducted in February of this year uncovered a significant discrepancy in outcomes within the Universal Credit Advance automated system.
Despite previous claims by the DWP that the AI system had no discrimination concerns, the emergence of this bias raises important questions about its impact on customers.
Concerns have been raised by activists regarding the potential harm caused by the government’s policies and the need for transparency in the use of AI systems.
The DWP has been urged to adopt a more cautious approach and cease the deployment of tools that pose a risk of harm to marginalized groups.
The discovery of disparities in fraud risk assessment by automated systems may lead to increased scrutiny of the government’s use of AI, emphasizing the need for greater transparency.
The UK public sector employs a significant number of automated tools, with only a fraction being officially registered.
The lack of transparency in the use of AI systems by government departments has raised concerns about potential misuse and manipulation by malicious actors.
The DWP has stated that their AI tools do not replace human judgment and that caseworkers evaluate all available information when making decisions related to benefits fraud.
WEllen Kafamtengo felt a sharp pain in her lower abdomen and thought she might be going into labor. It was the ninth month of her first pregnancy, but she wasn’t taking any chances. With the help of her mother, the 18-year-old took a motorbike taxi and raced to a hospital in Malawi’s capital Lilongwe, a 20-minute drive away.
At Area 25 Health Center, she was told it was a false alarm and taken to the maternity ward. But when a routine ultrasound reveals that the baby is much smaller than expected at this stage of pregnancy, things quickly escalate, leading to suffocation, a condition that limits blood flow and oxygen to the baby may cause.
In Malawi, approx. 19 out of 1,000 babies Death occurs during childbirth or within the first month of birth. Childbirth asphyxia is the leading cause of neonatal death in this country and can result in brain damage to newborns with long-term effects such as developmental delays and cerebral palsy.
Doctors reclassified Ms Kafamtengo, who was expected to have a normal delivery, as a high-risk patient. Further tests using AI-powered fetal monitoring software revealed that the baby’s heart rate was slow. Stress tests revealed that the baby would not survive delivery.
Chikondi Chiweza, head of maternal and child care at Area 25 Health Center in Lilongwe, said: Photo: Provided by Halma plc
Chikondi Chiweza, the hospital’s head of maternal and child care, knew she had less than 30 minutes to deliver Kafamtengo’s baby by caesarean section. Having delivered thousands of babies in some of the city’s busiest public hospitals, she was well aware of how quickly a baby’s chances of survival can change during delivery.
Chiweza, who gave birth to Kafamtengo’s baby healthy, says the fetal monitoring program has made a huge difference to hospital births.
“[In Kaphamtengo’s case]we wouldn’t have realized what we did until later or as a stillborn baby,” she says.
Software donated by a birth safety technology company Perigen Through a partnership with the Malawi Ministry of Health, Texas Children’s Hospitaltracks your baby’s vital signs during delivery, giving clinicians early warning of abnormalities.
Since it began using the system three years ago, the number of stillbirths and neonatal deaths at the center has fallen by 82%. It is the only hospital in the country that has introduced this technology.
“The period around birth is the most dangerous for mothers and babies,” says Jeffrey Wilkinson, an obstetrician at Texas Children’s Hospital who leads the program. “Most deaths can be prevented by ensuring the baby’s safety during the birth process.”
AI monitoring systems require less time, equipment, and skilled staff than traditional fetal monitoring methods, making them essential for hospitals in low-income countries such as Malawi, which face severe health worker shortages. Routine fetal monitoring often relies on a doctor performing routine tests. This means that while the AI-assisted program provides continuous, real-time monitoring, important information may be missed during the interval. Traditional tests also require doctors to interpret raw data from various devices, which can be time-consuming and error-prone.
Area 25’s maternity ward handles approximately 8,000 births annually with a staff of 80 physicians. While only about 10% are trained to perform traditional electronic monitoring, most can detect abnormalities using AI software, helping doctors recognize higher-risk or more complicated births. Masu. Hospital staff also say that the use of AI has standardized key aspects of obstetric care in the clinic, such as interpreting fetal health status and deciding when to intervene.
Kafamutengo, who is excited to become a new mother, believes that doctors’ intervention may have saved her baby’s life. “They realized early enough that my baby was suffering and were able to take action,” she said as she held her son, Justice.
Doctors at the hospital hope the technology will be introduced to other hospitals in Malawi and across Africa.
“AI technology is being used in many fields, and saving the lives of babies is no exception,” Chiweza said. “We can really close the gap in the quality of care available to underserved populations.”
The oldest verifiable person in the world is Jeanne Louise Calment, who lived to be 122 years and 164 days old.
It’s incredible to imagine what Calment and today’s supercentenarians (people over 110 years old) have witnessed in their lifetimes. Thinking about what it was like to be a teenager in the 1920s, to have lived through both world wars, to witness the first moon landing in your 50s or 60s, and to still be alive in the 21st century. Please take a look. cent It was centuries ago that we could observe the latest scientific and technological advances unfolding rapidly and dramatically.
Currently, the oldest living person (as of December 2024) is Tomiko Itooka of Japan. She is a healthy 116 years old, far exceeding the average human lifespan. The average life expectancy in the UK is 79 years for men and 82.9 years for women. National Bureau of Statistics. Expectations are a little lower in the US Men are expected to live to age 75 and women to age 80.
Due to different cultural, sanitary, and scientific reasons, life expectancy around the world varies depending on which country you live in and even where you live within that country.
The United Nations estimates that: Average life expectancy worldwide is currently 72.8 years – This is about 9 years longer than people lived in 1990. And if you’re wondering, yes, women live about 5.4 years longer than men on average worldwide (73.8 years vs. 68.4 years).
Who is the oldest person alive today?
As of December 2024, the oldest living person is Tomiko Itooka. She is 116 years old.
She was born in Osaka on May 23, 1908 during the reign of Emperor Meiji. She currently lives in a special nursing home in Ashiya City.
According to Guinness World Records. She played on the volleyball team at school, got married at the age of 20, and had two daughters and two sons. During World War II, she managed the offices of her husband’s textile factory.
Jeanne Louise Calment is the oldest person ever known to be alive. This French woman lived to the ripe old age of 122 years and 164 days. She was born on February 21, 1875 and died on August 4, 1997 at the age of 122.
According to Guinness World Records Carment said she “ate almost 1kg of chocolate every week” and started smoking “from the age of 21, only quitting when she was 117.” She also “sold Van Gogh a painting canvas,” but described Van Gogh as “ugly as sin” and “bad-tempered and smelled of alcohol.”
Jiroemon Kimura – Oldest male
At the time of his death, Jiroemon Kimura had 7 children, 14 grandchildren, 25 great-grandchildren, and 14 great-great-grandchildren – Photo courtesy of Getty
Jiroemon Kimura lived to be 116 years and 54 days old. This Japanese supercentenarian was born on April 19, 1897 and lived until June 12, 2013. Guinness World Records To quote his words: He continued farming until he was 90 years old, saying, “To live a long life, eat light food.”
Lucille Landon – 118
Another French woman, Lucille Landon (see main photo), lived to be 118 years and 340 days old. She was born on February 11, 1904 and passed away on January 17, 2023.
Keon Tanaka – 119
This Japanese woman, who was born on January 2, 1903 and passed away on April 19, 2022, lived to be 119 years and 107 days old.
Miyakochiyo – 117
Another Japanese woman, Chiyo Miyako, was born on May 2, 1901 and lived to be 117 years and 81 days old on July 22, 2018.
Yet another Japanese supercentenarian, Navi Tajima, lived for 117 years and 260 days, from her birth on August 4, 1900 to her death on April 21, 2018.
Violet brown – 117
Next we will head to Jamaica and then Violet Brown. She lived to be 117 years and 189 days old. She was born on March 10, 1900 and passed away on September 15, 2017.
Next up is Emma Martina Luigia Morano. An Italian supercentenarian, she lived to be 117 years old (+137 days), was born on November 29, 1899, and passed away on April 15, 2017.
Maria Brañas Morera – 117
When María Brañas Morera passed away in August 2024 at the age of 117 years and 168 days, she became the eighth-oldest (verifiable age) in history.
According to reports, she was born on March 4, 1907 in San Francisco, California, and lived in Texas and New Orleans until her Spanish family moved back to Catalonia during World War I. Guinness World Records.
She said she lived an “orderly life with great social comfort…a good life without excess.”
Susanna Mushat Jones – 116
Next up is Susanna Mushat Jones from America. She lived to be 116 years and 311 days old, was born on July 6, 1899, and passed away on May 12, 2016.
Geralian Tully – 116
Former world’s oldest person, Geralian Talley, 2015 – Photo courtesy of Getty
Lastly, we have Geralian Talley, who is also from the United States. She lived to be 116 years and 25 days old. She was born on May 23, 1899 and passed away on June 17, 2015.
A massive ice ball plummeting from the sky gives off an apocalyptic vibe rather than signaling a festive white Christmas. Due to climate change, we are witnessing an increase in hailstones larger than a fist descending from above.
A recent analysis of the internal structure of these colossal hailstones has unveiled how they attain such significant size. This breakthrough could assist scientists in predicting hailstorms before they pose a threat.
Hailstones form during storms when raindrops freeze in extremely cold parts of clouds. The particles then grow in size as they descend due to gravity, eventually reaching the Earth.
In a new study, Researchers in Catalonia, an autonomous region in northern Spain, gathered giant hailstones measuring 12 centimeters (4.7 inches) in diameter, equivalent to a soda can in height.
To examine the inside of the hailstones, CT scans were used. While CT scans are commonly used in a medical context to create 3D images of the human body, in this case, a machine borrowed from a dental clinic was utilized to study the structure of the giant ice ball intact.
“We sought a technique that would provide detailed information about the internal layers of the hailstone without damaging the sample,” said senior author Professor Xavier Ubeda from the University of Barcelona. “We were surprised by the clarity of the images we obtained.”
The research team obtained 512 images of the internal structure of a hailstone, known as a “slice,” revealing the density of each layer and illustrating the growth of the hailstones during various stages of the hailstorm.
The study revealed that even the most spherical hailstones have internal irregularities, indicating an absence of a core in the center. Strangely, this was especially true for the nearly perfect-looking sphere, whose center was the most off-center.
Contrary to previous assumptions, researchers found that hailstones do not grow uniformly in every direction.
The hailstones examined were collected after severe thunderstorms in Spain during the summer of 2022, vacuum-packed, and preserved. The hot conditions in Spain during that summer may have intensified the tropical cyclone.
The new findings could aid in predicting similar storms in the future and potentially limiting the damage caused by hail outbreaks.
A team of researchers at Cornell University has created a new class of magnetically controlled microscopic robots (microbots) that operate at the diffraction limit of visible light. These microbots, called diffractive robots, can interact with visible light waves and yet move independently, allowing them to move to specific locations, take images, and measure forces at the scale of the body’s smallest structures. You can.
Diffractive robotics connects untethered robots with imaging techniques that rely on visible light diffraction (the bending of light waves as they pass through an aperture or around something).
Imaging techniques require an aperture with a size comparable to the wavelength of light.
For the optics to work, the robot must be at that scale, and for the robot to reach the target it is imaging, it must be able to move on its own.
The robot is controlled by a magnet that performs a pinching motion, allowing it to move inchworm-like across solid surfaces. The same motion can also be used to “swim” through a fluid.
The combination of maneuverability, flexibility, and sub-diffractive optical technology represents a major advance in the field of robotics.
“A walking robot that is small enough to interact with light and effectively shape it would place a microscope lens directly into the microworld,” said Paul McEwen, a professor at Cornell University.
“We can perform close-up imaging in a way that would never be possible with a regular microscope.”
“These robots are 2 to 5 microns in size. They're tiny. And by controlling the magnetic fields that drive their movement, we can make them do whatever we want them to do.”
“I'm really excited about the fusion of microrobotics and micro-optics,” said Dr. Francesco Monticone of Cornell University.
“The miniaturization of robotics has finally reached a stage where these actuated mechanical systems can interact with and actively shape light on the scale of just a few wavelengths (one millionth of a meter). I did.”
To magnetically drive a robot at this scale, the research team used hundreds of nanometer-scale magnets with two different shapes, long and thin or short and stubby, with the same volume of material to drive the robot. I made it into a pattern.
Professor Itai Cohen of Cornell University says, “Long, thin objects require a larger magnetic field to switch from pointing in one direction to pointing in another direction, whereas short, stubby objects require a larger magnetic field to switch from pointing in one direction to pointing in another direction.'' “Things require smaller magnetic fields.”
“So if you apply a large magnetic field, you can align them all, but if you apply a smaller field, only the short and thick ones will flip.”
To create the robot, the authors combined this principle with a very thin film.
“One of the main challenges for optical engineering was to find the best approach for the three tasks (light conditioning, focusing, and super-resolution imaging) for this particular platform, because “different approaches “There are different performance trade-offs depending on how the microrobots behave,” said Dr. Monticone. “They can move and change shape.”
“There are advantages to being able to mechanically move the diffractive elements to enhance imaging,” Professor Cohen says.
The robot itself can be used as a diffractive grader or a diffractive lens can be added. In this way, the robot can act as a local extension of the microscope lens looking down from above.
The robot measures force using the same magnet-driven pinching motions used to push structures while walking.
“These robots are very compliant springs, so if something pushes on them, it can squeeze them,” Professor Cohen said.
“That changes the diffraction pattern and allows us to measure it very well.”
Force measurements and optical capabilities can be applied to basic research such as exploring the structure of DNA. Or it may be introduced into clinical practice.
“Looking to the future, we can imagine swarms of diffractive microbots walking along the surface of samples to perform super-resolution microscopy and other sensing tasks,” Professor Monticone said.
“I think we have just scratched the surface of what is possible with this new paradigm of combining robotics and optics at the microscale.”
New proof of concept workpublished in a magazine materials horizonpaving the way for self-assembly of more complex electronic devices without relying on existing computer chip manufacturing techniques.
Bottom-up nano-to-microfabrication is of critical importance in modern electronics and optics. However, conventional multiscale array manufacturing techniques face the challenge of reconciling the conflict between the pursuit of better device performance and lower manufacturing costs and/or energy consumption. Chan others. We introduce a facile method for fabricating mixed-metal arrays based on directed self-assembly in which organometallic adducts derived from passivating oxides of ternary liquid metals are polymerized to fabricate mixed-metal wires. Image credit: Julia Chan.
“Existing chip manufacturing techniques involve many steps and rely on highly complex technology, making the process costly and time-consuming,” said Martin Tuo, a professor at North Carolina State University.
“Our self-assembly approach is significantly faster and cheaper.”
“We also demonstrated that this process can be used to tune the bandgap of semiconductor materials and make the materials responsive to light. This means this technique can be used to create optoelectronic devices. ”
“Furthermore, current manufacturing techniques have low yields, resulting in a relatively large number of unusable and defective chips being produced.”
“Our approach is high-yielding, meaning we produce arrays more consistently and with less waste.”
“We call this new self-assembly technique the directed metal-ligand (D-Met) reaction. Here's how it works,” he added.
“We start with liquid metal particles. In our proof-of-concept work, we used field metals, which are alloys of indium, bismuth, and tin.”
“Liquid metal particles are placed next to a mold and can be made into any size or pattern. A solution is then poured into the liquid metal.”
“The solution contains molecules called ligands, which are made up of carbon and oxygen.”
“These ligands collect ions from the surface of the liquid metal and hold them in a specific geometric pattern.”
“The solution flows across the liquid metal particles and is drawn into the mold.”
As the solution flows into the mold, the ion-containing ligands begin to assemble, forming more complex 3D structures.
Meanwhile, the liquid part of the solution begins to evaporate, which causes the complex structures to become more and more tightly packed into the array.
“Without a type, these structures can form somewhat chaotic patterns,” Professor Tusiad says.
“But because solutions are constrained by type, structures form in predictable, symmetrical arrangements.”
“Once the structure reaches the desired size, we remove the mold and heat the array.”
“This heat causes the ligand to decompose, liberating carbon and oxygen atoms.”
“Metal ions interact with oxygen to form semiconducting metal oxides, and carbon atoms form graphene sheets.”
“These components form an ordered structure consisting of semiconducting metal oxide molecules wrapped in graphene sheets.”
Professor Thuo and his colleagues used this technique to create nanoscale and microscale transistors and diodes.
“Graphene sheets can be used to tune the bandgap of a semiconductor, making the semiconductor more or less responsive depending on the quality of the graphene,” said Dr. Julia Zhang, a postdoctoral researcher at North Carolina State University. Ta.
Additionally, the researchers used bismuth in their proof-of-concept work, which allowed them to create photoresponsive structures.
This allows the authors to use light to manipulate the properties of semiconductors.
“The nature of D-Met technology means that these materials can be manufactured on a large scale, limited only by the size of the molds used,” Professor Thuo said.
“By manipulating the type of liquid used in the solution, the dimensions of the mold, and the rate of evaporation of the solution, we can also control the semiconductor structure.”
“In short, we have shown that highly structured and highly tunable electronic materials can be self-assembled for use in functional electronic devices.”
“This research demonstrated the creation of transistors and diodes.”
“The next step is to use this technology to create more complex devices, such as 3D chips.”
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Julia J. Chan others. guided infinitely Assemble mixed metal oxide arrays from liquid metals. materials horizonpublished online on November 25, 2024. doi: 10.1039/D4MH01177E
This article is a version of a press release provided by North Carolina State University.
Several groups of carnivorous dinosaurs – Tyrannosaurus, Spinosaurus, and their members Velociraptor The family crept into the Bexhill-on-Sea region of present-day East Sussex, England, about 135 million years ago (early Cretaceous period), according to new research.
Early Cretaceous floodplain in southeastern England, 135 million years ago. A spinosaur (center) takes over the carcass of an ornithopod, tormenting smaller tyrannosaurs (left) and dromaeosaurs (bottom right). Image credit: Anthony Hutchings.
Dr Chris Barker, a palaeontologist at the University of Southampton, said: “Carnivorous dinosaurs are rare in the Cretaceous deposits of southern England.”
“Normally it is the Isle of Wight dinosaurs that attract our attention. Little is known about the older Cretaceous specimens recovered from mainland sites.”
In this study, Barker and his colleagues examined assemblages of theropod teeth taken from animals. Wadhurst Clay Formationmainly collected from the Ashdown Brickworks area near Bexhill, East Sussex.
Theropod teeth are complex and vary in size, shape, and serrated edge anatomy.
The authors used several techniques to analyze the fossils, including phylogenetic methods, discriminant methods, and machine learning methods.
“Dinosaur teeth are durable fossils and are typically preserved more frequently than bones, so they are often important when you want to rebuild ecosystem diversity,” Dr. Barker said. .
“There are rigorous methods that help identify teeth with high accuracy.”
“Our findings suggest the presence of spinosaurs, medium-sized tyrannosaurs, and small dromaeosaurs. Velociraptor-There are some theropods in these deposits. ”
A theropod tooth excavated from the Wadhurst Clay Formation. Scale bar – 10 mm. Image credit: Barker others., doi: 10.1002/spp2.1604.
The discovery of Tyrannosaurus is particularly noteworthy. This is because this group has not been previously identified in sediments of this age and region.
These tyrannosaurs would have been about one-third the size of their more famous cousins. tyrannosaurus rexand likely hunted small dinosaurs and other reptiles in floodplain habitats.
“Assigning isolated teeth to a group of theropods can be difficult, especially since many traits evolve independently between different lineages,” says Dr. Lucy Handford. Student at York University.
“Therefore, we employed a variety of methods to refine our findings, leading to a more reliable classification.”
“It is very likely that further discoveries will be made by re-evaluating the theropod teeth elsewhere in the museum.”
Dr Darren Naish, a palaeontologist at the University of Southampton, said: 'Southern England has an extremely good record of Cretaceous dinosaurs, and the various sedimentary layers here are among the world's best in terms of geological age and the fossil content they contain. It's also unique.”
“These East Sussex dinosaurs are older, more mysterious, and less well known than the better-known Cretaceous deposits of the Isle of Wight.”
“We've been hoping to find out for decades which groups of theropods lived here, so the new study's conclusions are really interesting.”
of findings appear in the diary paleontology papers.
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Chris T. Barker others. 2024. Theropod dinosaur diversity of Lower Wealden, England: analysis of the tooth-based fauna of the Wadhurst Clay Formation (Lower Cretaceous: Valanginian) through phylogenetic, discriminant, and machine learning methods. paleontology papers 10 (6): e1604;doi: 10.1002/spp2.1604
According to a new study, higher emotional intelligence is linked to increased emoji use with friends, while avoidant attachment is linked to decreased emoji use with friends, dates, and romantic partners.
The frequency of emoji usage varies by gender and type of relationship. Image credit: Pete Linforth.
Emoji are characters that depict emotions, objects, animals, etc.
Sending alone or with text via computer or smartphone can create more complex meanings during virtual communication.
Assessing how emoji use varies as a function of communication and interpersonal skills provides insight into who uses emoji and the psychological mechanisms underlying computer-mediated communication.
Despite the widespread use of emojis in our daily social lives, little is known about who uses them, apart from evidence of differences related to gender and personality traits.
To fill this knowledge gap, Dr. Simon Dube of the Kinsey Institute and his colleagues surveyed a sample of 320 adults to determine their emotional intelligence across emoji usage, attachment style, and gender and relationship type.
Emotional intelligence is the ability to process and manage your own and others’ emotions. Attachment style refers to the pattern of how an individual interacts with others in intimate relationships, influenced by early interactions with primary caregivers.
These styles are divided into three main types: anxious, avoidant, and secure attachment.
Both anxious and avoidant attachment styles indicate that a child does not feel secure with their primary caregiver.
In contrast, children with a secure attachment style tend to be enthusiastic when reunited with their caregivers after a short period of separation.
The results revealed that people with higher emotional intelligence and secure attachment may use emojis more frequently.
For women, higher levels of attachment avoidance were associated with lower frequency of sending and receiving emojis with friends, partners, and romantic partners.
For men, higher levels of attachment avoidance were associated with sending fewer emojis to such partners.
Additionally, women used more emojis than men, but this difference was specific to interactions with friends and family.
One limitation of this study is that most of the participants were white, educated, married, English-speaking, heterosexual, living in the United States at the time.
However, the authors say the study opens up new research avenues at the intersection of psychology, computer-mediated communication, and the study of attachment and emotional intelligence.
The researchers state, “How we interact during virtual communication may reveal something more about ourselves.”
“It’s more than just a smiley face or a heart emoji. It’s a way to convey meaning and communicate more effectively, and how you use it can tell us something about you.”
a paper Survey results will be published in a magazine PLoS ONE.
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S. Dube others. 2024. Beyond words: The relationship between emoji use, attachment style, and emotional intelligence. PLoS ONE 19 (12): e0308880;doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0308880
By 2023, the number of low-altitude clouds will have decreased dramatically.
Busa Photo/Getty Images
Changes in cloud cover may be the reason global temperatures have exceeded climate model predictions over the past two years.
Temperature records were broken repeatedly in 2023 and 2024, with average temperatures in both years about 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Climate change and El Niño weather patterns are partly to blame, but neither factor can completely explain the unusually warm weather.
Researchers now think the answer lies in a sharp decline in low-lying cloud cover in 2023. This change reduced Earth’s albedo, the planet’s ability to reflect solar radiation back into space, causing temperatures to rise.
Earth’s albedo has been decreasing since the 1970s. This is mainly due to the melting of polar ice sheets, which help reflect sunlight back into space. However, when analyzing satellite data, helge gosling and his colleagues at Germany’s Alfred Wegener Institute have revealed that the planet’s albedo in 2023 hit an all-time low.
Goessling and his colleagues then used a combination of weather observations and modeling to understand the cause of this decline, and found that the number of low-lying clouds decreased sharply in 2023. This change was particularly noticeable in the Atlantic Ocean. 2023 saw the most unusual temperature extremes.
“We were able to show where the clouds were actually changing and at what altitude in the atmosphere,” Gosling said. “It’s really surprising that this reduction in cloud cover is occurring primarily in the lower levels.”
The findings could explain an additional 0.2°C of heat loss that scientists have struggled to account for, once background climate change and the effects of El Niño in 2023 are added up. “This is another piece of the puzzle, but I think it’s a very important piece,” Goessling said. Although the study only evaluated data from 2023, the findings could also explain why global temperatures will remain extremely high through 2024, despite El Niño weakening earlier this year. be.
paulo ceppi Researchers at Imperial College London say the study is timely as climate scientists are keen to understand the causes of recent record warmth. “I think they make a pretty convincing case that changes in albedo, especially in low-level clouds, contribute significantly to changes in the radiation budget and, therefore, in temperature,” he says.
The next question is why low-altitude clouds disappear. There are three main explanations. This may be due to a global decrease in aerosol pollution, which promotes cloud formation and persistence. Alternatively, it could be the result of changes in cloud behavior due to global warming. Or it could just be natural fluctuations in climate.
Understanding which of these three factors is dominant is critical because it influences how sensitive Earth’s climate is to greenhouse gas pollution. If the lack of clouds is due to a climate change feedback, its effects will accelerate in the coming years, causing global temperatures to rise more than expected. “The answer has pretty deep implications for what we expect about future climate change,” Seppi says.
Highly contagious avian influenza has been circulating around the world since 2020.
Ulises Ruiz/AFP via Getty Images
The H5N1 avian influenza virus that is circulating around the world is already more contagious than earlier strains. In addition, the single mutation allows it to infect cells lining the nose and throat, making it more likely to be transmitted through the air.
This change alone is not enough for the virus to cause a pandemic. But if a virus with this mutation swapped genes with a human influenza virus, it could acquire pandemic potential almost immediately.
“The more people are infected, the more likely this is to happen,” he says. Ian Wilson At the Scripps Research Institute in California. Despite this, Wilson believes the risk remains low.
A particularly virulent strain of avian influenza, H5N1, originated in the 1990s, probably in domestic birds in China, and spread around the world. Around 2020, a new variant of the virus emerged and spread even more widely, reaching as far as the Americas and Antarctica. In the United States, poultry is infected in large numbers, dairy cattle are also infected, and occasionally humans are infected.
team led by Debbie Van Riel Researchers at Erasmus University Medical Center in the Netherlands infected cells in human noses and throats with the 2005 and 2022 H5N1 variants. They showed for the first time that the 2022 mutant is better at binding to these cells and replicating within them. . “Bad news,” van Riel says.
“I don’t think it’s extremely likely that the virus will become a pandemic,” she says. However, the fact that this virus is better at infecting humans gives it more opportunity to acquire further mutations, increasing the likelihood of a pandemic.
Meanwhile, Wilson and his colleagues have been studying the key hemagglutinin protein of the influenza virus. This protein binds to receptors on the outside of cells and determines which cells the virus can infect. Because it sticks out from the virus, it is also the main target of the immune system.
Currently, H5N1 hemagglutinin primarily binds to receptors located deep in the lungs in humans. This means that although it can cause serious illness, it is unlikely to leave the body and infect others. For that to happen, the virus needs to infect the cells inside your nose and throat. This means that coughing and sneezing can expel the virus and infect others.
Van Riel's research suggests that the virus can do this to some extent, but it is not clear whether the virus binds to the main receptors on these cells. It was thought that multiple mutations were required for H5N1 to bind strongly to these receptors, but Wilson's team now shows that a single mutation is sufficient for the current H5N1 variants. Showed.
Team members say this change alone won’t prevent the virus from causing a pandemic. Jim Paulsonalso at the Scripps Research Institute. “We think this property is necessary, but importantly not sufficient, for pandemic virus transmission,” he says.
Paulson said other changes are also necessary for the virus to begin replicating and spreading from person to person, but they are not well understood. “There's a lot of biology we don’t know,” he says.
However, if H5N1 viruses that infect humans acquire receptor switching mutations, they may evolve these other changes as well.
Furthermore, it is possible, in theory, to acquire all the necessary abilities at once by exchanging genes with a human virus that infects the same individual. Several previous influenza pandemics have been caused by genetic swapping between animal and human influenza viruses, Paulson said.
“This is very worrying,” he says alice katsurakis from the University of Oxford was not involved in either study. “Every time it spreads to humans, it gives the virus a roll of the dice.”
What is the mortality rate of the H5N1 pandemic?
If H5N1 avian influenza begins to spread from person to person, the big question is how deadly it will be. Half of the people confirmed to have contracted the virus since 2003 have died. However, the actual infection fatality rate is likely to be even lower, as many cases likely go undetected and mild cases are likely to be missed.
Of the roughly 60 people infected in the U.S. since the dairy outbreak began, nearly all have had only mild symptoms. why not understoodbut one explanation is that many were infected through the eyes. “It’s known to have much more benign results,” Katzorakis says.
It is also thought to become less dangerous when the virus switches from binding to receptors deep in the lungs to binding to receptors in the upper airways. But puzzling aspects of the U.S. cases left Paulson unsure whether this also applied to H5N1. “To be honest, I don’t know what to think right now,” he says.
“I don’t think there’s any reason to be satisfied with this and expect that even if this virus were to be easily transmitted from person to person, it would be ‘mild,'” Katzourakis said.
Because Wilson’s team studied the hemagglutinin protein alone, there was no chance that the mutated protein could leak into the lab. “No viruses were used here at all,” he says.
Global temperatures over the past two years have been even warmer than climate scientists expected.
A new study offers a possible reason: reduced cloud cover.
The study suggests that this decline may be a result of global warming, which could mean the Earth is heating up even faster than scientists thought.
Over the past two years, temperatures around the world have risen far more than scientists expected. This trend is creating the mystery of whether there are hidden climate change dynamics behind the sudden change.
Last year was the hottest summer on record, 2024 was likely to be even hotter.. Even after accounting for the expected effects of greenhouse gas pollution and El Niño (a natural pattern that generally increases temperatures), the researchers found that the roughly 0.2 degrees Celsius (0.36 degrees Fahrenheit) of warmer temperatures observed in 2023 I couldn’t explain the change.
A new study offers a possible explanation. Cloud cover has decreased over the past two years, meaning more light is now reaching and heating the Earth’s surface, rather than being reflected back into space.
In the research, Published in Science on Thursdaysuggesting that this dynamic, called an overall decrease in the planet’s albedo, is likely the cause of the observed temperature anomaly in 2023.
“This is broadly consistent with the observed recent further increase in solar radiation,” said study author Helge Goessling, a climate physicist at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany.
The expected cloud behavior in a warmer world is one of the most difficult aspects of the climate system to study and model. Answering questions about it will help scientists more accurately determine how sensitive the Earth is to greenhouse gas emissions.
If the decrease in low-level cloud cover is not a coincidence, it likely means the Earth is warming even faster than scientists thought.
“It’s not really clear yet how likely it is that some of this variation is variability that disappears again,” Gosling said. “This increases the likelihood of greater-than-expected warming.”
The new study is based on analysis of climate models and NASA satellite data on Earth’s reflectivity. It outlines three possible reasons for the decline in developing low clouds, but provides no conclusions about how much each factor contributes.
One option is that natural processes temporarily deviate from normal, causing a decrease in cloud cover. For example, natural fluctuations may be causing sea surface temperatures to rise more than expected, thereby changing the physics of how clouds form.
The second possibility is a change in maritime transport regulations. In 2020, the International Maritime Organization imposed limits on the sulfur content allowed in marine fuels. Some scientists believe that reducing the number of sulfur particles polluting the atmosphere may have the unintended effect of suppressing ocean cloud formation.
“They act as condensation nuclei for clouds, so they can make clouds brighter and last longer,” Goessling said of the sulfur particles.
A third option is that unidentified feedback loops within the climate system are causing clouds to decrease due to global warming.
If the latter two possibilities turn out to be the main culprits, it would mean that the climate is more sensitive to anthropogenic pollution than many scientists thought, and that humanity is therefore more likely than world leaders to It means we are closer to exceeding the targets set for emissions limits than previously realized. (The term “climate sensitivity” refers to how warm the Earth is. If the concentration of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere doubled.. )
Still, many questions remain, said Zeke Hausfather, director of climate research at financial firm Stripe and a researcher at Berkeley Earth.
“It remains to be seen whether these changes in cloud behavior are due to short-term fluctuations and will return to more normal conditions over time, or whether they represent new and ongoing changes to the climate system. No,” he said. Email.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the average surface temperature of land and ocean in 2023 was about 2.12 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th century average.
Efforts by world leaders to reduce greenhouse gas emissions remain insufficient. Global temperatures are on track to rise by more than 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) on average, far exceeding the 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) goal set by the Paris Agreement.
NASA’s next Artemis mission, scheduled to send four astronauts to orbit the moon, has been postponed until 2026, the agency announced.
The delay also postpones the expected schedule for Artemis’ subsequent mission to land astronauts on the moon.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said that under the new schedule, the United States would land astronauts on the moon before China.
NASA announced Thursday that the next Artemis mission that will send four astronauts around the moon will be delayed until 2026. A program already years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget has been delayed further.
NASA announced in January that the Artemis II mission would launch in September 2025 instead of late 2024. Now, NASA says it is targeting an April 2026 launch to give it more time to address issues with its next-generation Orion space capsule. The problem was discovered during an unmanned Artemis test flight in 2022.
The delay will also postpone the Artemis III mission, which aims to land astronauts near the moon’s south pole. That mission is planned for mid-2027, rather than launching in September 2026.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said the adjusted schedule should still put the United States on track to return astronauts to the moon before China lands its own. .
Nelson said the mid-2027 goal is “much earlier than the Chinese government’s stated intention” to land Chinese astronauts on the moon by 2030.
China’s interest in moon exploration has sparked a new space race of sorts, with some U.S. experts and officials saying that if China reaches the moon’s surface before the United States, There are growing concerns that there may be competition for space resources, which are thought to be water ice. They will be trapped in a permanently shadowed crater at the moon’s south pole. It is believed that water on the moon could be used to make rocket fuel to power missions deep into space.
“Landing on the moon’s south pole is critical to avoid ceding part of the moon’s south pole to China,” Nelson said.
NASA officials attributed the need to delay the Artemis mission to a flaw in the Orion spacecraft’s heat shield that was discovered during the capsule’s uncrewed flight. NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy said, for example, that the researchers noticed that the heat shield was worn in places, with some of the outer layers cracking and peeling off due to internal pressure buildup.
Orion’s heat shield covers the bottom of the capsule and plays a key role in protecting the spacecraft and its potential astronauts from extreme temperatures upon re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere. .
Extensive testing has determined that the Orion capsule’s unique method of returning to Earth likely eroded its heat shield. The spacecraft is designed to perform what’s called a “skip entry,” in which it enters and exits the atmosphere, dissipating energy and slowing it down.
But Melroy said this reentry caused heat to build up inside the outer layer of the heat shield, eventually causing it to crack and wear out in parts.
The delays for Artemis’ next two flights will give engineers time to address these shielding issues and prepare for what Nelson called a “modified approach trajectory.”
“Astronaut safety is always paramount in our decisions. It is our North Star,” Nelson said. “We will not fly until we are confident that we have made the flight as safe as possible for our passengers.”
With the new administration of Donald Trump set to take over the White House in January, some space industry experts are speculating that parts of the Artemis program may be revisited or even scrapped. There is.
But Melroy said the decision to proceed with the Artemis program was “pretty clear” and should not be delayed during the transition period as the incoming administration establishes its goals and priorities.
“We would like to postpone any decisions about starting or ending the program for as long as possible,” Melroy said. “We had to postpone important decisions for our new team and we haven’t had a chance to explain them to anyone since we haven’t yet accepted a transition team.”
NASA has spent more than $42 billion over more than a decade developing the new Space Launch System mega-rocket and Orion spacecraft aimed at bringing astronauts back to the moon. As part of this effort, NASA envisions launching regular missions to set up base camps on the moon before eventually heading to Mars.
According to a team of astronomers from the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics at the University of Potsdam, the XX triangular star, a bright K0 giant star in a binary star system located in the constellation Triangulum, exhibits chaotic, aperiodic star point behavior. That’s what it means. and Konkoli Observatory.
XX A star spot on the surface of the constellation Triangulum. Image credits: HUN-REN RCAES / Zs. Kushvari, MOME / Á. Radovani, AIP / K. Strassmeyer.
“Among the things that can be observed from a spatially resolved solar disk are the number, size and morphology of sunspots, their growth and decay, and their movement in latitude and longitude,” said lead author and director of the Leibniz Institute for Astronomy. said Professor Klaus Strassmeyer. Potsdam Astrophysics and Potsdam University, and their colleagues.
“Such spots are also seen on other stars and are called star spots.”
“We use indirect surface imaging techniques to invert the spectral line profile into an image of the stellar surface.”
“Typically we only get occasional snapshots of spots on a star’s surface, but the spots change systematically over time, and like the Sun, only then can we learn about the internal dynamos and structure of the target in question. Well known.”
“We chose the XX triangular star, one of the most speckled stars in the sky, for a more sustained application of Doppler imaging.”
XX triangle It is located about 640 light years away in the constellation Triangulum.
The star, also known as XX Tri or HD 12545, has a mass only 10% more than the Sun, a radius 10 times the Sun’s radius, and an effective temperature of 4630 K.
It has a rotation period of 24 days, which is synchronized with the orbital period of the binary star system.
XX Trigonum has previously been shown to contain a gigantic star spot with physical dimensions equivalent to 10,000 times the area of the largest group of spots ever seen on the Sun, and 10 times the size of the projected solar disk. It had been discovered in
Professor Strassmeier and his co-authors took 99 separate images of the star using an indirect surface imaging technique called Doppler imaging.
“A dark spot on the star’s surface caused its optical center (a point that essentially represents the star’s ‘center of light’) to shift by up to 24 microarcseconds, which is less than the radius of the star’s visible disk. This corresponds to approximately 10%,” they said. Said.
“These changes occur because the dark spots reduce the brightness of certain areas of the star, shifting the perceived center of light slightly.”
“However, unlike the sun’s predictable activity cycles, the displacements of these photocenters did not follow a periodic pattern. This is a largely chaotic and probably aperiodic pattern, very different from the solar dynamo. This suggests that it is a dynamo.”
“This phenomenon also highlights challenges in detecting exoplanets, as spot-induced fluctuations in the optical center can mimic or mask small movements caused by orbiting planets, which could impose substantial limitations on the detection of such exoplanets by astronomical observations.”
of findings appear in the diary nature communications.
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KG Strassmeyer others. 2024. XX Long-term Doppler images of triangular stars show chaotic aperiodic dynamos. Nat Commune 15, 9986; doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-54329-4
A new book by psychologist-turned-YouTuber Jordan Peterson has been published. we wrestle with god It's a work about how ancient myths and legends, if perhaps not literal truths, contain valuable, even universal lessons about life and humanity.
The feedback was also positive. Anthropologists will tell you that there is much to be gained from studying mythology. You can learn about how past societies thought about the relationship between ordinary people and elites, and about humanity's place in the natural world.
But when I reached the last page of the preface, the penny that had been so high somehow fell. This is not a worldwide study. Only Biblical stories are featured, almost entirely from Genesis and Exodus, because the Bible is the “presupposed story of Western civilization” and “the foundation of the West, plain and simple.” The story is featured.
Feedback's grasp of intellectual history is admittedly a little vague, but Western society and modern science, while shaped by Christianity, were also influenced by the ideas of ancient Greeks, Romans, Norsemen, and Arabic scholars. There is no doubt that it is. Fundamentals of scientific revolution, etc.
However, we do not pretend to be experts in Biblical exegesis. I'd like to leave the theological criticism to former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, who says Peterson “relies heavily on somewhat outdated Christian commentary” and “relentlessly disdains nuance and disagreement.” ” states.
Instead, we unpack small sections where Peterson tries to connect his ideas to human biology (something we know a little about).
eve problem
Chapter 2 tells the story of Adam and Eve being chased out of the Garden of Eden after Eve, tempted by the serpent, eats the forbidden fruit and convinces Adam to do the same.
Peterson says this reflects a fundamental flaw in the minds of men and women. “The temptation that forever faces women,” he writes, “is the idea that maternal benevolence can proudly extend to the whole world, even to the most venomous snakes…even if the position is wrong. He uses her compassion to assert unearned moral virtues and abilities, even when he is wrong.
Men, on the other hand, have “corresponding and equally deadly sins.” It's the belief that “anything you bring before me I can take in, control, name, subdue, and put into proper order” – no matter how “too much” or “That's ridiculous.”
While men must exercise “emergency powers” and decide who deserves help, it is women's role to show compassion and draw men's attention to those who are suffering.
Since the book aims to reveal absolute truths about human nature, feedback relished the lack of reflection on the part about the dangers of “going too far.”
Now, one might expect psychologist Peterson to provide psychological evidence for these differences between men and women. That would be a mistake. But he tries to tie it to the biology of childbirth. Labor is painful and dangerous because human babies' brains have evolved to be larger and they must pass through a narrower birth canal, which otherwise would be “difficult for women to run,” she said. explain.
This caused neurons in the brain to fire due to feedback overload. Peterson restates a hypothesis called the “obstetric dilemma.” Founded in 1960.
Today, it is one of the most controversial concepts in anthropology, and all of its underlying assumptions have been proven false or questionable. The 2018 study was bluntly titled: “There is no such thing as an 'obstetric dilemma'”. 2021 counterattack (Deep breath) “It is unwarranted to completely reject the obstetric dilemma hypothesis, because some of its basic assumptions are not well discounted,'' he said.
Feedback alone is not wise to resolve this sticky dispute. But at least unlike Peterson, we get it. She went on to say that pregnant and breastfeeding women are “increasedly dependent” and cannot compete with men for position, and at this point we have used our emergency powers to stop reading. said.
word of the year
Feedback enjoys the annual ritual in which the dictionary announces the word of the year. That tells us something about changing practices. We are proud of the existence of Macquarie Dictionary, Australia's national language dictionary, and the fact that the word of the year in 2024 is 'Encitization”.
This great term was coined by author Cory Doctorow to describe how companies gradually degrade their service as they squeeze more and more profit out of their customers. He was referring to companies like Google, where search results are full of ads and unreliable AI-generated summaries, and Facebook, where newsfeeds are full of memes and ads and messages from friends and family are barely visible. It means a company.
Ever since I read Doctorow's paper, the word feedback has been around. first essayAnd I'm glad that this work will be accepted by a wider audience.
Have a story for feedback?
You can email your article to Feedback at feedback@newscientist.com. Please enter your home address. This week's and past feedback can be found on our website.
The southern giant hornet, also known as the “murder hornet”, has been discovered for the first time in Europe.
A study last month confirmed that two pairs of hornets have been found in northern Spain since 2022.
Scientists are looking for wasp nests.
Researchers in Spain are busy discovering the first southern giant hornet nest ever discovered in Europe.
Also known as the “murder hornet” because it is known to kill beehives, this insect grows to an average length of 2 inches. They are native to parts of Asia.India, China, Thailand, Vietnam.
in research published last month Five Spanish scientists described two separate sightings in the journal Ecology and Evolution.The scientific name of the southern giant hornet is Vespa soror. Both were in Cielo, a city in northern Asturias. A pair was discovered in March 2022, and another two in October 2023.
Researchers believe the hornet's nest dates back at least a year.
Asian giant hornet —A closely related species that originates from other parts of Asia, it was first discovered in the US state of Washington in late 2019. The northern hornet and the southern hornet have similar behavior and appearance, but the former ShiChange the nesting period They then build small colonies or nests.
The first northern giant hornet nest discovered in the United States was promptly destroyed in October 2020, but live hornets were discovered in Washington the following year.
Southern giant hornets are known to send out scout teams to find colonies of prey, and the scouts rub their bodies against the hive or nearby plants to signal other hornets to join them. According to Research published in 2021. It then enters the “slaughter stage” where the entire hive can be destroyed within a few hours.
Asian giant hornets have not been found in Europe, neither in the north nor in the south.That's more than the four recorded in Spain. Scientists behind the recent study believe the hornets likely first arrived on a cargo ship.
Omar Sánchez, lead author of the study and zoologistA professor at the University of Oviedo in Spain said he expected the hornets to affect the balance of local ecosystems, as they actively prey on native hornets, bees, butterflies, moths and flies. A long-term decline in bee populations could impact honey availability and disrupt the pollination process that many plants and crops depend on.
“Here in northern Spain, we have another type of Asian hornet called Vespa verntina, which is causing serious damage to the beekeeping industry, so the presence of another hornet could potentially amplify the negative impact. Yes,” he said.
Sánchez added that the researchers:They are trying to find the nest in order to destroy it.
“This species nests more than 30 meters underground, so it's not easy to find, so you have to be a little bit careful,” he says. “We are trying.”
Sánchez said researchers are looking for more hornet sightings.
Sanchez and his study co-authors discovered and captured four of the hornets after hearing from beekeepers in the area that they had seen the unusual-looking hornets. After capturing the wasps, scientists extracted DNA samples and conducted genetic testing and analysis to confirm the species.
Molly Keck, an entomologist at Texas A&M University, said the genetic research that identified this species will “help educate the public and beekeepers and educate local governments so that management planning, education, mapping and distribution can be done.” “This is the first step towards mitigation efforts such as issuing warnings.” . ”
“Most of these invasive species will come in through some port city, so no matter what quarantine or checking measures are in place, there's always a way to find them.” she added.
Keck said countries may need to tighten such processes around the world as a precaution if they want to ensure their cargo is bug-free.
Sanchez said the detection of the southern giant hornet in Spain shows that more hornets are likely to emerge.
“Perhaps in the near future this species will be detected again in other parts of Spain, and perhaps also in Europe,” he says.
Transgenic hybrid poplar with increased expression levels BSTR Increased photosynthetic efficiency and biomass under greenhouse conditions. Image credit: Feissa others., doi: 10.1016/j.devcel.2024.11.002.
“Historically, much research has focused on steady-state photosynthesis, where all conditions remain constant,” the co-senior authors said. Dr. Stephen Burgessa researcher at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
“However, this does not represent a field environment where the light is constantly changing.”
“In recent years, these dynamic processes have been thought to be more important, but they are not fully understood.”
In the new study, Dr. Burgess and his colleagues focused on poplar trees. Because poplar trees grow quickly and are great candidates for making biofuels and bioproducts.
They conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS) by sampling approximately 1,000 trees in an outdoor research plot and analyzing their physical characteristics and genetic makeup.
The researchers used GWAS populations to search for candidate genes related to photosynthetic quenching. Photosynthetic quenching is the process that regulates how quickly plants adapt between sun and shade and dissipate excess energy from excessive sun to avoid damage.
One of the genes Booster (BSTR)was unusual because it is unique to poplar and contains sequences derived from chloroplasts, even though it is within the nuclear genome.
“We found that this gene can increase Rubisco content and subsequent photosynthetic activity, resulting in tall polar plants when grown in greenhouse conditions,” the authors said.
“In field conditions, we found that the genotypes were highly expressed. booster Up to 37% taller and more biomass per plant. ”
The researchers also booster at the model factory ArabidopsisAs a result, biomass and seed production increases.
This discovery is booster Can potentially cause yield increases in other plants.
“This is an exciting first step, but it is a small-scale experiment and there is much work to be done. If we can reproduce the results on a large scale, this gene has the potential to increase biomass production in crops.” said Dr. Burgess.
“Next steps in the research could include trials at other bioenergy and food plants, recording plant productivity under different growing conditions to analyze long-term success. .”
“We also plan to investigate other genes identified in the GWAS study that may contribute to crop improvement.”
of findings Featured in this week's diary developmental cells.
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Birk A. Feissa others. orphan gene booster Increases photosynthetic efficiency and plant productivity. developmental cellspublished online on December 3, 2024. doi: 10.1016/j.devcel.2024.11.002
Despite conflicting with the results of some recent studies, this new discovery reinforces the claim that Jupiter-based comets like 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko may have contributed to providing water to Earth. This finding has been confirmed.
This pseudocolor four-image mosaic consists of images taken on February 3, 2015, from a distance of 28.7 km from the center of comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The size of the mosaic is 4.2 x 4.6 km. Image credit: ESA / Rosetta / NAVCAM / CC BY-SA IGO 3.0.
Water is crucial for the formation and sustenance of life on Earth, and continues to be central to life on Earth today.
It is believed that some water was present in the gas and dust that formed our planet around 4.6 billion years ago, but due to Earth forming close to the sun’s intense heat, a considerable amount of water is thought to have evaporated.
The process by which Earth became abundant in liquid water is still a subject of debate among scientists.
Studies have indicated that a portion of Earth’s water originates from steam released by volcanoes, which then condensed and fell into the oceans.
Furthermore, evidence suggests that a significant percentage of our oceans resulted from the impact of ice and minerals from asteroids and potentially comets hitting Earth.
A series of comets and asteroids colliding with inner solar system planets 4 billion years ago could have facilitated this occurrence.
While there is a strong theory linking asteroid water to Earth’s water, the role of comets has perplexed scientists.
Multiple measurements of Jupiter-based comets have indicated a strong correlation between their water and that of Earth.
This connection is based on a fundamental molecular signature utilized by scientists to track the origins of water across the solar system.
The deuterium (D) to ordinary hydrogen (H) ratio in an object’s water serves as this signature, providing insights into the object’s formation location.
By comparing this hydrogen ratio in comets and asteroids to that of Earth’s water, scientists can discern a potential connection.
Deuterium-rich water is more likely to form in cold environments, resulting in objects formed farther from the Sun, such as comets, exhibiting higher concentrations of this isotope compared to objects formed nearer to the Sun, like asteroids.
Measurements conducted over the past few decades on the deuterium in the water vapor of various other Jupiter-based comets have revealed levels akin to Earth’s water.
“It seems increasingly likely that these comets play a significant role in delivering water to Earth,” commented Dr. Kathleen Mandt, a planetary scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.
However, ESA’s Rosetta mission to 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2014 challenged the notion that Jupiter-based comets aid in replenishing Earth’s water reservoirs.
Upon analyzing Rosetta’s water measurements, scientists discovered that it has the highest deuterium concentration among all comets, with approximately 100% more deuterium than Earth’s oceans (about 1 deuterium atom for every 6,420 hydrogen atoms), surpassing it by threefold.
“This was a significant revelation that compelled us to reassess everything,” remarked Dr. Mandt.
An advanced statistical computing approach was employed by the researchers to automate the laborious task of segregating deuterium-rich water from over 16,000 Rosetta measurements.
These measurements were taken within the gas and dust coma encircling 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko by Rosetta.
For the first time, Dr. Mandt and collaborators analyzed all water measurements from the European mission.
The researchers aimed to comprehend the physical processes influencing the fluctuations in hydrogen isotope ratios detected in comets.
Studies on comet dust in laboratory settings and observations indicated that comet dust could impact the hydrogen proportion detected in comet vapors, potentially altering how the comet’s water compares to Earth’s water.
“So, I was curious to see if I could find evidence of this phenomenon occurring in 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko,” added Dr. Mandt.
“This is one of those rare instances where a hypothesis is proposed and genuinely validated.”
In fact, scientists identified a distinct correlation between the deuterium measurements of 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko within its coma and the amount of surrounding dust near the Rosetta spacecraft, indicating that measurements taken in certain regions of the coma near 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko may not accurately represent the comet’s celestial composition.
As the comet traverses an orbit closer to the Sun, its surface warms, releasing gases from the surface, including dust particles with attached water ice fragments.
Research suggests that water containing deuterium has a higher tendency to adhere to dust particles compared to regular water.
When this ice on dust particles is expelled into a coma, it can create an illusion of the comet containing more deuterium than it actually does.
The researchers noted that by the time the dust reaches the outer regions of the coma, at least 120 miles away from the comet’s core, the coma depletes of water.
Once the deuterium-rich water dissipates, the spacecraft can precisely measure the amount of deuterium emanating from the comet’s core.
“This discovery holds profound implications not only for elucidating the role of comets in supplying water to Earth but also for comprehending comet observations that offer insights into the early solar system’s formation,” the researchers noted.
“This discovery provides a unique opportunity to revisit previous observations and prepare for future observations to better factor in the effects of dust.”
of study Published in a magazine scientific progress.
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Kathleen E. Mandt others. 2024. D/H of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko almost on Earth. scientific progress 10(46);doi: 10.1126/sciadv.adp2191
Paleoanthropologists believe that the Columbian mammoth (mammoth colombi) are the largest contributor to the diet of the Clovis people, the earliest widespread hunter-gatherer group inhabiting North America, followed by elk and bison/camels, but the contribution of small mammals is There were very few.
An artist's reconstruction of Clovis life 13,000 years ago shows the Anzick 1 infant eating mammoth meat with his mother near the hearth. Another individual crafting tool, such as a dart launch point or an atlatl. A huge slaughterhouse can be seen nearby. Image credit: Eric Carlson / Ben Potter / Jim Chatters.
The Clovis people lived in North America about 13,000 years ago.
During that time, giant animals such as mammoths lived in both northern Asia and the Americas.
Because they traveled long distances, they became a reliable source of fat and protein for highly mobile humans.
Some researchers argue that the Clovisians were some degree of megafauna experts, with a particular focus on mammoths, while others argue that such adaptations were not viable and therefore They argue that Clovisians were extensive foragers, likely incorporating small amounts of food into their diets on a regular basis. Prey, plants, and perhaps fish.
“Focusing on mammoths helps explain how the Clovis people spread from across North America to South America in just a few hundred years,” said Dr. James Chatters, a researcher at McMaster University. said.
“What's surprising to me is that this corroborates a lot of the data from other sites,” said Ben Potter, a professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
“For example, the animal parts left at the Clovis site are dominated by megafauna, and the firing points are large ones attached to darts, which were effective long-range weapons.”
In the new study, Dr Chatters, Professor Potter and their colleagues used stable isotope analysis to investigate the effects of 18-month-old children found at the 13,000-year-old Clovis site in Anzick, Montana, USA. I modeled the meal. state.
Their findings support the hypothesis that the Clovis people specialized in hunting large animals, rather than primarily foraging on small animals and plants.
Professor Potter said: “Mammoth hunting provided a flexible way of life.”
“This allowed the Clovis people to move to new areas without relying on smaller, localized prey that could vary widely from region to region.”
“This mobility is consistent with what we are seeing with Clovis technology and payment patterns.”
“They were very mobile. They transported resources such as toolstone over hundreds of miles.”
“Isotopes provide a chemical fingerprint of a consumer's diet, and can be compared to the isotopes of potential dietary items to determine the proportional contributions of different dietary items,” said Dr. Matt Wooler of the University of Alaska Fairbanks. It can be estimated.”
The researchers compared the mothers' stable isotope fingerprints with those obtained from different food sources from the same time and region.
They found that about 40% of her diet came from mammoths, with other large animals such as elk and bison making up the rest.
Although small mammals were sometimes considered an important food source, they played a very minor role in her diet.
Finally, the scientists compared the mother's diet to that of other omnivores and carnivores from the same period, including American lions, bears, and wolves.
The mother's diet was most similar to that of the scimitar cat, a mammoth specialist.
The discovery also suggests that early humans may have contributed to the extinction of Ice Age megafauna, especially as environmental changes reduced their habitat.
“If the climate is changing in a way that reduces suitable habitat for some of these megafauna, they potentially become more susceptible to human predation. These people are highly capable. He was a great hunter,” Professor Potter said.
“It was a combination of a very sophisticated hunting culture that responded to a simple, large animal group under environmental stress, and techniques honed over 10,000 years in Eurasia,” Dr Chatters said.
of the team result Published in today's diary scientific progress.
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James C. Chatters others. 2024. Mammoths featured heavily in the diet of western Clovis. scientific progress 10(49);doi: 10.1126/sciadv.adr3814
President-elect Donald Trump revealed on Wednesday his intention to nominate billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman as the head of NASA.
“Jared will propel NASA’s mission of exploration and inspiration, opening the doors to groundbreaking advancements in space science, technology, and exploration,” President Trump stated. Post to Truth Social.
At 41 years old, Isaacman is the founder and CEO of Shift4, a payment processing company. While he has embarked on two commercial SpaceX spaceflights, he has never been employed by NASA or the federal government. Both spaceflights were privately funded by Isaacman for an undisclosed sum.
Isaacman expressed his honor at being nominated by Trump in a statement.
“Having had the privilege of witnessing our incredible planet from space, I am deeply passionate about America leading the most incredible adventure in human history.” he wrote to x.
Isaacman has a close connection to Elon Musk, the billionaire CEO of Tesla and SpaceX. President Trump has selected Musk, a close associate, to co-lead his new Department of Government Efficiency. Musk congratulated Isaacman on Wednesday. In the post of X.
In 2022, Isaacman partnered with Musk and SpaceX to finance the Polaris mission, a set of three private spaceflights to test technology and maneuvers for exploration beyond Earth’s orbit. Isaacman was one of four civilians sent into orbit on the initial spaceflight called Polaris Dawn.
A five-day mission in September included the first all-civilian spacewalk.
Isaacman also funded and partook in SpaceX’s first all-civilian mission into orbit in 2021.
If confirmed, Isaacman will oversee NASA at a crucial juncture, with major missions planned for the return of humans to the moon in the years ahead.
The United States is facing escalating competition in its quest to reach the moon and establish a lasting presence there.
China has made significant advancements in its space program recently, with plans to land Chinese astronauts on the moon by 2030. The country has already sent a robotic spacecraft to the moon and brought back the initial samples from the far side. Chinese leaders have expressed their intention to eventually construct a lunar base.
“I was born after the moon landing. My children were born after the final space shuttle launch,” Isaacman said in a statement, emphasizing: Through walking on the Moon or Mars, we can enhance life on Earth. “
Mr. Trump’s selection of an outsider to govern NASA, as well as Mr. Musk’s involvement in the forthcoming administration, may indicate a move toward promoting the commercialization of NASA’s activities. At present, the space agency heavily relies on SpaceX and other commercial partners for launching astronauts, cargo, and spacecraft to the International Space Station and beyond.
Bill Nelson, the current administrator of NASA, has been in office since May 2021. Nelson served as a Senator from Florida from 2001 to 2019 and as a Representative in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1979 to 1991.
In 1986, Nelson became the second sitting Congressman to travel to space on Space Shuttle Columbia’s STS-61C mission. Nelson and his crew conducted scientific experiments while orbiting the Earth 98 times in six days.
Former NASA administrators have included former astronauts, scientists, engineers, military personnel, and politicians.
Robots that can take off like birds could eliminate the need for runways for small fixed-wing drones.
Birds use the powerful explosive force generated by their legs to jump into the sky and begin flight, but it has proven difficult to build robots that can withstand the strong accelerations and forces exerted during this process.
now, Won Dong Shin Researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) have developed a flying propeller robot called RAVEN. The robot has legs that move like a bird and can walk, hop, jump into the air and start flying.
“Fixed-wing aircraft like airplanes always need a runway or a launcher, but that's not available everywhere. You really need a designated infrastructure to get the plane off the ground,” Singh said. Masu. “But when they spot a bird, they just walk around, jump, take off. It's very easy for them. They don't need any outside help.”
A real bird's legs have joints at the hip, knee, and ankle, but RAVEN's legs have only two joints, the hip and knee, and are driven by a motor. Each leg also has a spring that can store and release elastic energy. By using fewer parts, Singh and his team were able to keep RAVEN's weight to about 600 grams, the same as a crow.
In indoor tests, RAVEN was able to jump approximately 0.5 meters into the air at a speed of 2.4 meters per second. This is a similar speed to birds of the same size. At this point the propeller takes over. Because it can be launched upwards from anywhere, RAVEN could be useful for disaster relief missions where regular fixed-wing drones cannot take off or land, Singh said. But first, he says, the team needs to develop RAVEN's ability to land safely.
“We've seen a lot of work on flying robots that land on perches, but not many focused on taking off with their feet,” he says. Rafael ZafriEPFL was also not involved in this work. “I think the two disciplines of landing, or perching, and takeoff will be integrated into one platform that will allow robots to fly, detect branches, land, recover, and perform missions.” Take off. ”
Weather forecasting today relies on simulations that require large amounts of computing power.
Petrovich9/Getty Images/iStockphoto
Google DeepMind claims its latest weather forecasting AI can predict faster and more accurately than existing physics-based simulations.
GenCast is the latest in DeepMind's ongoing research project to improve weather forecasts using artificial intelligence. The model was trained on 40 years of historical data from the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). ERA5 ArchiveThis includes regular measurements of temperature, wind speed, and barometric pressure at various altitudes around the world.
Data up to 2018 was used to train the model, and then 2019 data was used to test predictions against known weather conditions. The company found that it outperformed ECMWF's industry standard ENS forecasts 97.4% of the time, and 99.8% of the time when forecasting more than 36 hours ahead.
Last year, DeepMind collaborated with ECMWF to create an AI that outperformed the “gold standard” high-resolution HRES 10-day forecast by more than 90%. Previously, he developed a “nowcasting” model that used five minutes of radar data to predict the probability of rain over a given one square kilometer area from five to 90 minutes in advance. Google is also working on ways to use AI to replace small parts of deterministic models to speed up calculations while maintaining accuracy.
Existing weather forecasts are based on physical simulations run on powerful supercomputers to deterministically model and estimate weather patterns as accurately as possible. Forecasters typically run dozens of simulations with slightly different inputs in groups called ensembles to better capture the variety of possible outcomes. These increasingly complex and large numbers of simulations are computationally intensive and require ever more powerful and energy-consuming machines to operate.
AI has the potential to provide lower-cost solutions. For example, GenCast uses an ensemble of 50 possible futures to create predictions. Using custom-built, AI-focused Google Cloud TPU v5 chips, each prediction takes just 8 minutes.
GenCast operates at a cell resolution of approximately 28 square kilometers near the equator. Since the data used in this study were collected, ECMWF's ENS has been upgraded to a resolution of just 9 kilometers.
Yilan price DeepMind says AI doesn't have to follow, and could provide a way forward without collecting more detailed data or performing more intensive calculations. “If you have a traditional physics-based model, that's a necessary requirement to solve the physical equations more accurately, and therefore to get more accurate predictions,” Price says. “[With] machine learning, [it] It is not always necessary to go to higher resolution to get more accurate simulations and predictions from your model. ”
david schultz Researchers at the University of Manchester in the UK say AI models offer an opportunity to make weather forecasts more efficient, but they are often over-hyped and rely heavily on training data from traditional physically-based models. states that it is important to remember that
“is that so [GenCast] Will it revolutionize numerical weather forecasting? No, because in order to train a model, you first have to run a numerical weather prediction model,” says Schulz. “These AI tools wouldn't exist if ECMWF didn't exist in the first place and without creating the ERA5 reanalysis and all the investment that went into it. It's like, 'I can beat Garry Kasparov at chess. But only after studying every move he's ever played.''
Sergey Frolov Researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) believe that further advances in AI will require higher-resolution training data. “What we're basically seeing is that all of these approaches are being thwarted.” [from advancing] “It depends on the fidelity of the training data,” he says. “And the training data comes from operational centers like ECMWF and NOAA. To move this field forward, we need to generate more training data using higher-fidelity physically-based models. .”
But for now, GenCast offers a faster way to perform predictions at lower computational costs. kieran hunt A professor at the University of Reading in the UK believes ensembles can improve the accuracy of AI predictions, just as a collection of physics-based predictions can produce better results than a single prediction. states.
Mr Hunt points to the UK's record temperature of 40C (104C) in 2022 as an example. A week or two ago, there was only one member of the ensemble who was predicting it, and they were considered an anomaly. Then, as the heat wave approached, the predictions became more accurate, providing early warning that something unusual was about to happen.
“You can get away with it a little bit if you have one member who shows something really extreme. That might happen, but it probably won't happen,” Hunt says. “I don’t think it’s necessarily a step change; it’s a combination of new AI approaches with tools we’ve been using in weather forecasting for a while to ensure the quality of AI weather forecasts. There is no doubt that this will yield better results than the first wave of AI weather forecasting.”
An orca was spotted balancing a salmon on its head in coastal waters off Washington state.
It's not clear what this behavior means, but killer whales have been previously observed performing the same behavior in the 1980s.
Southern killer whales are critically endangered and may be on their way to extinction.
Recently, a fascinating sight was witnessed off the coast of Washington state where an orca was seen balancing a salmon on its head, surprising both scientists and killer whale enthusiasts.
This particular endangered Southern killer whale, known as J27 or Blackberry, was spotted wearing a hat made of salmon near Point No Point in late October. According to Orca Network, a non-profit organization dedicated to species conservation.
This behavior of carrying salmon on their heads was previously observed in killer whales in the late 1980s, as mentioned by Deborah Giles, director of scientific research at Wild Orca. However, the significance of this behavior remains unclear.
Giles, who spends a significant amount of time studying orcas, witnessed another instance of this behavior recently, suggesting that it might be a common occurrence among southern killer whales.
The behavior of balancing a salmon on their heads could be attributed to various reasons such as sharing food with other pod members or using it as part of their social interactions. Nevertheless, this behavior indicates that the whales are well-fed and can engage in playful activities.
Despite conservation efforts, Southern killer whales are facing numerous threats that have contributed to their critically endangered status. The decline in prey availability, pollution, and disturbance from human activities are some of the key challenges faced by these whales.
Efforts are being made to protect and recover the Southern killer whale population, but more needs to be done to ensure their survival in the long run.
Darwin’s ideas began with Alfred Russell Wallace, co-discoverer of natural selection, who disagreed with some aspects of Charles Darwin’s arguments but ultimately realized that most of them were wrong. It has been proven and challenged many times. American botanist Liberty Hyde Bailey published a paper in 1894 pondering whether the mainstream neo-Darwinist formulation of the theory of evolution needed to be extended (it was not). In the 1980s, paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould pursued a similar tack.
Evolutionary biologist Kevin Lara also questions what he calls traditional Darwinian thinking (see “The surprising ways species control their evolutionary destiny”). Some say this is a straw man argument, as it challenges old-fashioned ideas about evolutionary biology, but modern ideas are changing the way we think about developmental biology, cultural evolution, symbiotics, etc. It’s broad enough to encompass all the new aspects you’re learning. Different species coexist closely.
Over the years, the theory of evolution by natural selection has itself evolved, absorbing new discoveries about genes, DNA, population genetics, and epigenetics that did not exist in Darwin’s time. As we report on page 11, identifying evolutionary drivers is essential to understanding how species adapt to climate change, for example, ahead of an avian influenza pandemic. Whether we need to add to the rulebook already at the disposal of evolutionary biologists is debatable. There is a danger that a “God of the Gaps” argument will creep in, where the obvious shortcomings of evolution are exploited by those who point to unscientific explanations.
Obvious shortcomings create a danger that the “god of the gaps” theory creeps in
All theories need to be challenged, and evaluating modern evolutionary biology highlights many aspects of life that may be less appreciated. Darwin’s explanation has survived more than 160 years because it is broadly correct and robust enough to absorb new discoveries. So while the impact of Lara’s approach is not yet clear, Lara’s scrutiny of neglected aspects of life should be welcomed.
A mysterious illness with flu-like symptoms has claimed the lives of dozens of people in the Democratic Republic of Congo, as reported by the country’s health authorities.
As of Tuesday, the unknown disease has resulted in the death of 79 people and the sickness of 376 individuals, according to the country’s Ministry of Public Health, Hygiene and Social Security.
In a statement regarding X, the ministry stated that the origin of the disease is “still unknown” and was first identified in Kwango province in southwestern Congo.
Symptoms reported include fever, headache, stuffy nose, cough, difficulty breathing, and anemia.
According to Reuters and Associated Press, local authorities have warned that the death toll could potentially rise to 143.
The Ministry of Health emphasized that the remains of those who have died with similar symptoms should not be handled without the involvement of authorized health authorities. They urged the public to report any suspicious illnesses or unusual deaths, avoid large gatherings, and follow basic hygiene practices like washing hands with soap and water.
Emergency public health officials are being deployed to the affected area, as confirmed by the ministry.
The World Health Organization, in response to the reports of the unidentified illness, stated to NBC News that they are collaborating with local authorities and have dispatched a team to collect samples for laboratory testing.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with offices in Congo, is aware of the situation and is providing technical support to a rapid response team sent by the local emergency operations center.
Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin, editor of an anthology set in the Wild Cards universe
Paras Griffin/Getty Images
December is traditionally a quiet month in the publishing world, and that’s true this year as well, with fewer new books than usual to tempt us sci-fi geeks. However, there are some novels that I find very enjoyable. One example is Makana Yamamoto’s debut novel, which was described by the publisher as an “adventurous love letter” to Hawaii. And less interesting, but just as fascinating, is Arthur C. Clarke Prize winner Jane Rogers’ new collection of short stories, all climate fiction and (according to the publisher) “no easy answers. “It raises questions about personal responsibility.” It might also publish a huge and expensive 10-volume graphic novel, an adaptation of Liu Cixin’s novel. three body problem Put it on my Christmas wishlist – it sounds really epic.
The publisher pitches it as follows: oceans 8 meet blade runner – And what’s not to love there? – It follows Edie, who has just been released on parole from an icy prison planet, and meets Angel, the woman who sold her eight years ago. Angel offers Edie one last job. His goal is to defeat the billionaire “god of technology” that he was unable to stop last time. This has a lot of hype from a major publisher and looks like a lot of fun. By the way, hamajan is borrowed from the Hawaiian pidgin and is said to mean “a state of disorder or chaos.” A mess.
This is the latest anthology set in . wild card In space, an alien virus released into the world gives superpowers to 1% of the people it infects. This is the third book in the series, edited by Martin and featuring writing from a variety of authors. wild cardAfter the “British Arc” of queens over knives and three kings. The story is set on the fictional island of Coon, which is connected to mainland Cornwall only by an ancient tidal channel.
Jane Rogers won Britain’s highest science fiction award, the Arthur C. Clarke Award, in 2012. Jesse Lamb’s will. (I really liked this book. It’s set in a world where all pregnant women are infected with a deadly virus, and it’s narrated by a teenager.) A collection of climate fiction stories that span viral pandemics. Until the end of 22n.d. From the Australian outback, where bushfires are raging, to Oxfordshire, where an old man is chained to an old beech tree about to be cut down. I especially love sounds set in a distant future in space, where Earth is barren but may be starting to recover.
This space opera is in part a sequel to a work with a great title. August Kitoko and the mechas from space. Of course, this work features a “ragtag group of misfits” fighting a “giant army of mechs” to destroy humanity. Our main characters are the super attractive pop star Ardent Violet and her new boyfriend August Kitoko. The book also promises a “mysterious omnipotent AI” and a coalition of aliens.
Eve Ridley (left) as The Follower and Kai Shimooka as Sophon in “Three Body Problem”
This epic 10-volume graphic novel adaptation is for the full-length Cixin Liu lovers out there, but I suspect there’s probably some in there. new scientist Dear readers. The film, which was nominated for the 2024 Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story or Comic, is said to include several additional features, including a transcript of an interview with character Ye Wenjie by the Beijing PSB Criminal Investigation Squad. are. Liu himself says, “I believe graphic novels provide the widest possible canvas for science fiction.” Wouldn’t it be a good idea to put it on your Christmas list?
After romantasy (romance + fantasy), sci-fi romance seems to be the most popular genre these days, and I’m all for it. It’s about Ada being given an undercover mission by a group of rebels that happened to be at a charity event, where she finds Ryan, who tries to stop her. Here’s how the publisher describes fans of Becky Chambers and Martha Wells: I mean, that’s me.
21 second halfcent In this century, as the United States is ravaged by global warming, a mother and daughter escape from the Inside Project, a climate change relief program where they have been treated as lab rats for the past 22 years. As the weather continues to worsen and the remaining humans struggle to survive, they go on the run and encounter women from their mother’s past.
This is the latest installment in Zahn’s Icarus series, and is set in a universe where an alien race called the Icari disappeared 10,000 years ago, leaving behind portals through which people could be transported to the stars. In this expedition, Gregory Rourke and his partner Selene are tasked with finding these alien artifacts, only to find themselves on a distant planet, by a group of aliens called the Unmei who have their own portal plans. I realize what I’m facing.
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Paleontologists have identified a new genus and species of whitefly from fossils found in Miocene crater lake deposits at Hindon Mar, near Dunedin, Otago, South Island, New Zealand.
Close-up of two small pupae Miotetraleurodes novaezelandiae It is attached to the leaves of angiosperms. Image credit: Drohojowska others., doi: 10.1007/s12549-024-00628-z.
Adult whiteflies are small insects about 3 mm in size, and immatures are even smaller.
The fossil discovered at Hindon Maar is approximately 1.5mm x 1.25mm and was preserved by pasting it on the back of a fossilized leaf.
It has a black, oval body and has some similarities with modern whiteflies, such as shape and color, but differs in that all parts of the body are clearly defined by deep sutures.
“Fossils of adult whiteflies are not uncommon, but unusual circumstances are required for the pupa (the protective shell in which the insect emerges) to become fossilized,” says palaeontologist at the University of Göttingen and former postdoctoral researcher at the University of Göttingen. says Dr. Uwe Kaulfus. University of Otago.
“About 15 million years ago, the pupal leaves must have been torn off the tree, blown into a small lake, sunk to the deep lake bed, become covered in sediment, and become fossils.”
“It must have happened in quick succession because the fossils of the small insects are so well preserved.”
“The new genera and species described in our study are Miotetraleurodes novaezelandiaerevealed for the first time that whitefly insects were an ecological component of ancient forests in the South Island. ”
“It was difficult to see much with the naked eye, but when we looked at the fossils under a microscope we could see amazing details,” said Emeritus Professor Daphne Lee from the University of Otago.
“The fact that they are still alive on leaves is incredible and extremely rare.”
“These small fossils are the first of their kind to be found in New Zealand, and only the third pupa fossil of this type known worldwide.”
“These new discoveries from the Otago fossil site are an important contribution to our understanding of New Zealand's past biodiversity and forest ecosystem history. It means we have a new appreciation for the importance of it.”
“Most people are interested in big fossils, big charismatic fossils, but most of the animals in the forest are insects.”
“New Zealand is home to 14,000 insect species, 90% of which are found nowhere else in the world.”
“The discovery of these tiny fossils shows that this insect group has been present in Aotearoa New Zealand for at least 15 million years.”
“This provides a well-dated calibration point for molecular phylogenetic studies.”
of study Published in a magazine Paleobiodiversity and paleoenvironment.
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J. Drohojovska others. The first Miocene whiteflies and parrots (Hemiptera: Sternorrhyncha: Aleyrodoidea and Psylloidea) from Aotearoa, New Zealand. Paleobio Paleoembupublished online on October 1, 2024. doi: 10.1007/s12549-024-00628-z
Kepler-51 is a 500-million-year-old G-type star that hosts four low-density planets. new paper Published in astronomy magazine.
This diagram shows the Kepler-51 planetary system. Image credit: NASA / ESA / L. Hustak, J. Olmsted, D. Player & F. Summers, STScI.
Kepler-51 It is located approximately 2,615 light years away in the constellation Cygnus.
The star, also known as KOI-620, was already known to host three Saturn-sized “superpuff” exoplanets: Kepler-51b, c, and d.
First discovered by NASA's Kepler Space Telescope in 2012, these worlds have orbital period ratios close to 1:2:3 (45, 85, and 130 days, respectively).
It is several times more massive than Earth and has a hydrogen/helium atmosphere.
“Superpuff planets are very unusual in that they have very low masses and very low densities,” says Penn State astronomer Jessica Libby Roberts.
“The three planets known so far orbiting the star Kepler-51 are about the same size as Saturn, but only a few times the mass of Earth, making them as dense as cotton candy. ”
“We think they have small cores and huge atmospheres of helium hydrogen, but we don't know how these strange planets formed and how their atmospheres developed. It remains a mystery why the star was not blown away by the intense radiation of the young star.
“We had planned to use Webb to study one of these planets to answer these questions, but now we have to describe the fourth, low-mass planet in the system.”
To examine evidence of Kepler-51e, the fourth planet in the system, astronomers conducted extensive passes over 14 years from a variety of facilities, including the Webb, Apache Point Observatory telescopes, and Penn State Davey Laboratory telescopes. We utilized a timing dataset.
“We conducted a so-called 'brute force' search, testing different combinations of planet properties to find a four-planet model that explains all transit data collected over the past 14 years.” said Kento Masuda, an astronomer at Osaka University.
“We found that the signal is best explained if Kepler-51e has a mass similar to the other three planets and follows a fairly circular orbit of about 264 days. That's to be expected.”
“Other possible solutions we've found include larger planets in wider orbits, but we think that's unlikely.”
It is unclear whether Kepler-51e is also a superpuff planet, as researchers have not observed Kepler-51e transiting the Sun and therefore cannot calculate its radius or density.
According to the team, a wide range of demographics (
“Superpuff planets are fairly rare, and when they do occur, they tend to be unique in planetary systems,” said Penn State astronomer Jessica Libby Roberts.
“If explaining how three superpuffs formed in one star system wasn't enough of a challenge, now we have to explain a fourth planet, whether it's a superpuff or not. And we can't rule out the possibility that there are more planets in this system.”
“Kepler-51e's orbit is slightly larger than Venus and just inside the star's habitable zone, so there could be a lot more going on beyond that distance if we take the time to look.”
“Continuing to observe variations in transit timing could help us discover planets further away from their stars, which could aid in the search for planets that may harbor life.”
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Kento Masuda others. 2024. The fourth planet in the Kepler-51 system revealed by fluctuations in transit timing. A.J. 168, 294; doi: 10.3847/1538-3881/ad83d3
Archaeologists have announced the discovery of a new type of Neanderthal hearth in Gibraltar’s Vanguard Cave. This hearth structure is consistent with predictions from theoretical studies that require the use of heating structures to obtain birch tar commonly used in hafting. Researchers suggest that this hearth was used to burn herbs and shrubs over guano mixed with sand and heat rockrose without oxygen.
Neanderthal hearth structures may have been constructed according to the following steps: Image credit: Ochando others., doi: 10.1016/j.quascirev.2024.109025.
“The use and control of fire would have provided important adaptive benefits.” Homo and even shaped its evolution,” said Clive Finlayson of Gibraltar National Museum and colleagues.
“Manufacturing fire technology has been shown to be common from 400,000 years ago to the present, and it has probably been around for much longer.”
“A variety of studies have demonstrated the ability of Neanderthals to create, protect, and carry fire.”
“The main functions of the use of fire are related to providing heat, light and the possibility of cooking food.”
“But it could also lead to the development of new technological innovations,” they added.
“These include deliberate heat treatment of stone artifacts, durable wood, smoking purposes, and the use of distillation of birch bark and adhesives from coniferous resins to create stone flakes on wooden elements. This may include the production of hafting multi-component tools.”
“Other innovations by Neanderthals were the construction of pits and the diversification of the types of fuels used with a variety of commonly used plants, liquid hydrocarbons, and lignite.”
“However, plants are the most common type of fuel and are therefore expected to have been subject to a selection process by Neanderthals among available resources in the nearby, and perhaps even beyond, landscape.”
Special combustion structures discovered by the Vanguard Cave team have revealed previously unknown ways in which Neanderthals managed and used fire.
The structure is 68,000 to 61,000 years old and is adapted for steam distilling essential oils from rockrose to obtain tar, a hafting substance proven to have been used by Neanderthals.
The researchers tested that interpretation experimentally by building structures with similar morphological and compositional characteristics to those excavated in the cave.
Distilling a small bunch of young rockrose leaves in a closed, nearly anoxic environment for a reasonable period of time produces enough to hold two spearheads using only locally available tools and materials. of tar could be produced.
“Neanderthals had to go through a series of thought processes to choose which plants and find a way to extract the resin without burning them,” Dr Finlayson said.
“Our extinct cousins were not the brutal humans of the popular imagination,” said Dr. Fernando Muñiz, an archaeologist at the University of Seville.
“This human species has been shown to have cognitive abilities, as reflected in studies showing mastery of the industrial process of making resin as an adhesive for attaching stone points to spear handles. ”
This finding is reported in the following article: paper in a diary Quaternary Science Review.
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Juan Ochando others. 2024. Neanderthals' special combustion structure adapted to the acquisition of tar. Quaternary Science Review 346: 109025;doi: 10.1016/j.quascirev.2024.109025
Astronomers using the MeerKAT Pulsar Timing Array, an international experiment using South Africa’s MeerKAT radio telescope, have discovered further evidence of gravitational wave signals originating from supermassive black hole mergers.
miles others. Created the most detailed map of gravitational waves throughout the universe to date. Image credit: Carl Knox / OzGrav / Swinburne University of Technology / South African Radio Astronomical Observatory.
“Our research opens up new avenues for understanding the universe we live in,” said astronomer Dr Matt Miles from the ARC Gravitational Wave Discovery Center (OzGRav) and Swinburne University of Technology. .
“By studying the background, we can listen to the echoes of cosmic events over billions of years. It reveals how galaxies and the universe itself have evolved over time.”
The MeerKAT Pulsar Timing Array observes and times pulsars (fast-spinning neutron stars) with nanosecond precision.
Pulsars act as natural clocks, and their steady pulses allow scientists to detect minute changes caused by passing gravitational waves.
This galaxy-scale detector provides the opportunity to map gravitational waves across the sky, revealing patterns and intensities that defy previous assumptions.
“The gravitational wave background is often thought to be uniformly distributed across the sky,” says Rowena Nathan, an astronomer at Ozgrab University and Monash University.
“The galaxy-sized telescope formed by the MeerKAT pulsar timing array allows us to map the structure of this signal with unprecedented precision, potentially revealing insights into its source.”
Astronomers have found further evidence of gravitational wave signals originating from merging supermassive black holes, capturing a signal more powerful than a similar global experiment in just one-third of the time.
“What we’re seeing suggests a much more dynamic and active Universe than we expected,” Dr. Miles said.
“We know that supermassive black holes are merging off Earth, but now we’re starting to know where they are and how many there are.”
Researchers used pulsar timing arrays to improve existing methods to build highly detailed gravitational wave maps.
This map revealed an interesting anomaly: an unexpected hotspot in the signal, suggesting a possible directional bias.
“The presence of a hotspot could point to a distinct source of gravitational waves, such as a pair of black holes billions of times more massive than the sun,” Nathan said.
“Looking at the arrangement and pattern of gravitational waves tells us how our universe exists today and contains signals from around the time of the Big Bang.”
“While there is still more work to be done to determine the significance of the hotspots we discovered, this is an exciting step forward for our field.”
“These discoveries raise exciting questions about the formation of supermassive black holes and the early history of the universe.”
“Further monitoring by the MeerKAT array could improve these gravitational wave maps and reveal new cosmic phenomena.”
“The research also has broader implications, with data that could help international scientists explore the origin and evolution of supermassive black holes, the formation of galactic structures, and even hints at early cosmic events. provided.”
Matthew Miles others. 2024. MeerKAT Pulsar Timing Array: 4.5 Years of Data Release and Noise and Stochastic Signals in the Millisecond Pulsar Population. MNRASin press. doi: 10.1093/mnras/stae2572
Matthew Miles others. 2024. MeerKAT Pulsar Timing Array: The first search for gravitational waves with the MeerKAT radio telescope. MNRASin press. doi: 10.1093/mnras/stae2571
Kathryn Grandthal others. 2024. MeerKAT Pulsar Timing Array: Map of the gravitational wave sky with 4.5 years of data released. MNRASin press. doi: 10.1093/mnras/stae2573
Webcam images show asteroid burning up in the atmosphere over Siberia
Lensk LR/YouTube
Astronomers discovered the asteroid, about 70 centimeters in diameter, hours before it exploded harmlessly into the atmosphere above Siberia.
european space agency (ESA) issued an alert at 9:27 a.m. GMT, warning that space rocks could illuminate the skies over northern Siberia at around 11:15 p.m. local time (4:15 p.m. GMT).
Speaking before the event, Alan Fitzsimmons from Britain’s Queen’s University Belfast says objects of this size pose no danger to people on the ground, but early warnings are a positive sign that our ability to detect these objects before they hit Earth is increasing.
“It’s small, but it’s still going to be pretty spectacular,” Fitzsimmons said. “The sky above the impact site will darken and a very impressive, very bright fireball will spread across the sky for hundreds of kilometers around it.”
Several objects of this size collide with Earth every year, and we are getting better at detecting them early. The first discovery was in 2008. The next discovery was made six years later, but the pace of observations has picked up. Today’s asteroid, named C0WEPC5, is the fourth predicted to hit Earth this year.
Early warning of small asteroids gives astronomers the opportunity to observe them, collect data, and even try to collect any small pieces that survive. Fitzsimmons said the first such predicted impact in 2008 led to the recovery of a small piece of rock and generated important science. “What was beautiful was that the meteorite’s reflectivity matched exactly what was measured by telescopes before the impact, and it was a perfect match between what we saw in space and what we later found on Earth. It shows a very nice direct connection,” he says.
Detecting larger, more dangerous objects heading toward Earth could provide an opportunity to deflect them or at least evacuate the dangerous area.
A map showing where the asteroid is predicted to hit Siberia’s atmosphere.
ESA
NASA and ESA currently have dedicated programs for asteroid discovery and tracking. This involves a large network of dedicated observatories and amateur astronomers who read the positions of known objects so that their orbits can be better understood and predicted.
This latest asteroid was discovered by NASA’s Asteroid Earth Impact Last Alert System (ATLAS). ATLAS operates four telescopes around the world and is designed to provide up to a week of collision warning.
“This is a victory for science, If you happen to be in Siberia this evening, there will definitely be something to take your mind off the very cold temperatures,” says Fitzsimmons.
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