Astronomers using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope have detected trace amounts of hydrogen sulfide in the atmosphere of the Jupiter-sized exoplanet HD 189733b.
Artist's impression of hot Jupiter exoplanet HD 189733b. Image courtesy of Roberto Molar Candanosa / Johns Hopkins University.
HD 189733b is a hot gas giant with a hazy atmosphere composed mostly of hydrogen that lies about 63 light-years away in the constellation Vulpecula.
The planet is discovered It was discovered in 2005 by astronomers using two telescopes at the Observatory of Haute-Provence.
HD 189733b is just 1.2 times the size of Jupiter, but it orbits its parent star, HD 189733, very closely, completing one revolution around the star every 2.2 days.
“Hydrogen sulfide is a major molecule that we didn't know existed. We predicted it would be there, and we know it's on Jupiter, but we'd never actually detected it outside the solar system,” said Dr Guangwei Hu, an astrophysicist at Johns Hopkins University.
“Although we're not looking for life on this planet because it's too hot, the discovery of hydrogen sulfide is a stepping stone to finding this molecule on other planets and improving our understanding of how different types of planets form.”
“In addition to detecting hydrogen sulfide and measuring the total amount of sulfur in HD 189733b's atmosphere, we also precisely measured the main sources of oxygen and carbon on the planet: water, carbon dioxide, and carbon monoxide.”
“Sulfur is an essential element for building more complex molecules, and like carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and phosphate, scientists need to study it further to fully understand how planets are built and what they're made of.”
The Webb probe will give scientists new tools to track hydrogen sulfide and measure sulfur on gas giants outside our solar system, just as they have detected water, carbon dioxide, methane and other important molecules on other exoplanets.
“Let's say we study another 100 hot Jupiters and they're all enriched with sulphur. What does that say about how they came into being and how they formed differently compared to our Jupiter?” Dr Fu said.
The new data, delivered by the Webb Telescope at unprecedented precision and in infrared wavelengths, also rule out the presence of methane in HD 189733b's atmosphere, refuting previous claims that the molecule is abundant in the atmosphere.
“We thought the planet would be too hot for high concentrations of methane to exist, but it turns out that's not the case,” Dr Fu said.
Astronomers also measured Jupiter-like levels of heavy metals, a discovery that could help scientists answer questions about the correlation between a planet's metallicity and its mass.
“Low-mass ice giants like Neptune and Uranus contain more metals than gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn, the largest planets in the solar system,” Dr Fu said.
“High metallicity suggests that Neptune and Uranus accumulated more ice, rock and other heavy elements compared to gases such as hydrogen and helium early in their formation. Scientists are testing whether this correlation also holds true for exoplanets.”
“This Jupiter-mass planet is very close to Earth and has been very well studied. Now, our new measurements show that this planet's metal concentrations provide a very important anchor point for studies of how a planet's composition varies with its mass and radius.”
“This discovery supports our understanding of how planets form after the initial core is formed, creating more solid material that is then naturally enriched with heavy metals.”
G. Hu othersA hydrogen sulfide and metal-rich atmosphere on a Jupiter-mass exoplanet. NaturePublished online July 8, 2024; doi: 10.1038/s41586-024-07760-y
No one doubts that Albert Einstein had a brilliant mind, but the Nobel Prize winner famous for his theories of special and general relativity wasn’t blessed with a big brain. “Jeremy DeSilva at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire.”
This seems surprising. Big brains are a defining feature of human anatomy, something we are proud of. Other species may be faster or stronger, but we thrive using the ingenuity that comes from our big brains. At least, that’s what we tell ourselves. Einstein’s brain suggests that the story is not so simple. And recent fossil discoveries bear this out. In the past two decades, we’ve learned that small-brained hominin species persisted on Earth long after species with larger brains emerged. Moreover, there is growing evidence that they were behaviorally sophisticated. For example, some of them made complex stone tools that could only have been made by humans with language.
These findings turn questions about the evolution of the human brain upside down: “Why would large brains be selected for when humans with small brains can survive in nature?” says DeSilva. Nervous tissue consumes a lot of energy, so large brains must have undoubtedly provided an advantage to the few species that evolved them. But what was the benefit?
The answer to this mystery is beginning to emerge. It appears that brain expansion began as an evolutionary accident that then led to changes that accelerated brain growth. Amazingly, the changes that drove this expansion also explain the recent 10 percent shrinkage of the human brain. What’s more, this suggests that our brains could shrink even further, potentially causing our demise.
Astronomers have used the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to create a stunningly detailed image of NGC 3810, a spiral galaxy hosting a supernova.
This Hubble Space Telescope image shows NGC 3810, a spiral galaxy about 50 million light-years away in the constellation Leo. The color image is composed of infrared, visible, and ultraviolet observations from both the Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) and Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) instruments. Nine filters were used to sample different wavelengths. Color is achieved by assigning a different hue to each monochromatic image associated with an individual filter. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / D. Sand / RJ Foley.
NGC 3810 It is located in the constellation Leo, about 50 million light years from Earth.
Also known as IRAS 11383+1144, LEDA 36243 and UGC 6644, the galaxy has a diameter of 60,000 light years.
NGC 3810 discovered It was discovered on March 15, 1784 by German-born British astronomer William Herschel.
The galaxy belongs to a small group of galaxies called the NGC 3810 group.
The bright central region of NGC 3810 thought Many new stars are forming and outshining the outer regions of the galaxy by a significant amount.
Even more distant galaxies show surprisingly abundant dust clouds along their spiral arms.
Far from the center, hot, young blue stars appear in huge clusters, with bright red giants scattered throughout the arms.
In 2022, a Type Ia supernova event called SN 2022zut was observed in NGC 3810.
“In early 2023, the Hubble Space Telescope will focus on this and several other galaxies to take a closer look at recent Type Ia supernovae,” Hubble astronomers said in a statement.
“These types of supernovae are produced by the explosion of a white dwarf star, and all of them maintain a very stable brightness.”
“This allows us to measure distances. We know how bright a Type Ia supernova is, so we can tell from how faint it appears how far away it is.”
“One uncertainty with this method is that intergalactic dust between Earth and the supernova will block some of the light.”
“How do we know how much of the light reduction is due to distance and how much is due to dust?”
“With the help of Hubble, we have a clever workaround: we can image the same Type Ia supernova in ultraviolet light, which is almost completely blocked by the dust, and in infrared light, which passes through the dust almost unaffected.”
“By carefully recording how much light is transmitted at each wavelength, we can calibrate the relationship between the supernova's brightness and distance, and take dust into account.”
“Hubble can observe both of these wavelengths of light in incredible detail with the same instrument.”
“That makes it the perfect tool for this experiment. In fact, some of the data used to create this beautiful image of NGC 3810 was focused on the SN 2022zut supernova, which you can see as a point of light just below the galactic nucleus.”
Today, the South Bronx has the least amount of green space per capita in the city and is crisscrossed by power plants, waste dumps and freeways, causing significant noise and air pollution. Residents face high rates of infant mortality, cognitive impairment, heart disease, and asthma, and Mott Haven is known as ‘ Asthma Alley.’ These conditions increase vulnerability to heat.
“Environmental racism in the South Bronx is clear,” said Arif Ullah, executive director of the environmental justice group South Bronx Unite.
Similar inequities have been identified across the country. Analysis of 115 metropolitan areas from San Jose, California, to Louisville, Kentucky, to Hartford, Connecticut, neighborhoods with larger numbers of residents who identify as black, African American, Hispanic, or Latino were found to be less likely to have air conditioning.
To combat rising temperatures, New York City Mayor Eric Adams has implemented heatstroke measures. For one week, starting June 18, hundreds of locations were designated as air-conditioned facilities where residents could stay cool during the day.
Installing air conditioning for people with mobility impairments is actually essential as outdoor temperatures rise — or these individuals may never be able to reach a cooling center. In areas like Brownsville, the South Bronx, and East Harlem, residents also report being exposed to crime and drug dealing when they go outside to cool off.
Celine Olivarius, who has lived in the South Bronx for nine years, brought her two grandsons, ages 9 and 4, to cool off in the fountains at Willis Playground. She expresses concern about the opioid epidemic, as drug users are injecting in the bathroom, and she worries that children might pick up needles.
Environmentalists say one solution to beat the heat in sprawling cities is to plant more trees, create green spaces like parks and meadows, and cover rooftops with vegetation.
“We need to focus on low-income communities, people of color, and immigrant communities,” Uhlfelder said. Areas with a 33 percent reduction in tree canopy area are likely to experience a 13-degree increase (7 degrees Celsius) in temperature compared to predominantly white areas just two miles away.
“I’ve never felt anything like it,” said Howard Shillingford, a 58-year-old janitor who grew up in the South Bronx, on a recent sweltering day. It’s especially bad when he’s cleaning school staircases, where the windows often don’t open.
“Oh my goodness, those stairs look like an oven,” Shillingford said as he read the news on a computer at Mott Haven Public Library, another cooling center.
Residents in heat-stricken areas are getting resourceful. Berrios holds a wet towel to the back of her neck. Olivarria squirts her grandchildren with a toy water gun. Jorge Morales, a 54-year-old graffiti artist from the South Bronx, showers twice a day and washes his Chihuahua, Bugsy, in the sink. Residents sometimes unscrew fire hydrants, allowing water to spill off the sidewalk and onto the street.
“I don’t like wasting water, but people here do it. It’s a way of survival,” Morales, who is half Puerto Rican and half Cuban, said as he charged his phone in the same library.
“If we continue on this path, the heat wave in 2044 will be much worse than the one we’re experiencing now,” said Jones, the science historian. “This is not an unusual heat wave. It is a sign of things to come.”
Animals have been consuming alcohol for millions of years, and primates and humans have been digesting it for about 7 to 21 million years. Throughout human history, alcohol consumption and production has been a part of many different cultures. Experts on human societies, including anthropologists and indigenous peoples, have long known about the origins of rice wine (Miju) and beer (Lao Lee) has been part of ancient Chinese culture for 7,000 to 13,000 years. Similarly, people in the Andes region of South America have been brewing beer made from corn. Chicha It spans approximately 5,000 years.
Even though ancient methods of making alcohol have spread all over the world, people all brew drinks that contain the same amount of alcohol, a standard known as the “alcohol content.” Alcohol degree or ABV. Beverages can be brewed at a range of ABVs, but beer is preferred to be brewed at around 4% alcohol by volume, wine at 11%-16%, and stronger spirits at around 43%, 52%, 68%, and 75% alcohol by volume. However, scientists are yet to figure out the reason behind these universal ranges of ABV.
A team of Chinese researchers studied why people choose different alcohol strengths by looking at how water and ethanol molecules interact at different alcohol strengths. Alcoholic drinks contain a variety of molecules that add flavor, color and aroma, but the main molecules are water and ethanol. ethanolThese molecules are made of atoms such as hydrogen and oxygen. The atoms of the molecules are held together by electric forces, like two magnets, but the atoms between the two molecules also attract each other. Water and ethanol molecules are attracted to each other through their hydrogen and oxygen atoms. This process is called Hydrogen Bonding.
The team demonstrated how hydrogen bonds can hold water and ethanol in different orientations and Interaction AngleThey are devices that determine the structure of molecules, Hydrogen Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectrometer or H NMR. H NMR The machine can detect hydrogen atoms and determine what they are bonded to and what angle they form.
The research team created mixtures of water and ethanol ranging from 0% to 100% alcohol content and used H NMR to detect the change in the interaction angle between the two molecules. They found that as the alcohol content increased, the interaction angle decreased. It dropped from a 90° angle at 1% alcohol content to a 10° angle at 99% alcohol content. They noticed that this change was not smooth, but that the interaction angle decreased in stages. For example, the interaction angle was about 70° between 11% and 13% alcohol content, but suddenly dropped to 60° when the alcohol content reached 14% alcohol content. The research team noticed that these abrupt changes occurred across the preferred alcohol content ranges of alcoholic beverages around the world, as shown above.
The most common type of hydrogen bond that occurs between a hydrogen atom and an oxygen atom is Hydroxyl. Using 1 H NMR, the team found that these hydroxyl interactions produced a uniform 3D water molecular network at an interaction angle of 90°, forming tetrahedral structures. However, the hydroxyl interactions between ethanol molecules were nearly linear, and at an interaction angle of 0°, long chains were formed. As the alcohol content of the beverage increased, the tetrahedral structures and the long chain molecules competed with each other.
The team found that as the alcohol content increased, the number of hydroxyl interactions decreased stepwise, as did the interaction angle. The team concluded that alcoholic drinks with different alcohol content formed distinct mixtures of chain and tetrahedral interactions. Increasing the amount of ethanol molecules increased the number of chain interactions as the molecules found new preferred orientations.
Finally, the researchers investigated whether the amount of these chain and tetrahedral interactions altered the flavor when an alcoholic beverage was cooled or heated. When an 11% ABV beverage was cooled to 42°F (5°C), more hydroxyl interactions occurred. This cooling increased the number of chain interactions between water and ethanol molecules.
Next, the researchers hired professional and amateur beer tasters to test the flavor of cold and hot alcoholic beverages with 11% alcohol content. The tasters found that chilling low and high alcohol content beers produced even greater differences in the flavor of the alcohol, due to an increased number of chain reactions within these beverages.
On the other hand, when the researchers warmed the beverages to 104°F (40°C), the number of hydroxyl interactions remained consistently between 38% and 52% ABV. Professional and amateur beer tasters tasted the warmed alcoholic beverages at 38% and 52% ABV and could not detect any difference. The team concluded that warming these beverages resulted in similar amounts of chain interactions, so flavor was unaffected by the change in ABV. This difference in taste could explain why people prefer to drink warm sake and other alcoholic beverages at 38% ABV.
The team concluded that throughout human history, brewers and drinkers have relied on their tongues to find the right alcohol content and temperature needed to create beverages that involve water-ethanol polymer chain interactions. By learning the importance of hydrogen bonds and molecular interactions, the team hopes that future brewers and scientists will experiment with different ways to control these molecular interactions to create even more sophisticated and interesting flavors.
Vehicles equipped with technology to collect data on building conditions
Madeleine Cuff
British city dwellers may have spotted a strange-looking vehicle driving around their neighborhood earlier this year. It looked just like a Google Street View vehicle, with a camera setup sticking out of the back to scan its surroundings. And like the Google car, it scanned city streets and took photos.
But these modified Teslas do more than just take pictures: they’re equipped with cutting-edge sensors and scanners that can report back the exact dimensions, heat loss, materials, age and state of disrepair of every building they drive over.
The car, equipped with what’s called the Built Environment Scanning System (BESS), has been on a spree to find out just how leaky and dilapidated Britain’s buildings really are. Between March and May, the car scanned thousands of roads and millions of buildings across London, Liverpool, Cardiff, Glasgow, Manchester, Leeds and South Yorkshire.
Data from BESS vehicles will be combined with thermal images taken by drones and planes in a £4 million government-funded project to build a huge digital database detailing the condition of buildings across the U.K. The aim is to help housing associations, local authorities and other property owners quickly plan renovation projects for hundreds of properties at once, says Ahsan Khan of xRI, the British nonprofit behind the project.
Decarbonising UK buildings is one of the toughest challenges on the journey to net-zero emissions. The UK’s 30 million buildings account for around a third of the country’s total greenhouse gas emissions, with most of the pollution coming from the use of gas for heating and hot water.
Another problem is that many of the UK’s homes are old and drafty. Retrofitting these homes to make them more energy efficient is crucial, but knowing where to start is a huge challenge, as the age and condition of the buildings varies greatly. “We’re held back as a nation because we don’t really know what we have, where it is in terms of the built environment, and what we can do about it,” says Khan.
Currently, the only means of judging a building’s sustainability is the Energy Performance Certificate (EPC), a mandatory document that rates every building on a scale of A to G and gives owners advice on how to improve the rating. But EPCs, which rely on the judgement of in-person assessors, are “expensive, time-consuming and inaccurate”, says Dr. Mike Pitts The project is part-funded by the government body Innovate UK, with other funding coming from the UK Space Agency and the Welsh Government.
For organisations such as housing associations and local authorities who want to renovate hundreds of properties at once, EPCs are of little use – instead they often have to send their own assessors to the properties and plan the works schedule, which is a costly and time-consuming undertaking.
Speeding up renovations
The new database is expected to digitise much of this process. If it works as planned, it will use machine learning to tell councils, for example, how many properties already have double glazing installed, or which homes need top-up cavity-wall insulation. In an instant, it will be able to pinpoint exactly which homes have the space and sunlight to install rooftop solar panels. Crucially, it will calculate projected savings on energy bills and provide return-on-investment information, helping organisations access green finance.
“The xRI project represents a major advance in our understanding of our existing stock,” says Mat Colmer of Innovate UK. “The validated data set will improve and automate the refurbishment process, speeding up the entire refurbishment process.”
About 7.5% of homes in England, Scotland, and Wales have already been scanned, and Khan says the framework is in place to build a beta version of the database, due to be released later this year. For now, xRI is focused on decarbonizing buildings, but the BESS vehicles are collecting data on everything they see, from tree cover to potholes, that could be put to use in the future. “The amount of data is just staggering,” Pitts says.
David Grew Researchers from Britain’s Leeds Beckett University call the project “exciting,” but warn that an in-home inspection is essential before any renovation work begins. “Homes have been tampered with many times, so the same home could be completely different,” he says. “This quick and agile method is great for accelerating progress and momentum, but it can’t and shouldn’t replace a really high-quality inspection before construction begins.”
Kate Simpson A researcher at Nottingham Trent University in the UK says neighbourhood data collected by BESS vehicles could help plan local power grid upgrades and climate resilience projects. But the data needs to be collected carefully, she says. “What’s the minimum amount of data we need to make the right decisions?” she says. “That way we can minimise the environmental impact of storing that data.”
Ariane 6 is the latest model in the Ariane series of European satellite launch vehicles. The project dates back to a proposal in 1973, with the first flight of the Ariane 1 rocket taking place just six years later in 1979.
The last to be launched was Ariane 5, which completed 112 successful missions out of 117 launches, including the James Webb Space Telescope and the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, but was retired last year to make way for Ariane 6, which was expected to have lower launch costs.
The loss of Ariane 5 and the European Space Agency's (ESA) decision to cut ties with the Russian space agency Roscosmos following Russia's invasion of Ukraine temporarily left Europe without a direct means of launching satellites and forced it to turn to the commercial sector.
The ultimate idea is to not just take on all of these government launches in the future, but also offer its own commercial launch services — it's already received a launch order from Amazon. Kuiper Internet Satellite.
How big is Ariane 6?
The Ariane 6 is 63 meters tall and 5.4 meters in diameter, and can launch up to 21,650 kilograms of cargo into low Earth orbit. While that's less than the payloads of NASA's Space Launch System (SLS), China's Long March 10, or SpaceX's Starship, it can still put a variety of satellites into orbit, including spy, weather, and global positioning satellites.
Ariane 6's main advantage isn't its payload, but its low cost and ease of construction: Aerospace company Arianegroup designed it to be easier and quicker to build and launch than its predecessor, allowing ESA to launch it once a month if necessary.
The rocket was originally scheduled to launch in 2020 but has been postponed multiple times. Those delays, along with the falling cost of reusable rockets operated by SpaceX, have led Europe to look elsewhere for launch capacity. The European Agency for the Exploration of Meteorological Satellites recently said: Launch contract awarded to SpaceX Rather than opting for Ariane 6, the European contract was signed last year. Galileo navigation satellite in orbit I also went to SpaceX.
When is the Ariane 6 launch and how can I watch it?
The launch from ESA's facility in French Guiana is scheduled for 7pm-11pm BST on July 9. ESA said Live broadcast of the launchThe event will begin 30 minutes before the launch and will be available to watch via streaming. News Scientist.
What happens during launch?
Ariane 6 will be launched using a Vulcan 2.1 main engine and two expendable boosters. These will drop in the same way as the first stage, after which the Vinci engines of the upper stage will launch it into an elliptical orbit measuring 300 by 700 kilometers above Earth. The Vinci engines will then reignite to put the upper stage into a circular orbit, after which Ariane will release its eight satellites and the upper stage will burn up in the atmosphere. Two small re-entry capsules will return it safely to Earth.
What comes next for Ariane 6?
A successor to Ariane 6 is already in development and will break the sequential rocket numbering system. Known as ArianeNext, it will be a reusable rocket similar to SpaceX's Starship and is scheduled to launch in the 2030s.
A major criticism of Ariane 6 is that it cannot be reused, a feature pioneered by SpaceX and already being developed by several other companies, and will likely not be resolved in Europe until Next begins operations.
Shapewear, also known as body shaping underwear, has gained immense popularity in recent years. In a society that values appearance and self-image, shapewear is seen as a quick and affordable solution to boost self-confidence by enhancing the fit and look of various outfits.
Functioning like a modern corset, shapewear targets areas like the waist, hips, thighs, and buttocks to compress and shape them, aiming to improve the fit of clothes and provide a sleeker silhouette, as suggested by marketing claims.
With advancements in fabric technology, modern shapewear is now more comfortable and breathable than ever before, appealing to a wide range of individuals seeking aesthetic and functional support for various occasions. It has become increasingly popular, especially with the rise of social media influencing body image awareness.
Unlike traditional shapewear made from rigid materials like steel and whalebone, modern shapewear uses breathable and stretchy fabrics such as spandex, nylon, and lycra. It is now popular among both men and women for its comfort and effectiveness.
Available in different styles and compression levels, shapewear caters to various needs. Certain types, such as waist cinchers and tummy control panties, target specific body parts to provide support and shape.
In addition to these, there are thigh shapers, torso-compressing camisoles, butt lifters with padding, and leg and arm shapers. Some companies even offer full bodysuits with built-in bras for total body shaping.
Sports compression clothing, while similar, focuses on enhancing athletic performance and muscle support rather than aesthetic enhancement. Designed with advanced breathable fabrics and graduated compression, sports compression wear is intended for physical activity and recovery periods.
Although shapewear appears to offer a convenient way to enhance confidence and fit, it does come with certain drawbacks to consider. Issues like digestive problems, circulatory and neurological issues, breathing problems, and skin irritation can arise from wearing shapewear, particularly if it is too tight.
When choosing shapewear, it’s important to select a comfortable fit that doesn’t restrict movement and to avoid wearing it for extended periods. Opting for breathable fabrics and hypoallergenic materials can help reduce the risk of skin irritation.
In conclusion, while shapewear can provide temporary aesthetic benefits, it’s essential to prioritize comfort and health when using it. Remember, true confidence comes from within, and it’s crucial to listen to your body’s needs.
Solar panels have become a common sight in suburban neighborhoods in California. However, the state’s ambitious clean energy vision has led to a unique challenge – sometimes producing more solar energy than it can use effectively, resulting in wastage of clean energy.
This excess of solar energy has resulted in a phenomenon known as the “duck curve,” where solar generation surpasses demand. This issue is most pronounced on sunny spring days when demand for electricity is low.
The surplus energy is often exported to other parts of the Western U.S. due to California’s grid connectivity, but in some cases, it may need to be curtailed. Independent System Operator data shows that California has lost a significant amount of renewable energy this year, primarily solar power.
To address this challenge, proposals have been made to increase electricity supply through additional transmission lines and more battery installations to store excess power. However, recent changes in financial incentives for homeowners installing solar power have negatively impacted the rooftop solar industry in California.
Despite the setbacks, Governor Gavin Newsom remains optimistic about California’s clean energy progress, pointing out the state’s significant solar power generation and increasing battery installations. Critics of the incentive changes argue that it could lead to higher energy costs for non-solar customers and hinder the state’s transition to renewable energy.
As California navigates these challenges on its path to achieving 100% clean energy by 2045, the state’s decisions are closely watched by other states considering similar transitions. The rooftop solar industry plays a crucial role in this transition, as highlighted by industry experts.
The food pyramid is a visual representation of a balanced diet, showing the types and proportions of foods that contribute to overall health.
Imagine a pyramid divided into sections, with each section representing a different food group. Specific designs vary, but a typical food pyramid usually includes the following categories from base to apex:
Base (grain)
At the bottom, widest part, are grains like bread, rice, and pasta. These provide complex carbohydrates, which are your primary source of energy. Whole grains are also a good source of added fiber.
Second layer (fruits and vegetables)
Next, fruits and vegetables are rich in vitamins, minerals, fiber, and antioxidants. To get a variety of nutrients, try to eat at least five servings of colorful vegetables each day.
3rd layer (protein)
This section includes proteins like meat, poultry, fish, eggs, beans, nuts, etc. Protein is essential for muscle maintenance, immune function, and growth, and helps you feel fuller for longer.
Top layer (dairy or alternative)
This section discusses fortified alternatives, such as dairy or soy milk, which provide calcium and other essential nutrients needed for bone health.
Outside the pyramid (sweets and fats)
Here are your fats and sweets: While fats are necessary for many bodily functions, choose healthy fats, such as those found in olive oil and avocado. Limit your intake of added sugars and sweets.
The food pyramid acts as a guide to creating a balanced diet by incorporating a variety of foods from different groups while avoiding relying too heavily on one category.
This concept was shaped into a plate in the UK, Eatwell Guide. It tells you how much of each food group you should eat based on the space it takes up on your plate.
According to the Eatwell Guide, eating healthy means making balanced choices from the five food groups over the course of a day or week: one-third fruits and vegetables, one-third grains and starches, and the remaining third a mix of dairy, proteins, and fats, both animal and plant-based.
This article is a response to the question “What is the food pyramid and can it help you eat healthily?” (asked by Diane Weeks from Glasgow).
If you have any questions, please send them to the email address below.For further information:or send us a messageFacebook,XorInstagramPage (be sure to include your name and location).
UltimateFun FactsFor more amazing science, check out this page.
Recently, the James Webb Telescope (JWST) made a groundbreaking observation of a distant galaxy. These early galaxies challenge our understanding of galaxy formation and the physics of the early universe, appearing as bright, massive, fuzzy red dots.
One of JWST’s latest discoveries is the presence of “Tyrannosaurus Rex” Stars in a distant galaxy. The spectrum of this galaxy indicates a significant amount of carbon, raising questions about the origin of these stars.
These early stars are believed to be massive, unknown entities, and the carbon could be a remnant from their existence.
Early stars are rare because they formed in a pristine environment before the universe was polluted with heavy elements. Star formation was more challenging in this simpler time.
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Stars typically begin as balls of hydrogen gas that undergo nuclear fusion reactions to convert hydrogen into other elements.
Star formation requires cooling and compressing gas to ignite nuclear fusion reactions. Dust plays a crucial role in cooling the gas by absorbing and releasing energy during collisions.
The lack of heavy elements like carbon in the early universe posed a challenge for star formation. The first stars were likely more massive and exploded as supernovae, dispersing heavy elements and enabling the formation of stars like our sun.
Through observations of distant galaxies, JWST is providing insights into the origins of the universe and our place in it.
While we may not see the “space dinosaurs,” studying their remnants helps us understand how their existence paved the way for life on Earth.
NASCAR introduced a prototype electric race car over the weekend as part of their initiative to reduce emissions and electrify the sport.
This move represents a major step towards sustainability, which may seem contradictory to the traditional roots of stock car racing, but it is in line with NASCAR’s long-term goal of achieving net-zero operational emissions by 2035.
The debut of the vehicle is a result of a partnership with electrification and automation company ABB. NASCAR Chicago Street Race.
The ABB NASCAR EV Prototype, developed in collaboration with Chevrolet, Ford, and Toyota, is an electric stock car capable of generating a peak output of 1,000 kW (1,341 horsepower). Equipped with a regenerative braking system, the race car converts kinetic energy from braking into electricity, similar to many existing hybrid and fully electric vehicles.
Officials at ABB highlighted that NASCAR’s efforts to decarbonize and reduce carbon emissions align with the broader energy transition happening in the United States.
Chris Sigas, U.S. public affairs director for ABB, expressed, “This partnership provides us with a platform to address issues impacting our nation and the direction we are collectively moving towards.”
While there are no immediate plans to phase out internal combustion engines from stock car racing, there is potential to explore high-performance electric cars for racing, as per sources.
Both organizations will collaborate to identify areas within NASCAR racing, specific race tracks, office operations, and long-haul transportation that can transition to electrification.
Sigas added, “We will evaluate all aspects of their operations – from long-haul trucking to golf carts on the track to EV charging stations. This multi-year partnership serves as an opportunity to showcase not just NASCAR but companies nationwide on how they can enhance their sustainability efforts.”
In the previous year, NASCAR committed to achieving net-zero emissions from operations by 2035 This commitment includes prioritizing 100% renewable electricity at owned race tracks and NASCAR facilities, expanding on-site EV charging stations, and developing sustainable race fuels.
Eric Nyquist, NASCAR senior vice president, stated in a release that the collaboration with ABB will support their endeavors to decarbonize operations and work towards achieving net-zero emissions in the next decade.
The West Coast is facing a dangerous heatwave that is expected to peak on Saturday, putting people at risk of health issues long after temperatures reach their highest point. According to a national update on Friday, forecasters anticipate that a wide range of temperature records will be broken or tied, with temperatures in California expected to reach the 110s on Saturday. The hot weather will persist well into the following week, raising concerns about health risks such as heart attacks and heat strokes, especially among older adults and individuals with chronic diseases.
At Sunrise Farm near Coachella, California on July 3rd.Mario Tama/Getty Images
The heatwave is expected to persist for more than a week, prompting warnings from the National Weather Service about record-breaking temperatures in California, Oregon, and Washington. Areas like the Sacramento Valley, at the heart of the heat wave, are under warning until at least next Tuesday. Meteorologists predict some relief early next week, but temperatures are still likely to exceed 100 degrees in certain regions.
Heat-related illnesses, including heat stroke, pose a significant risk during prolonged periods of extreme heat. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data shows a sharp increase in heatstroke-related emergency room visits, with the incidence more than doubling in recent days. In regions like the San Joaquin Valley in California, extreme weather conditions are expected daily next week, impacting medical facilities and infrastructure.
A construction worker in Folsom, California, on July 3.David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images
In Portland, Oregon, health officials are concerned about residents unaccustomed to hot weather, particularly those attending outdoor events this weekend. Temperatures in Death Valley may reach deadly limits, posing risks even to healthy individuals. Experts emphasize the importance of staying hydrated and cool to prevent heat-related illnesses.
Research on the physiological limits of heat exposure indicates that older adults may succumb to heatstroke within hours when exposed to extreme heat, even indoors or in the shade without air conditioning. As temperatures continue to rise, it’s crucial to take precautions and monitor vulnerable populations to prevent heat-related fatalities.
“Understanding the impact of heatwaves on our health is vital to mitigating the risks and protecting communities,” said Dr. Lisa Patel. Stay aware of local heat advisories and follow safety guidelines to stay safe during the ongoing heatwave.
If we think of the universe as a continuous chain of cause and effect and time as the sequence we experience moving forward along that chain, then there is no need for concern.
Under this interpretation, the past, present, and future are all determined by unchangeable physical laws.
Even events that appear random, such as radioactive decay, are predestined and impossible to predict, but should unfold in the same way every time.
Traveling back in time to meet your younger self implies that the event has already occurred in the past.
If you don’t recall, it’s possible you were incognito or had your memory erased afterward, but we have already established how this impacted your future.
Conversely, if you were to journey to the future and encounter your future self, you would need to return to your original time and continue living your life, or else there would be no one to meet in the future.
This means that the future version of you that you meet when traveling forward in time will already have memories of your encounter as a time traveler.
Or, if each cause-and-effect interaction generates parallel universes in an infinite branching series of potential timelines, then every version of reality already exists somewhere, and your actions may not matter in the grand scheme of things.
Fortunately, time travel remains purely theoretical, and all proposed methods require exotic matter or negative energy to operate on a large scale.
This is essentially explaining one impossible concept with another. The only form of time travel we are aware of involves progressing forward at a rate of one second per second.
This article is in response to a question from Andrew Robbins emailed to us: “If time travel were possible, could we actually avoid encountering our past selves?”
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The International Space Station (ISS) has been operational since 2000 and is continuously manned by astronauts, orbiting Earth every 90 minutes.
Throughout its operation, the ISS has served as a hub for scientific experiments, space travel research, and international cooperation. Over 280 astronauts from more than 23 countries have visited the space station.
However, as the decade nears its end, the ISS is reaching the end of its functional lifespan, prompting the need to address its future once it’s no longer in use.
Abandoning the craft is not an option due to its size and potential risk to other satellites in orbit. NASA has explored various options, including pushing the ISS higher, but ultimately determined that salvaging parts for historical preservation or technical analysis would be too complex and costly.
Therefore, the only viable solution is to deorbit the ISS. SpaceX, led by Elon Musk, has been awarded an $843 million contract by NASA to develop and deliver a deorbit vehicle for the ISS.
Plans are still being finalized, but the general idea is for the deorbit vehicle to guide the ISS into the atmosphere, where most of it will burn up upon re-entry. Careful considerations will be made to ensure any remaining parts land in uninhabited areas.
With the ISS’s days numbered, the future of space habitation is shifting towards private sector initiatives, such as NASA’s Commercial Low Earth Orbit Development program and the Lunar Gateway project.
Despite the end of the ISS era, experts like Dr. Darren Baskill emphasize the station’s contributions to science, exploration, and international collaboration, paving the way for future advancements in space.
About our experts
Darren Baskill is an Outreach Officer and Lecturer at the University of Sussex, with a background in astronomy and science outreach.
Carpenter Ants (Camponotus) – Jumping spiders, a diverse genus of large ants that inhabit many forested areas around the world, are able to selectively treat the injured limbs of their nestmates by cleaning or amputating the wounds.
Injured (marked in yellow) Camponotus floridanus. His wounds are being treated by his nestmates. Image credit: Frank others., doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2024.06.021.
For animals, open wounds pose a significant risk of infection and death. To reduce these risks, many animal species apply antibacterial compounds to wounds.
In 2023, researchers discovered another ant species, Megaponera analis, uses special glands to inject antibacterial compounds into wounds, reducing the chance of infection.
Florida carpenter ant (Camponotus floridanus) and other species of the same genus Camponotus. Notably, they lack such glands and therefore appear to use only mechanical means to treat their nestmates.
Dr. Eric Frank from the University of Würzburg and his colleagues discovered that this mechanical care involves one of two pathways.
The ants either clean the wound using only their mouthparts, or clean it and then amputate the leg completely.
When choosing which route to take, Ali appears to be assessing the type of injury and tailoring the best treatment approach based on information.
The study analyzed two types of leg injuries: femur lacerations and ankle-like tibial lacerations.
All femur injuries involved a nestmate first cleaning the cut and then biting off the entire leg, in contrast to the tibia injuries, which involved only mouth cleaning.
In both cases, the intervention resulted in a significant increase in survival of ants with experimentally infected wounds.
“With femur injuries, we always end up amputating the leg, and we have about a 90 to 95 percent success rate. And with tibia injuries, where we don’t amputate, we achieve about a 75 percent survival rate,” Dr. Frank said.
“This is in contrast to the survival rates of untreated infected femoral and tibial abrasions, which are less than 40 percent and 15 percent, respectively.”
The scientists hypothesized that preferred methods of wound care may be related to the risk of infection from the wound site.
Micro-CT scans of the femur confirmed that it was mostly composed of muscle tissue, suggesting that it played a functional role in pumping blood, called hemolymph, from the leg to the trunk.
When the femur is damaged, the muscles are damaged and the ability to circulate blood that may be contaminated with bacteria is reduced.
The tibia, on the other hand, has very little musculature and little contribution to blood circulation.
“With a tibia injury, the hemolymph flow is less disrupted, allowing bacteria to enter the body more quickly, whereas a femur injury slows down the rate at which blood circulates in the leg,” Dr Frank said.
“If tibial injury would hasten infection, one might expect that amputation of the entire leg would be the most appropriate option, but in fact the opposite has been observed.”
“It turns out that the speed at which the ants can sever the legs makes a difference.”
“An amputation surgery using ants takes at least 40 minutes to complete.”
“Experiments have demonstrated that in the case of tibial injuries, the ants cannot survive unless the leg is removed soon after infection.”
“This means that the ants cannot cut their legs quickly enough to prevent the spread of harmful bacteria, so by taking their time cleaning the wound in their shins they try to reduce a potentially fatal infection,” says Dr Laurent Keller, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Lausanne.
“The fact that ants can diagnose wounds, determine whether they are infected or sterile, and then treat them accordingly over time with other individuals — the only medical system that could match that would be the human medical system.”
Given the sophisticated nature of these behaviors, the next question to ask is how these ants are able to perform such precise care.
“This is all innate behaviour; ants’ behaviour changes as individuals age, but there is little evidence of learning,” Dr Keller said.
Eric T. Frank othersIn order to combat infections in the ant community, they amputate legs depending on the injury. Current BiologyPublished online July 2, 2024; doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2024.06.021
This article is based on an original release by Cell Press.
A pile of Roman gold coins discovered beneath the floor of a Roman house in Corbridge, England
World History Archives/Alamy
After the Romans conquered Britain in AD 43, they brought with them technologies and laws that led to centuries of economic growth once thought to be limited to modern industrial societies, according to an analysis of thousands of archaeological finds from the period.
“In about 350 years, about two and a half years [fold] “Improved productivity per person.” Rob Weisman At Cambridge University.
Wiseman says the ancient world long believed that economic growth depended on increases in population and resources — for example, increasing food production required more land and more agricultural workers — a type of growth known as extensive growth.
In contrast, economic growth today is driven primarily by increases in productivity, or intensive growth: for example, mechanization and improved plant and animal breeding enable us to produce more food from the same amount of land with fewer workers.
Several recent studies have challenged the idea that rapid growth only occurred after the Industrial Revolution began, which led Wiseman and his colleagues to look at growth in Roman Britain from 43 to 400 AD.
Wiseman says the team’s research was made possible by British laws that require archaeological investigations when sites are developed. “As a result, tens of thousands of archaeological excavations have been carried out in this country, and the data is available to the public.”
By looking at how the number of buildings changed over time, the researchers were able to get a sense of how the population of Roman Britain grew — and there’s a strong relationship between the number of buildings and population size, Wiseman says.
To get a sense of economic growth, the team looked at three metrics: First, the size of buildings rather than the number of buildings: As people get wealthier, they build bigger homes, Wiseman said.
Another measure is the number of lost coins found at the excavation site: “That fell through the floorboards, that got lost in the bathroom, that sort of thing,” he says.
The idea is that the more coins there are in circulation, the more likely they are to be lost. The team didn’t count hidden hoards of coins because they reflect instability, not growth.
The third criterion is the ratio of cruder pottery, such as cooking and storing pots, to more ornate pottery, such as decorative plates. Economic growth requires people to interact more and socialize more, which means “showing off” when guests are present, Wiseman says.
Based on these indicators, the team found that economic growth exceeded what would be expected from population growth alone. They estimate that per capita growth was about 0.5% between 150 and 250 AD, slowing to about 0.3% between 250 and 400 AD.
“What we’ve been able to show is that there was indeed rapid growth after the Romans arrived,” Wiseman says. The rate of growth, rather than the type of growth, is likely what distinguishes the modern world from the ancient world, he says.
Researchers believe this growth was driven by factors such as roads and ports built by the Romans, laws they introduced that made trade safer, and technology such as more advanced flour mills and animal breeds suited to farming.
The period of rapid growth between AD 150 and 250 could have been the result of Britain catching up with the rest of the Roman world, Wiseman says: “It went from being a small, poorly-connected tribal society to a global economy.”
What’s not clear is whether this economic growth made people happier or healthier. “The fact that productivity rose doesn’t mean that invaded, colonized Britons were better off under the Roman Empire,” Wiseman says. “That’s an open question.”
To investigate this, researchers now plan to examine human remains to determine things like how long people lived.
“I believe they are right, and there was certainly intensive growth in Roman Britain.” Alain Bresson At the University of Chicago, Illinois.
“Many archaeologists have noted the compelling evidence of economic growth in Roman Britain, but this paper adds a welcome formal theoretical dimension to the debate.” Ian Morris At Stanford University, California.
But Morris suspects that the lower average growth rate from A.D. 250 to 400 actually reflected a period of higher growth that declined sharply as the Roman Empire began to collapse. Further research could help find the answer, he says.
Among the many strange robot designs in the past, a new contender has emerged as the world’s first robot powered by a real human brain, making it more human-like than ever.
Researchers from Tianjin University and Southern University of Science and Technology have managed to control the robot’s movements, such as tracking, grasping, and obstacle avoidance, using what they call “mini-brains.”
These miniature brains are not taken from human bodies but rather grown in labs for research purposes and then integrated into robots.
The researchers have utilized living organisms to create “brains on a chip,” which provide some intelligence to the robot’s brain but require assistance for full functionality.
Through the integration of these chips, scientists can debug the brain, send signals externally, and control specific functions like grasping in robots.
Professor Min Dong, Vice President of Tianjin University, explains that this brain-computer interface on a chip combines ex vivo cultured brains with electrode chips to interact with the outside world through encoding, decoding, and stimulation feedback.
With the brain chip, robots can perform tasks like tracking targets, avoiding obstacles, and learning to move their arms using electrical signals fed by the chips.
While robots do not have a human appearance, their brains process information through electrical signals from the chips. Training in simulated environments is possible, but understanding the real world remains a complex challenge.
The brain chip, known as MetaBOC, was developed as an open-source project and has been used in various experiments, including one where Neanderthal DNA was used to create mini-brains for robot control.
The latest research on robot-brain interaction focuses on utilizing ball-shaped organoids to create a more complex neural network for the brain-on-a-chip to function effectively.
Additionally, artificial intelligence algorithms have been integrated to enhance the robot’s capabilities through its mini-brain.
Although the advancements are groundbreaking, there is still progress to be made, with the current brain inside the robot being a model while the actual brain tissue is kept separate for testing purposes.
Cats are fascinating creatures with many behaviors that can leave their owners wondering. Questions like “Why does my cat purr?”, “Why did my cat knock over my plants again?”, and “Why does my cat always knock over plants right after I vacuum?” are common among cat owners.
While the behavior of knocking over plants might make you think your cat is a criminal mastermind, the reasons behind why cats purr are still a bit of a mystery. Many people assume that cats purr when they’re happy, but research suggests that the vibrations from purring may serve a variety of purposes, including manipulating our emotions.
Here are some strange scientific insights into the phenomenon of purring in cats.
How do cats purr?
The mechanism behind a cat’s purring is not as straightforward as it may seem. There have been different theories about the biology behind purring, such as a blood disorder theory that has since been debunked. The current understanding is that cats produce the purring sound by contracting a part of their larynx that touches their vocal cords, creating vibrations during their breathing cycle.
Read more about cat behavior:
Why do cats purr?
The exact reasons why cats purr are still unknown, but studies suggest several possibilities. One reason may be to communicate with humans, as seen in a study that found differences in the quality of purring sounds when cats were asking for food compared to when they were relaxed or being petted. The high-frequency components in a hungry cat’s purr mimic sounds similar to those of crying infants, possibly triggering a response in humans.
Another theory is that cats purr to soothe themselves in stressful or painful situations. Some research indicates that the vibrations from purring may have healing effects on bone growth and tissue repair. However, further studies are needed to fully understand the functions of purring in domestic cats.
About our experts
Dr. Lauren Finca is a Cat Welfare Scientist at International Cat Care and a Visiting Research Fellow at Nottingham Trent University. Her research has been published in journals like PloS No. 1 and Feline Medical and Surgical Journal.
A newly described trunk tetrapod exceeding 2.5 meters (8.2 feet) in length Gaiacia geniae It was probably the largest organism of its kind.
Reconstructing your life Gaiacia geniaeImage courtesy of Gabriel Lio.
Gaiacia geniae It lived in what is now Namibia during the Early Permian period, about 280 million years ago.
“Most of our ideas about the early evolution of tetrapods come from fossils found in the vast coal-producing ancient equatorial wetlands of what is now Europe and North America,” said paleontologist Claudia Marsicano of the University of Buenos Aires and her colleagues.
“but Gaiacia geniae They come from far south and live in the area of the southern supercontinent Gondwana, around 55 degrees south latitude.”
The structure of the skull and jaw Gaiacia geniae It had a powerful bite that allowed it to catch large prey.
“Gaiacia geniae “This dinosaur was significantly larger than a human and likely lived near the bottom of a swamp or lake,” said Dr Jason Pardo, a postdoctoral researcher at the Field Museum of Natural History.
“It has a big, flat, toilet seat-shaped head with an open mouth so it can suck in prey. It has huge fangs, and the whole front of its mouth is made up of giant teeth.”
“It's a large predator, but it could also be a relatively slow-moving ambush predator.”
Nearly complete skeleton Gaiacia geniae After preparation. Image courtesy of Claudia Marsicano.
At least four fossils Gaiacia geniaeRemains were found, including skull fragments and an incomplete spinal column. Gaias Layer Northwestern Namibia.
“When we found this enormous specimen lying in the outcrop as a giant concretion, we were truly shocked,” Dr Marsicano said.
“As soon as we saw it we knew it was something completely different. Everyone was so excited,” he said.
“When I examined the skull, the structure at the front of the skull caught my attention.”
“That was the only part that was clearly visible at the time, and it showed large tusks that interlocked in a very unusual way, creating a biting technique that was so typical of early tetrapods.”
“We had some really amazing material, including a complete skull, which allowed us to compare it to other animals from this period and learn what kind of animal it was and what makes it unique. We could see there's a lot that's special about this creature,” Dr Pardo added.
Gaiacia geniae They are related to the extinct family of amphibian-like animals called colosteids. Colostacea) are thought to date back even further, having been replaced by more modern amphibians and reptiles during the Late Carboniferous period, about 307 million years ago.
“There are ancient animals that survived 300 million years ago, but they were rare, small and had unique behaviours,” Dr Pardo said.
“Gaiacia geniae They are large, they are numerous, and they appear to be the primary predators in their ecosystem.”
“This shows that what was happening in the far south was very different from what was happening at the equator.”
“This is really important because we don't really know where a lot of the animal groups that showed up during this time came from.”
“What we discovered is Gaiacia geniae “This tells us that there must have been a rich ecosystem in the oceans far to the south that could support these very large predators.”
“The more we look, the more answers we may find about the major animal groups that interest us, such as the ancestors of mammals and modern reptiles.”
CA Marsicano othersGiant trunk tetrapods were apex predators during the Late Palaeozoic glacial stages of Gondwana. NaturePublished online July 3, 2024; doi: 10.1038/s41586-024-07572-0
Forty minutes into my job at Integrity Bank, anxiety hits me. This is how a normal day starts. This time, it's for a wedding and final exams, but it's neither a wedding nor an exam. From my window seat, I can see the city, but I can't hear any sounds. This high up in Rosewater, everything is orderly. Blocks, roads, streets, traffic slowly winding around the dome. From here, I can see the cathedral. The window is to my left, and I sit with four other contractors at the end of an oval table. We're on the top floor, 15th floor. A three-foot-by-three-foot skylight opens above us, and all that separates us from the morning sky is a security grid. The blue sky is dotted with white clouds. There's no scorching sun yet, but that will come later. Despite the skylight being open, the air conditioning in the room is controlled. It's a waste of energy, and Integrity Bank is fined every week. They're happy to cover the cost.
Bora, to my right, is yawning. She is pregnant and has been very tired lately. She also eats a lot, which I think is natural. I have known her for two years, and she has been pregnant the entire two years. I don't fully understand pregnancy. I am an only child and never grew up around pets or farm animals. My education was nomadic and I never had a strong interest in biology, except for microbiology, which I had to pick up later.
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I try to relax and focus on my bank customers, and the wedding anxiety kicks in again.
A holographic teleprompter rises from the center of the table. Right now it's made of random swirls of light, but within minutes it will project text. Next to ours is a room where the night shift is drawing to a close.
“I hear you read Dumas last night,” Bora says.
She's just having a conversation, it doesn't matter what the other shift people are reading, I just smile and say nothing.
The wedding is coming up in three months. The bride has gained some weight and is wondering if she should change her dress or get liposuction. Bora looks better during pregnancy.
“You've got 60 seconds,” a voice said over the loudspeaker.
I take a sip of water from the tumbler on the table. The other contractors are new. They're not dressed as formally as Bora and I are. They're wearing tank tops and T-shirts, with metal jewelry in their hair. They have implants in their phones.
I hate implants of any kind. I have one too. It's a standard locator with no extra features. It's really boring, but my employer requires it.
Exam anxiety fades away before you can identify and investigate its cause, and that's fine by me.
The metal pieces in the young men's hair are from plane crashes — planes have been shot down on every route in Nigeria since the early 2000s, in Lagos, Abuja, Jos, Kano and everywhere in between — and they wear pieces of the planes as talismans.
Bora noticed me staring, winked, and then she opened her snack. It was a packet of cold moin-moin, old-fashioned orange-colored tofu wrapped in a leaf. I looked away.
“Go,” the bullhorn says.
Plato's Republic Ghostly holographic shapes scroll slowly and steadily on the cylindrical display. I, like the others, begin to read, silently and then out loud. We enter the xenosphere, we configure the bank's firewall. I feel the usual momentary dizziness. Text swirls and becomes transparent.
With around 500 customers transacting financially at the facility every day and staff transacting all over the world every night, it’s a 24-hour job. Rough sensitives probe and push, and criminals try to pluck personal information out of the air. Dates of birth, pin numbers, mother’s maiden names, past transactions — it all lies dormant in each customer’s forebrain, in their working memory, waiting to be plucked out by hungry, untrained, predatory sensitives.
Contractors like me, Bora Martinez, and Metalfan are trained to fight these off. And we do. We read the classics and flood the alien sphere with irrelevant words and ideas. It’s a firewall of knowledge that reaches into the subconscious of our clients. A professor once did a study on this. He found a correlation between the material used for the firewall and the client’s activity for the rest of the year. Even people who have never read Shakespeare will suddenly find a piece of Shakespeare. King Lear It pops into my head for no apparent reason.
While it’s possible to track the intrusion, Integrity isn’t interested. Crimes committed on alien space are difficult and expensive to prosecute. If no lives are lost, the courts aren’t interested.
The queues at the cash machines, the crowds of people, the worries, desires, passions… I was tired of filtering other people’s lives through my own mind.
Yesterday I went to Piraeus with Glaucon, son of Ariston, to make a prayer to the goddess, and to see how they celebrated a festival, which was a new thing. I was delighted with the procession of the inhabitants, but the Thracian procession was just as beautiful, if not more so. Having finished our prayers and admired the spectacle, we set out in the direction of the city.
When you enter the alien sphere, there is a projected self-image. Untrained wild sensitives project their true selves, but professionals like me are trained to create a controlled, selected self-image. Mine is a Gryphon.
The first attack today was from a middle-aged man who lives in a townhouse in Yola. He appeared to be thin and with very dark skin.
When I warned him, he backed away. A teenager quickly took his place, which made me wonder if they were in the same physical location as part of a hacker farm. Crime syndicates sometimes round up sensitive people into “Mumbai Combos,” a call-center model run by serial criminals.
I've seen it a lot before. There aren’t as many of those attacks now as there were when I started. I think they’re frustrated by how efficient we are at our work. Either way, I'm fed up.
Copyright Tade Thompson
This is the excerpt below Rose waterpublished by Orbit Books, is the latest selection from the New Scientist Book Club. Sign up here to read along with our members.
Life is abundant on Earth, from pigeons in the park to invisible microorganisms covering every surface. However, when Earth first formed 4.5 billion years ago, it was devoid of life. The question remains: how did the first life form emerge?
The answer is still unknown. If we understood the process, we could recreate it in a controlled environment. Scientists could replicate the right conditions with the right chemicals and potentially observe living organisms forming. Yet, this has never been accomplished before.
Although the exact origin of life remains a mystery, there are several clues that provide insight. Living organisms consist of various chemicals, including proteins and nucleic acids that carry genetic information. While these chemicals are complex, their basic building blocks are simple to create.
One of the first demonstrations of this concept came from chemist Stanley Miller in 1953. By simulating the early Earth’s conditions with water and gases, Miller produced amino acids, the fundamental components of proteins, through heating and electrical shocks resembling lightning.
Subsequent studies, such as one conducted by Sarah Simkuch, have shown how complex chemicals can arise from basic compounds. By starting with everyday chemicals like water and methane, researchers have generated thousands of substances found in living organisms.
While this abundance of chemical building blocks suggests a fertile environment for life to emerge, the transition from chemicals to life is not automatic. Several key factors contribute to the formation of life, including structure, sustenance, and reproduction.
Research into the origin of life has focused on creating systems that encompass these essentials, such as genetic molecules capable of self-replication. However, the interdependence of these systems suggests a simultaneous emergence may be more plausible, possibly within confined spaces like deep-sea hydrothermal vents or terrestrial pools.
While the exact beginning of life remains uncertain, advancements in understanding have made the origin of life seem less inexplicable than before.
My first encounter with Michael Mosley was at the BBC Summer Party. A recent documentary I had presented had just aired on horizon, making me eligible to attend the event. Feeling overwhelmed amongst the many celebrities present, I found solace at the bar, quietly observing the crowd, until Michael approached me.
“Hello, I’m Michael Mosley,” he introduced himself. I was well aware of who he was, and we ended up spending the evening conversing. Although I first worked with Michael at an event, that initial meeting at the party left a lasting impression on me. Despite not knowing me, he warmly welcomed me as a newcomer.
Michael’s extensive career as a producer, presenter, and writer at the BBC spanned over 40 years, establishing a unique style of ‘self-experimenting presenter’ in science presentations. He famously delved into self-experimentation, including infesting himself with tapeworms and popularizing the 5:2 intermittent fasting diet to manage his type 2 diabetes.
While Michael faced criticism for his methods, he aimed to communicate science rather than conduct formal experiments. His talent for simplifying complex concepts and making science accessible led to widespread education among audiences.
Personally, Michael served as a valuable mentor, offering practical advice and sharing techniques for effective communication in broadcasting. His influence extended to shaping my approach to interviews and on-camera presentations, guiding my work in academia and beyond.
In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the importance of clear science communication has been highlighted, emphasizing the impact of effectively disseminating information on health issues. Michael’s contributions in this realm have greatly improved public health outcomes and potentially saved lives.
As a close colleague, respected mentor, and cherished friend, Michael Mosley will be deeply missed.
The Portuguese man-of-war (Physalia physalis) is named after an 18th-century sailing ship due to its resemblance to a ship under full sail.
In the open ocean, they appear as floating pink party balloons with long trailing blue ribbons.
The balloon part is a life buoy filled with carbon monoxide gas, which acts like a sail, rising above the water and catching the wind.
This is how Portuguese man-of-war travel across the ocean, sometimes in groups numbering in the thousands. They rely entirely on wind power and are not active swimmers.
Depending on which way the sail is facing in relation to the wind, it can be right-handed or left-handed.
They share some similarities with jellyfish, such as their appearance up close and the fact that they have a painful sting.
If you come across a deflated pale balloon with a blue string on the beach, be cautious – it’s likely a deceased Portuguese man-of-war, which loses its color when it dies but retains its ability to sting.
The Portuguese man-of-war is a tubular animal related to jellyfish, sea anemones, and corals.
There are about 175 species of cetaceans. Some live on the ocean floor, others swim in the depths, but the Portuguese man-of-war is the only one that floats on the surface.
What sets weevils apart is their unique construction. Unlike other animals that grow larger and develop specialized tissues and organs, tubular algae replicate themselves to create genetically identical zooids that form colonies and tubular bodies.
These zooids come together in specific arrangements to carry out tasks like feeding, digestion, reproduction, and defense.
Portuguese man-of-war play a crucial role in the Pulston ecosystem, which exists at the boundary between sea and air. As they drift, they capture fish and larvae with their tentacles, which can extend up to 30 meters and paralyze prey with venomous spines.
Other creatures that prey on Portuguese man-of-war include the blue dragon sea slug, which eats the tentacles and uses its stingers for defense, and the Blanketed Octopus, which waves its tentacles to find food and deter threats.
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Flashing lights, barbecues, parades, and red, white, and blue flags flying: Fourth of July celebrations have arrived in America, as Americans across the country come together to celebrate the nation’s independence.
But for our furry friends, fireworks may not be such a fun experience, especially as many dogs can find fireworks scary, even if they can only hear and see them from a distance.
Luckily, if your pup has an aversion to fireworks going off in the sky, there are ways to make the whole process a lot more relaxing. Dr. Zazie ToddWe spoke to an animal behavior expert for all the tips you need to keep your dog calm during a fireworks display.
Why are dogs scared of fireworks?
If you’ve ever whispered to your dog that you’re going for a walk, you’ll know that dogs have extremely good hearing — and this can be a problem when they encounter a particularly loud, scary sound like fireworks.
Without any context about what these sounds are, it can be a pretty frightening experience. “We know why there’s this loud explosion or this bright light going on, but dogs don’t,” explains Todd.
“If we don’t do anything to teach them that these sounds are OK, they’re likely going to get scared. And if they’re scared, they’re going to continue to get more scared every time they hear it.”
So how exactly can you teach your dog that loud noises outside aren’t a threat? Well…
Tips for keeping your dog calm during fireworks
Create a suitable environment for your dog
Drawing the curtains and turning on the TV is one way to protect your dog from outside noise and light, but while this may make the sound of fireworks less noticeable, it won’t block them out completely. “This helps, but it’s even more effective if you’re there to reward your dog when there are particularly loud noises,” says Todd.
“A room with closed blinds and soothing sounds is a dog’s happiest place, but that’s their choice. Tidy up the room, but don’t lock your dog in there. It won’t solve the problem, but it will help.”
Don’t be afraid to comfort them
It’s often said that you should not comfort a scared or anxious dog as this will make them more afraid, but there’s no scientific evidence to back this up.
“It’s perfectly OK to comfort your dog – in fact, you are important to them – and when they’re stressed, they’re looking to you for help and to make them feel better,” says Todd.
“Unfortunately, fireworks can be very frightening for them and even your comforts will make them difficult to cope with, but that doesn’t mean you should ignore them.”
Fireworks are a traditional way to conclude Independence Day celebrations in the United States. – Image credit: Getty
Try desensitization training
It takes planning, but training your dog properly at a young age can set you up for a lifetime of peaceful firework enjoyment.
“Puppies have a sensitive socialization period from three weeks of age to around 12 to 14 weeks, and we recommend exposing them to quiet firework sounds during this time to prevent any fear of fireworks,” Todd says.
“This will give them a more positive experience and reduce stress for them in the future. They don’t have to be puppies, you can train them at any age, but it’s easier when they’re younger.”
But what if your dog is already afraid of fireworks? Although this exposure training can work, a different approach may be more effective. Rather than getting your dog used to loud noises and flashing lights, building a fun association with the experience can be a great way to reduce the fear.
“The idea with desensitization or counterconditioning is to give your dog a tasty treat that he’ll enjoy every time a loud noise is heard,” Todd says.
“Over time, you develop what’s called a conditioned emotional response. You might even learn to love the sound of fireworks!”
Going to the vet
In some cases, your dog may have had no resistance to fireworks for a long time and then suddenly become extremely frightened of loud noises – in this case it’s worth seeking professional help.
“Scientists at the University of Lincoln Your dog associates fear with pain. “If the fear of fireworks starts later in life, it’s well worth getting tested just to be safe,” Todd explains.
This could be due to a different experience, but it’s best to check with your vet first to be safe.
Get a prescription for medicine
Some of the strategies above require a fair bit of advance planning, but what if you don’t have the time to train your dog?
“Your vet can discuss medications and will often prescribe medication to help your dog survive the fireworks,” explains Todd.
Obviously, this is best used as a one-off technique and you’ll be better off approaching training your dog in the long term.
About our experts
Zazie Todd Author of Pet Psychologyis an award-winning blog that brings you the latest science on our pets and evidence-based pet care practices. Todd has a PhD in Psychology, a Certificate in Training and Counseling from the prestigious Dog Trainer Academy, and an Advanced Certificate in Feline Behavior from International Cat Care. She is the author of the following books: Wag: The science behind making dogs happy and Purring: The science behind making cats happy.
Weight loss can be a challenging journey, but there may be a breakthrough discovery that could make it easier. Scientists have found a way to burn calories without changing your diet or exercising, thanks to a fat-burning mechanism in your body known as “beige fat.”
While diet and exercise are still crucial, researchers from the University of San Francisco have identified a way to convert regular white fat cells into beige fat cells.
In most mammals, including humans, there are three types of fat cells: white, brown, and beige. White fat cells store calories, brown fat cells burn energy for heat, and beige fat cells can do both.
This conversion from white to beige fat cells allows the body to naturally burn fat more efficiently.
Although the study was conducted with mice, it could pave the way for new weight-loss drugs and shed light on why previous trials have not been successful.
Scientists believed that stem cells were required to create beige fat, but the research shows that by inhibiting the production of a protein called KLF-15, white fat cells can be converted to beige fat cells. This finding offers promising insights into potential weight-loss treatments.
Feldman and his team discovered that KLF-15 controls the levels of the Adrb1 receptor, which plays a role in maintaining energy balance. Targeting this receptor with drugs could be a more effective approach for weight loss compared to current treatments.
By understanding the mechanisms behind beige fat cells, researchers hope to develop safer and more long-lasting weight-loss solutions for the future.
A metal-free organic 3-bromo-2-thienyl diketone exhibits fast and efficient room-temperature phosphorescence with high color purity under a variety of conditions, according to a new study led by chemists at Osaka University.
Artist's impression of fast phosphorescence. A beam of blue light enters the molecule, producing a thick yellow pillar, illustrating the acceleration of phosphorescence due to the mixing of singlet states. Image courtesy of YAP Co Ltd.
“Phosphorescence is a valuable optical feature used in applications such as OLEDs and cancer diagnostics,” said chemist Yosuke Tani of Osaka University and his colleagues.
“Until now, achieving highly efficient phosphorescence without using rare metals such as iridium or platinum has been a major challenge.”
“Phosphorescence, which occurs when a molecule goes from a high-energy state to a low-energy state, often competes with non-radiative processes where the molecule loses energy as heat,” the researchers added.
“This competition can slow down phosphorescence and make it less efficient.”
“Previous studies have shown that incorporating certain structural elements into organic molecules could make them phosphoresce faster, but these efforts have not matched the speed and efficiency of rare-metal-based materials.”
“Our breakthrough with thienyl diketones represents a major advance in this field.”
Dr. Tani and his co-authors were able to observe efficient narrowband room-temperature phosphorescence from 3-bromo-2-thienyl diketone in solution, amorphous polymer matrices, and crystalline solids.
“We discovered these molecules by chance and initially didn't understand why they performed so well,” Dr. Tani said.
“But as the research progressed, the pieces started to come together and we began to understand more.”
“Our work has led to a clearer understanding of the mechanisms behind the molecule's performance than any other organic phosphorescent material to date.”
“Still, we believe there is much more to explore and are excited about the potential applications.”
“This work provides new design guidelines for developing rare-metal-free organic phosphorescent materials, which have the potential to surpass and replace these materials in a variety of applications,” the authors conclude.
“The results of this research are expected to lead to major advances in areas such as OLEDs, lighting and medical diagnostics.”
This discovery paper In the journal Chemical Sciences.
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Yosuke Tani othersFast and efficient narrowband room-temperature phosphorescence from metal-free 1,2-diketones: rational design and mechanism. Chemical SciencesPublished online June 3, 2024; doi: 10.1039/D4SC02841D
Be prepared. A neglected bird's nest still remains in the mouth of a large ancient stone sculpture of a human face, hanging high on the wall at the northern end of the outdoor garden known as the “Michelangelo's Corridor” at the National Roman Museum in Rome, reports a professor at University College London (UCL). The professor discovered the nest during a visit to the museum in April this year and reported it to a colleague who is the director of a natural history museum in the Netherlands. The colleague visited the National Roman Museum the next day and asked if he could take the nest back to the museum in Rotterdam to add it to his biological curiosities collection, rather than having the staff remove it and destroy or dispose of it. The request was greeted with enthusiastic gratitude from two staff members at the Roman Museum, but a third staff member who happened to come across the scene with a ladder when the first two climbed the ladder to remove the previously unnoticed nest from the sculpture's mouth, and warned that no twig or pebble should ever leave his museum.
Photos of the nest in question can be seen in the May 8th feedback.
In early June, the UCL professor quietly revisited the National Museum of Rome and shortly thereafter sent out a “it's still there” report to Feedback.
Feedback: We are more than happy to receive reports from future visitors to Michelangelo's Cloister observing whether the empty nest (one might call it an “amuse-bouche”) is still nestled in the statue's mouth.
Not Your Way
Reader Ashok Khushalani contributes to Feedback's collection of inspiring and admirable organizational slogans that have been replaced, supplanted, or clearly abandoned, though not always obvious to the general public (May 18). Classic examples include IBM's “THINK” and Google's “Don't be evil.”
Khushalani laments the disappearance of Burger King's slogan, “Make it your way,” from everyday life, and he suggests that its absence has meaning.
If you know of a hot slogan that was highly promoted and is now in storage, please don’t say it with any ill intent and keep it to yourself.
Instead, please send it along with the documentation as feedback to “Mourning dead slogans”.
A weak theory
North Americans' fascination with rod-shaped objects and the human habit of proposing and then rejecting theories are two factors that have led to theDoes size matter? Penis dissatisfaction and gun ownership in America” “.
Reader Matthew Hall sent a copy to Feedback.
“To our knowledge, this is the first study to formally examine the association between penis size and individual gun ownership in the United States,” Terence D. Hill and colleagues from Texas and Florida wrote. “Our findings do not support the psychosexual theory of gun ownership.”
The same team will be joined by two other researchers in 2021.Sexual Dysfunction and Gun Ownership in the United States: When hard data meets unfounded theory”.
They poured cold water on the often heated public debate, saying: “Our key finding is that [sexual dysfunction] They are no more likely to own a gun than men without SD.”
BustaOr so they apparently said in their previous paper, but that didn't stop them from continuing to write about it. Busta”Ultimately, these arguments are counterproductive to society because they distract us from tangible realities like penis dissatisfaction and gun ownership.”
Smell
The June 12 article about a famous pathologist's inability to smell led reader John Adams to reflect on his own journey as a medical professional.
“As for Sir Bernard Spilsbury's anosmia, I was told as a medical student that this was common because pathologists are exposed to large amounts of formaldehyde fumes which destroy the olfactory nerves. One of the reasons I avoided this specialty is because I want my patients to have answers.”
Feedback suggests that a similar (but milder) preference for conversation leads people to choose dentistry.
Telltale Title
Ideally, the title of a scientific report clearly summarizes its entire content. To encourage this habit, Feedback has compiled a collection called “The Title Tells You Everything You Need to Know.”
Let's look at two examples.The man's fractured sternum was likely caused by the weight of the snake during the fall.” appears British Medical Journal 1997.Experimental replication reveals knife made from frozen human feces doesn't work” was decorated Journal of Archaeological Sciences: Reports 2019.
If you find similarly impressive examples, please submit them as feedback to “Telltale titles,” along with details of the citation.
Marc Abrahams is the founder of the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony and co-founder of the journal Annals of Improbable Research. He previously worked on unusual uses of computers. His website is Impossible
Do you have a story for feedback?
You can submit articles for Feedback by emailing feedback@newscientist.com. Please include your home address. This week's and past Feedback can be found on our website.
The first ever video footage of a blue whale nursing a calf was captured by a snorkeler in East Timor, Southeast Asia, and has been released.
“It’s certainly not a newborn calf.” Karen Edivain “But they’re clearly still drinking milk,” said the researcher, from the Australian National University in Darwin.
Edibane says capturing the footage is an incredible feat that has never been achieved before. The action was captured on camera by a snorkeler on an ecotourism voyage swimming with the pygmy whales off the coast of the capital, Dili, in 2022, and has only now been made public.
Blue Whale (Mushibaga) is the largest known animal to have ever lived on Earth, sometimes reaching lengths of over 30 meters and weighing nearly 200 tons.Southern wolfThe sharks found off the coast of Timor-Leste are slightly smaller, reaching a maximum length of 24 metres.
Blue whale calves do not attach to their mothers when feeding, but rather release oily milk into the water, which the calf swallows.
Edivain said the large calf seen feeding in the video is probably in its second year of living with its mother — blue whales are weaned at three years.
Other significant blue whale behaviours have been sighted and filmed in the area as part of the decade-long study. Citizen Science Projects Project leader Edivine said a database of 2,700 pygmy blue whales had been compiled since 2014 and that Timor-Leste may be a base for one of the world’s largest migrations of pygmy blue whales.
Newborn calves, courtship behaviour, pre-mating behaviour and feeding behaviour have all been observed.
“We haven’t seen a penis yet, but we’ve seen very affectionate adults having a lot of fun playing with each other,” Edivain said.
Caprivec The head of marine life conservation for the Western Australian Water Environment Regulatory Authority said that until recently no one knew how many blue whales were migrating off the coast of Timor-Leste.
Beck says he was incredibly lucky to capture the footage. Blue whales are often found far offshore, in hard-to-reach locations. “It’s incredibly rare to even be in the water with a blue whale, and even rarer to be in the water at the right time and place to film a calf nursing.”
White roofs in London would help keep the city cool during the hottest days.
NagyxMe/Imago/Alamy
In cities like London, painting roofs white or adding reflective coatings is the best way to cool them down during the heatwaves, and these “cool roofs” could work better than solar panels, green roofs or adding more trees to the ground.
Oskar Bruss Researchers at University College London ran a climate simulation to look at how temperatures in London would have changed on the hottest two days of the summer of 2018 if the city had implemented widespread cooling measures, from cooled roofs to air conditioners to cooling solar panels. The highest temperature was 35.6℃ (96.1°F).
The researchers found that the cool roofs outperformed all other countermeasures, reducing the city's average outdoor temperature by 1.2°C over the two days, and by as much as 2°C in some places. By comparison, adding more trees reduced temperatures by just 0.3°C, and solar panels reduced temperatures by 0.5°C.
The study found that while widespread air conditioning may keep indoor temperatures lower, it could increase outdoor temperatures by up to 1°C in parts of central London. “In London, cool roofs were the most effective at reducing outdoor temperatures at pedestrian level,” Bruce says.
While the study only used two days of data for its simulations, Bruce said: Similar published studies.
Applying reflective coatings or brightening roof surfaces across cities would be a relatively simple, low-cost climate adaptation measure, Bruce says. “In fact, I think it's probably the easiest thing to implement,” he says. “I see very little reason not to do this more widely.”
Beyond cooling, he says there are other reasons to install technologies: trees and green roofs can boost biodiversity and resident well-being, for example, and solar panels can provide clean electricity.
2023 Report A report by the Greater London Authority suggests that cool roofs could become a policy focus for the city government as summer temperatures rise due to climate change. “As temperatures in London are expected to rise and heatwaves become more frequent, reflective roofs are likely to become a key element of climate adaptation strategies,” the report said.
Top row: Original image. Second row: AI-reconstructed image based on macaque brain recordings. Bottom row: Image reconstructed by the AI system without the attention mechanism.
Thirza Dado et al.
Artificial intelligence systems can currently create highly accurate reconstructions of what a person sees, based on recordings of brain activity, and these reconstructed images improve significantly as the AI learns which parts of the brain to pay attention to.
“As far as I know, these are the most accurate and closest reconstructions.” Umut Güçül Radboud University, Netherlands.
Güçül's team is one of several around the world using AI systems to understand what animals and humans see through brain recordings and scans. In a previous study, his team used a functional MRI (fMRI) scanner to record the brain activity of three people while they were shown a series of pictures.
In a separate study, the team used an implanted electrode array to directly record the brain activity of a single macaque monkey as it viewed AI-generated images — an implant done by a different team and for a different purpose, Güçül's colleagues say. Sarza Dado“We didn't put implants in macaques to restructure their perception,” she says. “That's not a good argument against doing surgery on animals.”
The research team has now reanalyzed the data from these earlier studies using an improved AI system that can learn which parts of the brain to pay most attention to.
“Essentially, the AI is learning where to pay attention when interpreting brain signals,” Gyuklüh says, “which of course in some way reflects what the brain signals pick up on in the environment.”
By directly recording brain activity, some of the reconstructed images were very close to the images seen by the macaques, as generated by the StyleGAN-XL image-generation AI. But accurately reconstructing AI-generated images is easier than real images, because aspects of the process used to generate the images can be incorporated into the AI training to reconstruct those images, Dado said.
The fMRI scans also showed a noticeable improvement when using the attention guidance system, but the reconstructed images were less accurate than those for the macaques. This is partly because real photographs were used, but Dado also says that it is much harder to reconstruct images from fMRI scans. “It's non-invasive, but it's very noisy.”
The team's ultimate goal is to develop better brain implants to restore vision by stimulating the higher-level parts of the visual system that represent objects, rather than simply presenting patterns of light.
“For example, we can directly stimulate the area that corresponds to a dog's brain,” Güçül says, “and in that way create a richer visual experience that is closer to that of a sighted person.”
LAS VEGAS — Some parts of Arizona, Nevada, and Texas have just had their hottest June on record, with scorching temperatures breaking several long-established records.
This record-breaking heat foreshadows another extremely hot summer for the U.S. and globally, raising concerns for the upcoming weeks and months as July and August are typically the hottest months of the year in the Northern Hemisphere.
In Phoenix, the average temperature was 97 degrees Fahrenheit, marking it as the hottest June in the city’s over 100-year history. As reported by the National Weather Service.
Last month, the temperature was nearly two degrees higher than the previous record set in June 2021. Phoenix’s Sky Harbor Airport noted 14 days with temperatures surpassing 110 degrees in June, according to the weather service.
The scorching heat has already claimed 13 lives due to heatstroke in Maricopa County so far this year, which encompasses Phoenix and many surrounding areas, with 162 more deaths under investigation. According to the county public health department.
Last year, a record 645 people died from heatstroke in Maricopa County amidst unusually hot weather for the region. Phoenix reported temperatures of 110 degrees Fahrenheit or higher for 31 consecutive days last summer, surpassing the previous record of 18 days set in 1974.
July has already begun with challenges, as 110 million people across 21 states are under heat warnings or advisories heading into the Independence Day holiday.
The heatwaves were felt across the Southwest last month.
In neighboring Las Vegas, Nevada, the city recorded its highest-ever temperature in June.
“June 2024 was historically the hottest in Las Vegas,” stated the National Weather Service’s field office. According to a post on X from last Sunday. The previous record was set 8 years ago in 2016.
Triple-digit temperatures were recorded nearly every day last month, with an average temperature of 94.6 degrees in June, seven degrees above usual and 1.8 degrees higher than the previous record, as per the National Weather Service.
The heat persisted, with an average high temperature of 106.2 degrees Fahrenheit and an average low of 83 degrees Fahrenheit, providing little relief during the night.
Climate change is anticipated to bring more frequent heatwaves. Studies indicate that as the planet warms, heatwaves will become more common, prolonged, and intense.
The National Weather Service noted that it’s not just the new milestone that stands out. “What’s even more striking is how much it surpassed the previous record,” the statement said, highlighting the 1.2-degree difference between the average June high temperature and the previous record.
West Texas also saw scorching temperatures in June, with El Paso experiencing its hottest June on record, breaking a record from 30 years ago. According to the National Weather Service.
The average temperature in El Paso reached 89.4 degrees, surpassing the previous record set in 1994 by 0.4 degrees.
Extreme heat warnings and advisories are in place for various states along the West Coast and parts of the South, including Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona, Nevada, Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, and Florida.
Archaeologists have discovered a new human rib specimen in the White Cliff Cave, one of two sites known to have been inhabited by Denisovans. Dating from 48,000 to 32,000 years ago, the specimen also belongs to the Denisovan lineage and indicates that the caves were present into the Late Pleistocene.
Portrait of a young Denisovan woman based on a skeletal profile reconstructed from an ancient DNA methylation map. Image courtesy of Maayan Harel.
The Denisovans are an extinct human group first identified from a genome sequence determined from a finger bone fragment found in the Denisova Cave in the Altai Mountains of southern Siberia.
Subsequent genomic analyses revealed that the Denisovans diverged from Neanderthals 400,000 years ago, and that at least two distinct Denisovan populations interbred with the ancestors of modern Asians.
In 2019, a 160,000-year-old jawbone discovered in Baishiyi Cave, a limestone cave on the northeastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau, was identified as being of Denisovan origin.
In 2020, archaeologists found Denisovan mtDNA in deposits from the cave, suggesting they were present around 100,000 years ago, 60,000 years ago, and possibly 45,000 years ago.
The new Denisovan rib, discovered in the Baishigai Karst Cave, dates to approximately 48,000 to 32,000 years ago.
“The combined fossil and molecular evidence indicates that the Amaka Basin, where the Baishiqai Cave is located, was a relatively stable environment for the Denisovans, despite its high altitude,” said Dr Frid Welker, an archaeologist at the University of Copenhagen.
“The question now is, when and why did the Denisovans on the Tibetan Plateau become extinct?”
In their study, Dr Welcker and his colleagues examined more than 2,500 bones discovered in the White Cliff Cave.
“We know that the Denisovans hunted, butchered and ate a wide range of animal species,” said Dr Geoff Smith, a zooarchaeologist at the University of Reading.
“Our study reveals new information about Denisovan behavior and adaptation to high-altitude environments and a changing climate.”
“We are only just beginning to understand the behavior of this incredible human species.”
The bone remains found in the Baixa Karst caves were broken into many fragments, making them difficult to identify.
The researchers used a new scientific technique that uses differences in bone collagen between animals to determine which species the bone remains belong to.
“Zooarchaeology by mass spectrometry (ZooMS) allows us to extract valuable information from bone fragments that are often overlooked, providing deeper insights into human activities,” said Dr Huan Xia, a researcher from Lanzhou University.
Scientists have determined that most of the bones belong to blue sheep called bharals, as well as wild yaks, horses, the extinct woolly rhinoceros and spotted hyenas.
Bones from small mammals, such as marmots, and birds were also identified.
“Current evidence suggests that it was the Denisovans, and not other human groups, who lived in caves and made effective use of all available animal resources during their occupation,” said Dr Jiang Wang, also from Lanzhou University.
“Detailed surface analysis of the bone fragments shows that the Denisovans removed the meat and marrow from the bones, but also suggests that humans used them as raw material for making tools.”
H. Shea othersMiddle and Late Pleistocene Denisovan life in the Baishi Cliff karst caves. NaturePublished online July 3, 2024; doi: 10.1038/s41586-024-07612-9
Scientists in South Africa were surprised to find that a termite mound standing in the country’s arid regions is over 30,000 years old, making it the oldest active termite mound known.
Located near the Buffels River in Namaqualand, several mounds have been dated back to 34,000 years ago by researchers from Stellenbosch University.
“I was aware of its age, but not to this extent,” said Michel Francis, a senior lecturer at the university’s soil science department who led the study. The findings were published in May.
These mounds existed during a time when sabre-toothed cats and mammoths roamed the Earth, and large parts of Europe and Asia were covered in ice. They even predate the oldest cave paintings in Europe.
While fossilized termite mounds millions of years old have been found, the oldest human-inhabited mound prior to this discovery was in Brazil and approximately 4,000 years old, visible from space.
Francis described the Namaqualand mounds as termite “apartment complexes”, showing evidence of a continuous termite colony living there.
Although termite mounds are a common sight in Namaqualand, their age was not questioned until samples were sent to Hungarian experts for radiocarbon dating.
The largest mounds, known as “heuweltjies” locally, can reach around 100 feet in diameter, with termite nests found up to 10 feet underground.
Researchers had to excavate parts of the mound for samples, but the termites went into “emergency mode” and started filling in the holes. The team reconstructed the mound to protect the termites from predators like aardvarks.
The project not only provided insight into ancient structures but also revealed information about the prehistoric climate, indicating Namaqualand was wetter when the mounds formed.
Southern harvester termites play a crucial role in capturing and storing carbon by collecting twigs and dead wood, contributing to offsetting climate change. This process also benefits the soil, supporting the growth of wildflowers on top of termite mounds in low rainfall areas.
Pope Francis encouraged further research on termite mounds for the valuable lessons they offer on climate change, ecosystem maintenance, and agricultural practices.
“Studying the termites’ activities within the mounds could provide valuable insights, considering the tedious job they are believed to have carried out,” she added.
Dr Bab Shergill is a consultant dermatologist specializing in skin cancer treatment and is a Fellow of the British Association of Dermatology. Here are his top nine skincare tips:
Less is more
Most people only need a basic cleanser, moisturizer, and possibly sunscreen if they are going outside.
Some skin types require additional care
There are around 3,000 different skin-related conditions, such as eczema and psoriasis. If your skin is scaly, dry, and red, you may need a specific routine with moisturizers to hydrate the skin and short-term use of steroids to soothe inflammation.
Moisturizers do not hydrate the skin
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This is a common misconception: moisturizers work by creating a protective barrier and allowing moisture to move from deeper layers of the skin to the surface.
Need to know…
For most people, a basic cleanser, moisturizer, and sunscreen are sufficient.
Expensive products do not always mean better; look for key ingredients if you have specific needs.
To maintain healthy skin, eat well and limit alcohol consumption.
Expensive creams aren’t always better
There’s a psychological aspect to choosing expensive skincare products; sometimes we value them more because of their high price. However, if you have specific needs, it may be worth paying more for products with beneficial ingredients.
If you have brown spots known as “liver spots,” products containing vitamin B3 can be helpful.
Anti-aging creams are effective
Studies have shown that vitamin A-based compounds like retinol can reduce fine lines, boost collagen production, fade blemishes, and improve skin tone. Be cautious of using too much as it can cause irritation.
There is no difference between men’s and women’s skincare products
Aside from packaging and scent, there is no significant difference between products for men and women.
No need for separate day and night creams
If using a cream with retinol, consider applying it at night to avoid increased sun sensitivity.
read more A Scientist’s Guide to Life:
Avoid excessive alcohol consumption
Dehydration affects both your body and skin, so stay hydrated and eat a balanced diet. Foods rich in vitamins C and E can help combat damage from free radicals as antioxidants.
Consider your clothing choices
Wearing a wide-brimmed hat during sunny hours can protect your skin, especially for men with thinning hair on their scalp.
This article was first published on August 4, 2020
L1527, shown in this image from Webb's MIRI instrument, is a molecular cloud enveloping the IRAS 04368+2557 protostar. The more diffuse blue light and filamentary structures in the image come from organic compounds called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), while the red in the center of the image is a thick layer of energetic gas and dust that surrounds the protostar. The white intermediate regions are a mix of PAHs, ionized gases, and other molecules. Image courtesy of NASA / ESA / CSA / STScI.
L1527, also known as LDN 1527, is located about 447 light-years from Earth in the constellation Taurus.
The young protostar, called IRAS 04368+2557, is embedded in a molecular cloud that is part of a star-forming region in the constellation Taurus.
IRAS 04368+2557 is a relatively young star, only 100,000 years old.
Given its age and brightness in the far-infrared, the star is likely a class 0 protostar, the earliest stage of star formation.
IRAS 04368+2557 has an edge-on disc with two misaligned parts.
The inner and outer parts of the disk have slightly different orbital planes and are connected at 40 to 60 AU (astronomical units) from the protostar, but the disk is point-symmetric with respect to the location of the protostar.
Webb's previous observations of L1527 showed that NIRCam (Near Infrared Camera)Astronomers were able to peer into the region, where the molecular cloud and protostar appeared in opaque, vibrant colors.
Both NIRCam and MIRI show the effects of outflows that shoot out in opposite directions along the protostar's rotation axis as the protostar consumes gas and dust from the surrounding cloud.
These outflows take the form of bow shock waves relative to the surrounding molecular cloud and appear as filament-like structures throughout the molecular cloud.
They also energize, or excite, the material around them, causing the areas above and below them to glow, imprinting bright hourglass structures in the molecular cloud.
“But unlike NIRCam, which primarily images light reflected from dust, MIRI will be able to probe how these outflows affect the thickest dust and gas in the region,” astronomer Webb said in a statement.
“The blue region that takes up most of the hourglass represents carbonaceous molecules called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.”
“The IRAS 04368+2557 protostar itself is shown in red, along with the dense mixture of dust and gas that surrounds it.”
“Meanwhile, MIRI revealed white regions just above and below the protostar, which are not as clearly visible in the NIRCam view.”
“This region is a mixture of hydrocarbons, ionized neon, and thick dust, indicating that the protostar is consuming material from the disk in a promiscuous manner, pushing this material over great distances.”
“As IRAS 04368+2557 continues to age and emits energetic jets, it will consume, destroy or push aside much of this molecular cloud, and much of the structure seen here will begin to disappear.”
“Eventually, when the accumulation of mass stops, this impressive spectacle will come to an end and the star itself will become more clearly visible to optical telescopes.”
“Combining both near-infrared and mid-infrared analyses will shed light on the overall behavior of this system, including how the central protostar is influencing the surrounding region.”
“Other stars in Taurus, the star-forming region in which L1527 resides, may form in exactly this way, which could lead to the disruption of other molecular clouds, either preventing the formation of new stars or promoting their development.”
Chinese paleontologists have discovered fossil fragments of a new genus and species of stegosaur dinosaur. Bayinosaurus baojiensis.
Reconstructing your life Gigantespinosaurus (Lower foreground), a newly discovered sister species of Stegosaurus Bayinosaurus baojiensisand other dinosaurs discovered in the ShaxiMiao Formation. Image by A. Belov / CC BY-SA 3.0.
Bayinosaurus baojiensis It roamed the Earth during the Middle Jurassic period, about 165 million years ago.
This dinosaur species is StegosaursA group of herbivorous armoured dinosaurs that lived in the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods.
Stegosaurus reached a maximum length of about 9 metres (30 feet). It had a small head with peg-like teeth, vertical bone plates and spines on its back and tail, and hoof-like toes on all four limbs.
“Stegosaurus is a minor but iconic lineage of ornithischian dinosaurs, but its early evolution remains poorly understood due to a poor fossil record,” said Dr Li Ning from China University of Geosciences and his colleagues.
“These dinosaurs are characterized by having two parasagittal rows of enlarged dermal armor plates and/or spines that extend from the neck to the tip of the tail, and have been found on every continent except Antarctica and Australia.”
“The earliest stegosaurs date to the Middle Jurassic and were distributed worldwide by the Late Jurassic, after which diversity declined during the Early Cretaceous.”
“Middle Jurassic stegosaurs are rarely recorded, with only five species. Loricatosaurus From the UK, Isabelisaura From Argentina, Adorati Krit From Morocco and Huayangosaurus and Bashanosaurus From China.”
Partial skeleton of Bayinosaurus baojiensis The fossil, consisting of a partial skull, one cervical vertebra, seven dorsal vertebrae, and one caudal vertebra, Wangjiashan Formation.
“The study area is located in the northwestern part of the Baojishan Basin, Pingchuan District, Baiyin City, Gansu Province, China,” the paleontologists said.
“The Baojishan Basin is located at the eastern end of the Qilian Mountains.”
According to the team's systematic analysis, Bayinosaurus baojiensis is an early diverging stegosaur, Isabelisaura, Alcovasaurus, Junjunosaurus and Gigantespinosaurus.
“Bayinosaurus baojiensis “This dinosaur possesses several protoplasmic features and represents a morphological transition between early ostracods and the early-diverging stegosaurs,” the researchers say.
“The increased diversity of Middle Jurassic stegosaurs and their early divergence position suggest that stegosaurs likely diverged from their sister taxon, the ankylosaurs, in the early Middle Jurassic (or possibly much earlier).”
of study Published in the journal Scientific Reports.
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L. Nin others2024. A new species of stegosaur (Dinosauria: Ornithischia) discovered from the Middle Jurassic of Gansu Province, China. Scientific Reports 14, 15241; doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-66280-x
Beach closures and swimming warnings have been issued in at least 10 states ahead of the Fourth of July holiday due to high bacteria levels.
Some closures are linked to human waste bacteria, while others are due to high concentrations of cyanobacteria, a type of blue-green algae, in freshwater.
Vermont alerted six locations advising against swimming due to cyanobacteria overgrowth.
Environment America reports that many U.S. beaches are closed annually due to unsafe bacteria levels. More than half of inspected beaches experienced fecal contamination above EPA standards in 2022.
Swimming in waters with high bacteria levels can lead to illnesses, especially in vulnerable populations.
Research indicates that cyanobacterial algae blooms are increasing due to climate change, posing risks to human health. Cyanobacteria produce microcystin toxin, harmful when ingested in large amounts.
Two Iowa beaches tested high for microcystin, while five others had elevated E. coli levels.
In Massachusetts, 34 beaches closed due to high E. coli or Enterococcus levels, signaling fecal contamination.
Massachusetts Surgeon General Goldstein attributes these spikes in bacteria levels to heavy rains transporting waste to water bodies.
Goldstein estimates 5% of Massachusetts’ beaches are closed, urging people to check health department sites for swimming advisories.
Florida’s Monroe and Hillsboro Beaches are seeing deteriorating water quality from high enterococcus bacteria levels.
San Diego closed three beaches and issued warnings at two due to dangerous bacteria levels.
Bacteria levels fluctuate, so beachgoers should stay updated on safety warnings and practice environmental cleanliness to reduce waste contamination.
Goldstein recommends cleaning up pet waste and trash to prevent bacteria from entering water bodies after heavy rains.
“Environmental bacteria can flow into water bodies after rainy periods,” he said.
Exports of quantum computers are restricted in many countries
Saigh Anys/Shutterstock
As a result of secret international negotiations, governments around the world have imposed identical export controls on quantum computers while refusing to disclose the scientific rationale behind the controls. Although quantum computers could theoretically threaten national security by breaking encryption technology, even the most advanced quantum computers currently publicly available are too small and error-prone to achieve this, making the bans seem pointless.
The UK: Quantum computers with more than 34 quantum bits (qubits) and error rates below a certain threshold. The intention seems to be to limit machines with certain capabilities, but the UK government has not stated this explicitly. New Scientist A Freedom of Information request seeking the basis for these figures was denied on national security grounds.
France has also imposed similar export controls. Quantum Bits The numbers and error rates are also improving, as are Spain and the Netherlands. Having the same limits across European countries might suggest EU regulation, but this is not the case. A spokesperson for the European Commission said: New Scientist EU member states are free to adopt national, rather than bloc-wide, measures when it comes to export controls. “The recent quantum computer restrictions by Spain and France are an example of such national measures,” they said. They declined to explain why the figures for the EU's various export bans are completely consistent if these decisions were taken independently.
A spokesman for the French Embassy in London said: New Scientist The limits were set at a level “likely to indicate a cyber risk,” they said. They noted that the regulations are the same in France, the UK, the Netherlands and Spain because of “multilateral negotiations that took place over several years under the Wassenaar Arrangement.”
“The limits chosen are based on scientific analysis of the performance of quantum computers,” the spokesperson said. New ScientistBut when asked for clarification about who carried out the analysis and whether its findings would be made public, a spokesman declined to comment further.
New Scientist We wrote to dozens of Wassenaar member states asking whether there was quantum-computer-level research that posed a risk to export, whether it had been made public, and who had conducted it. Only a few countries responded.
“We closely monitor other countries as they introduce national restrictions on certain technologies,” a spokesperson for the Swiss Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs, Education and Research said, “but in specific cases it is already possible to block the export of such technologies using existing mechanisms.”
“We are closely following the Wassenaar discussions on the exact technical control parameters for quantum.” Milan Godin, Belgian Advisor to the EU Working Party on Dual-Use Goods, Belgium. China does not appear to have implemented its own export controls yet, but Godin said quantum computers are a dual-use technology. It has the potential to crack commercial or government codes, and its speed could ultimately enable militaries to plan faster and better, including for nuclear missile attacks.
A spokesperson for Germany's Federal Office for Economics and Export Control confirmed that the export restrictions on quantum computers are the result of negotiations under the Wassenaar Agreement, but Germany does not appear to have implemented any restrictions. “The negotiations are confidential and unfortunately we cannot provide any details or information about the considerations of the restrictions,” the spokesperson said.
Christopher MonroeThe co-founder of quantum computing company IonQ said industry participants have been aware of similar bans and are discussing their criteria, but he doesn't know where they come from.
“I don't know who decided the logic behind these numbers,” he says, but it may have something to do with the threshold for simulating a quantum computer with a regular computer. This gets exponentially harder as the number of qubits increases, so Monroe thinks the rationale behind the ban may be to limit quantum computers that are too advanced to simulate, even though such devices have no practical use.
“It would be a mistake to think that just because we can't simulate the behavior of a quantum computer doesn't mean it's useful, and severely restricting research into advances in this grey area would certainly stifle innovation,” he says.
Ocean warming threatens to reduce golden tiger shark populations
Shutterstock/Podlonaya Elena
The world's egg-laying shark populations could be hit hard by the end of the century as increasing ocean warming and acidification destroys embryos, potentially affecting more than 100 shark species.
This discovery was made possible by the discovery of the giant sandbar shark (Termitesis found in the Mediterranean Sea and the Northeast Atlantic Ocean. About 40 percent of sharks reproduce by laying tough, skinned egg capsules that contain the embryos. These shark embryos are highly sensitive to changes in ocean conditions, such as temperature and pH levels. The ocean absorbs excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, causing it to warm up and become more acidic.
Noémie Coulon Researchers at the French National Museum of Natural History exposed catshark eggs to a variety of ocean conditions, including monthly temperature changes, in a lab tank. Coulomb and his colleagues chose the catshark because it is one of the most abundant shark species in Europe.
In the first test, A “middle-of-the-road” climate scenario A 2.7°C increase in temperature above pre-industrial levels by 2100, with a corresponding decrease in pH of 0.2, is projected. A second scenario (in which the world continues to rely heavily on fossil fuels) projects a 4.4°C increase in temperature and a 0.4 decrease in pH by the end of the century. The third is a historical baseline, which recreates water temperature and pH in shark habitats from 1995 to 2014.
A tiny spotted catshark embryo inside an egg
Noémie Coulon
The researchers then simulated conditions as the embryos developed over the next four months, and found dramatic differences in the embryos' hatching success rates depending on the experimental conditions: In the baseline and moderate scenarios, about 82% of the eggs hatched. But in the warmest scenario, only five of the 45 embryos survived, a loss of almost 90%.
“We were really shocked by the death rate,” Coulon said. “It will probably cause a population collapse.”
“Even a relatively short period of warmth, such as a particularly warm August, was enough to cause the hatching to fail. Based on these results, Coulon predicts other egg-laying sharks, including endangered or vulnerable species like the nurse hound, will be similarly devastated.”
But their extinction is not doomed, says Coulon: “If we make an effort to limit global warming to around 2°C, this species may be able to survive.”
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