Archaeologists in the Amazon have discovered a series of “lost cities” that have flourished for thousands of years, the results of which were published Thursday in the journal Science.
Laser images have revealed an intricate network of roads, districts, and gardens as complex as those built by the Maya civilization.
Traces of the city were first noticed more than 20 years ago by archaeologist Stephane Rostain of France's National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), but “I didn't have a complete overview of the area,” he told Science. Told.
A new laser mapping technology called LIDAR helped researchers see through forest cover and map new details of mounds and structures in Ecuador's Upano Valley settlement.
The images reveal a geometric pattern of more than 6,000 platforms connected by roads, intertwined with the agricultural landscape and river drainage channels of an urban farming civilization in the eastern foothills of the Andes.
“It was the Valley of the Lost City. It's unbelievable,” Rostain, who is leading the investigation at CNRS, told The Associated Press.
The image shows a main street cutting through the city area, forming an axis around which a complex of rectangular platforms is placed around a low square. Antoine Dollison, Stéphane Lotay/AP
These sites were built and inhabited by the Upano people between about 500 BC and 300-600 AD, but the size of their population is not yet known.
The research team found five large settlements and 10 smaller settlements with housing and ceremonial buildings across 116 square miles of the valley. Its size is comparable to other major ruins. For example, the core area of Quilamope, one of the settlements, is as large as the Giza Plateau in Egypt or the main thoroughfare of Teotihuacan in Mexico.
The landscape of Upano societies may be comparable to Mayan “garden cities,” where homes were surrounded by farmland and most of the food consumed by residents was grown in the city, the authors write in Science. Told.
Co-author Fernando Mejia, an archaeologist at the Pontifical University of Ecuador, said the discovery of Upano was so far only the “tip of the iceberg” of what could be discovered in the Ecuadorian Amazon.
The Amazon is considered the world's most dangerous forest, home to dense towering trees, tangled vines, hostile wildlife, and poisonous insects. Archaeologists believed it was primarily suitable for hunter-gatherers, but inhospitable to complex civilizations.
But over the past two decades, scientists have discovered evidence of human habitation, including mounds, hillforts, and pyramids, in the Amazon River from Bolivia to Brazil.
The newly mapped city in the Upano Valley is 1,000 years older than previous discoveries, including the Bolivian Amazonian society Llanos de Mojos. The discovery shattered what scientists previously believed about civilizations in the Amazon rainforest.
And the details of the cultures of these two places are only just beginning to emerge.
German researcher Carla Jaimes Betancourt, an expert on Llanos de Mojos, told Science that the people of both Upano Valley and Llanos de Mojos were farmers. They built roads, canals, and large public and ceremonial buildings. But “we're just beginning to understand how these cities functioned, their populations, who they traded with, how their societies were governed, etc.” she said.
Rostain emphasized how much remains to be revealed. “We say 'Amazonia,' but we should say 'Amazonia' to capture the diversity of ancient cultures in this region,” he says.
“The Amazon has always had an incredibly diverse range of people and settlements, and there is not just one way of life,” he added. “We're still learning more about them.”
Fingerprints from two fingers on the same hand may look different, but AI can find basic similarities
Andrey Kuzmin/Shutterstock
Artificial intelligence can accurately identify whether fingerprints left by different fingers belong to the same person. This helps forensic investigators determine whether one person was at separate crime scenes.
Current technology can only match fingerprints left by the same finger. However, previous research suggests that all human fingertips may have fundamental similarities.
So, Gabe Guo Researchers at Columbia University in New York trained a machine learning model to determine whether fingerprints from different fingers can be identified as belonging to the same person. More than 50,000 fingerprints from around 1,000 people were used in the training. Samples were obtained from public databases at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the University at Buffalo, New York. All fingerprints either belonged to deceased individuals or were anonymized from those living.
The team then tested the trained model on another set of more than 7,000 fingerprints from about 150 people. They evaluated the model using a statistical measure that estimates accuracy on a scale of 0 to 1. The researchers found that the model's score was greater than 0.75. This suggests that the model can reliably identify whether fingerprints from different fingers belong to the same person.
This technology has the potential to improve the efficiency of forensic investigations. “It could be useful if fingerprints found at multiple crime scenes don't match anyone in the database,” he says. ralph listenbutt at Pennsylvania State University. “Is the person who left fingerprints at this particular crime scene the same person who left them?” [different] What about this other crime scene print? ”
However, “the accuracy is not sufficient at this time.” [for this model] The court will have to decide this,” Guo said.
“If this is actually used for legal purposes, it will require professional retraining. [bigger] database” Hod Lipsonalso part of the research team at Columbia University.
It is now confirmed that the previous year has been noted as the warmest year in the history of the Earth.
The average land and ocean surface temperature in 2023 will be 2.12 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th century average, surpassing the next closest temperature in 2016, as stated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in a Friday press conference with NASA.
The troubling records set in 2023 don’t stop there. The amount of heat stored in the upper ocean is at an all-time high, and Antarctica’s sea ice is at the lowest level on record. World temperature records date back to 1850.
This announcement did not come as a surprise to those closely following the climatological record but it does highlight the rapid changes occurring in the world as climate change and excessive greenhouse gas emissions continue to transform our planet.
According to NOAA, the past decade has been the warmest decade in modern history. Scientists predict that the Earth will continue to warm until world leaders effectively limit the use of fossil fuels.
The magnitude of the temperature change in 2023 surprised scientists, especially in comparison to the expectations for the year.
“We are observing this and, frankly, we’re surprised,” said Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. “The prediction we had at the beginning of the year was that this year would be pretty much on trend and there was a slim chance of a record because we were starting out in La Niña phase. That didn’t work out.”
Land and ocean temperatures exceeded previous records by about 0.27 degrees Fahrenheit.
“That’s really big. Most records are set in a few hundredths of a degree. This is a huge leap forward,” said Russell Vohs, NOAA’s director of climate monitoring and evaluation.
Schmidt said researchers do not fully understand why average temperatures have risen so much, and more research is needed to understand why 2023 was such a significant outlier.
“More research is needed to understand what happened in 2023,” Schmidt said. “I’m baffled by the results so far. Oh my goodness, it’s been another record year.”
Temperatures in the U.S. reached the fifth-highest level of the year, according to NOAA. Severe weather caused record losses in the US, with government agencies reporting $28 billion in disasters, six more than the previous record.
On Friday, the World Meteorological Organization also confirmed that 2023 will be the warmest year in global temperatures. WMO compared six climate datasets produced by different organizations, and all six ranked 2023 as the warmest year on record.
The group said El Niño, a natural climate pattern that releases heat from the ocean into the atmosphere, could contribute to record heat in 2023 and dictate this year’s weather.
“The shift from a cooling La Niña to a warming El Niño by mid-2023 is clearly reflected in the increase in temperatures since last year. El Niño typically has its greatest impact after global temperatures peak. 2024 could be even hotter given the global warming,” said WMO Secretary-General Celeste Sauro. “While El Niño events occur naturally and come and go from year to year, long-term climate change is intensifying and is unquestionably the result of human activity.”
NOAA estimates there is a one in three chance that 2024 will be warmer than 2023.
These exquisite images show starlings swirling and swooping to create dramatic cloud-like flocks known as murmurs.Photographer Seiren SolcareBest known for his portraits of Björk and Paul McCartney, these are from his new photo collection.
As a child growing up in southern Denmark near the Wadden Sea, Solker was fascinated by the murmurs of starlings. Returning several years later, he witnessed large flocks of these birds being attacked by peregrine falcons. “The shapes and formations the flock created to ward off attacking birds of prey amazed me. They were beautiful and dramatic, like ink paintings or calligraphy,” he says.
Black Sun #50
Seiren Solcare
After three years of photographing the phenomenon known as the “black sun” in Denmark, he expanded the project to other parts of Europe. What is shown in the main image is Black Sun #145, photographed over Rome's Piazza Venezia from a nearby rooftop. Moving clockwise, Black Sun #50, The top photo was taken in Glastonbury, England, and the bottom photo was taken in Glastonbury, England. Black Sun #230taken early one morning on the Italian island of Sardinia, as the birds were leaving their roost.
Black Sun #230
Seiren Solcare
“I believe that patterns in nature speak to us as humans on a deep and universal level,” Solkar says. “Experiencing these pure forms creates joy and recognition. To me, they seem to form a kind of language that many people can relate to. We want to inspire a deeper connection with ourselves.”
These images are featured in his new book starlingIt is a sequel. black sun. Solkær's photo is National Nordic MuseumSeattle, through March 10.
Some of the yeasts used to brew Guinness today are descendants of those used in 1903.
Artur Widak/NurPhoto SRL/Alamy
The yeast strain used to brew Guinness, Ireland's traditional stout, is genetically different from the yeast strains used to make other Irish beers.
Brewer's yeast (budding yeast) is an essential element in beer production. During fermentation, these microorganisms convert sugars from malt into alcohol and carbon dioxide. Using different strains of this yeast can result in different types of beer, such as stouts and lagers, and can also affect its flavor profile.
Daniel Kerruish A research team from food and drink company Diageo Ireland Unlimited has determined which yeasts are used to brew Guinness, based on records kept by the Guinness brewery since 1903 of the yeast strains used in its malty, bitter stout. investigated its evolution over many years.
The research team compared the genomes of 13 strains. S. cerevisiae There are up to 160 different strains, including those currently or historically used to brew Guinness, and six used by other Irish breweries.
Although Guinness yeast and other Irish brewer's yeasts belonged to the same lineage, Kerruish and his team discovered that they were genetically distinct enough that Guinness yeast belonged to a previously unidentified subpopulation. Did. Irish brewer's yeasts, other than Guinness, were more closely related to strains of British origin.
Guinness strains were also found to produce a particular balance of flavor compounds, including 4-vinylguaiacol, which produces a subtle clove-like aroma, and diacetyl, which imparts a buttery taste.
The research team also discovered that the two strains currently used in Guinness are descendants of the strain used to brew stout in 1903.
“The more we learn about Guinness yeast, the more we realize how unique and special it is,” says Keluisch. “Guinness is a great beer, so it probably won’t surprise you.”
“What's particularly unique and exciting about this study is that the company has very detailed records of past handling of the strains,” he says. brian gibson at the Technical University of Berlin, Germany. “This information could be used to further develop these yeasts and others used in industrial applications.”
Over the past four years, we’ve learned tough lessons about the balancing act of public health. Recent coronavirus research has highlighted the need to carefully weigh the benefits and harms of any action taken to mitigate the impact of the disease.
We need clarity on what has worked and what hasn’t in the fight against the coronavirus. One objective of a study was to understand more about this. Here’s what was found out…
Was the spread of the new coronavirus in nursing homes inevitable?
Early in the pandemic, being a resident or staff member in a care home carried the highest risk of death from coronavirus. The virus spread to nursing homes as elderly patients were discharged to make room for new hospitalizations. It was nearly impossible to stop infectious diseases from spreading within nursing homes, even if all patients were tested before being transferred to hospital, as tests can be negative until the person becomes infectious.
Did the personal protective equipment really work?
The importance of personal protective equipment (PPE) to reduce the risk of infection in hospitals and nursing homes was widely accepted even before COVID-19. The lack of availability of PPE was one of the main factors influencing coronavirus transmission in nursing homes.
Early in the pandemic, the benefits and risks of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) in the community were uncertain. NPIs such as closing schools and banning public gatherings were effective at reducing the spread of the virus.
Did wearing a mask help protect against coronavirus?
Wearing masks did reduce community transmission of coronavirus, at least until the Omicron variant emerged. The value of masks in schools is still debated, with some studies showing that mandatory mask-wearing in schools reduced infections at least for the first few weeks.
Has quarantine helped?
Testing and self-isolation should reduce coronavirus transmission, but studies have shown that for this to work, a significant proportion of infected people would need to self-isolate. Self-isolation rates may not have made a significant difference, as many infected people are never identified.
How effective was the lockdown?
Lockdowns have been associated with mental and musculoskeletal health problems. The overall impact of NPIs in relation to their harms is a broader societal debate beyond just a scientific question.
How effective has the vaccine rollout been?
Rapid development of effective vaccines has been a real success during the pandemic, preventing many more deaths. However, the vaccines did not create herd immunity and eradicated the virus. They also had side effects, such as blood clotting and heart inflammation. Advancements in vaccine science during the pandemic may benefit other infectious diseases for decades to come.
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) has had a profound impact on humanity. Prevention of infection by disinfecting surfaces and aerosols using non-chemical methods is highly desirable. Ultraviolet C (UVC) light is uniquely positioned to achieve pathogen inactivation.in new paper in a diary ACS PhotonicsScientists have reported the inactivation of the SARS-CoV-2 virus by UVC radiation and are investigating the mechanism.
David other. demonstrated inactivation of SARS-CoV-2 by 266 nm UVC light. This closely matches the absorption spectra of RNA and aromatic amino acids.Image credit: David other., doi: 10.1021/acsphotonics.3c00828.
The COVID-19 pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 spreads through nosocomial, public, and workplace-based infections.
Transmission is thought to be direct through respiratory droplets or indirect through fomites, leading to increased interest in virus disinfection.
The SARS-CoV-2 virion consists of a core of nucleic acid strands containing the virus's genetic information, surrounded by a lipid membrane with protruding protein spikes. Each component is required for infection.
In the new study, Sumeet Mahajan and colleagues at the University of Southampton investigated how ultraviolet laser light affects each of these key components and destroys the virus.
By using special lasers with two different wavelengths, they were able to see how each viral component breaks down under bright light.
They found that the genomic material was highly sensitive to degradation, and the protein spike lost the ability to bind to human cells.
UV light includes UVA light, UVB light, and UVC light. Very little UVC light with frequencies below 280 nm reaches the Earth's surface from the sun.
The authors used UVC light in their study, which is less studied because of its antiseptic properties.
UVC light is strongly absorbed by various viral components, such as genetic material (about 260 nm) and protein spikes (about 230 nm), allowing the team to choose laser frequencies of 266 nm and 227 nm for this project.
Researchers found that low-power 266nm light causes RNA damage and affects the genetic information of viruses.
266 nm light also damaged the structure of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, reducing its ability to bind to human cells by breaking disulfide bonds and aromatic amino acids.
Although 227 nm light was less effective at inducing RNA damage, it was effective at damaging proteins through oxidation, a chemical reaction involving oxygen that unravels protein structures.
Importantly, SARS-CoV-2 has one of the largest genomes of any RNA virus. This makes them particularly sensitive to genomic damage.
“Inactivating airborne viruses with light provides a versatile tool for disinfecting public spaces and sensitive equipment that is difficult to decontaminate using traditional methods,” Professor Mahajan said.
“We found differences in the susceptibility of the molecular components of the virus to light inactivation. This opens up the possibility of fine-tuned disinfection techniques.”
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George David other. Mechanism of SARS-CoV-2 inactivation using UVC laser irradiation. ACS Photonics, published online on December 25, 2023. doi: 10.1021/acsphotonics.3c00828
For the first time, physicists have directly imaged small clusters of noble gas atoms at room temperature. This result opens up exciting possibilities for fundamental research in condensed matter physics and applications in quantum information technology.
Xenon nanoclusters between two graphene layers. Sizes range from 2 to 10 atoms. Image credit: Manuel L'Engle.
“When I was researching the use of ion irradiation to modify the properties of graphene and other two-dimensional materials, I noticed something unusual. They can become trapped between the sheets,” the University of Vienna said. Dr. Jani Kotaski and his colleagues.
“This happens when noble gas ions pass through the first graphene layer fast enough to pass through, but not the second graphene layer.”
“Once trapped between the layers, the noble gases are free to move because they do not form chemical bonds.”
“But to accommodate the noble gas atoms, the graphene bends to form tiny pockets.”
“Here, two or more noble gas atoms can meet and form two-dimensional noble gas nanoclusters that are ordered and densely packed.”
The researchers' method overcomes the difficulty that noble gases do not form stable structures under experimental conditions at ambient temperatures.
“We observed these clusters using a scanning transmission electron microscope, and they are really fascinating and very fun to look at,” said Dr. Manuel L'Engle, a physicist at the University of Vienna.
“They rotate, jump, grow, and shrink as we imagine them.”
“Getting the atoms between the layers was the most difficult part of the job.”
“Achieving this gives us a simple system to study fundamental processes related to the growth and behavior of materials.”
“The next step is to study the properties of clusters containing different noble gases and how they behave at low and high temperatures,” Dr Kotasky added.
“With the use of noble gases in light sources and lasers, these new structures may enable future applications such as quantum information technology.”
a paper The findings were published in this week's magazine Natural materials.
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M. Langre other. Two-dimensional few atomic noble gas clusters within a graphene sandwich. nut.meter, published online on January 11, 2024. doi: 10.1038/s41563-023-01780-1
HONG KONG — Didn't fall from the Empire State Building.
Instead, the giant ape, sometimes called the “real King Kong,” was driven to extinction by climate change that made its favorite fruit unavailable during the dry season, according to a new study published Wednesday in the journal Nature. The results have been announced.
An artist's impression of a herd of giant apes Gigantopithecus blackii in a forest landscape in southern China.Southern Cross University/AFP – Getty Images
They can grow up to 10 feet tall and weigh up to 650 pounds. Gigantopithecus brachy Hundreds of thousands of years ago, they roamed the forested plains of southern China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, feeding on fruits and flowers.
But researchers have discovered that the apes' harsh diet may have led to the species' extinction.
The herbivorous apes made the “fatal mistake of becoming reluctant to change their food preferences to find new, more nutritious foods,” the study's lead researcher Yin-chi Chan said Thursday. told NBC News.
“As the environment changed, the food this great ape preferred became unavailable. But this great ape did not adapt to its dietary preferences. It remained dependent on a diet with low nutritional value. ” he added.
Zhang, a Beijing-based paleontologist, said the creatures stuck to dense forests, while apes like orangutans quickly adapted and moved into open forests, eating small animals.
Gigantopithecus blackii, thought to be the largest primate on Earth, roamed the plains of southern China before going extinct. Southern Cross University/AFP – Getty Images
The reason for the species' extinction has been a mystery ever since a tooth was discovered in a Hong Kong pharmacy in 1935 by German-Dutch paleontologist Gustav Heinrich Ralph von Königswald. It was sold as “Dragon Tooth”.
This discovery led to extensive research for more fossils, but 85 years later, only 2,000 isolated teeth and parts of the lower jaw have been discovered. No parts other than the skull were recovered.
Without a “precise timeline” of extinctions, “we're looking for clues in the wrong places,” said Kira Westaway, one of the study's lead authors and a geochronologist at Macquarie University in Sydney. says.
However, the researchers were able to use one of the latest techniques, called “luminescence dating,” which allowed them to determine the age of the soil around the fossils in 22 caves in southern China.
From this, they concluded that the great apes went extinct between 295,000 and 215,000 years ago.
“Now we have a target zone. We have a target period. So we start looking at changes in the environment,” Westaway said.
The researchers also found clues in the fauna around the cave, with analysis of pollen and wear on the great apes' teeth showing that changing seasons led to a lack of fruit and reduced reliance on less nutritious food. It became clear that he was no longer able to earn money.
“Gigants couldn't really expand their foraging range to find more suitable food because they're so big. Orangutans are also very small, mobile, and very “It's agile,” Westaway said, adding that the new study provided a blueprint for further research into the main extinction event.
“You need to get a very precise timeline. You need to look at what the environment is doing and then look at how they acted,” she said.
From about 2 million to 22 million years ago, dozens of species of great apes lived in Africa, Europe, and Asia. Today, only gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos, and orangutans remain.
Westaway said the research could also open the door to future possibilities for how humans can adapt to adverse weather events and ensure species survival.
“This sets a precedent for trying to understand how primates respond to environmental stress and what makes certain primates vulnerable and what makes others resilient.” she says.
Mitchell Agarwal
Mithil Aggarwal is a reporter and producer for NBC News based in Hong Kong.
Northern Europeans have a higher risk of multiple sclerosis due to ancient DNA, a study reveals. About 5,000 years ago, people flocked to this area.
This discovery emerged from a large-scale study comparing modern DNA with DNA obtained from ancient human teeth and bones. This allowed scientists to explore prehistoric migration and associated disease-related genes.
Results show that when the Yamnaya people migrated from present-day Ukraine and Russia to northwestern Europe during the Bronze Age, they carried a genetic mutation. This mutation is now known to increase the risk of multiple sclerosis.
The study, published in the journal Nature, suggests that these genes not only allowed the Yamnaya to flourish and spread but also protected them from infectious diseases carried by cattle and sheep.
The project, led by Eske Willerslev and the University of Copenhagen, is pioneering ancient DNA research and comparing it to similar research, including tracking down early cousins such as Neanderthals.
The process of ancient DNA extraction at the Lundbeck Foundation Geogenetics Center in Copenhagen.Michal Schlosser / University of Copenhagen (via AP)
This gene bank’s first exploration of multiple sclerosis is especially relevant since the disease is most common among people of white Scandinavian descent, yet the reason remains unknown.
Scientists believe certain infections can cause MS in genetically susceptible individuals. Over 230 genetic mutations have been identified that may increase the risk of this disease.
The study uncovered major changes in the population of northern Europe, tracing the migration of the Yamnaya people around 5,000 years ago. The gene bank was used to compare ancient DNA with around 400,000 modern humans
Comparisons revealed that MS-related genetic variants remained in the north, the direction the Yamnaya migrated, rather than in southern Europe. This supports the idea that the Yamnaya people are the closest ancestors of modern Danes, and the incidence of MS is particularly high in Scandinavian countries.
Dr. Astrid Iversen from the University of Oxford explains how exposure to animal-based bacteria may lead to imbalances in the immune system, possibly playing a role in the early development of autoimmune diseases.
While the study provides a potential explanation for the North-South MS disparity in Europe, further research is required to confirm the link. This statement comes from New York’s M.D., Samira Asghari, a genetics expert at Sinai School of Medicine, who was not involved in the study.
Lidar scan of Ecuador’s Upano Valley reveals raised platform
Stephen Rostain
Aerial survey reveals the largest previously discovered pre-colonial city in the Amazon, connected by an extensive road network.
“This settlement is much larger than other settlements in the Amazon,” he says. Stefan Rostain at the French National Center for Scientific Research in Paris. “They are equivalent to Maya sites.”
Additionally, these cities are between 3,000 and 1,500 years old, making them older than other pre-Columbian cities found in the Amazon. It is not clear why the people who built them disappeared.
The Amazon rainforest was thought to be largely untouched until Italian explorer Christopher Columbus arrived in the Americas in the 15th century. In fact, the first Europeans reported seeing many farms and towns in the area.
These reports, long ignored, have been borne out in recent decades by the discovery of ancient earthworks and vast expanses of black soil created by farmers.According to some estimates, the pre-Columbian population of the Amazon was Up to 8 million.
Since the 1990s, Rostain and his colleagues have been studying archaeological sites in the Upano Valley of the Amazon River in Ecuador, in the foothills of the Andes Mountains. Traces of an ancient settlement were first discovered there in his 1970s, but only a few remains have been excavated.
In 2015, Rostain’s team conducted an aerial survey using LIDAR, a laser scanning technology that can create detailed 3D maps of the surface beneath most vegetation, revealing features that are normally invisible to the eye. did. The findings, which have just been published, show that the settlements were much more widespread than anyone realized.
The survey revealed more than 6,000 raised earth platforms within an area of 300 square kilometers. These are the sites where wooden buildings once stood, and excavations have revealed postholes and fireplaces in these buildings.
Most of the platforms are approximately 10 x 20 meters and 2 meters high and are believed to be the site of residential buildings. The largest was 40×140 meters and 5 meters high and was considered the site of a monumental building used for rituals.
Surrounding the home were fields, many of which were drained by small canals dug around them. “The valley has been almost completely modified,” Rostain says.
Analysis of pottery suggests that corn, beans, caniolk, and sweet potatoes were cultivated.
Overall, there were five major settlements in the study area. According to Rostain, these could be described as garden cities because of their low density of buildings.
The survey also revealed a network of straight roads made by digging out soil and piling it up on the sides. The longest span at least 25 kilometers, but may extend beyond the surveyed area.
Upano Valley in Ecuador
Stephen Rostain
What's strange, Rostain says, is that the people of Upano went to great lengths to straighten the road. For example, in one place they dug down 5 meters instead of along the contour line. So the road probably had a symbolic meaning, he says, since there was no practical reason to make it straight.
There are traces of defensive structures such as ditches in places, suggesting that there may have been some sort of conflict between groups.
In the rest of the Amazon, many settlements were abandoned after the arrival of Europeans, as most of the population died from disease and violence, probably caused by the invaders.
However, the Upano artifacts dated by Rostain's team are all more than 1,500 years old, suggesting that the valley settlements were abandoned after this period, long before colonial times. doing. It's not clear why, but the team found layers of volcanic ash, suggesting a series of eruptions may have forced people to leave the valley.
“This demonstrates the unprecedented degree of complexity and density of payments in this early period,” he says. michael heckenberger at the University of Florida. “The authors rightly conclude that the complexity and scale are now comparable to well-known cases such as the Maya.”
“This is the largest complex containing a large settlement ever found in the Amazon,” he says. charles clement at the National Amazonian Institute in Manaus, Brazil.
They were also found in an area of the Amazon that other researchers had concluded was sparsely inhabited during the pre-Columbian period, Clement said.
Researchers have discovered what is believed to be the oldest skin fossil on record.
The alligator-like skin, which is at least 286 million years old, was preserved in an ancient buried cave in what is now Oklahoma. The discovery could help unravel evolutionary mysteries and provide important clues to a time when some animals were transitioning to living on land.
“Finding old skin fossils like this is a great opportunity to peer into the past and learn what the skin looked like on these early animals,” said the University of Toronto graduate student and co-author of the book. says lead author Ethan Mooney. the paper said in a news release.
Three-dimensional skin casting and compacted fossil of an unknown amniote. Mooney et al. / Current Biology
Discovery announced Thursday Published in the scientific magazine “Current Biology”, created in a quarry and cave system called Richard's Spur. Researchers believe the animals fell into the cave system and were preserved by seeping oil and tar that enveloped them.
Skin is a three-dimensional mold with fossilized tissue attached to it.
“There are very few examples of Paleozoic land animals that have preserved skin,” said Paul Olsen, a paleontologist and Columbia University professor who was not involved in the paper. “He's one of the reasons why this is so important.”
Lepospondyl, temnospondyl, and dermal scales of an unknown quadruped. Mooney et al. / Current Biology
The preserved skin was discovered at a site full of fossils of lizard-like creatures called lizards. captorinus aguti, However, it was not clearly associated with any particular skeleton.
Olsen said the skin could help solve the mystery of how reptiles and mammals diverged from each other during evolutionary history. Her two branches of life have a common ancestor.
“They hypothesize that the common ancestor of reptiles and mammals had reptilian-like skin, but their reptilian-like skin is not associated with the skeleton, so they have We can't really show that with the materials we have,” Olsen said of the authors. “Maybe this site will reveal that in the future.”
Horny zone of Captorhinus aguti (OMNH 52541). Mooney et al. / Current Biology
Artist's impression of Tyrannosaurus macraensis, a relative of Tyrannosaurus rex
sergei krasinski
A portion of a dinosaur skull discovered 40 years ago has been identified as a new species of dinosaur. tyrannosaurusand is probably the closest relative tyrannosaurus rex. The study adds a new twist to the long-standing debate about how many different tyrannosaurus species there were, and could help shed light on how the iconic predator evolved.
tyrannosaurus They first appeared in North America about 68 million years ago, 2 million years before the mass extinction event that wiped out most dinosaurs. Paleontologists are puzzled about the origins of this carnivore. Some suggest that it is an ancestor of tyrannosaurus Some people walked across land bridges from prehistoric Asia, while others traced their origins to southern North America.
Anthony Fiorillo Researchers from the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science reviewed fossils in the museum's collection that were discovered in a rock formation known as the McRae Formation in western New Mexico.
Skulls were originally classified as: tyrannosaurus, Fiorillo and his colleagues noticed differences in the bones.They proposed that this specimen represented an older species, which they named Tyrannosaurus macraiensis in reference to the rock in which it was found.
They estimated that the dinosaur was about 12 meters long, comparable in size to an aosaurus. Tyrannosaurus, However, it lived about 4 million years ago.
difference between tyrannosaurus and T. macraensis It would have been relatively subtle.on the other hand tyrannosaurus He had a prominent ridge on his eyebrow, and a bone-crushingly wide jaw with the same ridge. T. macraensis The body is less developed and the skull is thinner, Fiorillo said.
Jawbone identified as new species of Tyrannosaurus
nick longrich
Other recent studies have proposed that several species exist. tyrannosaurus And the so-called tyrannosaurus Fossils need to be reallocated. However, such proposals are controversial and are mostly rejected by dinosaur paleontologists. The new study is likely to spark further debate about that number. tyrannosaurus The species was found in North America.
“I hesitate to consider Tyrannosaurus macraiensis as different from tyrannosaurus rex” Jared Voris at the University of Calgary, Canada. He points out that many of the anatomical features that make the new species unique are also present in the specimen. tyrannosaurus.
Regardless of species assignment, the existence of such large tyrannosaurs millions of years ago is tyrannosaurus This suggests that southwestern North America was an important center of dinosaur evolution. “The age range of the proposed specimen is unique and requires further study,” Voris said. That's because it could outline a clearer picture of dinosaur evolution during the last few million years of the Cretaceous.
The New Mexico tyrannosaurus was discovered in the same rock as a giant horned dinosaur, an anthropomorphic duck-billed dinosaur, and a long-necked herbivore up to 30 meters long. Fiorillo and his colleagues tyrannosaurus It may have evolved to its gigantic size to prey on these large herbivores, and later spread north as the last “tyrant lizard” to stalk the planet.
A quoll searches for termites in a fallen log.Poor night vision is also part of the reason they have to forage for food in the heat of the day.
kristin cooper
As Australia's temperatures continue to get hotter, the specialized fur that possums evolved to save energy is now putting them at risk of overheating.
possum (Myrmecobius fasciatus) is an unusual marsupial in that it is active during the day, feeding on termites hidden under tree logs and topsoil. Because these insects are low-calorie foods, possums, which typically weigh about 500 grams, have evolved fur that absorbs heat from the sun, saving calories spent on generating body heat.
As temperatures rise, that evolutionary trait can backfire, causing possums to overheat within minutes of feeding in direct sunlight. kristin cooper at Curtin University, Perth, Australia.
Quolls once roamed southern Australia, but over the past two centuries they have fallen prey to cats and foxes introduced by European settlers. Currently, these endangered animals are concentrated in just two small nature reserves in Western Australia.
To increase their numbers, conservation groups are gradually moving the marsupials to areas protected from their native predators. But global warming is making some of these regions even hotter and drier.
“Environmental change is occurring at an unprecedented rate due to anthropogenic global warming, which means that predicting future species distribution and population patterns, protecting and managing them requires environmental conditions “This means it is important to understand the ecological consequences of changes in philip withers researchers from the University of Western Australia write in a paper.
To learn more, the pair used a thermal imaging camera to film 50 wild animals eating termites at different times of the day from 2020 to 2021.
At each site, portable weather stations were used to record factors such as temperature, wind speed, and humidity. They then incorporated this data into a computer program to model how environmental conditions affected the quolls' internal temperatures.
The researchers found that on days of high heat stress, such as in dry environments with temperatures of 40 degrees Celsius, possums overheat within 10 minutes of exposure to direct sunlight. After that, they need to stop eating and hide from the sun until their body temperature drops.
Shade is helpful, but shade is often scarce, and seeking shade limits the termite-hunting territory of possums, Cooper says. The model also suggests that the combination of high outdoor temperatures and radiant heat from the ground can cause possums to overheat even in the shade.
Feeding at night is not an option for possums, as they have poor night vision and lack the strength to invade termite mounds at night.
To overcome these problems, Cooper recommends conservation groups move quolls to cooler areas of their territory and provide plenty of shade.
Captorhinus aguti, an ancient reptile that may be the source of the oldest skin fossils
michael debraga
The collection of fossilized skin fragments is the oldest ever discovered. This 300 million-year-old fossil belongs to a crocodile-like reptile and could help us understand how skin evolved.
After an animal dies, the skin decomposes quickly, so fossilization is rare. But this early Paleozoic reptile eventually ended up in a suitable place to preserve its skin. It was buried in oily clay deposits in an ancient limestone cave in what is now Oklahoma. There was little oxygen in the cave sediments, which slowed the decomposition process long enough for the tissue to fossilize, trapping the mummified skin mold.
The discovery was a surprise to researchers who had been examining the tiny black fossil fragments using microscopic 3D scans. “They were so small and skinny that we had to be very gentle with them,” he says. tea maho At the University of Toronto, Canada. Their scans revealed a pebble-like scale texture similar to crocodile skin, especially the flatter, smaller scales on the crocodile's flanks.
Researchers concluded that the skin belonged to a Paleozoic reptile, but it is unclear which species. Based on nearby fossils, they suspect the skin belongs to an extinct lizard-like species. Captorinus aguti. It's not clear how the reptile reached its final resting place. Perhaps it fell into the cave from a vertical shaft or was swept into the cave by a heavy rainstorm.
The fossilized skin fragments are about 21 million years older than any previously discovered, showing how and when vertebrates developed skin after they transitioned from living in the sea to living on land. It reveals new clues about how it evolved. “This is a unique opportunity to examine the first chapter in the evolution of higher vertebrates,” he says. ethan mooney at the University of Toronto. Skin helped aquatic animals make the leap to life on land by providing a watertight barrier between sensitive organs and the outside world.
Following the feedback discussion on New Zealand’s Blackhole public toilets (25 November 2023), news has arrived of a plan called “Using black holes as secondary batteries and nuclear reactors” published in the magazine Physical Review D.
Successful engineers, much like unsuccessful engineers, are not easily intimidated by limitations that others believe are insurmountable. The plan’s authors, Zhan-Feng Mai and Run-Qiu Yang of Tianjin University in China, continue to keep their jaws high and scratch their heads.
They say, “The strong gravity of a black hole prevents classical matter from escaping from it, but fortunately energy can be extracted from a black hole through quantum or classical processes.” he wrote.
They wave away a series of problems that are said to plague anyone who even proposes to get close to a black hole. They state that their black hole is a “mini black hole”.
This kind of confidence inspires venture capitalists, a diverse group of people who are experiencing the golden age of the early 2020s. After raising capital and extracting a suitable portion from it, many people are looking for new big opportunities to invest some of it.
Black hole batteries could be their next big thing, following in the capricious footsteps of cryptocurrencies and artificial intelligence. Many investors are finding both to be as compellingly attractive as black holes.
2 story superpower
Alison Litherland tells the story of a boring superpower with useful duplicity.
she says: “When you mentioned Rosemary Fuhrman’s husband’s ability to read her two pages in different Braille at the same time (September 16, 2023), I was reminded of the small superpowers she had when her children were small. I remembered my abilities.
“I was able to read a bedtime story aloud to her while at the same time quietly reading a novel to herself. I don’t know how my brain was able to distinguish between the two stories, but… It certainly helped with the boredom of re-reading the same story before bed.”
The title rests on a letter to the editor from Anna Vittoria Mattioli and Alberto Farinetti of the University of Modena-Reggio Emilia in Italy. The diary is Nutrition, metabolism and cardiovascular disease.
Mattioli and Farinetti explore some of the ambiguity in medical research and medical pronouncements regarding the positive and negative health effects of drinking coffee.
Some people drink espresso in some places, while others drink other forms of coffee. Some people drink coffee filtered, while others drink it unfiltered.
Some people drink coffee “in conjunction with a meal” in some places, while others drink coffee on its own. Some men are men and others are not, and there may be differences in “absorption of macronutrients and micronutrients and their bioavailability.”
Mattioli and Farinetti suggest further research is needed to “de-confound” under confusing headings.
he says: “The old chestnut about drainage circulation rears its head again. I see. Given the very small volume and mass involved in hair, and the fact that people spend a significant amount of time moving around in non-vertical positions, it is absurd to suggest that the Coriolis force could be responsible for the swirling of hair. The Coriolis force is responsible for the surprising twist in how objects appear to move when they rotate Please remember that.
The new version gives a meandering nod to the Coriolis question, this time at a distance. “Other non-hemispheric factors are [be] Maternal health, maternal nutrition, and prenatal hormone exposure were evaluated in samples from different locations in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, before considering the potential influence of hemispheric environmental physical factors such as the Coriolis force. I did.”
Sheffield names the harvest
Susan Frank is second to none when it comes to sharing information about garden varieties.
She writes: “We wanted to include the names of two of our trustees associated with Sheffield Botanic Gardens Trust, Barbara Plant and Christine Rose.”
According to feedback, Sheffield Botanic Gardens Trust Website Trustee Miles Stevenson, who is neither a plant nor a rose, makes it clear (by displaying special information in parentheses) that it is a chair.
Mark Abrahams hosted the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony and co-founded the magazine Annals of Improbable Research. Previously, he was working on unusual uses of computers. his website is impossible.com Have a story for feedback? You can email your article to Feedback at feedback@newscientist.com. Please enter your home address. This week’s and past feedback can be found on our website.
China played a big role in the growth of solar and wind power in 2023
Yuan Yuan Xie / Alamy Stock Photo
According to one study, 2023 will see a record expansion of renewable energy, with nearly 50% more solar, wind, and other clean energy sources built than in 2022. report From the International Energy Agency (IEA). But this unprecedented pace lags behind the pace needed to reach net-zero emissions and limit dangerous climate warming by mid-century.
“When you look at the numbers, it definitely has a ‘wow’ effect.” Fatih Birolsaid the IEA Director-General at a press conference today. “Renewable energy expansion exceeds 500 gigawatts in 2023.”
Under existing policies, the IEA predicts that renewable energy will overtake coal to account for the largest share of global electricity in 2025. The IEA predicts that by the end of 2025, renewable energy capacity will increase by 2.5 times. “It's very good news,” Birol said.
This is a significantly higher increase than projections made ahead of the COP28 climate change summit to be held in Dubai in December 2023. report A paper published last November by British energy think tank Ember found that the world is on track to double production capacity by the end of 2010.
but, dave jones At Ember said this difference is mainly due to the latest data on China's unusual development of solar and wind power, rather than policy changes or new project announcements in the past few months. The IEA report says China will have access to more solar energy in 2023 than the entire world saw in 2022.
“China is the most important driver of this impressive growth that we will see in 2023,” Birol said. He also pointed to record renewable energy capacity increases in the US, Europe, Brazil and India as a key driver of the surge.
Nevertheless, the IEA forecasts that the world still lags behind the goal of tripling renewable energy capacity by 2030, one of the key outcomes agreed at COP28. .
“We're not there yet, but we're not miles away from that goal,” Birol said, adding that officials are concerned about what the COP28 goals on clean energy and methane will do in the “real world.” It added that it plans to closely monitor the situation.
Closing the renewable energy gap will require different interventions in different regions of the world, the report says. In high-income countries, this will include improving electricity grids and speeding up the granting of permits for large backlogs of energy projects. Low-income countries need improved access to finance for clean energy projects.
“We are talking about transitioning away from fossil fuels, but there are still many economies in Africa that are in debt,” he says. Amos Wemanya Speaking at PowerShift Africa, a Kenyan energy think tank, he added that some of the continent's clean energy investments are going to rich countries.
Mr Jones said if the twin COP28 targets of tripling renewable energy and doubling energy efficiency were met by the end of 2010, global carbon dioxide emissions would be cut by more than a third and fossil fuels would be cut by more than a third. It says it could start to be replaced by fuel. “2024 will be the year renewable energy goes from being a nuisance to an existential threat to the fossil fuel industry,” he says.
The storm is pummeling much of the northern United States, a welcome relief for some areas that have seen little snow in recent months.
A late start to winter until early January limited ski resort operations and raised early concerns about water supplies for the summer.
“We’re playing catch-up now,” said Dan McEvoy, a regional climatologist at the Desert Research Institute in Reno, Nevada.
About 800 monitoring stations track snowfall across the West. More than 90% of those stations reported measurements below the median. Mr McEvoy said it was perfect for this time of year. It’s not unusual for parts of the West to be below seasonal averages, but it’s unusual for so many areas to be below them at once.
In Western states, the size of the snowpack affects how much water farmers can use, how severe the wildfire season is, and how much electricity hydroelectric dams can generate. Climate scientists predict that as the climate warms, snowpack will decrease, further threatening already tight supplies in much of the West.
Scientists have struggled to quantify the impact of climate change on snowpack, but the results of the study were published Wednesday. Published in Nature magazine They found that climate change is the cause of the decreasing trend in snowfall.
“Our analysis reveals that many of the world’s most populated basins lie on cliffs of rapid snowfall,” the authors write.
Previous studies have shown that snowfall is decreasing. Quantifying snow cover (the amount of water stored as snow) is more difficult because it varies significantly from year to year and is difficult to measure. In some cases, the atmosphere warms and can hold more water, leading to more snowfall or more extreme events.
“Snow is a very bad canary for a coal mine,” said Justin Mankin, an author of the Nature paper and a climatologist at Dartmouth College, who continued the study because the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change did not cooperate. . We were able to talk clearly about how the overall snowpack had changed.
For the study, Mankin and Dartmouth Earth System Scientist Alexander Gottlieb analyzed snowpack in 169 river basins in the Northern Hemisphere. They identified clear snowpack trends in 82 of these basins and sharp declines in the snowpack that supplies water to populated areas. Researchers were able to confirm that human influence, or global warming, is causing changes in 31 watersheds.
Their research suggests that many watersheds in the Northern Hemisphere are nearing rapid loss, with the potential to rebuild water supplies for more than 2 billion people.
“When snow falls off a cliff, it accelerates and falls off the cliff,” Mankin said. “We are fundamentally unprepared.”
McEvoy said a ridge of high pressure blocked moisture in December, leaving areas in the Rocky Mountains and Great Plains with dry conditions. Snow fell in parts of the Midwest, including Chicago, Minneapolis, and the Dakotas.
“Normally in late December we have snow on the ground. We really didn’t have any,” McEvoy said of those cities, adding that some parts of the Midwest saw average monthly temperatures in December that were below normal in degrees Fahrenheit. He pointed out that the temperature was 10 to 15 degrees higher.
Meanwhile, warmer temperatures and several storms in the Pacific Northwest hindered snowpack development. Rain wiped out the snow after the storm in the Northeast.
Recent storms have put 164 million people in the United States under weather warnings, and the situation will improve, not ease.
“From what we’ve seen so far, it doesn’t look like a pattern that will completely eliminate the snow drought,” McEvoy said.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Prediction Center predicts a warm and dry winter for most northern states, due in part to strong El Niño conditions. El Niño is a naturally occurring pattern associated with warm ocean temperatures in the Pacific Ocean that slow trade winds. .
“El Niño is a double whammy, with warmer waters from the Pacific Ocean adding more heat and energy to the atmosphere as a result of warming due to climate change,” McEvoy said. “This combination allows us to have a warm year ahead.”
All living things must eat in some way…whatever the shape of their mouth. And there are some truly bizarre mouths in the animal kingdom. Some of the most unusual examples are enough to surprise you.
Unfussy Eater
Striped mackerel
Photo credit: Alex Mustard/naturepl.com
Most animals are relatively picky, preferring only plants or only meat, and tend to rely on one strategy when foraging or hunting.
Mackerel are unusual in that they use two different feeding methods, filter feeding and particulate feeding, and switch between them opportunistically as needed. Particulate feeding involves capturing each prey item individually, like sharks and penguins.
Filter feeding is the way bivalves and baleen whales eat, and requires scraping bits of food out of the water. Mackerel uses the underside of its gills. The gills have overlapping bone hooks called gill akirs. As a makeshift sieve to catch prey suspended in the water.
All fish have gill rakers, and variations in their appearance are sometimes used to identify species. When the prey is small and numerous, such as in a swarm of plankton, filter feeding can yield more food with minimal effort.
For large prey or sparse prey, it is better to feed with particulate bait. Even when surrounded by thousands of other fish in schools, mackerel keep their bellies full by not being too picky about how they eat.
Rapid Inflation
Gulper eel
Photo credit: Norbert Wu / Minden / Naturepl.com
Food is scarce in the deep sea, so the animals living there must cherish every meal. Few animals take this as seriously as the gulper eel. Gulper eels are also known as pelican eels because they share similar characteristics with birds.
Gulper eels have huge, loosely hinged mouths that are about a quarter of their body length. Their mouths are paper-thin, fragile, and unwieldy, so they hide their mouths when not feeding. Gulper eels have long, whip-like tails, but they are not fast enough to chase prey.
Instead, they float and wait, camouflaged in the darkness of the deep ocean. When a school of crustaceans or squid approaches, the eel lunges forward, quickly opening its origami mouth and swallowing large amounts of water.
After the attack, the eel’s mouth becomes fully inflated, making it look silly, like a candy or a balloon. It then slowly pushes excess water out of its gills before swallowing its unlucky prey. We are obsessed with this distinctive feature.
Bottom Feeder
Sea urchin
Photo credit: Sergio Hanquet / Naturepl / Nature in Stock
The mouth of a sea urchin is on the underside, which is probably the least unusual way to eat a sea urchin. The interior of a sea urchin is a complex pyramid-shaped structure made of hard calcareous calcium carbonate. Substances also found in corals.
The pyramid is made up of triangular plates, each with a hook-shaped tooth at the end. Like the crane machines found in old arcades, the pyramid can move up and down and tilt. You can also move each plate to scrape, grab, dig, and even smash rocks.
The individual plates are ground while sliding against each other, so they are ready for cutting at any time. The entire device is precisely controlled by a network of wire-like muscles. With the help of powerful jaws, sea urchins greedily eat food. A single colony of these spiny starfish relatives can destroy an entire kelp forest by chewing through rocks and uprooting seaweed.
The sea urchin’s biological claw machine, properly called Aristotle’s lantern, is so unique that it has inspired engineers to design new machines to scoop up soil samples on Mars.
The Ultimate Underbite
Cookie cutter shark
Photo courtesy of NOAA Image Library
Back in the 1970s, several U.S. Navy submarines returned from missions with damaged sonar equipment. Initial fears about the enemy’s new weapon disappear when the culprit turns out to be a cookie-cutter shark.
Cookie-cutter sharks, as their name suggests, leave perfectly round cuts in large fish and marine mammals (as well as the rubber covers of submarine sonar domes). These parasites make a living by stealth and deception, floating underwater until something big and tasty approaches.
They sneak up on you and hug you with their thick, fleshy sucker lips. The shark locks itself in place. It digs in with its thin upper teeth and cuts through the flesh with the razor-sharp teeth of its lower jaw. Twisting and turning, they move their mandibles back and forth like a bandsaw, cutting out perfectly round discs of flesh before sneaking back into the dark depths of the ocean.
Cookie-cutter sharks are harmless to humans and merely a pest to their larger prey, but they occasionally cause nuisance to marine activities, damaging unprotected equipment and communication cables.
Monster Mouth
Lamprey
Photo credit: Blue Planet Archive
Several Hollywood creatures, including the sandworm Dune, the kraken Pirates of the Caribbean, and from the Sarlacc Return of the Jedi, a stylized version of a lamprey’s mouth. There’s something deeply unsettling about the concentric rings of sharp teeth that reach deep into the black depths of a monster’s throat.
In reality, lampreys are evolutionarily ancient animals that separated from other vertebrates more than 500 million years ago, before jaws and bones evolved. Lampreys can latch on to large fish, whales, and even sharks using a combination of suction and hooks made of keratin (a protein that claws are made of).
Lampreys spend several days using their sharp, piston-like, rough tongues to burrow into the flesh of their prey and suck in its blood and body fluids. Lampreys’ frightening appearance and unpleasant lifestyle have given them a bad reputation.
In fact, lamprey larvae are important members of the ecosystem, filtering river water and sediment like bivalves, and are also an important food source for benthic predators such as sturgeon.
A Large Plate of Food
Humpback whale
Photo credit: John Cornforth
Humpback whales only eat between spring and fall, when they vacation in the Arctic and Antarctic waters where prey is abundant. With stomachs to fill and time limited, they rely on a creative strategy known as “bubble net hunting” to get the job done.
Humpback whales often travel in groups, diving beneath their prey and then slowly rising to the surface in a spiraling motion while blowing bubbles. The bubbles scare and confuse small fish called krill and crustacean prey like shrimp.
With the help of long fins, the whale rotates more and more tightly, concentrating future prey in dense masses near the water surface. Eventually, they take turns lunging forward, opening their mouths and punching through the solidified prey, swallowing tens of thousands of liters in one gulp.
Whales force water through their mouths, filtering it through sieve-like baleen plates on the roof of their mouths. Fish and krill are trapped inside strong, flexible hairs, ready to be swallowed whole by hunters.
Sawtooth Throat
Leatherback turtle
Photo credit: Tui De Roy/naturepl
Leatherback turtles spend most of their lives in the open ocean, tracking prey into deep water during the day and shallow water at night. They are always on the lookout for jellyfish, their favorite food, but will also eat other soft snacks, such as squid and small crustaceans.
Leatherbacks act like natural pest control, controlling jellyfish populations and protecting juvenile fish and beaches from nuisance swarms, as each leatherback turtle eats hundreds of kilograms of jellyfish per day.
Jellyfish are squishy, so they can be difficult to track down, especially if they don’t have teeth or claws. Leatherback turtles use their delicate, scissor-like jaws to cut jellyfish into easily digestible pieces. Additionally, the leatherback’s throat is lined with backward-pointing spines that prevent slippery prey from escaping once captured (jellyfish can survive being cut in half, after all).
Leatherbacks can also eat poisonous organisms such as jellyfish, so the spines likely provide some protection from the stinging cells of their prey.
Nutcracker
Paku fish
Photo credit: Jean-claude Soboul/Nature.pl
Yes, cheese! The pakuu fish has many flat, square teeth in its mouth, giving it a human-like smile. Pakuu fish, also known as “vegetarian piranhas” because of their body shape and color, prefer freshwater “trail mix” rather than raw meat.
Their molar-shaped teeth do an excellent job of crushing the hard shells of nuts and seeds that irritate other animals, and provide a reliable source of fat and protein despite their plant-based diet. To do. Paku fish are the gardeners of the Amazon, playing an important ecological role in dispersing seeds across river tributaries and floodplains.
The most famous of Pacu’s fish, the tambaqui, can grow to the size of a golden retriever. At 1 meter (3 ft) long and 30 kg (66 lb), it is the second largest fish in the Amazon after the arapaima.
Tambaqui is a popular food in South America and is often sold in bone-in cuts like pork ribs. They also appear on the exotic pet market, but they require experienced keepers and really huge aquariums to thrive.
Cat Got Your Tongue?
Penguin
Photo courtesy of Alamy
Penguins are agile underwater predators, flying around like torpedoes while chasing fish. And squid. But how do they keep their prey from squirming and escaping their grasp?what is the answer The birds are already in the mouth.
A penguin’s mouth and tongue are covered with hard, backward-facing spines called papillae. This is the same function that makes a cat’s tongue feel like sandpaper. However, you don’t want to be licked by a penguin. Not only are the spines large, but they are also sharp (they bleed easily if you lick them).
The spines help bite into slippery prey and transport it to the bird’s throat. A penguin’s tongue is also very muscular, so it’s probably used to push and manipulate food into its mouth, just like in humans. However, unlike us, penguins do not have the genes to detect sweet, bitter, and umami (umami) tastes, so they cannot taste the fish they eat.
Scientists think penguins lost their sense of taste because they didn’t use their senses. Not only do penguins swallow their food whole, but the proteins needed to send taste signals to their brains malfunction in cold temperatures.
Gigantopithecus brachyThe largest primate in history and one of the largest species of Southeast Asian megafauna, it lived in China from about 2 million years until its extinction during the Middle Pleistocene. New research shows that starting 2.3 million years ago, this environment was a mosaic of forests and grasses, providing ideal conditions to thrive. Gigantopithecus brachy population. However, from 295,000 years ago, just before and during the extinction period 215,000 years ago, increased seasonality led to increased environmental variability, changes in plant communities, and an increase in open forest environments. Although they are close relatives, Chinese orangutan (Pongo Weidenrach)managed to adapt their food preferences and behavior to this fluctuation. Gigantopithecus brachy There were signs of chronic stress and population decline. Ultimately, that struggle to adapt led to the extinction of the largest primate to ever live on Earth.
Impressions of a group of artists Gigantopithecus brachy In the forest of southern China. Image credit: Garcia / Joannes-Boyau, Southern Cross University.
Gigantopithecus brachy It is an extinct giant hominid that once lived in the jungles of Southeast Asia.
As the name suggests, this giant primate was larger than a gorilla, reaching up to 3 meters (10 feet) tall and weighing up to 540 kg (1,200 pounds).
“Our current understanding is that Gigantopithecus brachy “It originates from early to mid-Pleistocene cave deposits between the Yangtze River in southern China and the South China Sea,” said Professor Yingqi Zhang of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and colleagues.
“This primate is known for its unusually large molars, abnormally thick enamel, estimated height of about 3 meters, and weight of 200 to 300 kg, making it the largest primate to have ever existed on Earth. I am.”
“Despite 85 years of exploration, Gigantopithecus blacki's fossil record is limited to four mandibles and nearly 2,000 isolated teeth, with no postcranial evidence. ”
“The initial discovery as a 'dragon's tooth' in a pharmacy in Hong Kong led to the search for the first in situ finds, which led to the discovery of several cave sites in two major regions of Chongzuo and Fuping basins in Guangxi province. This led to the discovery of
“These sites contain important evidence of its survival and eventual demise.”
“Providing a clear cause for a species' extinction is a major feat, but establishing the exact time a species disappeared from the fossil record provides a target time frame for environmental reconstruction and behavioral assessment.” said Macquarie University geochronologist Dr John Martin. Kira Westaway.
“Without reliable dating, you're simply looking for clues in the wrong places.”
To identify potential causes Gigantopithecus brachy In case of extinction, the researchers applied a regional approach to 22 caves in the Chongzuo and Bupyeong basins. Gigantopithecus brachy-Bearing or non-bearing-Gigantopithecus brachy-Contains cave deposits.
They combined previous excavations with recently discovered caves to identify and sample fossil breccias for dating, paleoclimate estimation, and behavioral analysis.
Six different dating techniques were applied to the cave deposits and fossils, yielding 157 radiometric dates.
Luminescence dating measures light-sensitive signals in buried sediments. Gigantopithecus brachy Fossils were the primary technology supported by uranium series and electron spin resonance dating. Gigantopithecus brachy The tooth itself.
“Direct dating of the fossil remains allowed us to confirm that their ages match the luminescence order of the deposits in which they were found, providing a comprehensive and reliable chronology of the human extinction. Gigantopithecus brachy'' said Dr Renaud-Joan Boyau, a geochronologist at Southern Cross University.
The findings show that Gigantopithecus brachy They went extinct between 295,000 and 215,000 years ago, much earlier than previously thought.
Before this time, Gigantopithecus brachy They thrived in rich and diverse forests.
By 700,000 to 600,000 years ago, the environment had further changed due to increased seasonal intensity, leading to changes in the structure of forest communities.
orangutans etc. Pongo Weidenrach They adapted their size, behavior, and habitat preferences in response to changing conditions.
In comparison, Gigantopithecus brachy When preferences were not available, they relied on backup food sources with low nutritional value, reducing dietary diversity.
The primates experienced reduced locomotion, reduced geographic foraging range, chronic stress and population decline.
“Gigantopithecus brachy “It was the ultimate specialist compared to more agile adapters like orangutans, but this ultimately led to its demise,” Professor Chan said.
“With the threat of a sixth mass extinction looming over us, there is an urgent need to understand why species go extinct,” Dr Westaway said.
“Exploring the reasons for unresolved extinctions in the past is a good starting point for understanding the resilience of primates and the fate of other large animals in the past and future.”
Dr. Christopher Stark and colleagues at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center present new coronagraphic images from Earth NIRCam (near infrared camera) and mm (Mid-Infrared Instrument) instruments aboard the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope reveal never-before-seen structures in the debris disk around the young star Beta Pictoris.
Pictoris Beta is a young planetary system located approximately 63 light-years from Earth.
Estimated to be only 20 million years old, it is known to be home to the gas giant Beta Pictoris b.
In the new study, Stark and co-authors used Webb's NIRCam and MIRI instruments to investigate the composition of Beta Pictoris' primary and secondary debris disks.
“Pictoris Beta is an all-inclusive debris disk. It has a very bright and close star that we can study well, a multicomponent disk, an exocomet, and two imaged “There is a complex circumstellar environment that includes exoplanets,” the Astrobiology Center said. astronomer Isabel Rebolido;
“There have been ground-based observations in this wavelength range before, but this feature was not detected because we did not have the sensitivity and spatial resolution of the current web.”
Even with Webb, peering into Beta Pictoris in the right wavelength range was crucial to detecting the never-before-seen dust trail, which resembles a cat's tail. This is because it only appeared in MIRI data.
Webb's mid-infrared data also revealed differences in temperature between Beta Pictoris' two disks. This is probably due to differences in composition.
“We didn't expect Webb to reveal that there are two different types of material surrounding Beta Pictoris, but MIRI clearly shows that the material in the secondary disk and cat's tail is hotter than the main disk. Dr. Stark said.
“The dust that forms its disk and tail must be so dark that it is not easily visible at visible wavelengths, but it glows in the mid-infrared.”
This artist's impression shows an exocomet orbiting the star Pictoris Beta. Image credit: L. Calçada / ESO.
To explain the higher temperatures, astronomers speculated that the dust could be a porous “organic refractory” similar to the material found on the surfaces of comets and asteroids in our solar system. .
For example, preliminary analysis of material collected from the asteroid Bennu by NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission revealed very dark, carbon-rich material similar to what MIRI detected on Beta Pictoris.
But big questions still remain. What explains the shape of the cat's tail, a uniquely curved feature unlike those seen in disks around other stars?
Researchers modeled various scenarios to mimic a cat's tail and uncover its origins.
Although more research and experiments are needed, the researchers offer a strong hypothesis that cat tails are the result of a dust-producing phenomenon that occurred just 100 years ago.
“Something happens, like a collision, and it creates a lot of dust,” says Dr. Marshall Perrin, an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute.
“At first, the dust follows the same trajectory as its source, but then it starts to spread out.”
“Light from the star pushes the smallest, fluffiest dust particles away from the star faster, while larger particles move less, creating long dust tendrils.”
“The characteristics of a cat's tail are so unusual that it has been difficult to reproduce the curvature in mechanical models,” Dr. Stark said.
“Our model requires dust to be pushed out of the system very quickly, which also suggests it is made of organic refractory materials.”
“The model we have recommended explains the sharp angle of the tail away from the disk as a simple optical illusion.”
“Our perspective, combined with the curved shape of the tail, creates the observed tail angle, but in reality, the arc of material is only pointing away from the disk at a 5-degree inclination.”
“Considering the brightness of the tail, we estimate that the amount of dust in the cat's tail is equivalent to a large main-belt asteroid spanning 10 billion miles.”
Recent dust production events within Beta Pictoris' debris disk may also explain the newly observed asymmetric spreading of the tilted inner disk, shown in the MIRI data and only seen on the opposite side of the tail. there is.
“Our study suggests that Beta pictris may be even more active and chaotic than previously thought,” Dr. Stark said.
“The Webb continues to amaze us even when looking at the most well-studied celestial objects. We have a whole new window into these planetary systems.”
of result This week, it was announced in AAS243243rd Meeting of the American Astronomical Society, New Orleans, USA.
_____
christopher stark other. 2024. A new view of JWST's Beta Pictris suggests recent bursts of dust production from an eccentric, tilted secondary debris disk. AAS243Abstract #4036
A fast radio burst phenomenon called FRB 20220610A flashed in an unlikely location: a collection of at least seven galaxies that existed when the universe was only 5 billion years old. Most fast radio bursts to date have been found in isolated galaxies.
This Hubble image shows the host galaxy of the extremely powerful fast radio burst FRB 20220610A. Image credit: NASA/ESA/STScI/Alexa Gordon, Northwestern University.
FRB 20220610A was first detected by the Australian Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) radio telescope in Western Australia on June 10, 2022.
ESO's Very Large Telescope confirmed that the FRB came from a distant place. The Fed was four times more energetic than its closer counterpart.
“We needed Hubble's acuity and sensitivity to pinpoint the source of the FRB,” said Northwestern University astronomer Alexa Gordon.
“Without Hubble's images, it will remain a mystery whether this arose from a monolithic galaxy or some kind of interacting system.”
“It's these kinds of environments, these strange environments, that are driving us to a deeper understanding of the Fed's mysteries.”
Hubble's sharp images suggest that FRB 20220610A arose in an environment where up to seven galaxies could be on a potential path to a merger, which is also very significant.
“We're ultimately trying to answer the question: What causes this? What are their ancestry and their origin?” said Wen-Fai Fung, an astronomer at Northwestern University. Ta.
“Hubble observations provide an incredible view of the surprising types of environments that give rise to these mysterious events.”
Although hundreds of FRBs have been detected, their ancestry is unknown. One of the leading candidates is magnetars.
They have magnetic fields so strong that if a magnetar were to be located halfway between the Earth and the Moon, it would erase the magnetic stripes on everyone's credit cards around the world.
Even worse, if the astronaut traveled within a few hundred miles of the magnetar, they would effectively be dissolved, as every atom in their body would be destroyed.
Possible mechanisms include some kind of shocking starquake, or an explosion triggered when the magnetar's twisted magnetic field lines break and recombine.
A similar phenomenon occurs on the Sun, causing solar flares, but the magnetar's magnetic field is a trillion times more powerful than the Sun's magnetosphere.
This snap can cause a flash of the FRB or create a shock wave that incinerates the surrounding dust and heats the gas to create a plasma.
There can be several types of magnetars. In some cases, it could be an explosive object orbiting a black hole surrounded by a disk of matter.
Another option is a pair of orbiting neutron stars whose magnetospheres interact periodically to create cavities in which eruptions can occur.
Magnetars are estimated to be active for about 10,000 years before becoming permanent, and are expected to be discovered in areas where violent storms of star formation occur. However, this does not seem to be the case for all magnetars.
In the near future, the sensitivity of FRB experiments will improve and FRBs will be detected at unprecedented rates at these distances.
“We need to continue to find more of these FRBs in different types of environments, both near and far,” Dr. Gordon said.
Astronomers announced that findings in AAS243243rd Meeting of the American Astronomical Society, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA.
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alexa gordon other. 2024. Revealing the environment of the most distant FRB with the Hubble Space Telescope. AAS243summary #3679
Immersing your body in cold water stimulates the release of an invigorating cocktail of chemicals.
Jacob Staedler/EyeEm/Getty Images
“It's like pressing Control-Alt-Del on your computer,” says Cath Pendleton. “When I'm in the water, I get so focused on my body that my brain switches off. It's just swimming with me.”
Pendleton, an ice swimmer based in Merthyr Tydfil, England, is as tough as anyone. In 2020, five years after she realized she didn't mind swimming in very cold water, she became the first person to swim one mile inside the Antarctic Circle. Part of her training included sitting in a freezer in a shed.
But she's not the only one passionate about cold water. Rivers, lakes, and oceans that were once home to a handful of serious year-round swimmers are now on the verge of extinction, thanks to media reports about the mental health impact of frigid dips and pool closures due to COVID-19. The number of people visiting is rapidly increasing. An estimated 7.5 million people swim outdoors in the UK alone, and more and more people swim outdoors during the winter. Global numbers are hard to come by, but the International Winter Swimming Association is seeing a boom in winter swimmer registrations around the world, including in China, Russia and Finland, where water temperatures can drop below 0C.
But what could be better than the joy of being in nature and the perverted feeling of happiness that defies the cold? According to the latest research, the answer is probably: Recent studies are beginning to uncover evidence that cold water immersion can reduce stress and depression, and may help deal with autoimmune diseases.
The African manatee is one of three subspecies of these creatures. It belongs to the mammal family that also includes dugongs.
Imaginechina/Sipa US/Alamy
“This is the perfect place for manatees,” said Lucy Keith Diagne, looking out at the slow mudflow of the Niandang River. It seems unlikely, but how did this mobile aquatic mammal, also known as a sea cow, live some 4,000 kilometers up Guinea's Niger River, almost as close to the Sahara Desert and the Atlantic Ocean? Is there one? But Keith Diagne, the world's leading expert on African manatees, should know.
These chubby creatures are known to inhabit the lower reaches of the Niger River, which stretches like a gigantic boomerang through much of West Africa, and long-standing anecdotal evidence suggests that they can be found separately in the upper reaches of tributaries near its source. This suggests that there is a population of Additionally, Dr. Keith Diagne believes that because this group has been separated from other manatees for so long, its members may have evolved into separate subspecies. “They went up the Niger River. They found something good. They kept going. They never came back and ended up different,” she said. Masu. But for now, this is just a guess.
To learn more, we drove hundreds of kilometers from the marshy coast of Guinea, across the highlands and down into the forested savanna in search of these elusive creatures. Keith Diagne and his team will spend a two-week expedition interviewing local residents, following clues from recent sightings, and searching for signs of feeding along riverbanks. Importantly, they also collect samples of…
Gigantopythos black probably lived in a “mosaic of forest and grass”
Garcia/Joanne Boyau (Southern Cross University)
The largest known primates went extinct between 295,000 and 215,000 years ago, probably because they were unable to adapt their food preferences to a changing climate.
A relative of modern orangutans, Gigantopithecus brachy Known as “Giganto”, it was 3 meters tall and weighed up to 300 kilograms.
Despite living for more than two million years, the species has been shrouded in mystery since 1935, when a fossilized tooth was discovered in a traditional medicine store in Hong Kong. The giant tooth was initially thought to belong to a dragon, but paleontologists soon discovered it. In fact, it turns out that it belongs to a primate.
“When I think of them, I think of the giants,” he says. Kira Westaway Graduated from Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. “Usually when you think of giants, you think of dinosaurs, but this was a primate giant.”
To establish a timeline of when this ape became extinct, Westaway and her colleagues studied hundreds of teeth and four jawbone fragments found in caves throughout southern China's Guangxi province. By observing the radioactive decay of certain elements, such as uranium, in teeth and bones, researchers can determine how much time has passed since death.
They also examined other deposits in the cave, such as pollen and sediment, to determine its condition. G. Blackie – Herbivores – lived there.
“We show that starting 2.3 million years ago, the environment was a mosaic of forests and grasses, providing ideal conditions for flourishing. G. Blackie population,” the researchers wrote. “However, just before and during the extinction period between 295,000 and 215,000 years ago, increased seasonality led to increased environmental variability, which led to changes in plant communities and an increase in open forest environments. the researchers added.
By studying the stripes on fossilized animals' teeth, researchers discovered signs of chronic stress caused by lack of access to their favorite foods. They say the creature's failure to adapt to a changing climate and accompanying fluctuations in food likely sealed its fate. In contrast, orangutans, of which three species survive, have adapted their dietary preferences and behavior in response to increasing climate change.
“eventually [G.blacki’s] “The struggle to adapt led to the extinction of the largest primate to ever live on Earth,” the researchers wrote. They also dispelled the idea that hominins may have competed with or hunted the species, precipitating its extinction. “There's no evidence for this,” Westaway says.
julian lewis Researchers at Griffith University in Queensland, Australia say they present a convincing case that environmental change, particularly increased habitat variability, has likely had negative effects on organisms. . G. Blackie.
However, he added that the fossils studied came from a very limited geographical area.resembles a fossil G. Blackie It is also found in Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia.
“One thing seems almost certain: Their actual geographic range would have been much larger than current fossils indicate,” Ruiz says. “We don't know how much this will affect the timing of global extinction of this species.”
anne marie bacon Researchers at France's National Center for Scientific Research say this study can help us understand. Mr. G. Blackie But studying China's fossils only reveals part of its history.
“Although this paper focuses on records from China, we do not know whether the geographic range of great apes extended into Indochina because there are few paleontological remains in Asia.” [mainland South-East Asia]we also looked at what the southern limit of this range was,” she says.
Multiple sclerosis is an autoimmune disease that occurs when the immune system starts attacking the nerves.
Katerina Conn/Science Photo Library
The largest genetic database of ancient humans to date is shedding new light on why people vary in modern conditions such as multiple sclerosis (MS) and other genetic traits such as height.
One of the findings is that the genes behind MS may have become more common because they helped people resist infections transmitted from animals.
Other findings include why Alzheimer’s disease is more common in some groups than others and why people in northern Europe tend to be taller than people in the southern part of the continent. Includes description.
“What happened thousands of years ago can have a very serious impact on the health and longevity of people living today,” he says. Evan Irving Pease at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
The genes of people of European and Western Asian ancestry have been shaped by three major waves of migration. Modern hunter-gatherer humans first arrived in these areas about 45,000 years ago. Then, about 11,000 years ago, a wave of farmers arrived from the Middle East, followed by a further influx of pastoralists, now called the Yamnaya, from the Eurasian steppe.
To understand how these popular movements shaped the modern medical landscape, Irving Pease's team collected bone and tooth samples from approximately 5,000 ancient sites found in museum collections across Europe and Western Asia. The oldest one is 34,000 years old.
The latest study reports on the first batch of samples analyzed based on approximately 1600 individuals. The researchers compared these people to the genetic data of 410,000 people in a huge medical dataset called the UK Biobank, and analyzed only white participants to select participants with European ancestry. did.
The research team started by focusing on MS, an autoimmune disease that occurs when the immune system begins to attack nerves, often leading to progressive disability.What previous research has found 233 genetic variants associated with increased risk of MS.
Among modern people in the UK, those at high genetic risk of multiple sclerosis are more likely to have Yamnaya ancestry, a study has shown. The research team also found that some of these MS-predisposing genetic mutations first arose in the Yamnaya tribe and became more frequent among their descendants as they spread westward through Europe.
Given that some of the 233 variants associated with MS also affect the immune system, and that the Yamnaya people have lived among animals, researchers believe that the genes behind MS are probably The researchers concluded that the species may help protect against bacteria and viruses that can be transmitted to humans. animal.The team has previously shown that Some MS risk variants are associated with partial resistance to tuberculosis.
In another paper, researchers have revealed how our ancestry influences our genetic risk for Alzheimer's disease. Modern humans are more likely to have a gene called . Apo E4If you have more ancestors from Europe's first hunter-gatherers, you have a higher risk of developing Alzheimer's disease.
Another variant of this gene is Apo E2The result is a lower risk of Alzheimer's disease, which likely occurred in the incoming Yamnaya people because it provided protection against malaria and unknown viral infections, the researchers wrote in their paper.
Variants that protect against Alzheimer's disease do not confer a reproductive advantage, so they may not have been selected by evolution to have an effect on dementia, given that dementia typically develops long after people have had children. Yes, researchers say. benjamin trumbull from Arizona State University and was not involved in any research.
“The great thing about this paper is that they go further back in time and say what was advantageous or disadvantageous at that time,” Trumbull said. “Too often we look at our modern environment and say: [a certain gene] Purely harmful. We have to consider what the selection pressures were at different points in time. ”
A further finding from the analysis is that among people living in Europe, those with more Yamnaya ancestry tend to be taller, which explains why Northern Europeans are, on average, taller than Southern Europeans. This may explain why it is so expensive.
Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have detected a giant cyclone and other dynamic weather activity swirling around WASP-121b, an ultra-hot Jovian exoplanet about 881 light-years away in the constellation Papis. Detected.
This artist's illustration shows WASP-121b, an alien world where magnesium and iron gases are being lost from the atmosphere. Image credit: NASA/ESA/J. Olmsted, STScI.
WASP-121b is a gas giant exoplanet that is 1.87 times larger and 1.18 times heavier than Jupiter.
First discovered in 2016, the alien star takes just 1.3 days to orbit its parent star, F6 star WASP-121.
WASP-121b is so close to the star that if it got any closer, the star's gravity would begin to tear it apart.
Astronomers estimate that the planet's temperature is around 2,500 degrees Celsius (4,600 degrees Fahrenheit), hot enough to boil some metals.
In the new study, Caltech astronomer Jack Skinner and colleagues analyzed observations of WASP-12 b taken by Hubble in 2016, 2018, and 2019.
Researchers discovered that the planet has a dynamic atmosphere that changes over time.
Using advanced modeling techniques, they demonstrated that these dramatic temporal variations can be explained by weather patterns in the exoplanet's atmosphere.
They found that WASP-121b's atmosphere showed marked differences between observations.
Most dramatically, large temperature differences between the star-facing and dark sides of exoplanets can repeatedly generate and destroy large weather fronts, storms, and massive cyclones. .
The authors also note that there is an apparent misalignment between the hottest region of an exoplanet and the point on the planet closest to its star, as well as variability in the chemical composition of the exoplanet's atmosphere (spectroscopically measurement) was also detected.
They reached these conclusions by using computational models that help explain observed changes in the exoplanet's atmosphere.
“The incredible detail of exoplanet atmosphere simulations allows us to accurately model the climate of superhot planets like WASP-121b,” Dr. Skinner said.
“Now we have made significant progress by combining observational constraints and atmospheric simulations to understand the time-varying weather of these planets.”
“This is a very interesting result as we continue to observe the weather patterns of exoplanets,” said Dr. Quentin Cheniato, an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute.
“Studying exoplanet climates is critical to understanding the complexity of exoplanet atmospheres on other worlds, especially in the search for exoplanets with habitable conditions.”
“The assembled dataset represents a significant amount of observation time for a single planet and is currently the only consistent set of such repeated observations.”
“The information we extracted from those observations was used to infer WASP-121b's atmospheric chemistry, temperature, and clouds at different times.”
“This yielded exquisite images of the planet as it changes over time.”
The United States showed a promising decline in carbon emissions in 2023, despite economic growth, indicating a move towards a more sustainable future. Greenhouse gas emissions dropped by approximately 1.9% according to Rhodium Group’s preliminary analysis, tracking progress towards U.S. climate goals. The economy saw a growth of about 2.4%.
Ben King, an associate director at Rhodium Group, expressed that while this slow reduction in emissions shows progress, it also highlights the need for greater ambition in government and industry to achieve America’s climate goals.
The Biden administration aims to reduce emissions by 50% to 52% by 2030, an ambitious target considering that emissions are currently 17% lower than in 2005, following fluctuations in recent years.
King emphasized the necessity of tripling the 2% reduction in emissions achieved in the past year annually until 2030 to meet the Paris goals, which set limits on global warming to below 2 degrees Celsius. He mentioned that these goals require significant global leadership and effort from governments worldwide, as the pace of efforts to limit global warming remains insufficient according to a November report from the Stockholm Environmental Institute.
While certain sectors like power and buildings contributed to the emissions decline in 2023, others like transportation and industry saw an increase. Efforts to electrify these areas through policies like the Controlled Inflation Act are beginning to take effect, with record-high electric vehicle sales in 2023.
However, King noted that broader climate action may depend on the outcome of the 2024 presidential election.
“To do something more ambitious than just stay on track, we need an executive branch that is committed to climate action and a Congress that stands out from the crowd. We don’t have high hopes for large-scale, comprehensive climate action for 2024, but we will need to see some progress after 2025,” King concluded.
Employer-provided benefits initiatives generally do not improve workers’ mental health, but volunteering may be an exception
Nuva frame/shutterstock
A study of more than 46,000 workers found that the benefits initiatives offered by many companies do little to improve the mental health of their employees.
In England, More than half of employers have a formal employee benefits strategy. These include employee assistance programs that provide support for work or personal issues, as well as counseling, online life coaching, mindfulness workshops, stress management training, and more.
“Employers are increasingly offering a variety of strategies, practices and programs to improve wellbeing and mental health,” he says. William Fleming at Oxford University. “Their fundamental purpose is to change people's psychological capacities and coping mechanisms,” he says.
To investigate whether these interventions are useful, Fleming and other researchers conducted the UK’s healthiest workplace survey in 2017 and 2018. He examined responses from more than 46,000 individuals in 233 organizations, the majority of whom were office and service industry employees. Approximately 5,000 people have participated in at least one welfare initiative in the past year. The researchers found that there was no difference in the self-reported mental health of those who participated in these programs compared to those who did not participate. The result was consistent regardless of different types of workers and sectors.
“The program doesn’t seem to be providing any benefits,” Fleming said.
However, volunteer work may be an exception. Employees who participated in company-sponsored volunteer programs reported better mental health on average than those who did not participate. Fleming notes that it’s important to consider that people who are willing to volunteer for a cause may have relatively good mental health to begin with.
Instead of proposing these initiatives, Fleming suggests that employers focus on improving working conditions. For example, they can assess whether someone’s workload is too demanding, whether they’re working too many hours, and whether management strategies can be improved, he said.
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Tinnitus, a ringing in the ears, can be a debilitating problem for those who suffer from it. However, a team of researchers has discovered a potential solution to this issue.
The survey results have been published in the magazine Frontiers of audiology and otology, and an international research team can effectively reduce symptoms in just a few weeks with an app that includes sound therapy and various training courses. The study involved 30 people with tinnitus, and almost two-thirds of them experienced “clinically significant improvement” from using the app. The team will now conduct a large-scale trial in the UK in collaboration with University College London Hospital. According to Suzanne Purdy, Waipapa Taumata Rau Professor of Psychology at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, cognitive behavioral therapy is known to help people suffering from tinnitus, but it is expensive and often difficult to access.
“[The app] Cognitive behavioral therapy, mindfulness, relaxation exercises, and sound therapy can be combined to train your brain’s responses and reduce tinnitus. The sounds you perceive fade into the background and become less noticeable.”
The new app aims to tune out the sound of tinnitus, giving the mind and body tools to suppress stress hormones and responses, and reduce the brain’s tendency to focus on the sound. The Mindear app is currently available for download for Apple and Android users. Some features are free in the app, but many are locked behind a paywall after a 7-day free trial (requires a £13 monthly subscription). Another app, the sound tinnitus app, is currently undergoing clinical trials in the UK.
About 1.5 million people in Australia, 4 million in the UK and 20 million in the US suffer from severe tinnitus, according to Dr. Fabrice Bardy, an audiologist at Waipapa Taumata Rau, University of Auckland, and lead author of the study published in the journal Frontiers of audiology and otology. He adds, “One of the most common misconceptions about tinnitus is that there’s nothing you can do about it; you just have to live with it. This is simply not true. Tinnitus Support Expertise The support of professionals with knowledge and expertise can reduce the fear and anxiety associated with a healthy patient experience.”
Tinnitus itself is not a disease, but is usually a symptom of another underlying health condition, such as damage to the auditory system or tension in the head and neck. While there is no known cure for tinnitus, management strategies and techniques can help patients. For more information, please visit the provided links.
The credit for discovering the first dinosaur bones is usually given to an English gentleman who discovered them in England between the 17th and 19th centuries. British natural historian Robert Plott first described dinosaur bones in his 1676 book. Oxfordshire natural history. Paleontologists from the University of the Witwatersrand and Nelson Mandela University have presented evidence that the first dinosaur bones may have been discovered in Africa as much as 500 years before Plott's discovery.
tyrannosaurus rex. Image credit: Amanda Kelly.
Humans were born in Africa. homo sapiens It has existed for at least 300,000 years.
And this continent is home to a wide variety of rock outcrops, including the Kem Kem Formation in Morocco, the Fayum Depression in Egypt, the Rift Valley in eastern Africa, and the Karoo in southern Africa, which contain fossils that were always accessible to our ancestors. I am.
So it's not just that Africans were likely the first to discover fossils. It was inevitable.
In many cases, the first dinosaur fossils claimed to have been discovered by scientists were actually brought to our attention by local guides.
An example is the discovery of giant dinosaurs. jobaria By the Tuareg people of Niger Giraffatitan By the Mwera people of Tanzania.
our paperPublished in Geological Society, London, Special Publicationreviews what is known about African indigenous fossil knowledge.
We enumerate fossils that may have been known since ancient times at various sites in Africa and discuss how they were used and interpreted by African communities before the science of paleontology was born. .
One of the highlights of our paper is the ruins of Borara, a Late Stone Age rock shelter in Lesotho.
Various dating techniques indicate that the site was inhabited by the Khesan and Basotho peoples from the 12th to 18th centuries (1100-1700 AD).
The shelter itself is surrounded by hills formed by compacted sediments deposited under harsh deserts like the Sahara some 180 to 200 million years ago, when the first dinosaurs roamed the Earth. Masu.
This region of Lesotho is particularly well known for its deliveries. Massospondylus carinatusa dinosaur with a body length of 4 to 6 meters, a small head and a long neck.
Fossilized bones of this kind are abundant in this area and were already the case when this place was occupied by people in the Middle Ages.
In 1990, archaeologists working in Bolarla discovered a human finger bone. Massospondylus He was being carried into a cave.
There are no fossilized skeletons protruding from the cave walls. So the only possibility that this phalanx ended up there is that someone picked it up in the distant past and carried it to a cave.
Perhaps this person did it out of simple curiosity, or to turn it into a pendant or toy, or to use it in a traditional healing ritual.
After heavy rains, it is not uncommon for people in the area to discover bones of extinct species that have been washed away from the host rock.
They usually recognize them as belonging to dragon-like monsters that swallow humans and even entire houses.
In Lesotho, the Basotho people call the monster “Holmormo,'' and in the Eastern Cape, which borders South Africa, the Xhosa people call it “Amagongonko.''
The exact date on which the phalanx was collected and transported has unfortunately been lost to time.
Given current knowledge, the period of occupation of the shelter could be between the 12th and 18th centuries.
This leaves open the possibility that the dinosaur bones were collected up to 500 years before Plott's discovery.
Early knowledge about extinct organisms
Most people have known about fossils long before the age of science, as far back as society's collective memory can go.
For example, in Algeria, people referred to some dinosaur footprints as belonging to the legendary “rock bird”.
In North America, cave paintings depicting dinosaur footprints were painted by the Anasazi people between 1000 and 1200 AD.
Indigenous Australians have identified dinosaur footprints as those of the legendary 'Emuman'.
In the south, the infamous conquistador Hernán Cortés was gifted a fossil mastodon femur by the Aztecs in 1519.
In Asia, Hindus have worshiped ammonites (coiled fossil shells), which they call “shaligrams,” for more than 2,000 years.
Claim credit
The fact that African people have known about fossils since ancient times is clear from folklore and the archaeological record, but there is still much to learn about them.
For example, unlike peoples in Europe, the Americas, and Asia, indigenous African paleontologists appear to have little use of fossils in traditional medicine.
We do not yet know whether this is a truly unique cultural feature common to most African cultures, or whether it is due to our admittedly still incomplete knowledge.
Also, some fairly prominent fossil sites, such as Morocco's Kem Kem Formation and South Africa's UNESCO World Heritage Cradle of Man caves, do not yet provide solid evidence of indigenous knowledge.
This is unfortunate, as fossil-related traditions can help bridge the gap between local communities and paleontologists, thereby contributing to the preservation of important heritage sites.
By investigating the paleontology of Africa's indigenous peoples, our team brings together the pieces of a forgotten past and serves local communities.
We hope this will inspire a new generation of local paleoscientists to follow in the footsteps of Africa's first fossil hunters.
_____
julian benoit other. 2024. Paleontological knowledge of African indigenous peoples. Geological Society, London, Special Publication 543; doi: 10.1144/SP543-2022-236
author: julian benoita paleontologist at the University of the Witwatersrand.
cameron penn clarka paleontologist at the University of the Witwatersrand.
charles helma paleontologist at Nelson Mandela University.
The odd radio sphere (ORC), a type of extragalactic astronomical source discovered in 2019, is actually a shell formed by galactic winds spilling from massive supernovae, according to a new study.
ASKAP radio continuum image (contours) of ORC 1 superimposed on the DES tricolor composite image. Two galaxies of interest: 'C' is near the center of ORC 1, and 'S' coincides with the southern radio peak. Image credit: Norris otherarXiv: 2006.14805.
The first three ORCs were discovered during the Cosmic Evolution Map pilot survey using the Australian Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) telescope.
A fourth ORC, called ORC4, was discovered in archival data taken with the Giant Meterwave radio telescope, and additional ORCs were discovered in subsequent ASKAP and MeerKAT data.
These sources are huge, hundreds of kiloparsecs across, with one kiloparsec equal to 3,260 light-years.
Multiple theories have been proposed to explain its origin, including planetary nebulae and black hole mergers, but it was not possible to distinguish between the theories based on radio data alone.
Intrigued, Professor Alison Coyle of the University of California, San Diego, and colleagues thought that the radio rings could have originated from the later stages of the starburst galaxies they were studying.
Until then, ORCs had only been observed by radio emission, and no optical data were available.
Astronomers observed ORC 4 using the Integrating Field Spectrometer at W.M. Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, and found that it contained a huge amount of high-brightness, much more than is seen in the average galaxy. A heated compressed gas was revealed.
With more questions than answers, the team set to work doing some detective work.
Using optical and infrared imaging data, they determined that the stars in the ORC 4 galaxy are about 6 billion years old.
“This galaxy experienced an explosion of star formation that ended about a billion years ago,” Professor Coyle said.
The authors also ran a series of numerical computer simulations to recreate the size and properties of the massive radio ring containing large amounts of shocked cold gas in the central galaxy.
Simulations show that the outflowing galactic winds will continue to blow for 200 million years before stopping.
When the winds stopped, forward shocks continued to push hot gas out of the galaxy, forming a radio ring, while reverse shocks caused cooler gas to fall into the galaxy.
The simulation ran for 750 million years. This is within ORC 4's estimated stellar age of 1 billion years.
“For this to work, you need a high mass egress rate, which means you're releasing a lot of material very quickly,” Professor Coyle says.
“And the surrounding gas just outside the galaxy has to be low density, otherwise the shock stalls. Those are the two key factors.”
“We found that the galaxies we have studied have high rates of mass outflow. Although rare, they do exist. This points to ORC originating from some type of outflow galactic wind. I really think so.”
Outflow winds not only help astronomers understand ORCs, but ORCs also help astronomers understand outflow winds.
“ORC provides a way to 'see' the wind through radio data and spectroscopy,” Professor Coyle said.
“This will help us determine how common extreme outflow winds from galaxies are and what the life cycle of winds is like.”
“These can also help us learn more about galaxy evolution. Do all giant galaxies go through an ORC phase?”
“Do spiral galaxies become elliptical when they stop forming stars? I think there's a lot we can learn about and from the ORC.”
Using NASA/ESA/CSA’s James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers detected a brown dwarf with infrared emissions from methane, likely due to energy in the upper atmosphere. The heating of the upper atmosphere that drives this emission is associated with auroras. The brown dwarf, named W1935, is located 47 light-years away.
Artist’s impression of the brown dwarf W1935. Image credit: NASA/ESA/CSA/L. Hustak, STScI.
On Earth, auroras occur when energetic particles blasted into space from the sun are captured by Earth’s magnetic field.
They cascade into the atmosphere along magnetic field lines near the Earth’s poles, colliding with gas molecules and creating eerie, dancing curtains of light.
Jupiter and Saturn have similar auroral processes that involve interaction with the solar wind, but also receive auroral contributions from nearby active moons, such as Io (for Jupiter) and Enceladus (for Saturn). Masu.
“For an isolated brown dwarf like W1935, the absence of a stellar wind that contributes to auroral processes and accounts for the extra energy in the upper atmosphere required for methane emission is puzzling,” American Airlines astronomers said. said Dr. Jackie Faherty. Natural History Museum and colleagues.
Faherty and his colleagues used Webb to observe a sample of 12 cool brown dwarf stars.
These included object W1935, discovered by citizen scientist Dan Caselden who collaborated on the Backyard Worlds Zooniverse project, and object W2220, discovered using NASA’s Wide Field Infrared Survey Explorer.
Webb revealed in great detail that W1935 and W2220 appear to be close clones of each other in composition.
Also, the brightness, temperature, and spectral characteristics of water, ammonia, carbon monoxide, and carbon dioxide were similar.
A notable exception is that W1935 showed emission from methane, in contrast to the expected absorption feature observed for W2220. This was observed at infrared wavelengths, to which Webb is uniquely sensitive.
“We expected methane to be present because it’s everywhere in these brown dwarfs,” Faherty said.
“But instead of absorbing light, we found just the opposite. The methane was glowing. My first thought was, what the hell? Why is this object emitting methane?” Do you want it?
Astronomers used computer models to deduce what might be behind the emission.
Modeling work showed that W2220 has a predictable energy distribution in its atmosphere, becoming colder with increasing altitude.
On the other hand, W1935 produced surprising results. The best models supported a temperature inversion, where the atmosphere becomes warmer as altitude increases.
“This temperature inversion is really puzzling,” says Dr. Ben Burningham, an astronomer at the University of Hertfordshire.
“We’ve seen this kind of phenomenon on planets with nearby stars that can heat the stratosphere, but it’s outrageous to see something like this on a celestial body with no obvious external heat source. .
In search of clues, researchers looked to our backyard: the planets of our solar system.
The gas giant planet could serve as a proxy for what is seen happening 47 light-years away in the atmosphere of 1935 AD.
Scientists have noticed that planets like Jupiter and Saturn have significant temperature inversions.
Research is still ongoing to understand the causes of stratospheric heating, but leading theories about the solar system include external heating by auroras and internal energy transport from deep in the atmosphere, with the former being the leading explanation. ).
According to the research team, W1935 is the first aurora candidate outside the solar system with the signature of methane emission.
It is also the coldest aurora candidate outside the solar system, with an effective temperature of about 200 degrees Celsius (400 degrees Fahrenheit).
In our solar system, the solar wind is the main contributor to the auroral process, and active satellites like Io and Enceladus play the role of planets like Jupiter and Saturn, respectively.
W1935 does not have any companion stars, so stellar winds cannot contribute to this phenomenon. It is not yet known whether an active moon is responsible for her W1935's methane emissions.
“W1935 provides a spectacular expansion of solar system phenomena without any explanatory stellar illumination,” Faherty said.
“With Webb, we can actually ‘lift the lid’ on chemistry and figure out how auroral processes are similar or different outside of our solar system.”
The authors announced that findings this week’s AAS243243rd Meeting of the American Astronomical Society, New Orleans, USA.
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Jacqueline Faherty other. 2024. JWST exhibits the auroral features of frigid brown dwarfs. AAS243Abstract #4359
A rocket that eats itself may be on the way. To reach orbit, a rocket must lift its own mass, the mass of its propellant, and the payload it intends to carry into space. But if rockets could burn their own parts for fuel, they could free up capacity for more important scientific projects and for transporting supplies. A team of engineers has built his first prototype of one of these “autophage engines.”
The concept of a rocket that eats its own parts was first patented in 1938, but it was difficult to implement on the huge rockets on which most launches have historically taken place, so no working prototypes were built. Not built. However, the popularity of small satellites has increased in recent years, driving demand for smaller, more efficient rockets that are not constrained by the need to carry huge weights into space.
Krzysztof Busdyk Researchers at the University of Glasgow in the UK have created a small prototype rocket engine that consumes its own fuel tank. It’s not powerful enough to launch something into space, but it still shows that the concept works. “By burning the fuselage, we are solving the problem of rocket miniaturization. So when we want to send a small payload into space, we can do it right away, without waiting for a rideshare mission on a larger rocket. ” he says.
The researchers will present their findings at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics SciTech Forum in Florida on January 10th. This engine was called his Ouroboros-3, named after the ancient symbol of a snake eating its own tail.
Like the iconic snake, this engine is designed to devour its own backend when it uses up the rocket fuel it contains. “When you run out of propellant, you have an empty tank with all the useless structural mass,” Buzdyk says. “So what we’re doing is expending that dead weight so that we don’t have to carry it around on the way up, so we can carry more mass into space.”
In the prototype, as the oxygen and propane that make up the engine’s main fuel are burned, a plastic tube that holds the fuel is also fed into the engine. This tube makes up up to one-fifth of the total propellant used in burns and provides approximately 100 newtons of thrust. This is only about four times the force required to crack an egg.
The team is currently working on a larger prototype capable of delivering about 1,000 newtons of thrust. This is about one-sixth of the thrust required for the engine to reach suborbital space, and about one-twentieth of the thrust. To get it back on track.
“Additional testing should allow us to scale up the rocket… [but] In some cases, scaling up is not easy, easy or unlikely.” Haim Benaroya at Rutgers University in New Jersey. Challenges include ensuring that the plastic fuselage burns and feeds it to the engine at a constant rate, and testing how burning rocket debris changes its shape and thus its flight path. It is included.
In addition to increasing launch efficiency, autophage engines could also help reduce the problem of space debris, or spacecraft debris that can fly around in orbit and endanger other satellites. There is. Burning out spent fuel tanks, which are typically dropped into the atmosphere or left in orbit, could be a small step toward solving the problem, he said. hugh lewis at the University of Southampton, UK.
NASA’s efforts to return astronauts to the moon have been delayed once again.
The agency announced Tuesday that the next Artemis mission, which will fly four astronauts around the moon in a next-generation capsule, will launch in September 2025 instead of later this year.
A subsequent mission to actually land astronauts near the moon’s south pole is scheduled to be postponed to September 2026.
NASA said the two flights will be postponed to allow enough time to test new technology on the Orion spacecraft for the manned moon exploration mission.
“We are returning to the Moon like never before, and astronaut safety is a top priority for NASA as we prepare for future Artemis missions,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. stated in a statement.
The extra time will also give the team an opportunity to complete their investigation and troubleshooting of issues that occurred during the first unmanned Artemis test flight in late 2022, NASA said. Those outstanding investigations include scrutiny of battery issues and issues with components related to the Orion capsule’s ventilation and temperature control systems, officials said.
“Artemis is a long-term exploration campaign that will conduct science on the Moon with astronauts and prepare for future human missions to Mars,” Amit Kshatriya, deputy assistant administrator for Exploration Systems Development at NASA Headquarters, said in a statement. Ta. “That means we need to get it right as we develop and fly the underlying systems so we can safely execute these missions.”
The setback comes after years of stagnation and budget overruns in the Artemis program. NASA spent more than $42 billion over more than a decade developing the new Space Launch System Mega rocket and Orion spacecraft to bring astronauts back to the moon.
Last year, NASA’s Inspector General released a report outlining challenges surrounding the Artemis program’s enormous price tag and ambitious schedule. The report estimates that each Artemis launch will cost $4.2 billion, making it difficult to continue the lunar mission alongside NASA’s other exploration goals.
The Artemis project was named after the Greek goddess who was Apollo’s twin sister. As part of this effort, NASA envisions launching regular missions to set up base camps on the moon before eventually heading to Mars.
The commercial space industry is expected to play an important role in the Artemis program. Companies such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin are developing a variety of components and vehicles to support NASA’s efforts.
The agency is also considering awarding contracts to private companies to transport scientific experiments and equipment to the moon’s surface. One such company, Astrobotic Technology, launched a commercial lander to the moon on Monday, but shortly after launch the rover suffered a failure that would prevent it from reaching the moon’s surface, the company said. announced.
Renewed interest in the moon extends beyond NASA and the United States. India’s space agency landed a robotic spacecraft on the moon last year, and China, which already installed a lander and probe on the far side of the moon in 2019, also plans to ramp up its lunar exploration program in the coming years.
Artist's impression of the path of a fast radio burst (not to scale) FRB 20220610A
M. Kohnmesser/European Southern Observatory
The unexplained flash of radio waves that reached Earth in 2022 originated from a small group of galaxies about 8 billion light-years away. This discovery expands our understanding of how mysterious fast radio bursts (FRBs) form.
To date, astronomers have discovered more than 1,000 FRBs. FRBs are strange bursts of high-frequency electromagnetic radiation that cross the sky in just a few milliseconds. Some events repeat and are detected as blinking multiple times. The main explanation is that FRBs are produced by powerful spinning stars known as magnetars, highly magnetized spinning stars left behind after a massive star explodes as a supernova.
About 50 FRBs have been identified as the source of the Milky Way and other galaxies. But in 2022, astronomers discovered the most distant and powerful FRB yet: non-recurring FRB 20220610A, which dates back to when the universe was just 5 billion years old.
alexa gordon A team of researchers from Northwestern University in Illinois followed up on this finding. Researchers discovered in April 2023 using the Hubble Space Telescope that FRB 20220610A originates from a small dwarf galaxy. This galaxy was part of a compact group of seven galaxies so small that the entire galaxy fit within the Milky Way. “This is a very unusual system,” Gordon says. “At this distance of his FRB, only about 0.1 to 1 percent of galaxies belong to compact groups.”
Such groups are thought to be active regions of star formation. This supports FRB's explanation of magnetars, as they probably form early in a galaxy's evolution when hot, massive stars explode. In compact groups, “galaxies are interacting fairly frequently,” Gordon says. This triggers star formation consistent with what is seen in his FRB study, produced by newer, near-Earth sources.
This discovery further expands the types of environments in which FRBs are known to exist. “The majority are in star-forming spiral galaxies,” Gordon says. “But he also found FRBs in galaxy clusters, dwarf galaxies, and globular clusters. The addition of 'compact groups' to this list shows that we are finding his FRBs in a variety of locations.” Here's another example. ”
NASA's Space Launch System and Artemis I Orion spacecraft at Kennedy Space Center, Florida
NASA
It looks like it will take a little longer than expected to send astronauts back to the moon. NASA has postponed the Artemis II flight, originally scheduled to orbit four astronauts around the moon in late 2024, until September 2025. The Artemis III mission, which will land astronauts on the moon for the first time since 1972, has also been postponed from its original plan. From 2025 to 2026 at the earliest.
NASA officials said in a Jan. 9 press conference that the decision was made to ensure the safety of the crew and allow time to fully test all components of the spacecraft.
“We want to emphasize that safety is our top priority…and as we prepare to send our friends and colleagues on this mission, we are committed to launching as safely as possible. “We are here,” the NASA deputy administrator said. gym free During the briefing session. “We'll leave when you're ready.”
One cause for concern was that during the test, the heat shield of the Orion spacecraft (the Artemis program's crew capsule) flared up a bit more than expected, dropping some charred debris. “This heat shield is an ablative material and is supposed to char, but it's not what we expected and some of that char will be released from the vehicle,” NASA officials said. Amit Kshatriya said during a briefing.
NASA is investigating why this happened, as well as analyzing several problems that occurred during the test, including a defect in a valve that could affect the spacecraft's life support systems. I am currently in the process of doing so. “We know how to fix it,” Kshatriya said. “All we need to do is take the time to work to the standards of workmanship we expect from a human-rated vehicle.”
Finally, there were some potential problems with the giant new Space Launch System (SLS) rocket's abort system. These are the systems that separate Orion and fly it to safety in the event of a problem with the rocket itself, so these electrical problems can be characterized and fixed before humans are on board. Especially important.
When it comes to eating healthier, there has always been a sense of having your cake and eating it too. For decades, we've been told that the secret to staying healthy is to indulge in the fresh, delicious food of the Mediterranean. Adding more tomatoes, focaccia, and olive oil to your dinner plate, along with a glass of Chianti, is said to reduce your chances of developing a heart attack and type 2 diabetes.
The most surprising thing is that this is not just some exaggerated nonsense. Evidence that the Mediterranean diet can actually improve health in many ways has been growing for more than 50 years. “We are conducting large, long-term clinical trials that result in difficult clinical events,” he says. miguel martinez gonzalez at the University of Navarra in Pamplona, Spain.
But despite all this praise, it was difficult to understand what it was about the diet that led to such benefits. First of all, nutritionists cannot agree on the exact form it should take. Additionally, family meals, home cooking, and other non-dietary factors should be considered. The good news is that over the past decade, we've begun to understand which components of our diets provide the greatest health benefits and why. This means we are now better able than ever to offer you the best advice…
Researchers test batteries using new materials designed by AI
Microsoft's Dan DeLong
Artificial intelligence can accelerate the process of discovering and testing new materials, and researchers have used that ability to develop batteries that are less dependent on the expensive mineral lithium.
Lithium-ion batteries power not only electric cars but also many devices we use every day. They will also become a necessary part of green power grids, as batteries will be needed to store renewable energy from wind turbines and solar panels. However, lithium is expensive and mining it damages the environment. Finding a replacement for this important metal can be expensive and time-consuming, requiring researchers to develop and test millions of candidates over years. Utilizing AI, nathan baker Microsoft and its colleagues accomplished this task in a few months. They designed and manufactured a battery that uses up to 70% less lithium than some competing designs.
The researchers focused on types of batteries that contain only solid parts, looking for new materials for battery components called electrolytes, through which charge is transferred. They started with 23.6 million candidate materials, designed by tweaking the structure of an established electrolyte and replacing some lithium atoms with other elements. The AI algorithm filtered out materials that were calculated to be unstable or have weak chemical reactions that make the battery work. The researchers also considered how each material behaved when the battery was actively operating. After just a few days, their list contained just a few hundred candidates, some of whom had never been studied before.
“But we're not materials scientists,” Baker says. “So I called the experts who have worked on large-scale battery projects at the Department of Energy and said, 'What do you think? Are we crazy?'
vijay murugesan He works at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Washington state and was one of the scientists who answered the phone. He and his colleagues proposed additional screening criteria for AI. After further rounds of elimination, Murugesan's team finally selected one of his AI proposals and synthesized it in the lab. It was noticeable because half of what Murugesan expected to be lithium atoms were replaced with sodium. This is a very novel recipe for an electrolyte, he said, and the combination of the two elements raises questions about the fundamental physics of how the material works in batteries. Masu.
His team built a working battery using this material, albeit with a lower conductivity than similar prototypes that use more lithium. Both Baker and Murugesan said much work remains to optimize the new batteries. However, the manufacturing process took about nine months, from the time Murugesan first talked to his Microsoft team until the battery was functional enough to light a light bulb.
“The methodology here is cutting edge in terms of machine learning tools, but what really elevates this is that things have been created and tested,” he says. Rafael Gomez-Bombarelli from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was not involved in this project. “It's very easy to make predictions. It's hard to convince someone to invest in an actual experiment.” He said the team will accelerate calculations that physicists have been making for decades, and It is said that AI was used to strengthen it. However, this approach may also encounter obstacles in the future. For this kind of work, he said, the data needed to train the AI is often sparse, and materials other than battery components may require more complex ways of combining elements. he says.
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