Science News

The 2019 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded jointly to William G. Kaelin Jr, Sir Peter J. Ratcliffe and Gregg L. Semenza “for their discoveries of how cells sense and adapt to oxygen availability.” Press release with links to key publications: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2019/press-release/ More advanced scientific background: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2019/advanced-information/

I don't know if this should go into politics or physics or science news. I just heard on my tv, the UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, in his big speech at the Conservative Party conference, that the people at Culham Tokamak project in Oxfordshire are on the VERGE of producing successful mini fusion reactors, and selling them worldwide. He then acknowledged that they have been on the verge for a long time, but now claims that they are on the "verge of the verge". I haven't heard the slightest whisper of any such thing. Are they actually winding up the Prime Minister of the UK ? It's not April Fool's Day. Or did he dream it? I couldn't believe my ears when …

https://www.labmate-online.com/news/news-and-views/5/stfc/project-could-inspire-next-generation-x-ray-lasers-and-particle-accelerators/50418 quote.. A ground breaking technique that could produce an electron beam up to 10,000 times brighter than the most powerful beams today, has been developed by researchers from the UK and US. The findings could be particularly applicable for use in the next generation of more compact, more powerful particle accelerators, enhancing scientific applications. It was this however which caught my attention, quote... These ultrabright beams may eventually allow production of X-ray pulses short and bright enough to allow ob…

"Solar panels might seem like they’re in direct competition with plants. One is catching sunlight to do photosynthesis, the other wants to take it to push electrons. Surely Highlander rules apply, and there can be only one on a plot of land, right? In reality, it’s not a zero-sum game. Some plants will burn in direct sun, after all, and so there are plenty of food crops that would be happy to share their space with panels. And as a new study led by the University of Arizona’s Greg Barron-Gafford shows, the combination isn’t even necessarily a compromise—there are some synergies that can bring significant benefits to a solar-agriculture." https://arstechnica.com/…

Maybe... According to astronomers Planet nine maybe hard to spot because it's a primordial black hole- a superdense lump of matter about the size of a tennis ball. And if that's the case, then we need to search for it in an entirely different way. More at link..https://www.technologyreview.com/s/614441/is-planet-9-actually-a-primordial-black-hole/

The massive planet, which shouldn't exist based on current theories, is prompting astronomers to revisit their models for planetary formation. Source: https://astronomy.com/news/2019/09/giant-planet-found-around-tiny-star-defies-expectations

Several new methods of measuring the Hubble constant have produced inflicting values and more evidence that new physics is needed https://www.quantamagazine.org/cosmologists-debate-how-fast-the-universe-is-expanding-20190808/

Science News webzine - "Physicists may be a step closer to solving the mystery of proton size" I know there's a lot of physics smart users on this board. Are there any theories in physics circles about why these differing measurements are happening? Could it be the equipment isn't a accurate enough or that protons can be different weights and sizes depending on what elements they constitute?

What do you think of this paper that as gone through a peer review process please ? http://journalofcosmology.com/JOC26/General%20Relativity%20and%20Effects%20in%20Time%20as%20Causation%20JofC.pdf

Remember as a kid, how it took forever to go from one Christmas to the next? Remember how as a kid, you would always be wishing some forthcoming event you were looking forward to, would hurry up and arrive? Now in old or middle age we complain about how time flies. At last, we have an answer!!! https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-03-physics-flies-age.html According to Adrian Bejan, the J.A. Jones Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Duke, this apparent temporal discrepancy can be blamed on the ever-slowing speed at which images are obtained and processed by the human brain as the body ages. The theory was published online on March 18 in the journal Euro…

https://phys.org/news/2019-09-exotic-physics-phenomenon.html Since English isn't my native language, I have a hard time understanding what this means, practically. Could someone kindly explain it? Thanks!

https://phys.org/news/2019-09-radio-emission-neutron-star-magnetic.html Radio emission from a neutron star's magnetic pole revealed by General Relativity by Max Planck Society Representation of the precessing pulsar J1906+0746 (with the spin vector in red color) around the total angular momentum vector (blue vector). Two radio beams are emitted above the opposite magnetic poles of the pulsar, along the magnetic axis (grey arrow). As the radio beams cross through our line of sight, we can reconstruct the emission maps of the beams as shown with the circular maps at the edges of the two beams. Credit: Gregory Desvignes (MPIfR Bonn / Pari…

We have had a couple of different members recently who have referenced Lee Smolin's work (in one case, claiming he had stolen their ideas). So I thought people might be interested in hearing what the man himself has to say about his work: https://www.quantamagazine.org/were-stuck-inside-the-universe-lee-smolin-has-an-idea-for-how-to-study-it-anyway-20190627/

Full story at link....https://phys.org/news/2019-08-filter.html Original story by Erica K. Brockmeier, University of Pennsylvania. a diagram of how the nanofilters are made (top panel) and their microscopic structure (bottom panel) after Abstract.....Post docs Xunda Feng, now at Donghua University, and Yizhou Zhang and graduate student Qaboos Imran, have conducted a study at the lab of Chinedum Osuji which describes a new way to create nanoscale water filters, which as well as being flexible and robust, also have anti microbial properties. When designing a nanoscale filter, engineers usually start with something that resembles a microscopic s…

Milky way's black hole just flared, growing 75 times as bright for a few hours Abstract...

I keep seeing this pop up on youtube, scientists are trying to find a mirror universe and open a portal into it... What is going on if anything? I keep seeing this news blurb in various forms, some quite extreme others not so much but none seem to be exactly the same and the idea is provocative but is it true? I know about Mirror Matter, Dark Matter, and even antimatter and all of these are being connected in some way to this. I don't see how this can be since these things exist or are hypothesized to exist within our universe. The whole idea is beginning to sound like bad science fiction...

Hi all. Aired today, minutes ago. Perhaps deserves a sub-forum here as "Technology news" Create if deserved for such topics, as there is a thread somewhere asking for adding other sub-forums. ----> https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/ataglance/449/ Edited... what is proper English for the title ? 'Assistance to blind' or as posted ?

"When Huang’s paper landed in Mathieu’s inbox, her first reaction was “uh-oh,” she said. “When a problem has been around 30 years and everybody has heard about it, probably the proof is either very long and tedious and complicated, or it’s very deep.” She opened the paper expecting to understand nothing. But the proof was simple enough for Mathieu and many other researchers to digest in one sitting. “I expect that this fall it will be taught — in a single lecture — in every master’s-level combinatorics course,” she messaged over Skype" https://www.quantamagazine.org/mathematician-solves-computer-science-conjecture-in-two-pages-20190725/ 30 years of failure by promin…

https://www.sciencealert.com/astronomers-have-found-a-record-breaking-star-that-s-nearly-as-old-as-the-universe Astronomers Have Found a Record-Breaking Star That's Nearly as Old as The Universe MICHELLE STARR 5 AUG 2019 Another ancient star has been found lurking in the Milky Way. Around 35,000 light-years away, a red giant star named SMSS J160540.18–144323.1 was found to have the lowest iron levels of any star yet analysed in the galaxy. This means that it's one of the oldest stars in the Universe, probably belonging to the second generation of stars after the Universe burst into existence 13.8 billion years ago. "This incredibly anaemic st…

I just finish watching a series doco [in 4 parts] and would recommend it's viewing. Describing it in a word? Scary......Í can't say how close it is to the actual truth but you can gauge that for yourself.........

According to this TIME article, "Two companies, Editas Medicine and Allergan, will test this [method] in up to 18 people around the United States" afflicted with a form of congenital blindness called Leber congenital amaurosis where sufferers may "see only bright lights and blurry shapes and can eventually lose all sight." It seems promising and reminds me somewhat of a scene from one of those Star Trek movies where the Enterprise travels back in time and Dr. McCoy encounters a patient who he gives a pill that regenerates her liver...or was it her kidney?.

https://phys.org/news/2019-07-space-kits-blast-orbit.html Space mining kits blast off for tests in orbit: Astronauts are to test the world's first space mining devices, in an advance that could open up a new frontier in exploring the universe. Prototype kits are being sent to the International Space Station to study how microscopic organisms could be used to recover minerals and metals from space rocks. The groundbreaking study could aid efforts to establish manned settlements on distant worlds by helping develop ways to source minerals essential for survival in space. Tests will reveal how low gravity affects bacteria's natural ability to extract…

...despite the headline saying they did https://time.com/4854718/quantum-entanglement-teleport-space/? Some stories say they teleported an electron. This one says photon. Regardless, it was the state of the particle that was teleported, not the particle itself.

„This particular photo shows entanglement between two photons - two particles of light. They're interacting and for a brief moment sharing physical states. Paul-Antoine Moreau, first author on the paper where the image was unveiled, told the BBC the image was "an elegant demonstration of a fundamental property of nature". To capture the incredible photo, Moreau and a team of physicists created a system that blasted out streams of entangled photons at what they described as 'non-conventional objects'. The experiment actually involved capturing four images of the photons under four different phase transitions. https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-just…

https://phys.org/news/2019-07-japan-hayabusa2-probe-touchdown-asteroid.html Japan's Hayabusa2 probe makes 'perfect' touchdown on asteroid: Japan's Hayabusa2 probe made a "perfect" touchdown Thursday on a distant asteroid, collecting samples from beneath the surface in an unprecedented mission that could shed light on the origins of the solar system. "We've collected a part of the solar system's history," project manager Yuichi Tsuda said at a jubilant press conference hours after the successful landing was confirmed. "We have never gathered sub-surface material from a celestial body further away than the Moon," he added. "We did it and we succeede…