Science News

https://phys.org/news/2019-07-pair-supermassive-black-holes-collision.htmlAstronomers have spotted a distant pair of titanic black holes headed for a collision.Each black hole's mass is more than 800 million times that of our sun. As the two gradually draw closer together in a death spiral, they will begin sending gravitational waves rippling through space-time. Those cosmic ripples will join the as-yet-undetected background noise of gravitational waves from other supermassive black holes.Even before the destined collision, the gravitational waves emanating from the supermassive black hole pair will dwarf those previously detected from the mergers of much smaller black ho…

https://phys.org/news/2019-07-exoplanets-gravitational.html In a recent paper in Nature Astronomy, researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute/AEI) in Potsdam and from the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) in Saclay, Paris suggest how the planned space-based gravitational-wave observatory LISA can detect exoplanets orbiting white dwarf binaries everywhere in the Milky Way and in the nearby Magellanic Clouds. This new method will overcome certain limitations of current electromagnetic detection techniques and might allow LISA to detect planets down to 50 Earth masses. In the past two deca…

For anyone interested here is the official original press release of the Apollo 11 mission...256 pages of it. https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/Apollo11_Press-Kit_restored.pdf?utm_source=TWITTER&utm_medium=NASA&utm_campaign=NASASocial&linkId=70122437

https://tokyo3.org/forums/holiday/?main=https%3A//tokyo3.org/forums/holiday/welcome/ 'Ghost Base' Perched on a Growing Ice Chasm in Antarctica Is Running on Its Own: A remote science station in Antarctica forced to close over the polar winter by a dangerous ice chasm is completely empty of human life — a ghost base of sorts. Even so, its vital science experiments keep on ticking. It is the first time that important science experiments at the Halley Research Station on the Brunt Ice Shelf have been operated remotely, thanks to a high-tech electricity generator that will run continuously for nine months in the below-freezing conditions. The generato…

With all the gloom and doom surrounding global warming, sometimes there's a sliver of good news. Planting billions of trees across the world is by far the biggest and cheapest way to tackle the climate crisis, according to scientists, who have made the first calculation of how many more trees could be planted without encroaching on crop land or urban areas. The analysis found there are 1.7bn hectares of treeless land on which 1.2tn native tree saplings would naturally grow. That area is about 11% of all land and equivalent to the size of the US and China combined. Tropical areas could have 100% tree cover, while others would be more sparsely covered, meaning …

Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/scientists-are-searching-mirror-universe-it-could-be-sitting-right-ncna1023206 I don't know about you guys, but my money is on "a waste of time". If she succeeds it's gonna literally change the world.

Just been reading about the Japanese student doctors who just came out top after shamefully having their grades altered I still can't believe it sometimes when I hear about these stories, maybe in Saudi but not Japan. It shows the scale of the problem and why it's based on complete nonsense I think. makes you wonder what else is yet to be discovered. trying to put link in but can't, on iPad 4s so not sure if it's me or comp.

https://phys.org/news/2019-07-x-rays-black-holes-cosmic-sea.html Like whirlpools in the ocean, spinning black holes in space create a swirling torrent around them. However, black holes do not create eddies of wind or water. Rather, they generate disks of gas and dust heated to hundreds of millions of degrees that glow in X-ray light. Using data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and chance alignments across billions of light-years, astronomers have deployed a new technique to measure the spin of five supermassive black holes. The matter in one of these cosmic vortices is swirling around its black hole at greater than about 70% of the speed of light. The …

https://phys.org/news/2019-06-comet-impacts-jump-start-life-earth.html Comets screaming through the atmosphere of early Earth at tens of thousands of miles per hour likely contained measurable amounts of protein-forming amino acids. Upon impact, these amino acids self-assembled into significantly larger nitrogen-containing aromatic structures that are likely constituents of polymeric biomaterials. That is the conclusion of a new study by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) researchers who explored the idea that the extremely high pressures and temperatures induced by shock impact can cause small biomolecules to condense into larger life-building compou…

https://phys.org/news/2019-07-antarctic-ice-high-lows.html The amount of ice circling Antarctica is suddenly plunging from a record high to record lows, baffling scientists. Floating ice off the southern continent steadily increased from 1979 and hit a record high in 2014. But three years later, the annual average extent of Antarctic sea ice hit its lowest mark, wiping out three-and-a-half decades of gains—and then some, a NASA study of satellite data shows. In recent years, "things have been crazy," said Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center. In an email, he called the plummeting ice levels "a white-knuckle ride." more a…

https://phys.org/news/2019-06-astronomers-history.html Cosmic waves discovery could unlock mysteries of intergalactic space: Scientists were celebrating a groundbreaking astronomical discovery Thursday that they say could pave the way for mapping the outer reaches of the universe. An Australian-led team of international astronomers have determined for the first time the precise source of a powerful, one-off burst of cosmic radio waves. They have pinpointed it to a massive galaxy billions of light years away, with properties that upend what scientists previously thought they knew about the formation of mysterious fast radio bursts (FRBs). "This re…

https://phys.org/news/2019-06-santorini-volcano-terrestrial-analogue-mars.html The Greek island of Santorini is now one of the most popular tourist destinations in the Mediterranean, but 3,600 years ago it suffered one of the largest volcanic eruptions in recorded history. Among the material that was exposed, scientists have now found rocks similar to those of Mars. "In the Balos Cove, located to the south of the island, we have discovered basalts such as those that have been identified by the rovers on Mars and with properties similar to those of certain meteorites from the red planet and those of terrestrial rocks classified as Martian analogues," says Ioannis…

https://www.aei.mpg.de/18498/03_Einstein_Telescope Einstein Telescope: The Einstein Telescope (ET) is a design concept for a third-generation gravitational-wave (GW) detector, which will be 10 times more sensitive than current instruments. Like the first two generations of GW detectors, the concept for the Einstein Telescope is based on the measurement of tiny changes (far less than the size of an atomic nucleus) in the lengths of two connected arms several kilometres long, caused by a passing gravitational wave. Laser beams passing down the arms record their periodic stretching and shrinking as interference patterns in a central photo-detector. The…

After the Roswell crash we were told it was a weather balloon. So at this time the government was accused by many of a coverup. Now we have the Navy briefing Congress on the UFOs that they are admitting to seeing. Now, nobody get mad at me, because this is not my story. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/u-s-senators-briefed-on-ufos-as-suspicions-grow-surrounding-naval-sightings

https://phys.org/news/2019-06-einstein-relativity-document-gifted-nobel.html Einstein's relativity document gifted to Nobel museum: Physicist Albert Einstein declared his opposition to the "H" bomb and to the arms race between the US and USSR in 1950 The Nobel Museum in Stockholm has been gifted Albert Einstein's first paper published after he received the Nobel Prize in 1922 and discussing his then still controversial relativity theory. Swedish businessman Per Taube bought the handwritten two-page document at an auction for 1.2 million krona (110,000 euros) in December last year. more at link..... <<<<<<<<<&lt…

https://phys.org/news/2019-06-microbes-climate-conversation-major-consequences.html JUNE 18, 2019 Leaving microbes out of climate change conversation has major consequences, experts warn by University of New South Wales: More than 30 microbiologists from 9 countries have issued a warning to humanity—they are calling for the world to stop ignoring an 'unseen majority' in Earth's biodiversity and ecosystem when addressing climate change. 'Scientist's warning to humanity: microorganisms and climate change' was published today in the journal Nature Reviews Microbiology. Professor Rick Cavicchioli, microbiologist at the School of Biotechnology and Biom…

https://phys.org/news/2019-06-earth-like-exoplanets-red-dwarf-teegarden.html New Earth-like exoplanets discovered around red dwarf Teegarden star: An international team led by the University of Göttingen (Germany) with participation by researchers from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) have discovered, using the CARMENES high-resolution spectrograph at the Calar Alto Observatory (Almería) two new planets like the Earth around one of the closest stars within our galactic neighbourhood. The Teegarden star is only 12.5 light yearsaway. It is a red dwarf in the direction of the constellation of Aries. Its surface temperature is 2,700 degrees C, and…

One of the founders of the standard model, one of the greatest particle-physicists of the 60s and 70s, has died. I remember him from a book I read when I still was at school: The scientist, from the Time-Life series. The discovery of the Omega-minus was given as an example of how scientists get to their discoveries. Gell-Mann, together with Yuval Ne'eman, predicted its existence. Gell-Mann gave his theory the name 'eightfold path'. I don't know if quarks were already implicit in his theory, or that he later got the idea that the existence of quarks would explain the symmetries he found.

Inside the ‘secret underground lair’ where scientists are searching the galaxies – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06-17/inside-super-kamiokande-360-tour/11209104 My apologies if the above format does not work for some....... Interesting to note that before some needed modification, in 2001, about 6,600 of the photo-multiplier tubes in the Super-Kamiokande detector imploded, due to a type of chain reaction, as the shock wave from the concussion of each imploding tube cracked its neighbours. more info here.... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamioka_Observatory#Nobel_prize_2 https://www.nat…

Full summary: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/613092/a-quantum-experiment-suggests-theres-no-such-thing-as-objective-reality/ Paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/1902.05080

https://phys.org/news/2019-06-old-school-climate-denial-day.html Why old-school climate denial has had its day by Michael J. I. Brown, The Conversation New South Wales, which was 100% drought-declared in August 2018, is already suffering climate impacts. Credit: Michael Cleary The Coalition has been re-elected to government, and after six years in office it has not created any effective policies for reducing greenhouse emissions. Does that mean the Australian climate change debate is stuck in 2013? Not exactly. While Australia still lacks effective climate change policies, the debate has definitely shifted. It's particularly noticeable to scientis…

https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2019-06-07/fossil-nuts-from-gondwanan-beech-tree-challenges-plant-evolution/11184956 Fossil nuts from ancient Gondwanan beech tree challenge plant evolution: Nothing could be more different to the dry windy plains of Patagonia than the moist rainforests of the New Guinea highlands. Yet researchers reporting today in the journal Science say fossils of a beech tree found in southern Argentina are from a genus which these days grows in the wet forests of South-East Asia and New Guinea — thousands of kilometres north of freezing Patagonia. Key points: Plant fossils found in Patagonia are from the Castanopsis genus, …

https://www.universetoday.com/142451/dont-worry-about-asteroid-2006qv89-theres-only-a-1-in-7000-chance-itll-hit-the-earth-in-september/#more-142451 Don’t Worry About Asteroid 2006QV89. There’s Only a 1 in 7000 Chance It’ll Hit the Earth in September Whenever scientists announce an upcoming close encounter with an asteroid, certain corners of the internet light up like the synaptic rush that accompanies a meth binge, with panicky headlines shouted straight from the brain stem. But never mind that. We’re not that corner of the internet. We’re sober, yo! The fact of the matter is, there aren’t any more near-Earth asteroids than there used to be. We’re just get…

https://phys.org/news/2019-06-table-salt-compound-europa.html A familiar ingredient has been hiding in plain sight on the surface of Jupiter's moon Europa. Using a visible light spectral analysis, planetary scientists at Caltech and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which Caltech manages for NASA, have discovered that the yellow color visible on portions of the surface of Europa is actually sodium chloride, a compound known on Earth as table salt, which is also the principal component of sea salt. The discovery suggests that the salty subsurface ocean of Europa may chemically resemble Earth's oceans more than previously thought, challenging decades of supposition a…

https://phys.org/news/2019-06-astronomers-mass-small-black-hole.html If astronomers want to learn about how supermassive black holes form, they have to start small—really small, astronomically speaking. In fact, a team including University of Michigan astronomer Elena Gallo has discovered that a black hole at the center of a nearby dwarf galaxy, called NGC 4395, is about 40 times smaller than previously thought. Their findings are published in the journal Nature Astronomy. Currently, astronomers believe that supermassive black holes sit at the center of every galaxy as massive as or larger than the Milky Way. But they're curious about black holes in smaller…