Science News

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…

https://phys.org/news/2019-06-most-detailed-ever-simulations-black-hole-longstanding.html An international team has constructed the most detailed, highest resolution simulation of a black hole to date. The simulation proves theoretical predictions about the nature of accretion disks—the matter that orbits and eventually falls into a black hole—that have never before been seen. The research will publish on June 5 in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Among the findings, the team of computational astrophysicists from Northwestern University, the University of Amsterdam and the University of Oxford found that the inner-most region of an acc…

https://phys.org/news/2019-06-heart-lonesome-galaxy-brimming-dark.html Heart of lonesome galaxy is brimming with dark matter: Isolated for billions of years, a galaxy with more dark matter packed into its core than expected has been identified by astronomers using data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. The galaxy, known as Markarian 1216 (abbreviated as Mrk 1216), contains stars that are within 10% the age of the universe—that is, almost as old as the universe itself. Scientists have found that it has gone through a different evolution than typical galaxies, both in terms of its stars and the invisible dark matter that, through gravity, holds the galax…

Dark matter is a mysterious, invisible substance that typically dominates the makeup of galaxies; finding an object that's missing dark matter is unprecedented, and came as a complete surprise. "If there's one object, you always have a little voice in the back of your mind saying, 'but what if you're wrong?' Even though we did all the checks we could think of, we were worried that nature had thrown us for a loop and had conspired to make something look really special whereas it was really something more mundane," said team leader Pieter van Dokkum, Sol Goldman Family Professor of Astronomy at Yale University. Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2019-03-unusu…

The Navy says they want to educate pilots as to what UFOs are so that hostile aircraft or atmospheric anomalies will not be mistaken for hostile aircraft or non hostile aircraft. Yet this report was documented. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/26/us/politics/ufo-sightings-navy-pilots.html And this one: Interestingly the article also said the incidents were fewer away from the US.

Full Text: https://annals.org/aim/fullarticle/2727726/measles-mumps-rubella-vaccination-autism-nationwide-cohort-study

https://phys.org/news/2019-05-stabilizing-no-boundary-universe-quantum.html Stabilizing the no-boundary proposal sheds light on the universe's quantum origins: One idea for how the universe began is that the universe may have appeared out of nothing due to some quantum effect, such as quantum tunneling. In the 1980s, Stephen Hawking and James Hartle further elaborated on this idea by suggesting that time did not exist before the beginning of the universe, leading them to conclude that the universe has no initial boundary conditions on either time or space. The idea is called the "no-boundary proposal" or the "Hawking-Hartle state." However, precisely descr…

Sydney on Tuesday announced its first major water restrictions in a decade, putting limits on homes and businesses amid a record-breaking drought. The New South Wales government said the greater Sydney region water catchments were experiencing some of the lowest flows since the 1940s, and that the restrictions would be enforced from next week. "Regional NSW has been experiencing a record drought," the southeastern state's minister for water Melinda Pavey said in a statement. more at link....

https://phys.org/news/2019-05-compound-antibiotic-resistant-superbugs.html A new compound which visualises and kills antibiotic resistant superbugs has been discovered by scientists at the University of Sheffield and Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL). The team, led by Professor Jim Thomas, from the University of Sheffield's Department of Chemistry, is testing new compounds developed by his Ph.D. student Kirsty Smitten on antibiotic resistant gram-negative bacteria, including pathogenic E. coli. more at link....... <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>&…

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-space-exploration-nasa/nasa-executive-quits-weeks-after-appointment-to-lead-2024-moon-landing-plan-idUSKCN1SU0A5 - excerpts : " NASA executive quits weeks after appointment to lead 2024 moon landing plan CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - A top NASA executive hired in April to guide strategy for returning astronauts to the moon by 2024 has resigned, the space agency said on Thursday, the culmination of internal strife and dwindling congressional support for the lunar initiative. Mark Sirangelo, named six weeks ago as special assistant to NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, left the agency as NASA aban…