Science News

https://cosmosmagazine.com/physics/quantum-tunnelling-is-instantaneous-researchers-find Quantum tunnelling is instantaneous, researchers find: Researchers have found that electrons passing through solid matter in a quantum process known as “tunnelling” do so instantaneously. The finding, led by scientists from Australia’s Griffith University, contradicts previous experiments that suggested a degree of time elapses between the start and finish of a tunnelling event. The work is detailed in a paper in the journal Nature. Quantum tunnelling is one of the more bizarre differences between our everyday, classical world and the surprising realm of quant…

https://www.lsc-group.phys.uwm.edu/ppcomm/Papers.html Tests of general relativity with the binary black hole signals from the LIGO-Virgo catalog GWTC-1 Summary: Mar 11, 2019 https://www.ligo.org/science/Publication-O2TGR/index.php SUMMARY All of the tests performed here have shown that the black hole mergers observed by Advanced LIGO and Virgo are compatible with the predictions of General Relativity. Furthermore, by combining information from the most confident black hole mergers observed to date, we have improved our previous constraints on possible deviations from General Relativity by factors up to 2.4. The future will bring many mo…

https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/03/thunderstorm-with-eye-popping-720gj-of-energy/ Thunderstorm with eye-popping 720GJ of energy Measured muon flux indicates thunderstorm reached a potential of 1.4GV. CHRIS LEE - 3/19/2019, 9:30 PM Nothing says "I love diving headfirst into a ditch" like your hair suddenly elevating to the tingly feel of electricity. Thunderstorms are amazing from inside a building, but they're scary if you're trapped outside. And, despite a good deal of observation, an element of mystery surrounds them. For instance, we know that lightning can produce free neutrons, antimatter, and gamma rays, but we don't have much idea of…

A report on cellulose nanofibers... Someone may enjoy it. Will be available a week. ----> https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/ondemand/video/2015181/ Edited - If does not work, try ----> https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/ondemand/program/video/scienceview/?type=tvEpisode&

Japan’s government has said that it is not ready to commit to hosting the world’s next major particle accelerator — the planned International Linear Collider (ILC). The decision appears to deal another blow to a project that has been more than a decade in the making, although some physicists are hopeful that the government might finally be making progress on the proposal.“There was disappointment,” said Geoffrey Taylor, chair of the International Committee for Future Accelerators, at a press conference at the University of Tokyo on 7 March. The press conference followed a meeting with representatives of Japan’s science and technology ministry, who delivered a statement on…

https://phys.org/news/2019-03-dark.html Finding dark matter in the dark: March 7, 2019 by Dr Daryl Holland, University of Melbourne: Dark matter is the mysterious material that holds the Universe together, yet no one has seen it; or heard, smelled, tasted or touched it either. But that may soon change, and a laboratory 1000 metres below the ground in the Stawell gold mine halfway between Melbourne and Adelaide could be the epicentre of this discovery. Physicists have had a good run recently at detecting the seemingly undetectable. First there was the Higg's Boson, confirmed by experiments at the Large Hadron Collider in 2012, nearly 50 years after…

https://phys.org/news/2019-03-hubble-gaia-accurately-milky.html Hubble and Gaia accurately weigh the Milky Way: March 7, 2019, ESA/Hubble Information Centre: In a striking example of multi-mission astronomy, measurements from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and the ESA Gaia mission have been combined to improve the estimate of the mass of our home galaxy the Milky Way: 1.5 trillion solar masses. The mass of the Milky Way is one of the most fundamental measurements astronomers can make about our galactic home. However, despite decades of intense effort, even the best available estimates of the Milky Way's mass disagree wildly. Now, by combining new …

A person with HIV appears to be free of the virus after receiving a stem-cell transplant that replaced their white blood cells with HIV-resistant versions. The patient is only the second person ever reported to have been cleared of the virus using this method. But researchers warn that it is too early to say that they have been cured. The patient — whose identity hasn’t been disclosed — was able to stop taking antiretroviral drugs, with no sign of the virus returning 18 months later. The stem-cell technique was first used a decade ago for Timothy Ray Brown, known as the ‘Berlin patient’, who is still free of the virus.https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00798-…

https://phys.org/news/2019-03-ion-aces-quantum-scrambling.html Can entangled qubits be used to probe black holes? March 6, 2019, University of California - Berkeley Physicists have used a seven-qubit quantum computer to simulate the scrambling of information inside a black hole, heralding a future in which entangled quantum bits might be used to probe the mysterious interiors of these bizarre objects. Scrambling is what happens when matter disappears inside a black hole. The information attached to that matter—the identities of all its constituents, down to the energy and momentum of its most elementary particles—is chaotically mixed with all the other…

The yeast used by people for millennia to ferment alcoholic drinks can now produce cannabinoids – chemicals with medicinal properties as well as occasionally mind-altering characteristics in cannabis. The accomplishment, described in Nature on February 27, transforms a sugar known as galactose in brewer’s yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) into THC or tetrahydrocannabinol, the primary psychoactive compound in Cannabis sativa or cannabis. Moreover, the modified enzyme can yield CBD or cannabidiol, another essential cannabinoid that’s been famous lately for its possible therapeutic benefits, such as pain-relief and anti-anxiety effects. The aspirations are that this…

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-02-mobile-bedside-bioprinter-wounds.html Mobile bedside bioprinter can heal wounds: Imagine a day when a bioprinter filled with a patient's own cells can be wheeled right to the bedside to treat large wounds or burns by printing skin, layer by layer, to begin the healing process. That day is not far off. more at https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-02-mobile-bedside-bioprinter-wounds.html

Pesticides, pollution and climate change are all wiping out insects at an alarming rate – so much, that a new global review says they could vanish within a century, threatening a “catastrophic collapse of nature’s ecosystems”. The scientists are calling for an urgent overhaul of the agricultural industry, warning that “unless we change our ways of producing food, insects as a whole will go down the path of extinction in a few decades”.https://www.channel4.com/news/insects-decline-threatens-catastrophic-collapse-of-natures-ecosystems The rate of insect extinction is eight times faster than that of mammals, birds and reptiles.https://www.theguardian.com/environme…

The occurrence of devastating European floods correlates with large-scale fluctuations in atmospheric pressure known as the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). As scientists improve their predictions for the NAO, society will be better able to prepare for future flooding. Stefano Zanardo and his colleagues at Risk Management Solutions in London, UK, analysed historical records of severe European floods going back to 1870, and compared them with the prevailing pattern of atmospheric pressure at the time of the floods. When the NAO is in its ‘positive’ state, a strong low-pressure system over Iceland funnels winds and storms across Northern Europe. Conversely, when the N…

Netflix have made a documentary about flat-Earthers. It shows how they do two experiments in an attempt to prove the Earth is flat but instead (spoiler!) the results are consistent with the Earth being round. Which, of course, changes no ones' minds. https://www.newsweek.com/behind-curve-netflix-ending-light-experiment-mark-sargent-documentary-movie-1343362

Positron, also called positive electron, positively charged subatomic particle having the same mass and magnitude of charge as the electron and constituting the antiparticle of a negative electron. When a positron hits an electron, both instantly annihilate in a flash of light. And since there are electrons in abundance everywhere on Earth, it is extremely difficult to store positrons in such a way that they survive for at least a while. Now, scientists from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) have succeeded in losslessly guiding positrons. This discovery could pave the way towards creating a matter-antimatte…

Interesting article on how it is possible to indirectly detect the effects of the Cosmic Neutrino Background and (of course) how it is consistent with the Big Bang model. https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2019/02/28/earliest-signal-ever-scientists-find-relic-neutrinos-from-1-second-after-the-big-bang/

A new simulation has revealed that global warming could cause stratocumulus clouds to disappear in as little as a century, which would add 8°C of extra warming. A state-of-the-art supercomputer simulation indicates that a feedback loop between global warming and cloud loss can push Earth’s climate past a disastrous tipping point in as little as a century. https://www.quantamagazine.org/cloud-loss-could-add-8-degrees-to-global-warming-20190225/

https://phys.org/news/2019-02-nasa-life-ocean-floor.html NASA study reproduces origins of life on ocean floor February 26, 2019, NASA: Scientists have reproduced in the lab how the ingredients for life could have formed deep in the ocean 4 billion years ago. The results of the new study offer clues to how life started on Earth and where else in the cosmos we might find it. Astrobiologist Laurie Barge and her team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, are working to recognize life on other planets by studying the origins of life here on Earth. Their research focuses on how the building blocks of life form in hydrothermal vents on …

Hundreds of thousands of native fish in Australia’s Darling River have died following a major outbreak of blue–green algae and some severe weather. Two mass die-offs have been reported near Menindee in western New South Wales — the first was late last year, and the second last week. Outbreaks of blue–green algae (cyanobacteria), which thrive in warm water, are not uncommon during droughts. The algae did not directly cause the mass die-off; rapid cooling and intense rainfall might have disrupted the bloom and depleted the amount of dissolved oxygen in the water, killing the fish, said Anthony Townsend, a senior fisheries manager at the New South Wales Department of Pr…

Scientists in Japan now have permission to inject 'reprogrammed' stem cells into people with spinal-cord injuries. An upcoming trial will mark the first time that induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells have been used to treat spinal-cord injuries, after a committee at Japan’s health ministry approved the study on 18 February. IPS cells are created by inducing cells from body tissue to revert to an embryonic-like state, from which they can develop into other cell types. Hideyuki Okano, a stem-cell scientist at Keio University in Tokyo, will coax donor iPS cells into becoming neural precursor cells, which can develop into neurons and glial cells. His team will then injec…

The DNA of life on Earth naturally stores its information in just four key chemicals — guanine, cytosine, adenine and thymine, commonly referred to as G, C, A and T, respectively. Now scientists have doubled this number of life’s building blocks, creating for the first time a synthetic, eight-letter genetic language that seems to store and transcribe information just like natural DNA. "Synthetic DNA seems to behave like the natural variety, suggesting that chemicals beyond nature’s four familiar bases could support life on Earth" https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00650-8

If all goes well, an Israeli lander scheduled to launch tomorrow will become the first privately funded craft to land on the Moon. The trip will be short and sweet — a two-day study of magnetism in rocks. But it will pioneer the type of public-private partnership that seems set to kick off a new era of lunar exploration. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00652-6

Good summary of the observations at the time (gravitational waves and all electromagnetic spectrum) and what has been observed since then, including a relativistic jet (confirming the creation of a black hole). Or about twice the mass of all the world's oceans. https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2019/02/21/merging-neutron-stars-made-an-unstoppable-jet-and-it-moves-at-nearly-the-speed-of-light/

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-018-0573-2 Published: 24 September 2018 No evidence for modifications of gravity from galaxy motions on cosmological scales: Abstract: Current tests of general relativity (GR) remain confined to the scale of stellar systems or the strong gravity regime. A departure from GR on cosmological scales has been advocated1 as an alternative to the cosmological constant Λ (ref. 2) to account for the observed cosmic expansion history3,4. However, such models yield distinct values for the linear growth rate of density perturbations and consequently for the associated galaxy peculiar velocity field. Measurements of the resul…

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46856779 Bizarrely: So he repeatedly makes bigoted and discriminatory statements but ... what? He doesn't mean them? Just goes to show, even Nobel Prize winners can be idiots.