Science News

Exploring applications for tires and more; electric vehicle magnets research motor... Perhaps you are lucky catching the next broadcast : ----> https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/tv/scienceview/20190206/2015208/

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When Europeans arrived in the Americas, they caused so much death and disease that it changed the global climate, a new study finds. European settlers killed 56 million indigenous people over about 100 years in South, Central and North America, causing large swaths of farmland to be abandoned and reforested, researchers at University College London, or UCL, estimate. The increase in trees and vegetation across an area the size of France resulted in a massive decrease in carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere, according to the study. Carbon levels changed enough to cool the Earth by 1610, researchers found. Columbus arrived in 1492, "CO2 and climate had been…

Neanderthals and Denisovans might have lived side by side for tens of thousands of years, scientists report in two papers in Nature. The long-awaited studies are based on the analysis of bones, artefacts and sediments from Denisova Cave in southern Siberia, which is dotted with ancient-human remains. They provide the first detailed history of the site’s 300,000-year occupation by different groups of ancient humans.https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00353-0

https://www.yahoo.com/news/earths-oldest-known-rock-found-211500968.html

(Not really science news, but this is probably the most appropriate forum.) There is an episode of the series In Our Time about the life and work of Emmy Noether: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00025bw

Something strange is going on at the top of the world. Earth’s north magnetic pole has been skittering away from Canada and towards Siberia, driven by liquid iron sloshing within the planet’s core. The magnetic pole is moving so quickly that it has forced the world’s geomagnetism experts into a rare move. On 15 January, they are set to update the World Magnetic Model, which describes the planet’s magnetic field and underlies all modern navigation, from the systems that steer ships at sea to Google Maps on smartphones.https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00007-1

Hey everyone im new to these forms and wanted to use this as a platform to incite thoughtful discussion relating to the scientific world (I guess thats fairly obvious since im posting this haha) but I wanted to speak about something I came across recently. Recently a report was issued from Nature regarding the political environment of Nicaragua and its effects on the scientific/academic communities residing there and in the U.S. I was wondering why the importance of academia is suddenly thrown out the window when an individuals loyalty to their government comes into question. As a result of the political uprisings in Nicaragua, environmental protections such as the f…

Scientists drilling into a buried Antarctic lake 600 kilometres from the South Pole have found surprising signs of ancient life: the carcasses of tiny animals preserved under a kilometre of ice. The crustaceans and a tardigrade, or ‘water bear’ — all smaller than poppy seeds — were found in Subglacial Lake Mercer, a body of water that had lain undisturbed for thousands of years. Until now, humans had seen the lake only indirectly, through ice-penetrating radar and other remote-sensing techniques. But that changed on 26 December when researchers funded by the US National Science Foundation (NSF) succeeded in melting a narrow portal through the ice to the water below. …

Every year, water shortages affect more than one-third of the world’s population. In 2017, even Rome — ancient pioneer of urban water provision — saw its myriad public drinking fountains switched off. Environmental economist Edward Barbier plunges deep into these and other stories from the fascinating, often fraught world of water management past and present in his scholarly but accessible study The Water Paradox. Barbier investigates, too, the threats looming over water resources. The paradox is this: despite ample scientific evidence on exploitation and overuse of fresh water, and ample wealth, knowledge and institutional power, humanity has created a preventable w…

https://newatlas.com/brightest-quasar-600-trillion-suns/58020/ From our point of view here on Earth, the brightest object in the sky is unquestionably the Sun. But this unremarkable star is a mere 10-watt bulb compared to quasars, extremely luminous galactic cores that shine so intensely thanks to their ravenous hunger for nearby material. Now, astronomers have detected the brightest quasar ever found, shining with the light of almost 600 trillion Suns. The quasar, officially designated J043947.08+163415.7, pips the previous brightness records by a fair margin. Until now the title belonged to a quasar shining with the equivalent of 420 trillion Suns, while the m…

Scientists and the models they build have underestimated the amount of methane seeping from beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet and into the atmosphere, according to new research.https://www.upi.com/Greenlands-ice-sheet-is-emitting-a-lot-of-methane/3321546532876/

Can do new chronology using help solar eclipses? Perhaps everyone interested in reading, for example, the history of Assyria, Babylon and Egypt, has at some point noticed some references to solar eclipses observed at that distant time. This is one: deleted

Japan’s exit from the International Whaling Commission should encourage a stronger role for science. The International Whaling Commission (IWC) has always existed in uneasy tension between those who want to protect whales and those who also want to eat them. Late last year, the tension finally snapped with the announcement from Japan that it is leaving. This was accompanied by a pledge that the nation will resume commercial whaling in the Pacific Ocean, and end its controversial research whaling programme in Antarctic waters.https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00076-2

Although black holes are objects of central importance across many fields of physics, there is no agreed upon definition for them, a fact that does not seem to be widely recognized. Physicists in different fields conceive of and reason about them in radically different, and often conflicting, ways. All those ways, however, seem sound in the relevant contexts. After examining and comparing many of the definitions used in practice, I consider the problems that the lack of a universally accepted definition leads to, and discuss whether one is in fact needed for progress in the physics of black holes. I conclude that, within reasonable bounds, the profusion of different defin…

The Southern Ocean is one of humanity’s allies, slowing global warming by absorbing heat and carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. But now researchers report that the choppy waters around Antarctica are also quietly belching out massive quantities of CO2 during the dark and windy winter, reducing the ocean’s climate benefit. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07784-1

https://phys.org/news/2019-01-magnetar-mysteries-galaxy.html Magnetar mysteries in our galaxy and beyond January 10, 2019, California Institute of Technology: In a new Caltech-led study, researchers from campus and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) have analyzed pulses of radio waves coming from a magnetar—a rotating, dense, dead star with a strong magnetic field—that is located near the supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way galaxy. The new research provides clues that magnetars like this one, lying in close proximity to a black hole, could perhaps be linked to the source of "fast radio bursts," or FRBs. FRBs are high-energy blasts that or…

https://phys.org/news/2019-01-student-simulates-thousands-black-holes.html Student simulates thousands of black holes January 9, 2019, University of Arizona: Lia Medeiros, a doctoral student at the University of Arizona, is developing mathematical models that will allow researchers to pit Einstein's Theory of General Relativity against the most powerful monsters of nature: supermassive black holes such as Sgr A*, which lurks at the center of the Milky Way. Medeiros has developed a diagnostic tool that astronomers can use to compare upcoming observations of supermassive black holes by the Event Horizon Telescope to the predictions of mathematical models…

https://phys.org/news/2019-01-astronomers-evolution-black-hole-wolfs.html Astronomers observe evolution of a black hole as it wolfs down stellar material January 9, 2019, Massachusetts Institute of Technology On March 11, an instrument aboard the International Space Station detected an enormous explosion of X-ray light that grew to be six times as bright as the Crab Nebula, nearly 10,000 light years away from Earth. Scientists determined the source was a black hole caught in the midst of an outburst—an extreme phase in which a black hole can spew brilliant bursts of X-ray energy as it devours an avalanche of gas and dust from a nearby star. Now astrono…

https://phys.org/news/2019-01-evidence-gigantic-star-explosions.html First evidence of gigantic remains from star explosions January 9, 2019, Lancaster University Astrophysicists have found the first ever evidence of gigantic remains being formed from repeated explosions on the surface of a dead star in the Andromeda Galaxy, 2.5 million light years from Earth. The remains or "super-remnant" measures almost 400 light years across. For comparison, it takes just 8 minutes for light from the Sun to reach us. A white dwarf is the dead core of a star. When it is paired with a companion star in a binary system, it can potentially produce a nova explosion. If …

https://phys.org/news/2019-01-astronomers-evidence-white-dwarf-stars.html Astronomers discover first direct evidence of white dwarf stars solidifying into crystals January 9, 2019, University of Warwick The first direct evidence of white dwarf stars solidifying into crystals has been discovered by astronomers at the University of Warwick, and our skies are filled with them. Observations have revealed that dead remnants of stars like our Sun, called white dwarfs, have a core of solid oxygen and carbon due to a phase transition during their lifecycle similar to water turning into ice but at much higher temperatures. This could make them potentially billi…

SPAM LINK DELETED What do you think guys? how can NASA stop this asteroid?

https://phys.org/news/2018-12-helium-exoplanet-inflated-balloon.html Helium exoplanet inflated like a balloon, research shows: December 6, 2018, University of Exeter: Astronomers have discovered a distant planet with an abundance of helium in its atmosphere, which has swollen to resemble an inflated balloon. An international team of researchers, including Jessica Spake and Dr. David Sing from the University of Exeter, have detected the inert gas escaping from the atmosphere of the exoplanet HAT-P-11b—found 124 light years from Earth and in the Cygnus constellation. Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-12-helium-exoplanet-inflated-balloon.html#jCp …

Interesting article on science (mainly space science) in 2019. https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang/top-10-highlights-of-what-2019-will-hold-for-science-469db3315e2f It includes this great composite picture to show the relative size of the Moon and the shadow of the Earth:

I'm going to post this here, it is a short video about bacteria movement and super fluids but I have seen something similar in real life. I used to culture euglena as a food source for rotifers, in the culture barrels the euglena would swim around and round the barrels and almost always they would all go the same direction actually making a visible current that would carry small floating particles on the surface around visibly moving at several inches a minute. These microscopic protists creating this current as long as the sun shone on them I think was similar to what is being said here.