Science News

Asteroid Bennu for example .. if it has ice, will it have ice worms. Japanese experiments show UV light causing ice to act as a liquid. "researchers say that these same reactions could also be responsible for creating just the right environment for organic molecules to form, the very first building blocks needed for life to start." https://www.google.ca/search?q=uv+causing+ice+to+act+as+liquid&rlz=1C1GGRV_enCA803CA812&oq=uv+causing+ice+to+act+as+liquid&aqs=chrome..69i57.11605j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

This sounds very dodgy to me, despite it came from BBC Science News 2018-11-16:- https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-46143399 The Kibble Balance measures weight in order to deduce the mass of the reference standard weight. Hmmmmm

https://www.ligo.caltech.edu/news/ligo20180910 Jocelyn Bell Burnell Receives Breakthrough Prize News Release • September 10, 2018 The LIGO Lab and LIGO Scientific Collaboration are heartily congratulating Jocelyn Bell Burnell for becoming just the fourth recipient of the Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, a $3 million dollar prize bestowed to a scientist or group of scientists deemed to have made significant discoveries in or contributions to science. Burnell is being recognized for her astute observation of odd repeating ‘blips’ in radio telescope data gathered while she was a graduate student at Cambridge University in 1967. Initially…

https://phys.org/news/2018-11-insight-deep-time-evolution-animal-life.html New research offers detail and insight into deep-time evolution of animal life on islands November 14, 2018, University of Kansas Islands have been vital laboratories for advancing evolutionary theory since the pioneering work of Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace in the 19th century. Now, a new paper appearing in PLOS ONE from an international team of investigators describes two new fossil relatives of marsupials that shed light on how a unique island ecosystem evolved some 43 million years ago during the Eocene. Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-11-insight-deep…

https://phys.org/news/2018-11-gravitational-merged-hyper-massive-neutron-star.html For the first time astronomers have detected gravitational waves from a merged, hyper-massive neutron star. The scientists, Maurice van Putten of Sejong University in South Korea, and Massimo della Valle of the Osservatorio Astronomico de Capodimonte in Italy, publish their results in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters. Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-11-gravitational-merged-hyper-massive-neutron-star.html#jCp the paper: https://academic.oup.com/mnrasl/article/482/1/L46/5090425 Observational evidence for extended emission to GW170817 …

The Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) in Hawaii has discovered a visitor from afar. Pan-STARRS primary mission is to detect near earth objects that pose an impact threat but sometimes they get to do fun science like this. The asteroid seems to come from the constellation Lyra, but the exact origin is still unknown. It has been named Oumuamua, Hawaiian for “a messenger from afar arriving first” and they think it has traveled millions of years to visit us. https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/20/16679890/interstellar-asteroid-oumuamua-pan-starrs-solar-system http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1737/ From the second link:

https://phys.org/news/2018-11-dark-hurricane-chance-axions.html A team of researchers from Universidad de Zaragoza, King's College London and the Institute of Astronomy in the U.K. has found that a "dark matter hurricane" passing through our solar system offers a better than usual chance of detecting axions. In their paper published in the journal Physical Review D, the group describes their findings and why they believe their observations could offer help in understanding dark matter. The evidence for the existence of dark matter is very strong, yet scientists are still unable to find a way to actually "see" it. Because of that, they keep trying to find new way…

https://phys.org/news/2018-11-physicists-fractal-electrons.html Physicists build fractal shape out of electrons November 12, 2018 by Utrecht University, Utrecht University Faculty of Science Electrons in bonding (left) and non-bonding (right) Sierpiński triangles; scale bar 2nm. Credit: Kempkes et al., Nature Physics, 2018 In physics, it is well-known that electrons behave very differently in three dimensions, two dimensions or one dimension. These behaviours give rise to different possibilities for technological applications and electronic systems. But what happens if electrons live in 1.58 dimensions – and what does it actually mean? Theoretic…

Interesting article I came across, and which I find appropriate particularly with the undeserved and mostly invalidated criticism leveled at science, by many "would be's if they could be's" out there....My question is highlighted at the end of the two articles........ In Praise of Scientific Theory Just a hunch? Hardly. Think germ theory, atomic theory and the theory of evolution. Science can make life difficult for manipulators and demagogues. Without science, it would be much easier to convince the public that an intelligent designer created the world, or that greenhouse gas warming and lead contamination are just the fantasies of “alarmists.” To physicis…

https://phys.org/news/2018-11-spacetimea-creation-well-known-actors.html Spacetime—a creation of well-known actors? November 9, 2018, The Henryk Niewodniczanski Institute of Nuclear Physics Polish Academy of Sciences: Most physicists believe that the structure of spacetime is formed in an unknown way at the Planck scale, i.e., at a scale close to one trillionth of a trillionth of a metre. However, careful considerations undermine this prediction. There are quite a few arguments in favour of the emergence of spacetime as a result of processes taking place at the level of quarks and their conglomerates.What is spacetime? The absolute, unchanging arena of even…

More organisms living deep in the earth by metabolizing hydrogen. Cyanobacteria show up in yet another odd place! Just ad them and stir to create an earth like environment! https://www.space.com/42001-weird-underground-microbes-aid-mars-life-search.html

http://www.pnas.org/content/104/suppl_1/8567 Darwin's greatest discovery: Design without designer: Abstract: Darwin's greatest contribution to science is that he completed the Copernican Revolution by drawing out for biology the notion of nature as a system of matter in motion governed by natural laws. With Darwin's discovery of natural selection, the origin and adaptations of organisms were brought into the realm of science. The adaptive features of organisms could now be explained, like the phenomena of the inanimate world, as the result of natural processes, without recourse to an Intelligent Designer. The Copernican and the Darwinian Revolutions …

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8126390/plotsummary?ref_=tt_ov_pl "The Most Unknown is an epic documentary film that sends nine scientists to extraordinary parts of the world to uncover unexpected answers to some of humanity's biggest questions. How did life begin? What is time? What is consciousness? How much do we really know? By introducing researchers from diverse backgrounds for the first time, then dropping them into new, immersive field work they previously hadn't tackled, the film reveals the true potential of interdisciplinary collaboration, pushing the boundaries of how science storytelling is approached. What emerges is a deeply human trip to the foundations …

The disputed article......https://phys.org/news/2016-09-oldest-fossils-life-young-earth.html Oldest fossils point to thriving life on young Earth September 1, 2016 Australian researchers have found the world's oldest fossils, revealing that diverse life forms thrived on Earth 3.7 billion years ago. Co-lead investigator Associate Professor Vickie Bennett from The Australian National University (ANU) said the research on stromatolite fossils found in Greenland provided a greater understanding of early habitats of life on Earth and could have implications for searching for life on Mars. "This discovery turns the study of planetary habitability on it…

https://phys.org/news/2018-10-milky-life-star.html For almost two centuries, scientists have theorized that life may be distributed throughout the universe by meteoroids, asteroids, planetoids, and other astronomical objects. This theory, known as Panspermia, is based on the idea that microorganisms and the chemical precursors of life are able to survive being transported from one star system to the next. Expanding on this theory, a team of researchers from the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) conducted a study that considered whether panspermia could be possible on a galactic scale. According to the model they created, they determined that the …

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/10/181014142709.htm extract: Physicists send a beam of either electrons, protons, or a laser through a plasma. Free electrons in the plasma move toward the beam, but overshoot it, then come crashing back, creating a bubble structure behind the beam and intense electric fields. If you inject particles, like more electrons, into the wake, it can accelerate the injected particles in a shorter amount of time with an electric field 10 or more times stronger. In the study, proton-driven plasma wakefield acceleration has been demonstrated for the first time. The strong electric fields, generated by a series of prot…

https://phys.org/news/2018-10-rowthe-planets-align-night-sky.html Five in a row—the planets align in the night sky October 12, 2018 by Tanya Hill, The Conversation For the second time this year, the five brightest planets can be seen at the same time. You can catch them by looking towards the western sky after sunset. The planets will form a line rising up from the horizon. Mercury and Venus are low to the west, with bright Jupiter shining just above. Higher up in the northwestern sky is Saturn, and completing the set of five is the red planet Mars, high overhead. On Friday October 12 a beautiful crescent Moon sits just to the right of Jupiter…

https://phys.org/news/2018-10-russia-astronauts-emergency.html US, Russian astronauts land safely after rocket failure October 11, 2018 by Dmitry Lovetsky And Vladimir Isachenkov The Soyuz-FG rocket booster with Soyuz MS-10 space ship carrying a new crew to the International Space Station, ISS, flies in the sky at the Russian leased Baikonur cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, Thursday, Oct. 11, 2018. The Russian rocket carries U.S. astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin. The two astronauts are making an emergency landing after a Russian booster rocket carrying them into orbit to the International Space Station has failed after launch. (AP Phot…

https://phys.org/news/2018-10-massive-star-unusual-death-heralds.html Massive star's unusual death heralds the birth of compact neutron star binary October 11, 2018, Carnegie Institution for Science The three panels represent moments before, when and after the faint supernova iPTF14gqr, visible in the middle panel, appeared in the outskirts of a spiral galaxy located 920 million light years away from us. The massive star that died in the supernova left behind a neutron star in a very tight binary system. These dense stellar remnants will ultimately spiral into each other and merge in a spectacular explosion, giving off gravitational and electrom…

https://phys.org/news/2018-10-era-quest-dark.html Since the 1970s, astronomers and physicists have been gathering evidence for the presence in the universe of dark matter: a mysterious substance that manifests itself through its gravitational pull. However, despite much effort, none of the new particles proposed to explain dark matter have been discovered. In a review that was published in Nature this week, physicists Gianfranco Bertone (UvA) and Tim Tait (UvA and UC Irvine) argue that the time has come to broaden and diversify the experimental effort, and to incorporate astronomical surveys and gravitational wave observations in the quest for the nature of dark matt…

https://phys.org/news/2018-10-high-scandium-galaxy-giant-black.html High levels of scandium near the galaxy's giant black hole were illusory, astronomers find October 10, 2018, Lund University Astronomers from Lund University in Sweden have now found the explanation to a recent mystery at the centre of the Milky Way galaxy: the high levels of scandium discovered last spring near the galaxy's giant black hole were in fact an optical illusion. Last spring, researchers published a study about the apparent presence of astonishing and dramatically high levels of three different elements in red giant stars, located less than three light years away …

https://www.technology.org/2018/10/06/parker-solar-probe-changed-the-game-before-it-even-launched/ On Oct. 3, 2018, Parker Solar Probe performed the first significant celestial maneuver of its seven-year mission. As the orbits of the spacecraft and Venus converged toward the same point, Parker Solar Probe slipped in front of the planet, allowing Venus’ gravity — relatively small by celestial standards — to twist its path and change its speed. This maneuver, called a gravity assist, reduced Parker’s speed relative to the Sun by 10 percent — amounting to 7,000 miles per hour — drawing the closest point of its orbit, called perihelion, nearer to the star by 4 million mi…

No, not really........https://www.technology.org/2018/10/08/new-image-shows-the-rugged-landscape-of-comet-67p/ Comet 67P Rugged Landscape Shown on a New Image Posted Yesterday In March of 2004, the European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft blasted off from French Guiana aboard an Ariane 5 rocket. After ten years, by November of 2014, the spacecraft rendezvoused with its target – Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (67P/C-G). Over the more than two years that followed, the spacecraft remained in orbit of this comet, gathering information on its surface, interior, and gas and dust environment. And on September 30th, 2016, Rosetta came closer than ever t…

https://www.ligo.caltech.edu/news/ligo20180910 Jocelyn Bell Burnell Receives Breakthrough Prize News Release • September 10, 2018 The LIGO Lab and LIGO Scientific Collaboration are heartily congratulating Jocelyn Bell Burnell for becoming just the fourth recipient of the Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, a $3 million dollar prize bestowed to a scientist or group of scientists deemed to have made significant discoveries in or contributions to science. Burnell is being recognized for her astute observation of odd repeating ‘blips’ in radio telescope data gathered while she was a graduate student at Cambridge University in 1967. Initially…

Limiting global warming to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels would be a herculean task, involving rapid, dramatic changes in the way that governments, industries and societies function, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-06876-2