Science News

Not sure if this article has been shared yet. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/jul/25/huge-underground-lake-discovered-on-mars-say-astronomers

https://phys.org/news/2018-07-black-holes-ever-growing-balls.html Black holes really just ever-growing balls of string, researchers say July 26, 2018 by Misti Crane, The Ohio State University Black holes aren't surrounded by a burning ring of fire after all, suggests new research. Some physicists have believed in a "firewall" around the perimeter of a black hole that would incinerate anything sucked into its powerful gravitational pull. But a team from The Ohio State University has calculated an explanation of what would happen if an electron fell into a typical black hole, with a mass as big as the sun. "The probability of the electron …

On an island off Australia’s north-central coast, researchers are conducting an unprecedented experiment: mixing endangered animals that have evolved genetic defences against their biggest foe with those that haven’t, in the hope that their offspring will take after the wiser parent. The subject of the experiment is one of Australia’s most imperilled marsupials, the northern quoll (Dasyurus hallucatus). This squirrel-sized carnivore is struggling to survive a decades-long onslaught of poisonous and invasive cane toads, which quolls mistake as prey, with devastating results. In the 80 years since agriculture officials introduced the cane toad (Rhinella mari…

I wish to find out if a tree so heavily pruned is still capable of survival. Please comment. (Picture attached)

https://phys.org/news/2018-07-century-old-riddle-resolveda-blazar-source.html More than century-old riddle resolved—a blazar is a source of high-energy neutrinos An international team of scientists has found the first evidence of a source of high-energy cosmic neutrinos, ghostly subatomic particles that can travel unhindered for billions of light years from the most extreme environments in the universe to Earth. The observations, made by the IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station and confirmed by telescopes around the globe and in Earth's orbit, help resolve a more than a century-old riddle about what sends subatomic particles…

https://phys.org/news/2018-07-einstein-againweak-strong-gravity-fall.html Einstein's understanding of gravity, as outlined in his general theory of relativity, predicts that all objects fall at the same rate, regardless of their mass or composition. This theory has passed test after test here on Earth, but does it still hold true for some of the most massive and dense objects in the known universe, an aspect of nature known as the Strong Equivalence Principle? An international team of astronomers has given this lingering question its most stringent test ever. Their findings, published in the journal Nature, show that Einstein's insights into gravity still hold sway, …

In December 2016 the United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution A/RES/71/90, declaring 30 June "International Asteroid Day" in order to "observe each year at the international level the anniversary of the Tunguska impact over Siberia, Russian Federation, on 30 June 1908, and to raise public awareness about the asteroid impact hazard." Since then it really has become an International Asteroid Awareness Week, with events planned in numerous countries beginning June 25th and extending until June 30th.

Thatcham vehicle test track demonstration that current autopilot driverless car can involve itself in a crash situation. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/business-44460980/this-car-is-on-autopilot-what-happens-next

https://phys.org/news/2018-06-einstein-galaxy.html Einstein proved right in another galaxy June 21, 2018, University of Portsmouth: An international team of astronomers have made the most precise test of gravity outside our own solar system. By combining data taken with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope, their results show that gravity in this galaxy behaves as predicted by Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity, confirming the theory's validity on galactic scales. In 1915 Albert Einstein proposed his general theory of relativity (GR) to explain how gravity works. Since then GR has p…

https://phys.org/news/2018-06-black-hole-clouds-puzzling-features.html One black hole or two? Dust clouds can explain puzzling features of active galactic nuclei: Researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC), believe clouds of dust, rather than twin black holes, can explain the features found in active galactic nuclei (AGNs). The team publish their results today (14 June) in a paper in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Many large galaxies have an AGN, a small bright central region powered by matter spiralling into a supermassive black hole. When these black holes are vigorously swallowing matter, they are surrounded by …

Not sure if this is in the right section or not, so perhaps a mod can move it if required? Some people that frequent science forums, [obviously the best type] will inevitably say they have a new theory about some aspect of the universe/life etc.They put there ideas in various forcefull ways full of confidence and much bravado, seemingly ignorant of the fact that professional scientists are forever testing and retesting incumbent theories: Afterall that's there job....sometimes they are in error, sometimes they may make mistakes [BICEP2] but surely that is part of the human makeup and should be expected from time to time. Anyway I believe that all those that believe t…

https://phys.org/news/2018-06-astronomers-distant-eruption-black-hole.html Astronomers see distant eruption as black hole destroys star For the first time, astronomers have directly imaged the formation and expansion of a fast-moving jet of material ejected when the powerful gravity of a supermassive black hole ripped apart a star that wandered too close to the cosmic monster. The scientists tracked the event with radio and infrared telescopes, including the National Science Foundation's Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), in a pair of colliding galaxies called Arp 299, nearly 150 million light-years from Earth. At the core of one of the galaxies, a black hole…

Really interesting discovery. Article is easy to follow so please have a look. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1806.02751.pdf

Hello everyone, new to the forum here.. I recently came across a video on YouTube that has got me stumped. It showed an individual at the entrance of some cave where they had a lit torch.. the individual points the torch towards the entrance of the cave and it would die out and have to be re-lit. He did this a few times, and every time, the torch would die out.....Another weird example from the same video was that he then held a handgun that looked like a revolver, pulled the trigger and he could not get the gun to fire a shot even though the trigger was pulled and the gun clicked... then he backs up, turns facing in a direction away from the cave, pulls the trigger and…

https://tokyo3.org/forums/holiday/?main=https%3A//tokyo3.org/forums/holiday/welcome/ The LHC Has Detected The Higgs Boson Again, This Time With a Massive Twist Whoa. MIKE MCRAE 6 JUN 2018 Physicists working at the Large Hadron Collider have made a major new detection of the famous Higgs boson, this time catching details on a rare interaction with one of the heaviest fundamental particles known to physics - the top quark. The brief mingling of these incredibly rare encounters has provided physicists with important information on the nature of mass, and whether there is more to physics than the existing model predicts. Results produced by …

https://phys.org/news/2018-06-magnetic-fields-key-star-formation.html Magnetic fields could hold the key to star formation: Astronomers have discovered new magnetic fields in space, which could shed light on how stars are formed and uncover the mysteries behind one of the most famous celestial images. For the first time, extremely subtle magnetic fields in the Pillars of Creation – a structure made famous thanks to an iconic image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope – have been discovered and mapped. The structure consists of cosmic dust and cold, dense gas that have nurseries of stars forming at their tips. This innovative research has shown that the …

https://phys.org/news/2018-06-horizons-historic-kuiper-belt-flyby.html New Horizons wakes for historic Kuiper Belt flyby June 6, 2018, NASA NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is back "awake" and being prepared for the farthest planetary encounter in history – a New Year's Day 2019 flyby of the Kuiper Belt object nicknamed Ultima Thule. Cruising through the Kuiper Belt more than 3.7 billion miles (6 billion kilometers) from Earth, New Horizons had been in resource-saving hibernation mode since Dec. 21. Radio signals confirming that New Horizons had executed on-board computer commands to exit hibernation reached mission operations at the Johns Hopkins Applie…

https://newatlas.com/vanishing-star-skip-supernova-black-hole/49725/ Birth of a black hole witnessed as star vanishes without a bang: For the first time, astronomers have witnessed a star disappear right before their eyes. Known as N6946-BH1, the star appears to have collapsed into a black hole without the usual flair of a supernova, which not only marks the first time scientists have witnessed the birth of a black hole, but could change our understanding of the life and death of stars. According to conventional thinking, when a star exhausts its energy supply, it violently ejects most of its matter outwards in a supernova, before collapsing in on itself to…

https://newatlas.com/neutron-star-collision-black-hole/54861/ NASA sheds light on strange object created in cosmic collision: In August 2017, astronomers were treated to one of the most spectacular stellar light shows ever seen – a collision between two neutron stars. The smashup was so powerful it sent gravitational ripples through the very fabric of spacetime, and produced flares in visible light, radio waves, x-rays and a gamma ray burst. Now that things have quietened down, astronomers have studied the strange object created in the cosmic collision. The LIGO facility was the first to notice something big was happening. On August 17 last year, the instru…

https://www.quantamagazine.org/evidence-found-for-a-new-fundamental-particle-20180601/

The official death toll in Puerto Rico due to Hurricane Maria was 64. This number only included direct effects. Kishone et al. investigated whether the hurricane could have contributed to overall change in mortality e.g. due to displacement, loss of infrastructure or interrupted health care. Based on a survey from 3299 household they calculated an excess moratlity of 4645 excess deaths caused by the Hurricane Maria. The authors also asserted that due to survivor bias this number is on the conservative side. Kischone et al "Mortality in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria", JAMA, 2018, DOI: 10.1056/NEJMsa1803972

Could a prehuman industrial civilization have existed on the Earth millions of years ago? If it did how could we detect it's existence? https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/could-an-industrial-prehuman-civilization-have-existed-on-earth-before-ours/

Some birds have been found to cooperate in multi species group that guards against invasion from other birds new to the area of both species! https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180521143827.htm

https://phys.org/news/2018-05-particle-rotating-spacetime.html How a particle may stand still in rotating spacetime When a massive astrophysical object, such as a boson star or black hole, rotates, it can cause the surrounding spacetime to rotate along with it due to the effect of frame dragging. In a new paper, physicists have shown that a particle with just the right properties may stand perfectly still in a rotating spacetime if it occupies a "static orbit"—a ring of points located a critical distance from the center of the rotating spacetime. The physicists, Lucas G. Collodel, Burkhard Kleihaus, and Jutta Kunz, at the University of Oldenburg in Germany,…