Science & Technology

Did climate change the size of our bodies & brains?

University of Cambridge
Phys.org
Thu, 08 Jul 2021 09:06 UTC

© Manuel Will
Skulls: Left: Amud 1, Neanderthal, 55.000 years ago, ~1750 cm³, Middle: Cro Magnon, Homo sapiens, 32.000 years ago, ~1570 cm³, Right: Atapuerca 5, Middle Pleistocene Homo, 430.000 years ago, ~1100 cm³. Femora: Top: Middle Pleistocene Homo, Trinil, 540.000 years ago, ~50 kg- Bottom: Neanderthal, La Ferrassie 1, 44.000 years ago, ~90 kg.

An interdisciplinary team of researchers, led by the Universities of Cambridge and Tübingen, has gathered measurements of body and brain size for over 300 fossils from the genus Homo found across the globe. By combining this data with a reconstruction of the world's regional climates over the last million years, they have pinpointed the specific climate experienced by each fossil when it was a living human.

The study reveals that the average body size of humans has fluctuated significantly over the last million years, with larger bodies evolving in colder regions. Larger size is thought to act as a buffer against colder temperatures: less heat is lost from a body when its mass is large relative to its surface area. The results are published today in the journal Nature Communications.

Comment: See also:

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Another new moon discovered around Jupiter

Jeff Hecht
Sky & Telescope
Thu, 08 Jul 2021 19:37 UTC

An amateur astronomer has discovered a new moon of Jupiter. While it hasn't received official designation yet, it would bring the tally of Jovian satellites to 80.

The amateur astronomer who last year recovered four lost Jovian moons has become the first amateur to discovery a previously unknown moon. Kai Ly reported the discovery to the Minor Planet Mailing List on June 30th and has submitted it for publication as a Minor Planet Electronic Circular.

Ly began planning the quest in May, but their real work began in June, when they began examining data taken in 2003 with the 3.6-meter Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT). David Jewitt and Scott Sheppard (University of Hawai'i) had led a group that used these images to discover 23 new moons. The images remain available online, and Sheppard later used them to discover other Jovian moons, including Valetudo, Ersa, and Pandia.

© Carnegie Inst. for Science / Roberto Molar Candanosa
Jupiter has 79 moons acknowledged by the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center, but an amateur astronomer has just discovered another one (not shown here). Most of the planet's prograde moons (purple, blue) orbit relatively close to Jupiter, while its retrograde moons (red) orbit farther out. One exceptions is Valetudo (green), a prograde-moving body discovered in 2018 that's far out.

Pre-discovery images of those moons suggested that more undiscovered moons might be hiding in the 2003 data set. Ly started with images taken in February, when Jupiter was at opposition and the moons were brightest. They examined 19 of the 36 images recorded on February 24th, and found three potential moons moving at 13 to 21 arcseconds per hour during the night.

Nature wins again: Scientists identify NATURAL SARS-CoV-2 super immunity against 23 variants

Dr. Sanchari Sinha Dutta, Ph.D.
news-medical.net
Mon, 05 Jul 2021 17:44 UTC

© NIAID and American Association for the Advancement of Science imagery
Study: Ultrapotent antibodies against diverse and highly transmissible SARS-CoV-2 variants.

A team of international scientists has recently identified ultrapotent anti-severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) antibodies from convalescent donors.

The antibodies are capable of neutralizing a wide range of SARS-CoV-2 variants even at sub-nanomolar concentrations. In addition, the combinations of these antibodies reduce the risk of generating escape mutants in vitro. The study is published in the journal Science.

Deflect 'Armageddon' asteroids with rockets, Chinese researchers propose

Yahoo
Wed, 07 Jul 2021 06:17 UTC

FILE PHOTO: China's lunar exploration program Chang'e-5 Mission exhibition at National Museum in Beijing

Chinese researchers want to send more than 20 of China's largest rockets to practice turning away a sizable asteroid - a technique that may eventually be crucial if a killer rock is on a collision course with Earth.

The idea is more than science fiction. Sometime between late 2021 to early 2022, the United States will launch a robotic spacecraft to intercept two asteroids relatively close to Earth.

When it arrives a year later, the NASA spacecraft will crash-land on the smaller of the two rocky bodies to see how much the asteroid's trajectory changes. It will be humanity's first try at changing the course of a celestial body.

Comment: Note that, despite the claims that the chance of danger is low, China is not the only country investing significant funds towards early identification of space rocks as well as the possible ways to divert their course. Could this concerted effort be because, in some circles, the possibility of this threat is known to be much greater than commonly believed?

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Strange 'fairy lanterns' discovered growing in a Malaysian rainforest

Tessa Koumoundouros
Science Alert
Sat, 03 Jul 2021 19:16 UTC

Within the depths of a Malaysian rainforest's shadows an astonishing plant, lacking sunlight-eating leaves, bizarrely blooms. This small, otherworldly growth, belonging to a group of rare flowering plants known as fairy lanterns (Thismia), has just been scientifically described for the first time.

They're tiny plants, too deep within the forest to receive sunlight, and often emerge beneath the leaf litter, so they don't bother with photosynthesizing and have lost the ability to do so. They have no chlorophyll; instead, they siphon food through their roots from the fungal network shared by other rainforest plants.

These incredible mycorrhizal fungal networks connect large plant communities together via their roots, allowing plants to communicate with each other using electric signals and even send resources to each other. In turn, the fungi receive sustenance from the plants.

Plants that do this, like fairy lanterns, are thought to have evolved from one of the plant parts of the mycorrhizal fungal partnership. They've cheated the system, however, and turned fully parasitic on the fungi network. This form of food acquisition is called myco-heterotrophy.

Astronomers detect a lurking cosmic cloud, bigger than the entire Milky Way

Michelle Starr
Science Alert
Mon, 05 Jul 2021 08:59 UTC

In the yawning vacuum of intergalactic space, something large is lurking.

Not a galaxy, although it's of a comparable size: A vast cloud of hot, faintly glowing gas, bigger than the Milky Way, in the space between galaxies congregating in a huge cluster.

Scientists believe this cloud may have been unceremoniously stripped from a galaxy in the cluster, the first gas cloud of this kind we've ever seen. Even more surprisingly, it hasn't dissipated, but has remained clumped together for hundreds of millions of years.

This not only tells us something new about the environments inside galaxy clusters, it suggests a new way to explore and understand these colossal structures.

"This is an exciting and also a surprising discovery. It demonstrates that new surprises are always out there in astronomy, as the oldest of the natural sciences," said physicist Ming Sun of the University of Alabama in Huntsville.

'Icelandia': Is Iceland the tip of a vast, sunken continent?

Geological Society of America
Tue, 29 Jun 2021 19:34 UTC

Durham, UK: Academics believe they have identified a remarkable geological secret; a sunken continent hidden under Iceland and the surrounding ocean, which they have dubbed 'Icelandia'.

An international team of geologists, led by Gillian Foulger, Emeritus Professor of Geophysics in the Department of Earth Sciences at Durham University (UK), believe the sunken continent could stretch from Greenland all the way to Europe.

It is believed to cover an area of ~ 600,000 km2 but when adjoining areas west of Britain are included in a "Greater Icelandia" the entire area could be ~1,000,000 km2 in size.

If proven, it means that the giant supercontinent of Pangaea, which is thought to have broken up over 50 million years ago, has in fact not fully broken up.

This new theory challenges long-held scientific ideas around the extent of oceanic and continental crust in the North Atlantic region, and how volcanic islands, like Iceland, formed.

The presence of continental, rather than oceanic, crust could also spark discussions about a new source of minerals and hydrocarbons, both of which are contained in continental crust.

The revolutionary new theory was born from an innovative series of expert meetings held in Durham (UK) and is included in a dedicated chapter of In the Footsteps of Warren B. Hamilton: New Ideas in Earth Science published today (29 June 2021), by the Geological Society of America, which Professor Foulger has co-written with Dr Laurent Gernigon of the Geological Survey of Norway and Professor Laurent Geoffroy of the Ocean Geosciences Laboratory, University of Brest (France).

New AI technique reveals clearer universe

National Astronomical Observatory of Japan
Fri, 02 Jul 2021 20:30 UTC

© The Institute of Statistical Mathematics
Artist’s visualization of this research. Using AI driven data analysis to peel back the noise and find the actual shape of the Universe.

Japanese astronomers have developed a new artificial intelligence (AI) technique to remove noise in astronomical data due to random variations in galaxy shapes. After extensive training and testing on large mock data created by supercomputer simulations, they then applied this new tool to actual data from Japan's Subaru Telescope and found that the mass distribution derived from using this method is consistent with the currently accepted models of the Universe. This is a powerful new tool for analyzing big data from current and planned astronomy surveys.

Wide area survey data can be used to study the large-scale structure of the Universe through measurements of gravitational lensing patterns. In gravitational lensing, the gravity of a foreground object, like a cluster of galaxies, can distort the image of a background object, such as a more distant galaxy. Some examples of gravitational lensing are obvious, such as the "Eye of Horus". The large-scale structure, consisting mostly of mysterious "dark" matter, can distort the shapes of distant galaxies as well, but the expected lensing effect is subtle. Averaging over many galaxies in an area is required to create a map of foreground dark matter distributions.

But this technique of looking at many galaxy images runs into a problem; some galaxies are just innately a little funny looking. It is difficult to distinguish between a galaxy image distorted by gravitational lensing and a galaxy that is actually distorted. This is referred to as shape noise and is one of the limiting factors in research studying the large-scale structure of the Universe.

Researchers observe thermal waves in semiconductor materials - unlocks new possibilities in electronics design

PhysOrg
Sun, 04 Jul 2021 15:44 UTC

© ICMAB, CSIC
Two different lasers are focused onto the surface of the samples using a microscope objective. A rather large combination of optical elements allows to control and modify the spot size and shape, as well as the power and harmonic modulation of the lasers. Cold nitrogen gas is used for better visualization of the lasers optical path.

A study published in Science Advances reports on the unexpected observation of thermal waves in germanium, a semiconductor material, for the first time. This phenomenon may allow a significant improvement in the performance of our electronic devices in a near future. The study is led by researchers from the Institute of Materials Science of Barcelona (ICMAB, CSIC) in collaboration with researchers from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, and the University of Cagliari.

Heat, as we know it, originates from the vibration of atoms, and transfers by diffusion at ambient temperatures. Unfortunately, it is rather difficult to control, and leads to simple and inefficient strategies for manipulation. This is why, for example, large amounts of residual heat can accumulate in our computers, mobile phones and, in general, most electronic devices.

However, if heat was transported through waves, such as light, it would offer new alternatives to control it, especially through the unique and intrinsic properties of waves.

UAE's Hope Mars orbiter spots elusive aurora on Red Planet

Meghan Bartels
Space.com
Thu, 01 Jul 2021 11:38 UTC

The United Arab Emirates' (UAE) Hope Mars mission made its first major finding just a couple months after arriving at the Red Planet when it snagged unprecedented observations of a tricky aurora.

Also known as the Emirates Mars Mission (EMM), Hope is designed to study Mars' atmosphere across all its layers and at a global scale throughout the course of the year. But the new finding is outside that main science purview and occurred even before the probe's formal science mission had begun, when scientists were testing the instruments on the spacecraft. In images from one of those instruments, scientists easily spotted the highly localized, nightside aurora that scientists have struggled to study at Mars for decades.

"They're not easy to catch, and so that's why seeing them basically right away with EMM was kind of exciting and unexpected," Justin Deighan, a planetary scientist at the University of Colorado'' Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics and deputy science lead for the Hope mission, told Space.com. "It's definitely something that was on our radar, so to speak, but just looking at our first set of nighttime data and saying, 'Hey, wait a second — is that? — it can't be — it is!' — that was a lot of fun."

Scientists know that Earth's auroras are tied to the planet's global magnetic field and are triggered by charged particles from the sun. But the situation is a little different at Mars, where scientists have observed three types of auroras.

THY LORD, THY COMPUTER The 'Lord' giveth. The 'Lord' taketh. Damn. ned. out

nedlud

SOUVENIRS @Agnosco: The map is not the territory. How can it be? But what do you 'do', if you claim to be 'human' but without a map? Hoof it and...

nedlud

Could correlation be pointing in the direction of causation Maybe, but not directly. My state, Queensland in Australia is covid free. Zero cases....

struzball

tigster has one big ego, at least from the comments impression.

Levi

The cause is the 13 American soldiers They weren't soldiers pal, they were Marines and their corpsman.

bj0311

Science & Technology

Did climate change the size of our bodies & brains?

Another new moon discovered around Jupiter

Nature wins again: Scientists identify NATURAL SARS-CoV-2 super immunity against 23 variants

Deflect 'Armageddon' asteroids with rockets, Chinese researchers propose

Strange 'fairy lanterns' discovered growing in a Malaysian rainforest

Astronomers detect a lurking cosmic cloud, bigger than the entire Milky Way

'Icelandia': Is Iceland the tip of a vast, sunken continent?

New AI technique reveals clearer universe

Researchers observe thermal waves in semiconductor materials - unlocks new possibilities in electronics design

UAE's Hope Mars orbiter spots elusive aurora on Red Planet

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