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Comet 2

New Comet C/2021 N3 (PANSTARRS)

Ernesto Guido
Remanzacco Blogspot
Sat, 24 Jul 2021 16:01 UTC
CBET 5003 & MPEC 2021-O39, issued on 2021, July 22, announce the discovery of a new comet (magnitude ~20.5) on CCD images taken on July 13.5 UT with the Pan-STARRS1 1.8-m Ritchey-Chretien reflector at Haleakala (numerous pre-discovery observations going back an additional month were later identified). The new comet has been designated C/2021 N3 (PANSTARRS).

Stacking of 16 unfiltered exposures, 180 seconds each, obtained remotely on 2021, July 14.3 from X02 (Telescope Live, Chile) through a 0.61-m f/6.5 astrograph + CCD, shows that this object is a comet with a compact coma about 9" arcsecond in diameter elongated toward PA 230 (Observers E. Guido, M. Rocchetto, E. Bryssinck, M. Fulle, G. Milani, C. Nassef, G. Savini, A. Valvasori).

Our confirmation image (click on the images for a bigger version; made with TYCHO software by D. Parrott)

Comet C/2021 N3 Panstarrs
© Remanzacco Blogspot
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Comet 2

New Comet P/2021 N2 (Fuls)

Ernesto Guido
Remanzacco Blogspot
Fri, 23 Jul 2021 21:01 UTC
CBET 5000 & MPEC 2021-N137, issued on 2021, July 15, announce the discovery of a new comet (magnitude ~18.3) on CCD images taken on July 09.4 UT with the Catalina Sky Survey's 0.68-m Schmidt reflector (pre-discovery Catalina observations from June 27 were identified later). The new comet has been designated P/2021 N2 (Fuls).

Stacking of 28 unfiltered exposures, 60 seconds each, obtained remotely on 2021, July 10.1 from Z08 (Telescope Live, Oria) through a 0.7 m f/8 Ritchey Chretien + CCD, shows that this object is a comet with a compact coma about 8" arcsec in diameter and a tail 10" long in PA 250 (Observers E. Guido, M. Rocchetto, E. Bryssinck, M. Fulle, G. Milani, C. Nassef, G. Savini, A. Valvasori).

Our confirmation image (click on the images for a bigger version; made with TYCHO software by D. Parrott)
Comet P/2021 N2 (Fuls)
© Remanzacco Blogspot
Comet P/2021 N2 (Fuls)
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Brain

Cyberpunk 20**? Researchers warn 'bleak' future as companies own private thoughts, world divides between cyborg and human


RT
Thu, 22 Jul 2021 14:57 UTC
cyborg
© Getty Images/metamorworks
Scientists at Imperial College London have warned of a "bleak panorama" relating to the commercial use of brain-computer interfaces. If left unregulated, they say, the tech could lead to companies harvesting our deepest thoughts.

Several Big Tech companies, including Facebook and Microsoft, and technology investors like Elon Musk have funded projects exploring the use of brain-computer interface (BCI) devices to map out neural links. US government agencies are also studying the tech's applications.

In a new study published in the APL Bioengineering journal, researchers from the university reviewed the state of BCI research. They raised red flags about the potential commercial exploitation of our innermost thoughts and feelings and warned of a world divided along the lines of access to BCI tech.

Study co-author Roberto Portillo-Lara described the possibility of corporate entities accessing BCI readings as "particularly worrisome" since "neural data is often considered to be the most intimate and private information that could be associated with any given user."

The most likely approach to real-world BCI applications is through electroencephalography (EEG), a relatively low-cost, non-invasive method of monitoring the brain's electrical activity. Hospitals use it - through a headgear with electrodes attached to the scalp - to diagnose epilepsy and other disorders.
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Info

Cockatoos learn through social interaction


Max-Planck-Gesellschaft
Thu, 22 Jul 2021 19:25 UTC
For the first time, a team of international scientists have proven that cockatoos, an iconic Australian bird species, learn from each other a unique skill - lifting garbage bin lids to gather food. The world-first research published today in Science, confirms that cockatoos spread this novel behavior through social learning. Led by Barbara Klump and Lucy Aplin from the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior in Konstanz, Germany, along with John Martin (Taronga Conservation Society) and Richard Major (Australian Museum), the team have shown that this behavior by cockatoos is actually learnt, rather than a result of genetics.
Cockatoo Australia
© MPI of Animal Behavior/ B. Klump
Cockatoos in Sydney have learned from each other how to open bins to scavange food.
Lead co-author, Barbara Klump, said social learning is the basis of different regional cultures, and some animals, such as primates and birds, appear to learn socially. "Children are masters of social learning. From an early age, they copy skills from other children and adults. However, compared to humans, there are few known examples of animals learning from each other," Klump said. "Demonstrating that food scavenging behavior is not due to genetics is a challenge," Klump added.

However, a few years ago, Richard Major shared a video with senior author Lucy Aplin, showing a sulphur-crested cockatoo opening a closed garbage bin. The cockatoo used its beak and foot to lift the heavy lid then shuffled along the side to flip it over, accessing a rich reward of leftover food. Aplin, who was then researching at Oxford University and has since moved to the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior in Germany, and Klump were fascinated by the footage.

"It was so exciting to observe such an ingenious and innovative way to access a food resource, we knew immediately that we had to systematically study this unique foraging behavior," Klump said.
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Fish

Sharks' spiral-shaped intestines resemble a Nikola Tesla invention

Christa Lesté-Lasserre
New Scientist
Tue, 20 Jul 2021 12:00 UTC
intestine shark
© Samantha Leigh/California State
A CT scan of the spiral intestine of a Pacific spiny dogfish shark (Squalus suckleyi)
Sharks have spiral-shaped intestines that work in a similar way to an unusual valve designed by Nikola Tesla. Studying their anatomy could help improve industrial fluid-pump technology.

Most animals have tubular intestines that use muscle contractions to push food along like squeezing a tube of toothpaste. But sharks slowly channel their meals through spirals without needing muscles to push the food. Their intestines are also shaped in a way that only allows food to flow one way - like a performance-enhanced Tesla valve, says Samantha Leigh at California State University Dominguez Hills.

"Sharks have all these different little tweaks to the Tesla valve design that could be making them more efficient," she says.

Comment: It seems that with any invention, if the inspiration hasn't knowingly come from nature, it's usually realised later that something similar already exists in nature, and which is operating at an even greater efficiency.

As noted in the Wiki entry for Biomimetics: 'Humans have looked at nature for answers to problems throughout our existence. Nature has solved engineering problems such as self-healing abilities, environmental exposure tolerance and resistance, hydrophobicity, self-assembly, and harnessing solar energy.'

See also: And check out SOTT radio's:

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Galaxy

Ancient star likely created from a colossal hypernova explosion


Physics World
Fri, 16 Jul 2021 06:51 UTC
The star SMSS J200322.54-114203.3
© Da Costa/SkyMapper
The star SMSS J200322.54-114203.3 (centre, with crosshairs) in the south-eastern corner of the constellation Aquila is thought to have formed from the remnants of a short-lived, even more ancient star that underwent a magneto-rotational hypernova.
An ancient star lying on the fringes of the Milky Way likely contains the remnants of a colossal hypernova explosion, which took place early on in the galaxy's star-forming period. That's the conclusion of an international team of astronomers, led by David Yong at the Australian National University, who discovered that the star's abundance of heavy elements could have only been synthesized in the highly energetic "r-process". Their findings provide the first evidence for magneto-rotational hypernovae, and uncover their role in the changing chemical makeup of the early universe.

Astronomers predict that around half of all heavy atomic nuclei in the universe must have originated in a succession of rapid neutron captures, named the r-process. The sites where these captures take place are still poorly understood, but according to current theories, mergers between neutron stars are thought to play an important role. In the latest models of chemical evolution in galaxies, however, these mergers alone can't reproduce the abundances of heavy elements that we observe today.

To search for alternative origins, Yong's team looked to the halo of the Milky Way - which contains an abundance of ancient stars born early on in the galaxy's star-forming history. The astronomers made their observations using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile, and the Australian National University's SkyMapper telescope in New South Wales, which has previously been used to identify thousands of these chemically primitive stars in the halo.
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Ice Cube

15,000-year-old viruses discovered in Tibetan glacier ice

Laura Arenschield
Ohio State University
Tue, 20 Jul 2021 19:14 UTC
Examining Ice Core Sample
© Image courtesy Lonnie Thompson
Yao Tandong, left, and Lonnie Thompson, right, process an ice core drilled from the Guliya Ice Cap in the Tibetan Plateau in 2015. The ice held viruses nearly 15,000 years old, a new study has found.
Scientists who study glacier ice have found viruses nearly 15,000 years old in two ice samples taken from the Tibetan Plateau in China. Most of those viruses, which survived because they had remained frozen, are unlike any viruses that have been cataloged to date.

The findings, published today in the journal Microbiome, could help scientists understand how viruses have evolved over centuries. For this study, the scientists also created a new, ultra-clean method of analyzing microbes and viruses in ice without contaminating it.

"These glaciers were formed gradually, and along with dust and gases, many, many viruses were also deposited in that ice," said Zhi-Ping Zhong, lead author of the study and a researcher at The Ohio State University Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center who also focuses on microbiology. "The glaciers in western China are not well-studied, and our goal is to use this information to reflect past environments. And viruses are a part of those environments."
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Radar

Coma sighted on megacomet situated beyond Saturn

Elizabeth Howell
Space
Thu, 15 Jul 2021 12:00 UTC
Comet C/2014 UN271
© LOOK/LCO
Comet C/2014 UN271 (Bernardinelli-Bernstein), as seen in a synthetic color composite image made with the Las Cumbres Observatory 1-meter telescope at Sutherland, South Africa, on 22 June 2021. The diffuse cloud is the comet's coma.
Spotting the first signs of activity on a record-setting comet of gargantuan size came down to a time-zone advantage.

Astronomers in New Zealand were the first to spot a coma, or zone of gas and dust, spreading around the megacomet C/2014 UN271, also known as Bernardinelli-Bernstein, which may be 1,000 times more massive than a typical comet. It could be the most massive comet ever found in all of recorded history.

The team that monitors images captured by the Las Cumbres Observatory (LCO) is spread around the world, and images from one of LCO's 1-meter telescopes hosted at the South African Astronomical Observatory were available on June 23 at midnight EDT (0400 GMT). That happens to be afternoon in New Zealand.

Comment: See also: And check out SOTT radio's:

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Info

Chicxulub impact event left evidence of giant ripples under Louisiana

Erik Klemetti
Astronomy
Mon, 19 Jul 2021 19:21 UTC
When the Chicxulub impact blasted into the Yucatan Peninsula, it generated massive tsunamis that left their signature thousands of miles away.
Artist Impression of Chicxulub Impact.
Over 800 miles from the impact site, massive ripples buried deep underground record the devastation wrought by an asteroid. The Chicxulub impact, the likely smoking gun for the extinction of the dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous, sent tsunamis tearing across the Gulf of Mexico. These giant waves left ripples in the undersea sediments as they passed and a new study has found what might be the largest "megaripples" on the planet.

The darkest dayLet's step back a moment. It has been around 40 years since the Chicxulub impact, located on the northern shores of the Yucatan Peninsula, was identified as the potential cause of the famed Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction (a.k.a., the K-t boundary). Since then, signs of this massive collision have been found across the planet. These include a layer of iridium from the asteroid, droplets of molten rock that rained down after the impact, wave deposits as far away as North Dakota and the charred remains of forest burned by the heat of the blast.
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Galaxy

Russia to build $50 million high-tech ultraviolet telescope to be launched into space in October 2025

Jonny Tickle
RT
Fri, 16 Jul 2021 11:08 UTC
satellite
© laspace.ru
Russia has allocated around 3.7 billion rubles ($50 million) to build a state-of-the-art space telescope with the ability to observe in ultraviolet, designed to see parts of the cosmos inaccessible to ground-based equipment.

According to RIA Novosti, Russia's space agency Roscosmos and its subsidiary Lavochkin signed a contract to build the Spektr-UV, with work scheduled to be completed by the end of 2025.

The telescope is designed to use ultraviolet observe parts of space inaccessible to ground-based telescopes. It will be launched into space, in a similar way to the US' Hubble, and will allow researchers to study stars, galaxies, and black holes, as well as the atmosphere of planets and exoplanets, and comets.

Comment: See also: And check out SOTT radio's:

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