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Comet 2

New Comet C/2021 K1 (ATLAS)

Ernesto Guido
Remanzacco Blogspot
Fri, 28 May 2021 18:29 UTC
CBET 4968 & MPEC 2021-K89, issued on 2021, May 27, announce the discovery of a new comet (magnitude ~17.0) on CCD images taken on May 14.5 UT with the 0.5-m reflector + CCD in the course of the ATLAS-HKO (T05) survey. The object was originally found by Peter Veres of Minor Planet Center (MPC) as unusually bright among the MPC's isolated tracklet file (ITF) and linked to the detections from May 22 (F51) and May 14 (T08). A review of the ATLAS images revealed the cometary nature of this object.

As with the ATLAS observations, this object was reported without comments by Pan-STARRS1 1.8-m Ritchey-Chretien reflector at Haleakala on May 22.6 UT (mag 17.6-18.0), submitted as two separate objects on the same night. This object has been found to show cometary appearance also by CCD astrometrists elsewhere after it was posted on the MPC's PCCP webpage. The new comet has been designated C/2021 K1 (ATLAS).

Stacking of 44 unfiltered exposures, 60 seconds each, obtained remotely on 2021, May 27.3 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 20" arcsecond in diameter and a tail 30" long in PA 245 (Observers E. Guido, M. Rocchetto, E. Bryssinck, M. Fulle, G. Milani, C. Nassef, G. Savini, A. Valvasori).

Our confirmation images (click on the images for a bigger version; made with TYCHO software by D. Parrott)
Comet C/2021 K1
© Remanzacco Blogspot
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Syringe

Had COVID? You'll probably make antibodies for the rest of your life

Ewen Callaway
Nature
Fri, 28 May 2021 18:05 UTC
bone marrow plasma cell antibodies covid
© Dr Gopal Murti/Science Photo Library
A bone marrow plasma cell (artificially coloured). Such cells, which produce antibodies, linger for months in the bodies of people who have recovered from COVID-19.
People who recover from mild COVID-19 have bone-marrow cells that can churn out antibodies for decades, though viral variants could dampen some of the protection they offer.

Many people who have been infected with SARS-CoV-2 will probably make antibodies against the virus for most of their lives. So suggest researchers who have identified long-lived antibody-producing cells in the bone marrow of people who have recovered from COVID-191.

The study provides evidence that immunity triggered by SARS-CoV-2 infection will be extraordinarily long-lasting. Adding to the good news, "the implications are that vaccines will have the same durable effect," says Menno van Zelm, an immunologist at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.

Comment: Once again the argument for allowing natural herd immunity to develop, rather than forced hijacking of the body's own defences, is made.

Beware of Covid PCR testing and the relentless "Vaccinate Vaccinate Vaccinate" campaign

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Attention

Scientists sound grave warning about unprecedented mercury accumulation in deep Pacific Ocean trenches


PhysOrg
Fri, 28 May 2021 17:58 UTC
mercury accumulation ocean trenches sea life
© Anni Glud, SDU
On board the German research vessel Sonne off the coast of Chile, ready to take samples from 8 kilometers depth in the Atacama Trench system.
A newly released scientific paper in Nature Publishing's Scientific Reports Journal has revealed unprecedented amounts of highly toxic mercury are deposited in the deepest trenches of the Pacific Ocean.

The study, a multi-national effort involving scientists from Denmark, Canada, Germany and Japan, reports the first-ever direct measurements of mercury deposition into one of the logistically most challenging environments to sample on Earth, and the deepest at eight to 10 kilometers under the sea.

Lead author Professor Hamed Sanei, Director of the Lithospheric Organic Carbon Laboratory (LOC) at the Department of Geoscience, Aarhus University, stated the amount of mercury discovered in this area exceeds any value ever recorded in remote marine sediments, and is even higher than many areas directly contaminated by industrial releases.
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Life Preserver

Salmon virus originated in Atlantic farms, spread to wild pacific salmon

University of British Columbia
Phys.org
Wed, 26 May 2021 12:00 UTC
orthoreovirus
© Gideon Mordecai
Global transmission map of Piscine orthoreovirus.
Piscine orthoreovirus (PRV) - which is associated with kidney and liver damage in Chinook salmon — is continually being transmitted between open-net salmon farms and wild juvenile Chinook salmon in British Columbia waters, according to a new genomics analysis published today in Science Advances.

The collaborative study from the University of British Columbia (UBC) and the Strategic Salmon Health Initiative (SSHI) — a partnership between Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO), Genome BC and the Pacific Salmon Foundation — traces the origins of PRV to Atlantic salmon farms in Norway and finds that the virus is now almost ubiquitous in salmon farms in B.C.

Comment: See also:

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Clock

Resetting the biological clock


University of Groningen
Wed, 26 May 2021 19:33 UTC
Simple Science Summary
The cells in our body follow a 24-hour cycle, the circadian clock. Disruptions of this cycle, for example by working night shifts, can cause disease. In recent years, it has become clear that the clock can be disrupted in individual organs or tissues. To study and potentially cure problems with the clocks inside our cells, Dutch and Japanese scientists created a compound that will elongate the 24-hour cycle and that can be activated or deactivated using light. They showed that it is possible to change the 24-hour cycle in cells or tissues to a 28-hour cycle by activating the compound. After deactivation, the cells and tissues returned to a near-normal cycle. The compound can be used to investigate the clocks inside our cells and may eventually be used to treat diseases that are caused by a disrupted clock.
Reversible modulation of the circadian clock
© Illustration Issey Takahashi
Reversible modulation of the circadian clock using chronophotopharmacology. Using light to interconvert two isomers of a photo-responsive small molecule, it is possible to pace cellular time. While irradiation with violet light extends the normal 24-hour clock to 28-hour, green light switches off this effect and brings the clock back to normal.
The biological clock is present in almost all cells of an organism. As more and more evidence emerges that clocks in certain organs could be out of sync, there is a need to investigate and reset these clocks locally. Scientists from the Netherlands and Japan introduced a light-controlled on/off switch to a kinase inhibitor, which affects clock function. This gives them control of the biological clock in cultured cells and explanted tissue. They published their results on 26 May in Nature Communications.

Life on Earth has evolved under a 24-hour cycle; of light and dark, hot and cold. 'As a result, our cells are synchronized to these 24-hour oscillations,' says Wiktor Szymanski, Professor of Radiological Chemistry at the University Medical Center Groningen. Our circadian clock is regulated by a central controller in the suprachiasmatic nucleus, a region in the brain directly above the optic nerve, but all our cells contain a clock of their own. These clocks consist of an oscillation in the production and breakdown of certain proteins.
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Brain

Scientists make first observation of how the brain records memories during sleep


CBS Pittsburgh
Thu, 27 May 2021 16:36 UTC
brain
Scientists have long known our brains need sleep to review the day's events and transfer them into longer-term memories. Students are often told to study just before turning in to maximize their recall of material for a test the next day.

But the exact way in which the brain stores our memories is poorly understood.

Now for the first time, tiny microelectrodes planted inside the brains of two people show just how the brain's neurons fire during sleep to "replay" our short-term memories in order to move them into more permanent storage. The study was published Tuesday in the journal Cell Reports.

"This study is fascinating," said Dr. Richard Isaacson, who directs the Alzheimer's Prevention Clinic at Weill Cornell Medicine and New York-Presbyterian Hospital.
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Info

Study says maximum human lifespan is 150

Lauren Fuge
Cosmos Magazine
Wed, 26 May 2021 18:48 UTC
Aged Woman
© PixaBay
An international team of researchers has developed a new way to track the biological ageing process - and the results suggest that humans can live to a maximum of 150 years old.

Why do we age?

Ageing is a gradual process that happens over our whole life, as our normal body functions slow down.

There are at least nine markers of ageing, but a common one is when our cells slowly lose the ability to produce new and healthy cells to repair damage. It is marked by a decline in physical functionality and an increased risk of chronic disease.

Researchers distinguish between chronological age, which is exactly how many years a person has been alive, and biological age, which is how old a person seems at a cellular level - that is, how close their cells are to completely ceasing all function. These two numbers are not always the same for any given person, nor is biological age always linear.

Since biological age is influenced by a range of factors such as diet, exercise, sleeping habits, genetics and more, it's difficult to calculate - but researchers are interested in measuring it in order to develop effective anti-ageing interventions.
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Beer

How a 'bubble expert' cracked the physics of distilling mezcal

María Paula Rubiano
Atlas Obscura
Wed, 26 May 2021 15:21 UTC
mezcal brewing agave
© Phil Clarke Hill/In Pictures via Getty Images
Agave is processed in Oaxaca to make mezcal.
In 2015, fluid physicist Roberto Zenit had a short conversation that turned into a five-year research project. Zenit, who calls himself a "bubble expert, despite how funny it sounds," was intrigued when a student told him that bubbles play a crucial part in the production of mezcal, a distilled liquor made from agave plants by rural communities in Mexico. The student, whose family had distilled mezcal for generations, told him that producers tested if the liquor had the right amount of alcohol by squirting it into a small container and observing the lifetime of bubbles that form on the surface. If the bubbles, or "pearls," last about 30 seconds, the mezcal is ready. If they don't, the mezcal needs more distillation to reach the ideal alcohol content.

Five years later, Zenit and a team of researchers from three different universities proved that the traditional technique not only has sound scientific basis, but that the physics behind it is quite complex. Their findings were published in Scientific Reports.

"I think this research is so cool," says ethnobiologist América Minerva Delgado Lemus, who just published a book about mezcal production and was not involved in the study. "It's a much-needed dialogue between scientific and traditional knowledge."
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Cassiopaea

Can the universe learn?

Mara Johnson-Groh
Live Science
Thu, 20 May 2021 06:42 UTC
Universe
© Michael Stevenson/UIG via Getty Images
The universe could be teaching itself how to evolve into a better, more stable, cosmos. That's the far-out idea proposed by a team of scientists who say they are reimagining the universe just as Darwin revamped our view of the natural world.

The controversial new idea attempts to explain why the laws of physics are as we see them using a mathematical framework to describe various proposed theories in physics, such as quantum field theories and quantum gravity. The result is a system similar to a machine-learning program.


Comment: Ah, so the Universe is 'catching up with' human ingenuity?!


Scientists have discovered numerous physical laws and quantities with fixed values to define the universe. From the mass of an electron, to the force of gravity, there are many specific constants in the universe that seem arbitrary to some, given their precise and seemingly patternless values.

Comment: For the universe to be 'capable of learning' implies some kind of intelligence. Right there, these scientists are on the cusp of acknowledging 'supra-consciousness', intelligence(s) other-than-human, and thus a break with the Scientific Materialism ushered in by Darwin and others.

The theory of intelligent design expounded by Michael Behe and others similarly proposes non-human intelligence 'behind' or informing matter. A 'machine-learning' universe is at least in small part an acknowledgement that dogmatic materialistic theories like Darwinism - in which everything happens randomly and without any purpose or order - have had 'their day in the Sun'.

Now is the time for religion and science to step together into the light of a Universe we term Divine Cosmic Mind. The Universe isn't just 'learning as it goes along'. It sees all - past, present and future...

See also:

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Arrow Up

Hubble constant not so constant says new research


University of Michigan
Thu, 20 May 2021 19:47 UTC
NGC 4256
© ESA/Hubble
Pictured is the supernova of the type Ia star 1994D, in galaxy NGC 4526. The supernova is the bright spot in the lower left corner of the image.
More than 90 years ago, astronomer Edwin Hubble observed the first hint of the rate at which the universe expands, called the Hubble constant.

Almost immediately, astronomers began arguing about the actual value of this constant, and over time, realized that there was a discrepancy in this number between early universe observations and late universe observations.

Early in the universe's existence, light moved through plasma — there were no stars yet — and from oscillations similar to sound waves created by this, scientists deduced that the Hubble constant was about 67. This means the universe expands about 67 kilometers per second faster every 3.26 million light-years.

But this observation differs when scientists look at the universe's later life, after stars were born and galaxies formed. The gravity of these objects causes what's called gravitational lensing, which distorts light between a distant source and its observer.

Other phenomena in this late universe include extreme explosions and events related to the end of a star's life. Based on these later life observations, scientists calculated a different value, around 74. This discrepancy is called the Hubble tension.

Now, an international team including a University of Michigan physicist has analyzed a database of more than 1,000 supernovae explosions, supporting the idea that the Hubble constant might not actually be constant.
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