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Tue, 19 Oct 2021
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Comet

Asteroid or comet? Strange solar system object 2005 QN173 is actually BOTH

Meghan Bartels
Space.com
Wed, 06 Oct 2021 12:00 UTC
2005 QN173
© Henry H. Hsieh (PSI), Jana Pittichová/NASA/JPL-Caltech
A composite image shows the passage of 2005 QN173, a rare active asteroid. The nucleus is in the upper left corner of the image; the tail streaks diagonally across the frame.
Scientists have identified a rare solar system object with traits of both an asteroid and a comet.

The object, dubbed 2005 QN173, orbits like any other asteroid, but most such objects are rocks that don't change much as they loop through the solar system. Not so for 2005 QN173, which was first spotted in 2005 (hence the name), according to new research. Instead, it looks like a comet, shedding dust as it travels and sporting a long, thin tail, which suggests that it's covered with icy material vaporizing away into space — even though comets usually follow elliptical paths that regularly approach and retreat from the sun.

Comment: It's highly likely that, as we enter a 'grand' solar minimum and activity on the Sun wanes to levels unknown in our era, formerly inactive bodies, as well as new comers, will show unusually high levels of activity 'surprising' scientists even further; and, perhaps, when taking into account the surge in other unusual, and in some cases disastrous, phenomena on planet Earth, it will sufficiently rouse their curiousity that they'll begin to question their long held theories: Volcanoes, Earthquakes And The 3,600 Year Comet Cycle

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Info

Extinction and origination patterns change after mass extinctions says study

Josie Garthwaite
Stanford University
Wed, 06 Oct 2021 17:59 UTC
A sweeping analysis of marine fossils from most of the past half-billion years shows the usual rules of body size evolution change during mass extinctions and their recoveries. The discovery is an early step toward predicting how evolution will play out on the other side of the current extinction crisis.
Trilobite fossil
© Smithsonian
A trilobite fossil from the Ordovician period, which lasted from about 485 to 443 million years ago. A new analysis of marine fossils from most of the past half-billion years shows the usual rules of body size evolution change during mass extinctions and their recoveries.
Scientists at Stanford University have discovered a surprising pattern in how life reemerges from cataclysm. Research published Oct. 6 in Proceedings of the Royal Society B shows the usual rules of body size evolution change not only during mass extinction, but also during subsequent recovery.

Since the 1980s, evolutionary biologists have debated whether mass extinctions and the recoveries that follow them intensify the selection criteria of normal times - or fundamentally shift the set of traits that mark groups of species for destruction. The new study finds evidence for the latter in a sweeping analysis of marine fossils from most of the past half-billion years.

Whether and how evolutionary dynamics shift in the wake of global annihilation has "profound implications not only for understanding the origins of the modern biosphere but also for predicting the consequences of the current biodiversity crisis," the authors write.

"Ultimately, we want to be able to look at the fossil record and use it to predict what will go extinct, and more importantly, what comes back," said lead author Pedro Monarrez, a postdoctoral scholar in Stanford's School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences (Stanford Earth). "When we look closely at 485 million years of extinctions and recoveries in the world's oceans, there does appear to be a pattern in what comes back based on body size in some groups."
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Snowflake Cold

Dr. Roger Higgs exposes 'breathtaking scale of NASA-Hadcrut temperature-fixing fraud'

Cap Allon
Electroverse
Mon, 04 Oct 2021 00:00 UTC
Sun and ocean
© Unknown/KJN
Dawn of the Ice Age
Below is Dr. Roger Higgs' newest ResearchGate contribution — comprised of 4 simple slides proving beyond doubt that the Sun governs climate. Dr. Higgs writes:
"The slides reveal the breathtaking scale of NASA-HadCRUT temperature-fixing fraud. You will be shocked. To see the monumental scale of the deception laid bare as I assembled this new contribution over the last few days made my jaw drop. I am disgusted. How dare these unscrupulous people commit this appalling crime against humanity, i.e. manipulating the global thermometer data to 'justify' a drastic restructuring of world society (The Great Reset) and the denial of life-prolonging reliable energy to billions of impoverished citizens of developing nations?"
SLIDE 1 — CONCLUSIONS:

1) Our star, the Sun, controls global (& regional) warming & cooling, with 150-year delay due to ocean thermal inertia. (IPCC failed to notice this lag & dismissed solar fluctuations as too small to cause climate change.)

2) 'Modern Warming' since 1910 (recovery from Little Ice Age) is greatly exaggerated by NASA-HadCRUT improper 'corrections' to the thermometer record, e.g. failure to compensate fully for urbanization. This solves the tree-ring Divergence Problem: "A temperature trend extracted from tree rings alone would not show any substantial warming since the 1950s".

3) The 1930's (Dust Bowl) was probably the warmest decade of the last 1,000 years; it corresponds to the climax of the Sun's 1700-1780 strongest multi-decade surge of the 2nd Millennium (effect delayed 150 years).

4) The joint rise in both CO2 (since 1850, start of Industrial Revolution) & temperature (since 1910, with downturns lacked by CO2, and without CO2's acceleration) was purely coincidental.

5) Following the 2016 temperature peak, relative coolness will now persist for about 50 years.

6) CO2 is irrelevant to climate. (We need more CO2 for agriculture & forestry).

7) CO2's theoretical greenhouse effect must be either conceptually flawed or is cancelled by negative feedbacks overlooked or ignored by IPCC.

Comment: What did NOAA and NASA have to gain as gatekeepers and producers of doctored information?

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Syringe

COVID outbreak sparked by fully vaccinated patient challenges vaccine-induced herd immunity theory

Megan Redshaw
The Defender
Mon, 04 Oct 2021 22:34 UTC
faces art
A paper published Sept. 30 in Eurosurveillance raises questions about the legitimacy of "vaccine-generated herd immunity."

The study cites a COVID outbreak which spread rapidly among hospital staff at an Israeli Medical Center — despite a 96% vaccination rate, use of N-95 surgical masks by patients and full personal protective equipment worn by providers.

The calculated rate of infection among all exposed patients and staff was 10.6% (16/151) for staff and 23.7% (23/97) for patients, in a population with a 96.2% vaccination rate (238 vaccinated/248 exposed individuals).

The paper noted several transmissions likely occurred between two individuals both wearing surgical masks, and in one instance using full PPE, including N-95 mask, face shield, gown and gloves.

Of the 42 cases diagnosed in the outbreak, 38 were fully vaccinated with two doses of Pfizer and BioNTech's Comirnaty vaccine, one had received only one vaccination and three were unvaccinated.

Of the infected, 23 were patients and 19 were staff members. The staff all recovered quickly. However, eight vaccinated patients became severely ill, six became critically ill and five of the critically ill died. The two unvaccinated patients tracked had mild COVID cases.
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Brain

A custom brain implant lifted a woman's severe depression

Laura Sanders
Science News
Mon, 04 Oct 2021 00:00 UTC
Sarah and brain activity monitor
© Maurice Ramirez/UCSF
Sarah's brain activity measured by an implanted device then seen on a computer screen to find the most effective dose, duration and location of her deep brain stimulation.
A personalized brain implant eased the crushing symptoms of a woman's severe depression, allowing her to once again see the beauty of the world. "It's like my lens on the world changed," said Sarah, the research volunteer who requested to be identified by her first name only.

The technology, described October 4 in Nature Medicine, brings researchers closer to understanding how to detect and change brain activity in ultraprecise ways (SN: 2/10/19).

The device was bespoke; it was built specifically for Sarah's brain. The details of the new system may not work as a treatment for many other people, says Alik Widge, a psychiatrist and neural engineer at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. Still, the research is "a really significant piece of work," he says, because it points out a way to study how brain activity goes awry in depression.
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Jupiter

Winds near Jupiter's great red spot are speeding up and scientists don't know why

David Nield
Science Alert
Sun, 03 Oct 2021 23:26 UTC
jupiter
© NASA/ESA/A. Simon & M. H. Wong & the OPAL team
The Great Red Spot visible on Jupiter is a swirling anticyclonic storm, the largest of its kind in the Solar System - large enough to fit our entire planet within. Now, a new analysis has revealed the winds around the edge of the spot are mysteriously speeding up.

Using data collected from the Hubble Space Telescope, researchers looked at the patterns of the storm from 2009 to 2020, measuring a wind speed increase in the outer edge of 8 percent over that time.

That's an increase of a little less than 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) per hour for every year that measurements were taken - not huge, but significant, and only measurable because of the high-resolution imagery that Hubble is able to capture.

Comment: Are we witnessing yet another sign of cosmic climate change?

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Cloud Grey

Dark days: Earth has 'dimmed' by 0.5% since 2017 and scientists aren't sure why

Deborah Byrd
Earth Sky
Sun, 03 Oct 2021 21:42 UTC
Earthshine moon
© NASA
An image taken from the International Space Station in 2011 shows Earthshine on the moon.
Earth is dimming due to climate change Posted by October 2, 2021 Scientists used measurements of earthshine - the faint glow on the darkened portion of a crescent moon - plus satellite measurements to learn that Earth is dimming. The reason is fewer bright clouds, due to warming temperatures.


Comment: The planet isn't warming, even global warmists have had to admit that much (at least in a round about way): Texas cold snap linked to 40 years of increasing snowfall in Arctic & disruptions in stratospheric polar vortex - increase in extreme cold events likely - study


The American Geophysical Union (AGU) said on September 30, 2021, that Earth's warming oceans are causing fewer bright clouds to reflect sunlight back into space. The result is that more heat reaches the Earth's surface. The additional heat will, presumably, lead to even warmer oceans. This result is contrary to what many scientists had hoped. They'd hoped a warmer Earth might lead to more bright clouds and higher albedo (greater reflectivity), and more heat reflected away. That outcome would have helped to moderate warming and balance the climate system, they said. But their result shows the opposite is true.

Comment: The dimming could also be due to what seems to be an uptick in volcanic and cometary dust loading, the slowing circulatory systems, as well as perhaps related in some way to our quieting sun and Earth's weakening magnetic field. And there are likely other factors to take into account: Volcanoes, Earthquakes And The 3,600 Year Comet Cycle

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Galaxy

UNLV astronomers may have discovered first planet to orbit 3 stars

Natalie Bruzda
UNLV
Fri, 01 Oct 2021 07:05 UTC
triple star system GW Orionis
© ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), ESO/Exeter/Kraus et al
An image of GW Orionis, a triple star system with a mysterious gap in its surrounding dust rings. UNLV astronomers hypothesize the presence of a massive planet in the gap, which would be the first planet ever discovered to orbit three stars. The left image, provided by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope, shows the disc’s ringed structure, with the innermost ring separated from the rest of the disc. The observations in the right image show the shadow of the innermost ring on the rest of the disc. UNLV astronomers used observations from ALMA to construct a comprehensive model of the star system.
In a distant star system — a mere 1,300 light years away from Earth — UNLV researchers and colleagues may have identified the first known planet to orbit three stars.

Unlike our solar system, which consists of a solitary star, it is believed that half of all star systems, like GW Ori where astronomers observed the novel phenomenon, consist of two or more stars that are gravitationally bound to each other.

But no planet orbiting three stars - a circumptriple orbit - has ever been discovered. Perhaps until now.
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Archaeology

A volcano-induced rainy period made Earth's climate dinosaur-friendly

Megan Sever
Science News
Thu, 30 Sep 2021 20:03 UTC
rainy climate dinosaurs late triassic
© Davide Bonadonna
During a 2-million-year-long rainy period in the Late Triassic, known as the Carnian Pluvial Episode (illustrated here), dinosaurs began to grow, diversify and take over.
New evidence links ancient eruptions to climate changes that let dinos start a climb to dominance

The biggest beasts to walk the Earth had humble beginnings. The first dinosaurs were cat-sized, lurking in the shadows, just waiting for their moment. That moment came when four major pulses of volcanic activity changed the climate in a geologic blink of an eye, causing a 2-million-year-long rainy spell that coincided with dinos rising to dominance, a new study suggests.

Clues found in sediments buried deep beneath an ancient lake basin in China link the volcanic eruptions with climate swings and environmental changes that created a globe-spanning hot and humid oasis in the middle of the hot and dry Triassic Period, researchers report in the Oct. 5 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. During this geologically brief rainy period 234 million to 232 million years ago, called the Carnian Pluvial Episode, dinosaurs started evolving into the hulking and diverse creatures that would dominate the landscape for the next 166 million years.
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2 + 2 = 4

The NYT's partisan tale about COVID and the unvaccinated is rife with sloppy data analysis

Jeremy Beckham
OutsideVoices.substack.com
Fri, 01 Oct 2021 17:23 UTC
masked couple
© Daniel Slim/AFP via Getty Images
A masked couple waits for the train at Harpers Ferry station in West Virginia, July 3, 2020.
NOTE FROM GLENN GREENWALD: The corporate media has worked very hard to propagate the liberal-pleasing narrative that COVID has become a partisan disease due to vaccine hesitancy on the right, often ignoring the inconvenient truth that large percentages of politically diverse groups, principally African-Americans and Latinos, remain resistant to vaccination. Recent reporting from The New York Times serves to further this distorted narrative, dubbing the positive correlation between support for Donald Trump and COVID death rates "Red COVID," and brandishing it as evidence of a partisan pandemic. But the Times' report misleads readers through statistical manipulation and data games, as illustrated by this meticulous analysis, presented in an Outside Voices contribution by Jeremy Beckham:

A widely shared article recently appeared in The New York Times' "The Morning" newsletter titled "Red Covid," authored by David Leonhardt. This article, presented as news reporting and not an opinion piece, argues that deaths from COVID-19 are "showing a partisan pattern," with the worst impacts of the disease "increasingly concentrated in red America." Given that this narrative perfectly flatters a liberal sense of superiority, it has predictably gained substantial traction on MSNBC and on Twitter.

One particular claim in the Times' article caught my attention: that there is a clear and strong association on a county level between COVID deaths and support for Donald Trump in the 2020 election. Specifically, the article alleged that those counties which voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump had more than a four-fold greater mortality rate than those counties which decisively voted against Trump. If true, that would indeed be a striking observation.
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