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Oh, what now!? Newfound asteroid the size of a house will fly by Earth on Wednesday


RT
Wed, 15 Apr 2020 18:45 UTC
asteroid
© urikyo33 from Pixabay
NASA's asteroid defense network has warned of an impending close flyby of a space rock about the size of a house, which will zip past the Earth just inside the orbit of the moon on Wednesday.

Asteroid 2020 GH2 will pass Earth at 19,000 miles per hour and was only discovered on Saturday April 11. With a diameter of between 43 and 70 feet (13-70 meters) wide, GH2 could inflict significant damage were it to crash into our planet. Mercifully, however, it will miss Earth, flying by at a distance of 223,000 miles (359,000 kilometers).

For context, the average lunar distance from Earth is 239,000 miles (385,000 km). For an asteroid to pose a clear and present danger to us, it would need to come within the range of geostationary weather satellites, which operate at a distance of about 22,000 miles (35,000 km) from Earth.
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Health

A safe alternative to opioid painkillers could come from tarantula venom

Michelle Star
Science Alert
Wed, 15 Apr 2020 18:12 UTC
tarantula
© Edgar Stich/iNaturalist, CC-BY-NC
Many people have no love for spiders. But some of the venomous arthropods could hold the key to unlocking a painkiller that rivals opioids in effectiveness, but without the damaging side-effects, such as addiction.

Scientists have modified the neurotoxic venom of a tarantula called the Chinese bird spider (Cyriopagopus schmidti) to produce a protein that acts as a powerful painkiller. So far, it's proven effective in mice.

"Our findings could potentially lead to an alternative method of treating pain without the side-effects and reduce many individuals' reliance on opioids for pain relief," said chemical biologist Christina Schroeder of the University of Queensland in Australia.
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Info

New formation theory explains the mysterious interstellar object 'Oumuamua

Tim Stephens
UC Santa Cruz
Mon, 13 Apr 2020 19:05 UTC
'Oumuamua-like objects
© NAOC/Y. Zhang
This illustration shows the tidal disruption process that can give rise to 'Oumuamua-like objects.
Since its discovery in 2017, an air of mystery has surrounded the first known interstellar object to visit our solar system, an elongated, cigar-shaped body named 'Oumuamua (Hawaiian for "a messenger from afar arriving first").

How was it formed, and where did it come from? A new study published April 13 in Nature Astronomy offers a first comprehensive answer to these questions.

First author Yun Zhang at the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and coauthor Douglas N. C. Lin at UC Santa Cruz, used computer simulations to show how objects like 'Oumuamua can form under the influence of tidal forces like those felt by Earth's oceans. Their formation theory explains all of 'Oumuamua's unusual characteristics.

"We showed that 'Oumuamua-like interstellar objects can be produced through extensive tidal fragmentation during close encounters of their parent bodies with their host stars, and then ejected into interstellar space," said Lin, professor emeritus of astronomy and astrophysics at UC Santa Cruz.
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Galaxy

Super Duper Supernova! Distant star explosion is brightest ever seen

Mike Wall
Space.com
Tue, 14 Apr 2020 00:00 UTC
An artist's illustration of a brilliant supernova, the explosive death of a star.
© Aaron Geller (Northwestern University)
An artist's illustration of a brilliant supernova, the explosive death of a star.
And it may be an odd type of supernova that has yet to be confirmed observationally.

This supernova is one for the record books.

A mammoth star explosion known as SN2016aps, which occurred in a galaxy about 3.6 billion light-years from Earth, is the brightest supernova ever seen, a new study reports.

"We can measure supernovae using two scales: the total energy of the explosion, and the amount of that energy that is emitted as observable light, or radiation," study lead author Matt Nicholl, a lecturer in the School of Physics and Astronomy and the Institute of Gravitational Wave Astronomy at the University of Birmingham in England, said in a statement.

"In a typical supernova, the radiation is less than 1% of the total energy," Nicholl added. "But in SN2016aps, we found the radiation was five times the explosion energy of a normal-sized supernova. This is the most light we have ever seen emitted by a supernova."

SN2016aps is so odd and so extreme that Nicholl and his colleagues think it may be a "pulsational pair-instability" supernova, in which two big stars merge before the whole system goes boom. Such events are hypothesized, but astronomers have never confirmed their existence observationally.
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Bizarro Earth

Is EVERYTHING broken? Earth has a 'leaky core' resulting in iron-rich lava eruptions, researchers find


RT
Tue, 14 Apr 2020 14:47 UTC
lava
© REUTERS/Antonio Parrinello
Amid growing anxiety over the coronavirus pandemic, it would be nice if we could at least rely upon the solidity of the Earth. Think again, says a new study, which found the inner layer of our planet is discharging metal material.

The Earth's molten core may be leaking iron, according to scientists at the University of California, Davis.

The study concluded that a huge drop in temperature from our planet's liquid iron core to the outer rocky mantle pulls heavier iron isotopes out towards the Earth's surface, while lighter iron isotopes remain within the core.
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Meteor

Chinese scientists claim Oumuamua asteroid is part of destroyed exoplanet


Sputnik
Mon, 13 Apr 2020 00:00 UTC
Oumuamua
© Reuters / Handout
In 2017, scientists from the University of Hawaii at Manoa spotted an enigmatic celestial body that turned out to be the first known interstellar object passing through the Solar System. Because of its unusual origin, it earned the name Oumuamua, which in Hawaiian means "first distant messenger".

Chinese scientists claim that the mysterious Oumuamua asteroid is a part of an Earth-sized exoplanet that was destroyed by its star. According to the study published in the journal Nature, the planet was ripped apart by tidal forces due to its close proximity to the star. The researchers say that during such a process, debris is ejected into interstellar space. Dr Yun Zhang, the study's lead author, says that this may explain why Oumumua has non-gravitational acceleration.

"If Oumuamua was produced and ejected in the way we suggest, plenty of residual water ice could be activated during its passage through the solar system. The resulting outgassing would cause accelerations that match Oumuamua's comet-like trajectory", Dr Yun Zhang wrote.

Comment: Theories on the origins of Oumuamua abound:

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Comet 2

Astronomers capture images of fragmenting Comet ATLAS Y4


Spaceweather.com
Tue, 14 Apr 2020 03:16 UTC
A zoomed-in view of the disintegrated comet ATLAS
© The Virtual Telescope Project 2.0/Gianluca Masi
A zoomed-in view of the disintegrated comet.
There's no longer any doubt. Comet ATLAS (C/2019 Y4) is falling apart. Around the world, amateur astronomers are beginning to witness the breakup, even imaging individual fragments. Jose de Queiroz photographed 3 pieces on April 11th:

Comet ATLAS fragmenting

Comment: Comet ATLAS Y4 is breaking up
"The comet's orbit is now being influenced by 'non-gravitational' forces. These forces are the result of gases lifting off the comet nucleus and causing the nucleus to move very slightly in the opposite direction-sort of like a jet engine. Most active comets experience this to some degree, but ATLAS's non-gravitational forces have kicked in very abruptly and are quite strong. This supports a narrative of a small nucleus being pushed very strongly by extreme outgassing, possibly along with fragmentation."
Earlier this month Comet C2I Borisov also began 'falling apart'. The 'fragmentation' and 'observed outbursts' of comets such as Borisov and ATLAS Y4 are likely due to their changing electric discharge. An important note on comets as detailed by Pierre Lescaudron in Earth Changes and The Human cosmic Connection:
Comets or Asteroids

The fundamental difference between asteroids and comets is not their chemical composition, i.e. dirty, fluffy icy comets vs. rocky asteroids. Rather, as has long been put forward by plasma theorists, what differentiates 'comets' from 'asteroids' is their electric activity.

When the electric potential difference between an asteroid and the surrounding plasma is not too high, the asteroid exhibits a dark discharge mode or no discharge at all. But when the potential difference is high enough, the asteroid switches to a glowing discharge mode. At this point the asteroid is a comet. From this perspective, a comet is simply a glowing asteroid and an asteroid is a non-glowing comet. Thus the very same body can, successively, be a comet, then an asteroid, then a comet, etc., depending on variations in the ambient electric field it is subjected to.
See also: And check out SOTT radio's: Behind the Headlines: Earth changes in an electric universe: Is climate change really man-made?

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Microscope 2

Pseudogenes are going the way of Darwin's 'rudimentary organs'


Evolution News
Mon, 13 Apr 2020 10:05 UTC
Charles Darwin
© Maull and Polyblank, Literary and Scientific Portrait Club
Charles Darwin in 1855
Long described as useless leftovers of evolution, pseudogenes are rising from the junk pile as functional entities — so much so, that scientists think a change in terminology is needed.

Wikipedia can be counted on to parrot the Darwinian view. Here's what they say about pseudogenes:
Gene duplication generates functional redundancy and it is not normally advantageous to carry two identical genes. Mutations that disrupt either the structure or the function of either of the two genes are not deleterious and will not be removed through the selection process. As a result, the gene that has been mutated gradually becomes a pseudogene and will be either unexpressed or functionless. This kind of evolutionary fate is shown by population genetic modeling and also by genome analysis. According to evolutionary context, these pseudogenes will either be deleted or become so distinct from the parental genes so that they will no longer be identifiable. Relatively young pseudogenes can be recognized due to their sequence similarity. [Emphasis added.]
It's safe to say that many Darwin skeptics have felt intimidated by this apparent genetic evidence for evolution, not sure what to make of it or how to fit it into their own perspective. Prominent Darwin defenders like Kenneth Miller, meanwhile, trumpeted pseudogenes as prima facie evidence against intelligent design. "The human genome is littered with pseudogenes," he wrote in 1994. Pointless junk like this "cannot be attributed to anything that resembles intelligent design." He even characterized ID as a "retreat back to into an unknowledge of biology that is unworthy of the scientific spirit of this century" (Life's Grand Design).

Comment:

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Comet 2

New Comet C/2020 F8 (SWAN)

Ernesto Guido, Marco Rocchetto & Adriano Valvasori
Remanzacco Blogspot
Mon, 13 Apr 2020 19:22 UTC
CBET 4750 & 4752 & MPEC 2020-G94, issued on 2020, April 13, announce the discovery of a comet (total magnitude ~8.5) by M. Mattiazzo in the low-resolution public website hydrogen Lyman-alpha images obtained with the Solar Wind Anisotropies (SWAN) camera on the Solar and Heliospheric Observer (SOHO) spacecraft. The new comet has been designated C/2020 F8 (SWAN).

We performed follow-up measurements of this object while it was still on the PCCP webpage through the Telescope Live network.

Stacking of 3 unfiltered exposures, 30 seconds each, obtained remotely on 2020, April 11.4 from X02 (Telescope Live, Chile) through a 0.6-m f/6.5 astrograph + CCD, shows that this object is a comet with a compact coma about 5' in diameter and a tail 6' long in PA 220. Total magnitude 8.4.
Stacking of 3 unfiltered exposures, 120 seconds each, obtained remotely on 2020, April 11.7 from Q56 (Telescope Live, Australia) through a 0.1-m f/3.6 astrograph + CCD, shows that this object is a comet with a compact coma about 8' in diameter and a tail 25' long in PA 220.

Our confirmation images (click on it for a bigger version):

Comet C/2020 F8 Swan
© Remanzacco Blogspot
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Magic Hat

Neo-Darwinism and the 'Big Bang' of man's origin

Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig
Evolution News
Tue, 25 Feb 2020 14:27 UTC
Australopithecus afarensis evolution Darwin
© reconstrucSmithsonian National Museum of Natural History; reconstruction by John Gurche; photographed by Tim Evanson / CC BY-SA.tion by John Gurche;Tim Evanson / CC BY-SA.
An artist imagines Australopithecus afarensis
When law professor Phillip E. Johnson1 was asked whether he wouldn't be "a bit out of [his] element" writing about evolution, neo-Darwinism,2 and intelligent design, he gave the following intriguing answer. It is acutely relevant for all readers and researchers who are interested in the origin of man but who are not paleoanthropologists:
Well, if I am out of my element then Charles Darwin must also have been out of his element because his training was in medicine and theology3 although he was, in fact, a very good scientist, self-taught, a gentlemen amateur like others of his time. Charles Lyell, the father of modern geology, was a lawyer. But you know, the thing about Darwinian evolution today is that it is a general philosophical concept that connects many disparate fields of science. So that you see, a molecular biologist [is] relying on fossil experts, paleontologists, and vice versa. And they are all relying on geneticists and each one of these groups of scientists outside their own element is just a generalist, is just a layman like anyone else. So there aren't really any specialists in evolution. It's a generalist's country.
He could have mentioned as well the Augustinian monk Gregor Mendel4, often called "the father of genetics," and many others in biology up to the present5. A further statement by Johnson is all the more relevant for the general reader, as well as for any philosopher, scientist, or other researcher:
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