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Elongated long cloud has reappeared over Martian volcano


The European Space Agency
Wed, 29 Jul 2020 04:48 UTC
Long Cloud Over Mars
© ESA/GCP/UPV/EHU Bilbao
A mysteriously long, thin cloud has again appeared over the 20-km high Arsia Mons volcano on Mars.

A recurrent feature, the cloud is made up of water ice, but despite appearances it is not a plume linked to volcanic activity. Instead, the curious stream forms as airflow is influenced by the volcano's 'leeward' slope − the side that does not face the wind.

These images of the cloud, which can reach up to 1800-km in length, were taken on 17 and 19 July by the Visual Monitoring Camera (VMC) on Mars Express, which has been studying the Red Planet from orbit for the past 16 years.

"We have been investigating this intriguing phenomenon and were expecting to see such a cloud form around now," explains Jorge Hernandez-Bernal, PhD candidate at the University of the Basque Country (Spain) and lead author of the ongoing study.

"This elongated cloud forms every martian year during this season around the southern solstice, and repeats for 80 days or even more, following a rapid daily cycle. However, we don't know yet if the clouds are always quite this impressive".
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Microscope 2

100m-year-old sea microbes successfully revived by scientists


The Guardian
Tue, 28 Jul 2020 17:49 UTC
lab research
© Iodp Jrso/Reuters
The microbes were revived from 101.5m year-old sediment cores gathered from deep beneath the seafloor.
Scientists have successfully revived microbes that had lain dormant at the bottom of the sea since the age of the dinosaurs, allowing the organisms to eat and even multiply after eons in the deep.

Their research sheds light on the remarkable survival power of some of Earth's most primitive species, which can exist for tens of millions of years with barely any oxygen or food before springing back to life in the lab.

A team led by the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology analysed ancient sediment samples deposited more than 100m years ago on the seabed of the South Pacific.

The region is renowned for having far fewer nutrients in its sediment than normal, making it a far-from-ideal site to maintain life over millennia.

Comment: See also:

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Rocket

Mould from Chernobyl nuclear reactor tested as radiation shield on ISS

Alice Klein
New Scientist
Fri, 24 Jul 2020 12:00 UTC
International Space Station
© NASA Archive / Alamy
The International Space Station
A radiation-absorbing fungus found at the destroyed Chernobyl nuclear reactor has been shown to absorb harmful cosmic rays on the International Space Station, and could potentially be used to protect future Mars colonies.

Exposure to cosmic rays poses a major health risk to astronauts leaving Earth's protective atmosphere. Shields can be made out of stainless steel and other materials, but they must be shipped from Earth, which is difficult and costly.

Xavier Gomez and Graham Shunk came up with the idea of growing radiation shields on Mars out of living organisms while they were students at high schools in North Carolina in 2018.

The pair found research showing that a fungus called Cladosporium sphaerospermum that was originally isolated from mould growing in the ruined Chernobyl nuclear reactor could absorb high levels of radiation, and wondered if it could function as a space radiation shield.

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Telescope

FOUR asteroids to shoot past Earth in one day, after astronaut warns there are 1 MILLION out there that can hit us


RT
Mon, 27 Jul 2020 19:05 UTC
Asteroid shooting past Earth
© Getty Images / Science Photo Library - ANDRZEJ WOJCICKI
As the week begins with a flurry of asteroidal activity, with four space rocks set to shoot past Earth on Tuesday alone, two Indian teenagers have discovered yet another space rock due to cross paths with our planet.

To kick things off, the small-house-sized asteroid 2020 OO1 will buzz by at a distance of 669,000km on July 27.

Then on Tuesday, we will witness a whopping four flybys in one day, starting with the relatively safe and short-lived sojourns of 2020NZ amd 2020 OE2, 28m and 12m in diameter respectively, which will blow through our cosmic backyard at a safe distance of 3.1 million kilometers and 1.7 million kilometers.

Next, the real fun begins with the car-sized (2.9m) 2020 OY4, set to skip by at a distance of just 41,500km. It will be followed by the plane-sized (26m) 2020 OR4, which will pass us at 10 times that distance, looping beyond Earth at 457,000km.
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Satellite

Russian space chief questions NASA plans, praises partnership with China

Eric Berger
ars Technica
Mon, 13 Jul 2020 15:20 UTC
Russian-Chinese talks at Constantine Palace in 2016.

China's Vice Premier Wang Yang (standing) and Russia's then-Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin at Russian-Chinese talks at Constantine Palace in 2016.
"Today relations between Russia and China are very good."

The chief of Russia's space corporation, Dmitry Rogozin, offered less-than-flattering comments about NASA's Moon program in a recent interview with a Russian tabloid newspaper, Komsomolskaya Pravda.

Asked about Russia's interest in sending humans to the Moon and possibly partnering with NASA, Rogozin dismissed the Artemis program. He responded: "Frankly speaking, we are not interested in participating in such a project."

The Russian space chief has publicly complained for some time that NASA has chosen a 2024 landing date for political reasons. He has also compared US efforts to build a sustainable program of exploration on the surface of the Moon to American invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

"It's more of a political project for the US now," Rogozin said of Artemis.
"With the lunar project, we are seeing our US partners move away from the principles of cooperation and mutual support that have developed with cooperation on the ISS. They see their program not as international but as similar to NATO."

Comment: See also:

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Moon

US plans to build nuclear reactors for the Moon and Mars to host 'sustainable human presence'


RT
Sun, 26 Jul 2020 12:18 UTC
Nuclear power plant
© Markus Distelrath/Pexels
The US is planning to construct nuclear reactors for use on the Moon and on Mars that would allow humans to inhabit them for long periods of time - and it's asking for help from the private sector to do it.

Washington wants to have a "fission surface power system" ready to go to space by the end of 2026, according to a formal request put out by the Department of Energy on Friday and directed at "leaders in the nuclear and space industries." The request asks industry leaders to help the government develop innovative technologies that will work both on the moon and on Mars.

"The prospect of deploying an advanced reactor to the lunar surface is as exciting as it is challenging,"said John Wagner, associate laboratory director of INL's Nuclear Science & Technology Directorate.

First, a reactor design will need to be developed. Then a test reactor will be built, along with another that will be sent to the Moon. A flight system and lander will also need to be designed so that the reactor can be transported. The prototype will resemble "to the greatest extent practicable" all the aspects of the actual reactor to be subsequently deployed to the Moon, "which must include extensibility to Mars," the request said.
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People 2

Review of Debra Soh's 'The End of Gender'

Barbara Kay
The Post Millennial
Sun, 26 Jul 2020 17:00 UTC
debra soh
Most authors dedicate their books to loved ones or inspirational teachers. Debra Soh, sexologist and neuroscientist, dedicates her new book, The End of Gender: Debunking the myths about sex and identity in our society to "everyone who blocked me on Twitter."

It's a fitting tribute, since aggressive opposition to Soh's spirited defence of science against the prevailing theory-based doctrines of the trans movement has guided Soh's professional trajectory for a number of years now.

As Soh informs readers at the outset, she left her eleven-year research career in academia, because it was clear her field had been compromised by trans activism, and her freedom to explore her subject — gender, sex and sexual orientation — was continuously shrinking. Assessing the "long, ugly history between transgender activists and sexologists," she could see no foreseeable end to the tensions, and segued to a career in journalism (Playboy, the Globe and Mail, Scientific American, Quillette, and others).

From her first article, arguing against early transition for children, the mobbing began and never let up. But neither did supportive encouragement from ordinary people who find themselves baffled and disturbed by dogmas and vocabulary — "people who menstruate" — that make no sense to them, and which many women find offensive (I certainly do). Soh wrote the book for them: "to answer your questions at a time when it's next to impossible to tell apart politically motivated ideas from scientific truth."

The book is organized around a series of trans-movement assumptions Soh identifies as myths: that "biological sex is a spectrum"; that "gender is a social construct"; that "there are more than two genders"; that "sexual orientation and gender identity are unrelated"; and so forth.
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Better Earth

Viruses from space & evolution: Dr. Wickramasinghe explains it all in new video

Hagia Sophia:
Panspermia.org
Sat, 25 Jul 2020 12:00 UTC
Wickramasinghe

Screenshot
I've had the privilege of being in regular touch with Chandra Wickramasinghe this year. Daily emails and regular Skype and Zoom calls have become a wonderful (wonder-full) intellectual dialogue. I am amazed at his ability to stay inspirational and continue to contribute despite his ostracism from the field HE founded: Astrobiology.

There is simply no question that Chandra and Fred Hoyle were the fathers of the Astrobiology. There is also no mention among "astrobiologists" of this role. No awards. No privileged papers. No lectures. Sir Fred got a statue, but you can't trust those anymore.

This is a queer circumstance (unless you share the cynical nature of the Tusk). Astrobiology today is a timid creature, only brave enough to speculate, but never prove their proposition. If they were to do the right thing and acknowledge, re-address, and incorporate the work of H-W into their studies, they might have a productive field of inquiry.

Comment: As Pierre Lescaudron details in his most recent article, while Covid-19 shows clear signs of tampering by human agency, the role of viruses in evolution are only just beginning to be understood: Compelling Evidence That SARS-CoV-2 Was Man-Made

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Beaker

Lego-inspired bone and soft tissue can be repaired with tiny, 3D-printed bricks


Medical Express
Sat, 25 Jul 2020 17:24 UTC
lego design bone implant repair
© Oregon Health & Science University
Oregon Health & Science University researchers have developed a tiny, 3D-printed technology that can be assembled like Lego blocks and help repair broken bones and soft tissue.
Tiny, 3-D-printed bricks have been designed to heal broken bones — and could one day lead to lab-made organs for human transplant.

Inspired by Lego blocks, the small, hollow bricks serve as scaffolding onto which both hard and soft tissue can regrow better than today's standard regeneration methods, according to new research published in Advanced Materials. Each brick is 1.5 millimeters cubed, or roughly the size of a small flea.

"Our patent-pending scaffolding is easy to use; it can be stacked together like Legos and placed in thousands of different configurations to match the complexity and size of almost any situation," said Luiz Bertassoni, Ph.D., who led the technology's development and is an associate professor in the OHSU School of Dentistry and an associate professor of biomedical engineering in the OHSU School of Medicine.
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Info

Rare supernova in Draco may explain how white dwarfs explode


Cosmos Magazine
Thu, 23 Jul 2020 19:43 UTC
Rare Supernova
© Northwestern University
The blue dot marks the approximate location of the supernova event.
Astrophysicists have spotted a spectacular flash of ultraviolet light accompanying a white dwarf explosion.

It's only the second time such a rare type of supernova has been seen, they say, and may help explain how white dwarfs explode.

The flash "is telling us something very specific", says Adam Miller from Northwestern University, US, the lead author of a paper in in the Astrophysical Journal.

"As time passes, the exploded material moves farther away from the source. As that material thins, we can see deeper and deeper.

"After a year, the material will be so thin that we will see all the way into the centre of the explosion."

Using the Zwicky Transient Facility in California, the researchers spotted the event, named SN2019yvq, just a day after it occurred last December in a galaxy about 140 million light-years from Earth and very close to the tail of the dragon-shaped Draco constellation.

They quickly studied it in ultraviolet and X-ray wavelengths using NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory and classified it as a type Ia supernova.
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