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Cassiopaea

First evidence of cell membrane molecules in space


Astronomy
Fri, 28 May 2021 12:00 UTC
membrane
© Kateryna Kon/Shutterstock
The origin of life is one the great unanswered questions in science. One piece of this puzzle is that life started on Earth 4.5 billion years ago, just a few hundred million years after the formation of the Solar System, and involved numerous critical molecular components. How did all these components come to be available so quickly?

One potential explanation is that the Earth was seeded from space with the building blocks for life. The idea is that space is filled with clouds of gas and dust that contain all the organic molecules necessary for life.

Indeed, astronomers have observed these buildings blocks in interstellar gas clouds. They can see amino acids, the precursors of proteins and the machinery of life. They can also see the precursors of ribonucleotides, molecules that can store information in the form of DNA.

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

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Info

Light activated molecule shifts circadian clock in cells

Alla Katsnelson
Chemical & Engineering News
Tue, 08 Jun 2021 18:01 UTC
Light Activated Cells
© Chemical & Engineering News
Light can switch this azobenzene-modified version of the circadian clock regulator longdaysin between its active and inactive forms, allowing researchers to controllably shift cells’ circadian clocks by up to 4 h.
Most living things contain a circadian clock — a signaling system that keeps the cell's function tied to the periodicity of a 24-h cycle. Although scientists have identified many elements that regulate the clock's function, much about circadian rhythms and how they influence health and disease remains poorly understood.

Now, researchers have created a light-activated molecule that can reversibly shift the length of the clock's cycle in living cells and tissues. The tool provides a targeted, non-invasive way to study how the clock affects cellular physiology, says Ben Feringa, a chemist at the University of Groningen who co-led the work.

The team made use of an azobenzene moiety, which is commonly used as a photoswitch and which changes conformation upon exposure to light. Light converts azobenzene from the trans isomer, which is thermally stable, to the cis isomer, which is not. The cis isomer gradually reverts to trans on its own or can be converted photochemically. "It's just a change in geometry," Feringa says. In past work, Feringa's lab built light switches into other molecules including antibiotics and antitumor compounds.

In the new work, the researchers added an azobenzene light switch to a molecule called longdaysin that chronobiologist Tsuyoshi Hirota at Nagoya University had created previously. Longdaysin slows down the clock by interfering with the action of a key regulator of two genetic feedback loops that control the circadian clock.
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Microscope 2

Scientists in Siberia resurrect 'new species' of ancient asexual microscopic animals frozen in Russian river for 24,000 years


RT
Tue, 08 Jun 2021 11:50 UTC
Rotifera
© Wikipedia
A Rotifera (wheel animal)
Microbiologists working at one of Moscow's top research institutes have announced they were able to revive prehistoric invertebrates, invisible to the naked eye, after two dozen millennia in hibernation in Russia's frozen north.

As part of a new paper published in the Cell scientific journal on Monday, the team reported how they were able to wake up the micro-organisms, known as rotifers, from their icy slumber. Carbon dating estimates show that the aquatic animals are around 24,000 years old.

Not only were the Russian researchers able to resurrect the rotifers, which are known for their ability to survive in extremely low temperatures, but they have even been able to show they can still reproduce asexually, without bothering to find a mate.

The samples came from the ice-rich permafrost in the middle of the Alazeya River, which flows through the Yakutia region in Far East Siberia. Studies indicate they are unable to move through frozen soil, and were therefore trapped in the sediment thousands of years in the past.

Stas Malavin, one of the researchers behind the feat, said that "this is an animal with a nervous system and brain and everything." He added that "we are quite confident that this is a new species for science," while noting its similarity to likely distant relatives still alive today.
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Sun

Existence of magnetic waves in the Sun's photosphere confirmed by astronomers

Paul M Sutter
Universe Today
Tue, 08 Jun 2021 18:19 UTC
Sun Photosphere
© Universe Today
For the first time astronomers have observed waves of magnetic energy, known as Alfvén waves, in the photosphere of the sun. This discovery may help explain why the solar corona is so much hotter than the surface.

The sun is made of plasma, and like any plasma it should support Alfvén waves. These are waves in a plasma where the ions move in response to tension from a magnetic field. First predicted over 50 years ago, astronomers had until now had been unable to see them in the sun. But recent observations of the sun's photosphere - the lowest layer of its atmosphere and the region that releases the light that we can see - have finally found them.

Magnetic fields in the sun can bundle together, forming long structures called flux tubes. These flux tubes can drive the formation of Alfvén waves. A team of researchers, led by Dr. Marco Stangalini at Italian Space Agency (ASI,Italy) with scientists from seven other research institutes and universities, including Queen Mary's Dr. David Tsiklauri and Ph.D. student Callum Boocock, used the European Space Agency's IBIS to carefully monitor the sun's photosphere.

Despite previous claims, Alfvén waves had never conclusively been found on the sun before.
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Evil Rays

People who are blind navigate better after echolocation training


New Scientist
Wed, 02 Jun 2021 11:47 UTC
Echolocation
© MattLphotography/Alamy
Echolocation is the ability to sense one’s surroundings by interpreting how sounds reflect off nearby objects
People who are blind are able to better complete various practical and navigation tasks with the help of echolocation, new research suggests.

Echolocation occurs when an animal emits a sound that bounces off objects in the environment, returning echoes that provide information about the surrounding space.

While the technique is well known in whales and bats, some people who are blind use click-based echolocation to judge spaces and improve their navigation skills.

Lore Thaler at Durham University in the UK and colleagues looked into the factors that determine how people learn this skill.

Over the course of a 10-week training programme, the team investigated how level of vision and age affect the learning of click-based echolocation, and how learning this skill affects the daily life of people who are blind.

Comment: See also: Humans can use echolocation just like bats says study

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Cassiopaea

Magnetic fields may be secret to planetary formation, supercomputer model reveals

Robin George Andrews
Quanta Magazine
Mon, 07 Jun 2021 12:00 UTC
magnetic fields
© Hongping Deng et al.
Scientists have long struggled to understand how common planets form. A new supercomputer simulation shows that the missing ingredient may be magnetism. r

Supercomputer simulations that include magnetic fields can readily form midsize planets, seen here as red dots.
We like to think of ourselves as unique. That conceit may even be true when it comes to our cosmic neighborhood: Despite the fact that planets between the sizes of Earth and Neptune appear to be the most common in the cosmos, no such intermediate-mass planets can be found in the solar system.

The problem is, our best theories of planet formation — cast as they are from the molds of what we observe in our own backyard — haven't been sufficient to truly explain how planets form. A new study, however, published in Nature Astronomy in February, demonstrates that by taking magnetism into account, astronomers may be able to explain the striking diversity of planets orbiting alien stars.

Comment: Wiki notes that 'electric and magnetic fields are generated and altered by each other', and so perhaps it's only a matter of time before mainstream scientists begin to include ideas postulated by Electric Universe theory into their equations: And check out SOTT radio's:

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Galaxy

Why the sun's atmosphere is hundreds of times hotter than its surface

Marianna Korso and Huw Morgan
The Conversation
Thu, 27 May 2021 19:27 UTC
sun solar
© Mongta Studio/Shutterstock
The visible surface of the sun, or the photosphere, is around 6,000°C. But a few thousand kilometers above it — a small distance when we consider the size of the sun — the solar atmosphere, also called the corona, is hundreds of times hotter, reaching a million degrees celsius or higher.

This spike in temperature, despite the increased distance from the sun's main energy source, has been observed in most stars, and represents a fundamental puzzle that astrophysicists have mulled over for decades.


Comment: Perhaps part of the problem lies in the theory of where a star's energy comes from? Perhaps it's not coming from inside, but from outside?


In 1942, the Swedish scientist Hannes Alfvén proposed an explanation. He theorized that magnetized waves of plasma could carry huge amounts of energy along the sun's magnetic field from its interior to the corona, bypassing the photosphere before exploding with heat in the sun's upper atmosphere.

Comment: Recent studies are bringing mainstream scientists closer to the true nature of space, stars and planets, and we can find more clues as to what's going on by looking at Electric Universe theory. In their book Earth Changes and the Human-Cosmic Connection Pierre Lescaudron and Laura Knight-Jadczyk write:
External power sources of celestial bodies

The reason capacitors can repeatedly discharge and yet maintain an electric potential difference between their anodes and cathodes is because they are plugged into an external source of energy. So where does all the electricity in our solar system come from? University of Michigan astrophysicist Michael J. Longo has thoroughly studied more than 40,000 galaxies.1 Following numerous steps in data treatment and analysis - I'll spare you the details of his calculations, which you can check in his paper - his conclusion was the following:
The worrisome alignment of the equinoxes and ecliptic with the AE is now seen as an accident due to the ecliptic's definition along RA [right ascensions] =180° and 0°, near the Galactic poles. It is not a sign of a serious foreground bias in the WMAP data. All the alignments can be explained with a cosmic magnetic field that aligns electrons' cyclotron orbit axes and imprints its multipoles on the CMB.2
In simpler terms, what Longo concluded was that the rotation axes of galaxies are aligned along the same curve and that this alignment could not be due to random chance. Along with Longo, Alfven3, Campanelli4 and Schwarz5 have all strongly suggested that the alignment of galactic rotation axes is due to a giant ring of electric current. Although the ultimate source of this giant electric ring circling the cosmic 'void' is still unknown, the alignment of the galaxies' rotation axes is indirect proof of its existence. The picture below depicts this alignment of galactic rotation axes on a ring-shaped intergalactic current (pink color):


A recent study seems to confirm this, notably the results surprised scientists: Milky Way not unusual


This giant ring of Birkeland current (see next chapter on 'Currents in plasma') may be the external source of energy that powers galaxies. It may also explain the 'handedness' addressed by Longo in his paper, by electrically inducing a specific direction and speed of rotation in the galaxies located along its current6. As shown in the picture below, intragalactic space seems to follow the same process as intergalactic space:

[...]

In addition to aligning galaxies along the 'intergalactic ring' and making them spin, as well as grouping the stars within galaxies along galactic arms, Birkeland currents may also be the external electric source that powers the stars themselves8 and makes them spin. In their turn, stars may be the external electric source that powers planets and makes them spin.
Birkeland
© Sott.net
A Birkeland current crossing 'empty' interstellar space.
These remain hypotheses only. Today the external electric sources that power celestial bodies is still unknown. Even plasma cosmologists have no definite answer to this question:

Studies of magnetic fields in the spiral arms of galaxies shows that electrical currents flow along the arms in the form of spiraling Birkeland filaments.  Ultimately, we don't know where the power comes from.9

[...]

Birkeland noticed that before the discharge circle divided, discharges were mostly localized in the equatorial and polar regions of the electrodes, as indicated in the picture below. This strongly suggests that most of the current injected into the electrode at the level of the polar regions escaped through the equatorial region. This is consistent with observations of the Sun, which shows a predominant glow and faster rate of rotation19 around the equatorial region.

Birkeland
© Sott.net
Birkeland's terrella experiment.
Reasoning by analogy and applying the principles of the homopolar motor to celestial bodies like stars and planets, we find that the 'internal' magnet of the celestial body plays the role of the cylindrical magnet of the motor. The external power source of the celestial body plays the role of the battery. The partial vacuum generated in the lab plays the role of the partial vacuum that constitutes outer space. And the Birkeland current crossing the plasma that surrounds the celestial body plays the role of the electric wire which closes the circuit by connecting the battery to the magnet.

If a celestial body is a conductor crossed by an electric current and an electromagnetic field, it will also be subjected to the Lorentz force. In this sense, stars and planets are giant homopolar motors, hence their spin. Therefore, when electric current or magnetic field decreases in strength, the rate of rotation decreases as well.

Note that the Moon doesn't spin. As explained above, the Moon hasn't developed a Double Layer (DL) of its own. It has no plasmasphere because its electric potential is equal to that of its surrounding space. Electric potentials being equal, the Moon is not subjected to any electric current, so no Lorentz force can be generated, hence the absence of spinning20.

For plasma cosmologists the driving force of spinning stars is indeed electricity:
 within the visible universe we find magnetic fields linking galaxies, showing that the galaxies are 'threaded like beads on a string', along cosmic power lines. The galaxies and stars within them are driven to rotate like the very simplest of electric motors, known as the 'homopolar' or Faraday motor. The ubiquitous spiral arms of galaxies trace the current paths between the galactic nucleus and the periphery From an electrical standpoint we make the simple observation that increasing electric current input to stars results in increasing maximum rotational speeds.21
In Part III, we will see how the Lorentz force (the result of the interaction between electric current and magnetic field) plays a role in numerous natural phenomena on Earth.

So far, in Part I we have introduced some basic concepts of the Electric Universe theory and plasma cosmology: the primary role of electrically charged plasma, the way in which different electrical potentials form around celestial bodies and set up an electrical gradient through which current can flow, the relative charges of the bodies in our solar system, and the role of electricity (specifically the Lorentz force) in structuring galaxies and solar systems, making them spin. Now, in Part II, we'll take a closer look at the Nemesis theory, and how it might fit into the framework created by the above concepts.
  1. 1 Longo, M., 'Does the Universe Have a Handedness?', arXiv:0812.3437 [astro-ph], 2008
  2. 2 ccapp.osu.edu/workshops/GLCW8/glcw8/talks/mLongo.pdf
  3. 3 Alfvén, Hannes et al. (1978). 'Interstellar clouds and the formation of stars'. Astrophysics and Space Science 55 (2): 487-509.
  4. 4.Campanelli L. et al, 'Ellipsoidal universe can solve the cosmic microwave background quadrupole problem'. Phys Rev Lett. 2006 Sep 29;97(13):131302.
  5. 5 Schwarz Domink, 'Is the low-l microwave background cosmic?', Astrophysics Journal, November 24th, 2004
  6. 6 See Chapter 12: 'Homopolar motors'
  7. 7 Byrd, D., 'Which spiral arm of the Milky Way contains our Sun?', Earthsky
  8. See: earthsky.org/space/does-our-sun-reside-in-a-spiral-arm-of-the-milky-way-galaxy
  9. 8 Scott, Donald E., The Electric Sky, p. 85
  10. 9 Thornhill, W. & Talbott, D., The Electric Universe, p.61
  11. 10 Tsytovich, V.N., Elementary Physics of Complex Plasmas, p. 7
  12. 11 Luis Alvarez (1911-1988), University of Berkeley researcher, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics, 1968.
  13. 12 Trower, W.P., 'Luis Walter Alvarez - A biographical memoir', p. 7
  14. 13 Ex-CNRS researcher and ex-secretary of the French section of IAGA (International Association of Geomagnetism and Aeronomy)
  15. 14 Nodon, A., 'Prévisions météo d'après les taches solaires'. See : albert-nodon.e-monsite.com/pages/recherche-au-20-siecle/previsions-meteo-d-apres-les-taches-solaires/
  16. 15 Pinches are created in the laboratory in equipment related to nuclear fusion. Pinches may also become unstable and generate radiation across the electromagnetic spectrum, including radio waves, x-rays and gamma rays, and also neutrons and synchrotron radiation. There are different kinds of pinches including theta pinch, the screw pinch and the Z-pinch. The name refers to the direction of the current in the devices, i.e., the Z-axis on a mathematical diagram. Any machine that causes a pinch effect due to current running in that direction is correctly referred to as a Z-pinch system, and this encompasses a wide variety of devices used for an equally wide variety of purposes including fusion power research. Pinches are used to generate X-rays, and they have applications to particle beams including particle beam weapons, and astrophysics.
  17. 16 Christian Birkeland had written in 1913 that what is now called the 'solar wind' generates currents in space that cause the auroras. Birkeland's theory was disputed at the time by the British geophysicist and mathematician Sydney Chapman, a senior figure in space physics, who argued the mainstream view that currents could not cross the vacuum of space and therefore the currents had to be generated by the Earth. However, in 1967 Birkeland's theory, referred to previously as 'fringe', was proved correct thanks to the data collected by U.S. Navy satellite 1963-38C. These magnetic field-aligned currents are now named Birkeland currents in his honor.
  18. 17 Anthony L. Peratt is a leading plasma physicist. He's the author of a foundational book titled Physics of the Plasma Universe. Peratt is currently investigating archaeological evidence for major space plasma events in prehistory.
  19. 18 Jago, L., The Northern Lights, Alfred a Knopf, NY, 2001.
  20. 19 According to the movements of the sunspots, the Sun rotates once every 27 days at the equator, but only once in 31 days at the poles.
  21. 20 However the moon has not always been devoid of a magnetosphere. The Moon's surface does bear remnant magnetism. The rocks returned to Earth by Apollo missions show evidence of this magnetism.
  22. Scott, D.E., The Electric sky, p. 214
  23. 21 Ibid, p.130
See also: And check out SOTT radio's:

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Radar

Another 'extinct' animal found alive, this time it's the Galápagos tortoise


BBC
Wed, 26 May 2021 12:00 UTC
tortoise
© AFP
Conservationist and park rangers found the female in 2019
Genetic tests have confirmed that a giant tortoise found on the Galápagos Islands is from a species which scientists thought had died out more than a century ago.

The single female was discovered during a 2019 expedition to Fernandina Island.

To prove the link, scientists took samples from the female to compare to the remains of a male from the species Chelonoidis phantasticus.

The last previous sighting of the species had been in 1906.

Comment: Whilst it does appear that our planet is undergoing a significant shift, with species going extinct as a result - and this is of grave concern - the sheer number of 'rediscoveries' of species leads one to think that perhaps researchers are declaring extinction status far too early, and this may point to a certain ideological blind within their field:

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Fireball 2

Meteor fireball over Brazil may have come from another solar system

Erik Mack
CNET
Fri, 04 Jun 2021 20:24 UTC
Fireball over Brazil
A small space rock that slammed into Earth's atmosphere and flamed out as a spectacular fireball over Brazil may have traveled from beyond our solar system to put on the bright display.

Brazil's Meteor Watch Network (Bramon) captured the so-called Earth-grazer meteor on Sunday evening over the southern part of the country. Two cameras in the network captured the meteoroid burning up in a brilliant streak painting its way across the night sky.

The fireball is considered an Earth-grazer because it collided with our atmosphere at a very shallow angle. A statement from Bramon suggests the meteor may have interstellar origins. "Preliminary analyses indicate that it was generated by a meteoroid coming from outside the solar system," it said.

The science around interstellar objects visiting our solar system is nascent and controversial.

Comment: See also: Large meteor fireball recorded in Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina, Brazil

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Sun

A 'ring of fire' solar eclipse will be visible in the sky on Thursday

Aria Bendix
Business Insider
Fri, 04 Jun 2021 19:59 UTC
Ring of fire solar eclipse
© NASA
An annular solar eclipse.
A solar eclipse will be visible in the sky at 6:53 a.m. ET on Thursday, as the moon passes between the Earth and the sun.

During a total solar eclipse, the moon blocks the sun entirely. But Thursday's spectacle is an annular solar eclipse, which occurs when the moon is too far from Earth — and therefore too small in the sky — to fully cover the sun. That leaves room for a brilliant halo of light, often referred to as a "ring of fire" or annulus, surrounding the moon.

The phenomenon won't be visible everywhere: Parts of Canada, Greenland, and Russia will have the best views. People in the northeastern US, northern Europe, and northern Asia will be able to see a partial solar eclipse, which will look as if someone has taken a bite out of the sun.

This will be the only annular solar eclipse this year, though it's the first of two solar eclipses in 2021. The year's second solar eclipse — a total eclipse — will take place on December 4.
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