Science & Technology

Complex linguistic feature not unique to humans says new study

Natalie Parletta
Cosmos Magazine
Mon, 29 Jun 2020 18:36 UTC

Evidence is piling up to suggest humans are not as different from animals as many like to think.

New research adds more fuel to the debate, showing that a complex ability thought to be a hallmark of human language is not only innate across different ages and cultures, but can also be picked up by monkeys.

The study, published in the journal Science Advances, tested the ability to embed a smaller phrase within another phrase in three- to five-year-old children, US adults, native Bolivian adults and three rhesus macaques named Horatio, Beyoncé and Coltrane.

Nesting phrases, or recursion, enables us to organise ideas in language, by creating the structure of a pair within another pair, for example.

"You can take a phrase like 'the cat meowed', and nest 'the dog chased' in the centre of the sentence to make 'the cat the dog chased meowed'," explains lead author Stephen Ferrigno from Harvard University, US.

"To understand the meaning of this sentence, the inner noun needs to be matched to the inner verb. The same is true with the outer noun/verb pair."

Scientists name new spider species after actor Joaquin Phoenix, markings resemble 'Joker' character

Sputnik
Mon, 29 Jun 2020 17:05 UTC

Researchers say that discovering the arthropod was quite challenging, as this genus of spiders spend most of their lives in their subterranean nests and are active above ground only for a period of three weeks.

Scientists from Finland's University of Turku have discovered a new spider species that they have named after Hollywood actor Joaquin Phoenix. The arthropod has a red-and-white pattern on its back that resembles the makeup Phoenix wore in the movie Joker, where he played the famous comic book villain.

"Recently, me and my colleague named a new species of this genus from Iran as Loureedia phoenixi, after the American actor, producer and animal rights activist Joaquin Phoenix in recognition of his praised portrayal of the title character in the 2019 movie 'Joker' and as a reference to the male abdominal pattern of the new species, which resembles the famous facial makeup of the character", said the study's lead author Alireza Zamani, an arachnologist and doctoral candidate in the Biodiversity Unit at the University of Turku in Finland.

Physicists just quantum teleported information between particles of matter

Mike McRae
Science Alert
Fri, 26 Jun 2020 19:32 UTC

By making use of the 'spooky' laws behind quantum entanglement, physicists think have found a way to make information leap between a pair of electrons separated by distance.

Teleporting fundamental states between photons - massless particles of light - is quickly becoming old news, a trick we are still learning to exploit in computing and encrypted communications technology.

But what the latest research has achieved is quantum teleportation between particles of matter - electrons - something that could help connect quantum computing with the more traditional electronic kind.

"We provide evidence for 'entanglement swapping,' in which we create entanglement between two electrons even though the particles never interact, and 'quantum gate teleportation,' a potentially useful technique for quantum computing using teleportation," says physicist John Nichol from the University of Rochester in New York.

"Our work shows that this can be done even without photons."

Entanglement is physics jargon for what seems like a pretty straightforward concept.

Theorists calculate an upper limit for possible quantization of time

Bob Yirka
Phys.org
Fri, 26 Jun 2020 00:00 UTC

A trio of theoretical physicists at the Pennsylvania State University has calculated the upper limit for the possible quantization of time — they suggest 10⁻³³ seconds as the upper limit for the period of a universal oscillator. In their paper published in the journal Physical Review Letters, Garrett Wendel, Luis Martínez and Martin Bojowald outline their theory and suggest a possible way to prove it.

For many years, theoretical physicists have been trying to explain a major problem — the general theory of relativity suggests that time is a continuous quantity, one that can move slower or faster depending on acceleration and gravity conditions. But quantum mechanics theories suggest that time ticks away at a steady pace, like the frames of a movie being played out. In this scenario, time must be universal. For both theories to be right, this contradiction must be explained in a rational way.

Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis receives support in new book by eminent geologist - Graham Hancock

Graham Hancock
GrahamHancock.com
Wed, 24 Jun 2020 11:00 UTC

Did impacts and airbursts from multiple fragments of a disintegrating comet cause the onset of the Younger Dryas global cataclysm 12,800 years ago? After more than a decade of acrimonious scientific controversy around the Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis (YDIH), an important new book by eminent geologist Dr James L. Powell answers this question in great depth and sets the record straight with a resounding YES.

Titled "Deadly Voyager: The Ancient Comet Strike That Changed Earth and Human History" (http://deadlyvoyager.net/), this thoroughly researched and eminently readable study systematically demolishes all the criticisms of the YDIH that have been made over the years by scientific opponents.

Of particular note is Powell's careful dismembering of several studies which claimed that the evidence on which the YDIH is built is "irreproducible" - a damning criticism in science and one that opponents of the YDIH often gleefully repeat as though the claim is an established and unquestionable fact that "debunks" the hypothesis.

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Evolutionary theorizing depends on magic words

Evolution News
Fri, 26 Jun 2020 21:22 UTC

Here is a quick tale about the evolution of the automobile.

Billions of years ago, a chassis appeared.
The chassis acquired an engine.
The crankshaft found a side gig as a steering wheel.
The steering wheel linked up with the brake pedal to form a universal joint.
Seats developed. They probably arose when the first hood evolved.

Now consider leading journals publishing this account after it has whisked through peer review. Is this not exactly what goes on in evolutionary theorizing? Darwinians have mastered the use of magic words that replace rigor with imagination. And they get away with it; nobody ever blows the whistle on what should be tagged a major scientific foul.

New Findings About Aminoacyl-tRNA Synthetases

Here is an example in The Scientist, a news magazine for working scientists who should know better. In the article, "Protein Synthesis Enzymes Have Evolved Additional Jobs," writer Amber Dance explains new findings about aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases, abbreviated AARS, the enzymes that attach amino acids to transfer RNAs. This important family of 20 enzymes stands between the DNA code, written in triplet nucleotide codons, and the protein code, written in amino acids. Ms. Dance recounts new findings that show several of these enzymes "moonlight" as workers with other functions.

Pendulum may reveal gravity's secrets

Chris Lee
Ars Technica
Sat, 27 Jun 2020 20:08 UTC

Gravity is, at heart, a mystery. Yes, we can talk about curvature of space-time and perhaps make analogies with stretched rubber sheets. But we don't know why mass causes space-time to curve.

To put it another way, in our theory of gravity, matter is the scenery and space-time is both cast and stage crew. But matter's behavior is described by quantum mechanics, which takes space and time as a given. For quantum mechanics, space and time are the stage in which matter puts on the best show ever. How do we get these two theories to put on just one play?

Perhaps this is why the two theories simply do not get on — no show can have two lead actors, right? We may finally get to find out thanks to a new experimental device that may make it possible for both gravity and quantum mechanics to play lead roles.

Deep space: Black hole merger suggests darkest components can create light

RT
Fri, 26 Jun 2020 15:54 UTC

Analysis of a collision between two black holes in a distant region of space has revealed the existence of light, the first time such an association has been made with the phenomenon.

The merging of the two cosmic beasts was reported after a gravitational wave dubbed S190521g was detected in May 2019 by the twin Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) facilities in the US and the Virgo observatory in Italy.

Gravitational waves are caused by objects moving at very high speeds, such as when two black holes orbit and then merge with one another. Significant gravitational waves signal a curvature in space-time.

Remarkably, the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) at the Palomar Observatory in California, had its telescope focused on the same region of space at the same time - and detected an explosive flare in the vicinity. The research, published in astrophysics journal Physical Review Letters on Thursday, is the first record of light being associated with the collision of black holes.

The revelation could help prove the existing theory that black hole mergers occur regularly in regions of material known as 'accretion disks' surrounding supermassive black holes. Prior to the discovery, black holes were thought to merge in stellar graveyards, where there is little gas or dust that can heat up and glow.

Mysterious repeating FRB discovered coming from another galaxy

Meaghan MacSween
University of Toronto
Mon, 22 Jun 2020 05:14 UTC

© Photo courtesy CHIME
The findings, described by U of T researcher Dongzi Li as "unexpected," are the first to demonstrate that repeating FRBs can burst predictably.

A Canadian-led team of astronomers, including researchers from the University of Toronto's Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics, has discovered that a repeating fast radio burst (FRB) originating from a nearby galaxy pulses at regular intervals.

Researchers with the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) Fast Radio Burst Collaboration used the CHIME telescope in British Columbia to show that the repeating radio source known as FRB 180916.J0158+65 - first discovered in 2018 by the same group - pulsates every 16.35 days.

The findings, described in a study published recently in Nature, are the first to demonstrate that repeating FRBs can burst predictably.

The finding was unexpected. "We were surprised by the fact that the FRB has regular activity on the time scale of weeks," said Dongzi Li, a PhD student at Dunlap and corresponding author of the paper. "Most people would expect it to be at much shorter time scales, like seconds or even milliseconds, from rotation of a compact star. Any explanation for a 16-day cycle is likely very different."

Humans and dogs have been sledding together for nearly 10,000 years

Jason Bittel
National Geographic
Thu, 25 Jun 2020 12:00 UTC

© Katie Orlinsky, Nat Geo Image Collection
A team of sled dogs race on the Herbert Glacier, near Juneau, Alaska. This group of dog breeds has not interbred with wolves, a surprising discovery.

Greenland sled dogs, a fluffy, curly-tailed canine native to the harsh Arctic tundra, could be the oldest dog breed, according to the first study to take a deep dive into the animals' genetic history. The sled dog branch of the family tree, which includes various types of huskies and malamutes, broke off from the rest of the dogs around 9,500 years ago, versus something like a labradoodle, which only became a breed in 1989.

Scientists know that dogs likely evolved from Eurasian wolves, but exactly when or where that transformation took place is a matter of great mystery. To better understand the genetics of sled dogs and their place in the world, scientists sequenced the genome of a dog from Siberia's Zhokhov archaeological site, dating to around 9,500 years ago.

"I was actually anticipating that we would find some sort of precursor of domestic dogs," says lead author Mikkel-Holger Sinding, a paleogeneticist and Ph.D. student at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark.

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Science & Technology

Complex linguistic feature not unique to humans says new study

Scientists name new spider species after actor Joaquin Phoenix, markings resemble 'Joker' character

Physicists just quantum teleported information between particles of matter

Theorists calculate an upper limit for possible quantization of time

Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis receives support in new book by eminent geologist - Graham Hancock

Evolutionary theorizing depends on magic words

Pendulum may reveal gravity's secrets

Deep space: Black hole merger suggests darkest components can create light

Mysterious repeating FRB discovered coming from another galaxy

Humans and dogs have been sledding together for nearly 10,000 years

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