Science & TechnologyS


Pills

Drugs have dangerously polluted the world's rivers, scientists warn

Damian Carrington
The Guardian
Tue, 15 Feb 2022 18:19 UTC
Kai Tak river in Hong Kong drugs pollution antibiotics
© Robert Harding/Rex/ShutterstockThe Kai Tak river in Hong Kong had 34 different active pharmaceutical ingredients at a single site, the highest number recorded
Humanity's drugs have polluted rivers across the entire world and pose "a global threat to environmental and human health", according to the most comprehensive study to date.

Pharmaceuticals and other biologically active compounds used by humans are known to harm wildlife and antibiotics in the environment drive up the risk of resistance to the drugs, one of the greatest threats to humanity.

The scientists measured the concentration of 61 active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) at more than 1,000 sites along 258 rivers and in 104 countries, covering all continents. Only two places were unpolluted - Iceland and a Venezuelan village where the indigenous people do not use modern medicines.

Comment: Not really news. There have been warnings about pharmaceuticals contaminating water supplies for decades. But it's always good to remind people they are over-medicating themselves.

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Microscope 2

Flashback ACE2 isn't solely responsible for Covid-19, which explains a lot

Shin Jie Yong
Medium
Wed, 09 Dec 2020 08:16 UTC
Abstract vector created by macrovector
© www.freepik.com
The discovery of two new receptors — neuropilin-1 and CD147 — explains why Covid-19 is a mix of respiratory, vascular, nervous, olfactory, and immunological diseases.

It has been odd right from the start. If SARS-CoV-2 (the novel coronavirus that causes Covid-19) uses the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) as a receptor to infect cells, then why is it a lung disease when the lungs have low levels of ACE2?This was determined back in May 2020 in a study finding that alveolar cell type 2 (the primary target of SARS-CoV-2) in the lungs has ACE2 expression that is "4.7-fold lower than the average expression level of all ACE2 expressing cell types," such as the liver, stomach, ileum, kidney, and colon.

Comment: See also:

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Better Earth

1.5 million-year-old fossil found in Israel rewrites 'Out of Africa' theory

Charles Q. Choi
Live Science
Sun, 13 Feb 2022 23:11 UTC
Ubeidiya
© Dr. Alon BarashA top (a), rear (b), bottom (c) and front (d) view of the vertebra discovered at 'Ubeidiya (Image credit:
A 1.5 million-year-old vertebra from an extinct human species unearthed in Israel suggests that ancient humans may have migrated from Africa in multiple waves, a new study finds.


Comment: A variety of evidence suggests that the Out of Africa theory for all of humanity is simply wrong: Most human origins theories are not compatible with known fossils


Although modern humans, Homo sapiens, are now the only surviving members of the human family tree, other human species once roamed Earth. Prior work revealed that long before modern humans made their way out of Africa as early as about 270,000 years ago, now-extinct human species had already migrated from Africa to Eurasia by at least 1.8 million years ago, during the early parts of the Pleistocene (2.6 million to 11,700 years ago), the epoch that included the last ice age.

Scientists had debated whether ancient humans dispersed from Africa in a one-time event or in multiple waves. Now, researchers have discovered the latter scenario is more likely, based on a newly analyzed vertebra from an unknown human species. At about 1.5 million years old, the vertebra is the oldest evidence yet of ancient humans in Israel, study lead author Alon Barash, a paleoanthropologist and human anatomist at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, told Live Science.

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

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Red Flag

Apple forced to make changes to its AirTag product following privacy and stalking complaints

Kif Leswing
CNBC
Thu, 10 Feb 2022 17:33 UTC
Apple AirTag
© Todd Haselton | AppleApple AirTag
Apple announced several changes on Thursday to the way its AirTag product works as the $29 quarter-sized tracker is being linked to suspected crimes, including stalking and car theft.

Apple said it will update the iPhone and AirTag software to show a message during setup that using AirTags to track people is a crime in many regions around the world, and that law enforcement can request its associated user information.

The Big Tech company will also introduce a feature it calls Precision Finding, which will point iPhone users to unknown AirTags when they're nearby.

The changes are the most significant attempts Apple has made to date to limit the privacy and stalking downsides of the product that went on sale last April.
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Galaxy

First observation of a quadruple asteroid: Third moon detected around 130 Elektra


Astronomy and Astrophysics
Fri, 11 Feb 2022 21:49 UTC
130 elektra
Since the discovery in 1993 by the Galileo spacecraft of a satellite to asteroid (243) Ida, hundreds of binary systems have been discovered among near-Earth and main belt asteroids, Trojans, and Kuiper belt objects. While much less frequent, triple systems are also not exceptional, with more than a dozen known systems in the Main Belt. Multiple systems are of specific interest with regard to enabling the determination of a system's mass, and constraining the possible formation mechanisms (rotational fission and subsequent dynamics, large collisions, etc.).

Comment: See also:

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Galaxy

NASA probe glimpses surface of Venus

Michelle Starr
Science Alert
Thu, 10 Feb 2022 12:00 UTC
venus surface
© NASA/APL/NRL/Magellan Team/JPL/USGSA WISPR image (left) matches radar images from Magellan (right).
New images recorded by NASA's Parker Solar Probe have revealed the red-hot glow of Venus's surface radiating through its shroud of toxic clouds - a finding that could help us better understand the minerals making up this rocky and mysterious planet.

Using data from the Wide-field Imager for Parker Solar Probe (WISPR) instrument, scientists were able to peer beneath the planet's thick atmosphere, discovering geological features such as highlands, plateaus, and plains.

"Venus is the third brightest thing in the sky, but until recently we have not had much information on what the surface looked like because our view of it is blocked by a thick atmosphere," says astrophysicist and WISPR team member Brian Wood of the US Naval Research Laboratory.

"Now, we finally are seeing the surface in visible wavelengths for the first time from space."

Comment: See also: The Seven Destructive Earth Passes of Comet Venus

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Binoculars

Vatican Observatory announces discovery of 'trans-Neptunian object'

Jonah McKeown
Catholic News Agency
Thu, 10 Feb 2022 20:21 UTC
TNO 2021 XD7
© Vatican Observatory Org
The Vatican Observatory recently announced the discovery of an object orbiting the sun at a distance of between 3.3 and 4.8 billion miles, which could help to aid scientists in understanding more about the origins of the solar system.

The object, which was first detected in early December last year and announced last week, is classified as a "trans-Neptunian object" because it orbits the sun at a distance greater than that of Neptune, the furthest planet from the sun.

Chris Graney, an adjunct scholar at the Vatican Observatory, told CNA in an email that TNOs are thought to include remnants of the original materials from which the planets of the solar system formed, and therefore TNOs hold clues for scientists about the early solar system and its formation.

"This one TNO is just a piece of the puzzle -- but we at the Vatican Observatory are happy to add this piece," Graney told CNA.

The Vatican Observatory operates the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope, located in rural Arizona about 200 miles southeast of Phoenix. It was this telescope that made the discovery of the TNO, which has been dubbed 2021 XD7.
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Galaxy

We finally understand how black holes can release powerful flares

Andy Tomaswick
Universe Today
Tue, 08 Feb 2022 18:58 UTC
computer simulation black hole flares jets
© B. Ripperda et al., AJL, 2022A detail from the black hole simulation
While black holes might always be black, they do occasionally emit some intense bursts of light from just outside their event horizon. Previously, what exactly caused these flares had been a mystery to science.

That mystery was solved recently by a team of researchers that used a series of supercomputers to model the details of black holes' magnetic fields in far more detail than any previous effort. The simulations point to the breaking and remaking of super-strong magnetic fields as the source of the super-bright flares.

Scientists have known that black holes have powerful magnetic fields surrounding them for some time. Typically these are just one part of a complex dance of forces, material, and other phenomena that exist around a black hole.
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Sun

Nuclear-fusion reactor smashes energy record

Elizabeth Gibney
Nature
Wed, 09 Feb 2022 21:31 UTC
Joint European Torus tokamak
© Christopher Roux (CEA-IRFM)/EUROfusion (CC BY 4.0)The Joint European Torus tokamak near Oxford, UK, is a test bed for the world’s largest fusion experiment, ITER, in France.
A 24-year-old nuclear-fusion record has crumbled. Scientists at the Joint European Torus (JET) near Oxford, UK, announced on 9 February that they had generated the highest-ever sustained energy from fusing together atoms, more than doubling their own record from experiments performed in 1997.

"These landmark results have taken us a huge step closer to conquering one of the biggest scientific and engineering challenges of them all," said Ian Chapman, who leads the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE), where JET is based, in a statement. JET is owned by the UK Atomic Energy Authority, but it's scientific operations are run by a European collaboration called EUROfusion.
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Cassiopaea

Minor geomagnetic storm brings 40 recently launched Starlink satellites crashing down to earth


Space Weather
Wed, 09 Feb 2022 20:30 UTC
starlink geomagnetic storm
As many as 40 Starlink satellites are currently falling out of the sky--the surprising result of a minor geomagnetic storm. SpaceX made the announcement yesterday:

"On Thursday, Feb. 3rd at 1:13 p.m. EST, Falcon 9 launched 49 Starlink satellites to low Earth orbit from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. ... Unfortunately, the satellites deployed on Thursday were significantly impacted by a geomagnetic storm on Friday, [Feb. 4th]."

Two days before launch a CME hit Earth's magnetic field. It was not a major space weather event. In fact, the weak impact did not at first spark any remarkable geomagnetic activity. However, as Earth passed through the CME's wake, some sputtering G1-class geomagnetic storms developed. It was one of these minor storms that caught the Starlink satellites on Feb. 4th.

Comment: With earth's geomagnetic field wavering because of what's looking like an unprecedentedly weak solar cycle, which makes it even more sensitive to energy from the sun, this doesn't bode well for the 1,700+ star link satellites in orbit. It also calls into question the other objects and debris littering Earth's lower orbit.

Space Weather recently detailed why some think that Solar Cycle 25 is showing all the signs that it will be unusually weak:
SOLAR CYCLE 25--A DIFFERENT POINT OF VIEW

For much of the past year, the space weather community has been buzzing about the strong performance of young Solar Cycle 25 (SC25). Every month, sunspot numbers seem to blow past official predictions. This means we're about to have a strong Solar Maximum, right?​

"Not so fast," cautions Dr. Ron Turner, an analyst at the ANSER research institute in Virginia. "It may be too early to anticipate a strong solar cycle."​

This graph shows why Turner is skeptical:​

​
solar cycle 25 Feb 2022
Solar Cycle 25 is doing something interesting. It is mimicking old Solar Cycle 24 (SC24). "I took sunspot numbers from the early years of SC24 (the red dashed line) and overlaid them on SC25," says Turner. "They're an almost perfect match."​

This is significant because Solar Cycle 24 went on to become the weakest solar cycle in a century. Its hot start did not lead to a strong maximum. Turner isn't saying that Solar Cycle 25 will likewise be a dud. But, rather, "these early sunspot numbers are not enough to guarantee a strong cycle."​
See also: And check out SOTT radio's:

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