Science & TechnologyS


Cloud Lightning

More intense and frequent thunderstorms linked to global climate variability

Texas A&M University
Phys.org
Tue, 22 Jun 2021 12:00 UTC
lightning strike
© Chris Maupin/Texas A&M UniversitySouthern Great Plains CG strike.
Large thunderstorms in the Southern Great Plains of the U.S. are some of the strongest on Earth. In recent years, these storms have increased in frequency and intensity, and new research shows that these shifts are linked to climate variability.

Co-authored by Christopher Maupin, Courtney Schumacher and Brendan Roark, all scientists in Texas A&M University's College of Geosciences, along with other researchers, the findings were recently published in Nature Geoscience.

In the study, researchers analyzed oxygen isotopes from 30,000-50,000 year old stalactites from Texas caves to understand trends in past thunderstorms and their durations, using radar-based calibration for the region's rainfall isotopes. They discovered that when storm regimes shift from weakly to strongly organized on millennial timescales, they coincide with well-known, global abrupt climate shifts during the last glacial period, which occurred between about 120,000 and 11,500 years ago.

Comment: In Pierre Lescaudron and Laura Knight-Jadczyk's book Earth Changes and the Human-Cosmic Connection they provide insight into just why we may be seeing an uptick now:
Hurricanes, lightning, and tornadoes

Introduction

The accumulation of cometary dust in the Earth's atmosphere plays an important role in the increase of tornadoes, cyclones, hurricanes and their associated rainfalls, snowfalls and lightning. To understand this mechanism we must first take into account the electric nature of hurricanes, tornadoes and cyclones, which are actually manifestations of the same electric phenomenon at different scales or levels of power. Because of this similarity, we will refer to these three phenomena collectively as 'air spirals' in the following discussion.

Discharge frequency

If air spirals are electrically driven, how then can we explain an increase in their frequency when the Sun's activity has dropped and the atmospheric E-field has therefore weakened1? While the overall atmospheric E-field has indeed weakened, another factor must be taken into account. The increase in atmospheric dust concentration2 reduces the electric conductivity of the atmosphere.3 Conductivity in the atmosphere is due to the mobility of small ions. When dust is present, these ions, instead of moving freely, attach to the relatively large dust particles and lose mobility, hence the decrease in atmospheric conductivity.4

[....]

This additional feature of dust particles - their ability to carry an electric charge - means that dust accumulation enables any given area of the atmosphere to carry potentially massive electric charges, which can differ from the charge of adjacent regions, from the charge of the ionosphere and from the charge of the Earth's surface.

[...]

Lightning and hurricanes seem to be a similar charge rebalancing processes. Lightning mostly occurs above continents and is far less frequent above oceans.1 This may be due to the difference between ground conductivity and sea conductivity. When electrons start flowing upwards from the ocean, the high conductivity of salt water2 usually prevents the formation of electron-deficient regions, which is one of the causes of lightning. However, when the upward electron flow occurs above a continent, the poor conductivity of the ground3 enables the formation of electron-deficient pockets that will trigger and receive lightning discharges.
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Attention

The Imperial College graph: Covid infections declined before lockdown and INCREASED under it

Will Jones
Lockdown Skeptics
Thu, 24 Jun 2021 17:10 UTC
covid chart
© Helen Ward, Graham Cooke, et al.Reconstructed epidemic curve from number of symptomatic infections per week, by date of onset in antibody positive participants reporting symptoms
The above graph is the COVID-19 epidemic curve for England, reconstructed by Imperial College's REACT antibody survey by asking those who tested positive in an antibody test when their symptoms began. I've added the start dates for lockdowns in red and the end dates in blue.

It's a very useful graph because it does not involve any PCR tests at all, only lateral flow immunoassay tests, self-administered at home. This means it does not suffer from the problem of detecting non-infectious virus as it is not detecting virus at all but antibodies. (Its specificity is reported as 98.6%, giving it a 1.4% background false positive rate, which the researchers adjust for.) This means, for example, that the epidemic decline is much faster than in the familiar "case" curves, and the curves are more symmetrical.

What does it show? Here's what I take from it. You might see more.
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Microscope 2

Flashback Genetically engineered 'Magneto' protein remotely controls brain and behaviour

Mo Costandi
The Guardian
Thu, 24 Mar 2016 14:30 UTC
tokamak toroidal magnetic chamber
© AFP/Getty ImagesThe toroidal magnetic chamber (Tokamak) of the Joint European Torus (JET) at the Culham Science Centre.
"Badass" new method uses a magnetised protein to activate brain cells rapidly, reversibly, and non-invasively.

Researchers in the United States have developed a new method for controlling the brain circuits associated with complex animal behaviours, using genetic engineering to create a magnetised protein that activates specific groups of nerve cells from a distance.

Understanding how the brain generates behaviour is one of the ultimate goals of neuroscience - and one of its most difficult questions. In recent years, researchers have developed a number of methods that enable them to remotely control specified groups of neurons and to probe the workings of neuronal circuits.
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Robot

First remote surgery conducted by indigenous technology in Iran with dog as trialist


RT
Wed, 23 Jun 2021 19:17 UTC
robot operation dog
© Twitter / @mhn6712
Iran has successfully conducted its first remote surgery using a domestically developed robot which was controlled from a medical center around seven kilometers away from the operation room.

On Wednesday, in the presence of Sorena Sattari, vice-president for science and technology, the first surgery using a domestically developed device was carried out on a dog.

A vasectomy operation took place at Sina Hospital in Tehran by a remotely controlled device which was being operated by doctors at the Iran Advanced Clinical Skills Training Center, approximately seven kilometers away.
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Comet

Incoming visitor from the Oort cloud could be among the largest comets ever documented

George Dvorsky
Gizmodo
Tue, 22 Jun 2021 13:55 UTC
Comet Hale-Bopp as observed from Earth in 1997
© Philipp SalzgeberComet Hale-Bopp as observed from Earth in 1997. The newly detected object could be even larger than Hale-Bopp, but it likely won’t be visible to the unaided eye.
An object of unusual size will make its closest approach to the Sun in 2031, during which time it will swing past the orbit of Saturn and possibly turn into an exceptionally large comet. Astronomers are already looking forward to the potential "fireworks" display.

The mystery object is called 2014 UN271, and it's currently 22 AU from the Sun (in which 1 AU is the average distance of Earth to the Sun), which means it has already passed the orbit of Neptune. The International Astronomical Union Minor Planet Center announced the detection on June 19. This object will travel another 11.1 AU before reaching its perihelion point (closest approach to the Sun) in 2031, after which 2014 UN271 will begin its long journey back to the Oort cloud.

Algorithms spotted the object in data collected by the Dark Energy Survey (DES) from 2014 to 2018, as Samantha Lawler, an astronomer at the University of Regina in Saskatchewan, Canada, explained in an email. Nearly 40 distinct observations of 2014 UN271 were made during this timespan, allowing astronomers to estimate its size, speed, and trajectory.
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Cassiopaea

Is dark matter real, or have we misunderstood gravity?

University of Amsterdam
Phys.org
Tue, 22 Jun 2021 20:55 UTC
galaxy
© Bart Delsaert (www.delsaert.com)In the centre of the image the elliptical galaxy NGC5982, and to the right the spiral galaxy NGC5985. These two types of galaxies turn out to behave very differently when it comes to the extra gravity - and therefore possibly the dark matter - in their outer regions.
For many years now, astronomers and physicists have been in conflict. Is the mysterious dark matter that we observe deep in the Universe real, or is what we see the result of subtle deviations from the laws of gravity as we know them? In 2016, Dutch physicist Erik Verlinde proposed a theory of the second kind: emergent gravity. New research, published in Astronomy & Astrophysics this week, pushes the limits of dark matter observations to the unknown outer regions of galaxies, and in doing so re-evaluates several dark matter models and alternative theories of gravity. Measurements of the gravity of 259,000 isolated galaxies show a very close relation between the contributions of dark matter and those of ordinary matter, as predicted in Verlinde's theory of emergent gravity and an alternative model called Modified Newtonian Dynamics. However, the results also appear to agree with a computer simulation of the Universe that assumes that dark matter is 'real stuff'.

Comment: And they've yet to factor in plasma's role in space: Why the sun's atmosphere is hundreds of times hotter than its surface

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Life Preserver

'Conservation' project of Tasmanian devils wipes out island's penguin population

Donna Lu
The Guardian
Mon, 21 Jun 2021 07:57 UTC
penguin
© Eric WoehlerLittle penguins - the species has been eliminated from Australia's Maria Island by introduced Tasmanian devils.
An attempt to save the Tasmanian devil by shipping an "insurance population" to a tiny Australian island has come at a "catastrophic" cost to the birdlife there, including the complete elimination of little penguins, according to BirdLife Tasmania.

Maria Island, a 116-square-kilometre island east of Tasmania, was home to 3,000 breeding pairs of little penguins around a decade ago.

Their populations have dwindled since Tasmanian devils were introduced in 2012, but according to BirdLife Tasmania, the most recent survey conducted by the parks department showed penguins had completely disappeared from the island.

Comment: As with numerous other areas of science, something is seriously wrong when conservationists repeatedly cause more problems than they set out to solve; another alarming sign is that zoologists have been claiming species to be 'extinct', only for the animal to turn up later, and some times for the most comical of reasons:

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Snowflake

Glacier blood? Watermelon Snow? Whatever it's called, snow shouldn't be so red

Cara Giaimo
The New York Times
Fri, 11 Jun 2021 00:00 UTC
Red snow
© Jean-Gabriel/Valaey/Jardin du Lautaret/UGA/CNRS/ALPALGASampling red-colored snow in the Alps.
Researchers are starting to investigate the species that drive alpine algal blooms to better understand their causes and effects.

Winter through spring, the French Alps are wrapped in austere white snow. But as spring turns to summer, the stoic slopes start to blush. Parts of the snow take on bright colors: deep red, rusty orange, lemonade pink. Locals call this "sang de glacier," or "glacier blood." Visitors sometimes go with "watermelon snow."

In reality, these blushes come from an embarrassment of algae. In recent years, alpine habitats all over the world have experienced an uptick in snow algae blooms — dramatic, strangely hued aggregations of these normally invisible creatures.

While snow algae blooms are poorly understood, that they are happening is probably not a good sign. Researchers have begun surveying the algae of the Alps to better grasp what species live there, how they survive and what might be pushing them over the bleeding edge. Some of their initial findings were published this week in Frontiers in Plant Science.

Tiny yet powerful, the plantlike organisms we call algae are "the basis of all ecosystems," said Adeline Stewart, an author of the study who worked on it as a doctoral student at Grenoble Alpes University in France. Thanks to their photosynthetic prowess, algae produce a large amount of the world's oxygen, and form the foundation of most food webs.
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Fish

Deep-sea creature with EIGHT jaws is a "totally unique" animal

Tim O'Hara
Teh Conversation
Fri, 18 Jun 2021 17:49 UTC
jurassic eight jaws sea creature relic
© J. Black/University of MelbourneA close-up micro-CT scan of Ophiojura's eight sets of toothy jaws
Let me introduce you to Ophiojura, a bizarre deep-sea animal found in 2011 by scientists from the French Natural History Museum, while trawling the summit of a secluded seamount called Banc Durand, 500 metres below the waves and 200 kilometres east of New Caledonia in the southwest Pacific Ocean.

Ophiojura is a type of brittle star, which are distant cousins of starfish, with snake-like arms radiating from their bodies, that live on sea floors around the globe.

Being an expert in deep-sea animals, I knew at a glance that this one was special when I first saw it in 2015. The eight arms, each 10 centimetres long and armed with rows of hooks and spines. And the teeth! A microscopic scan revealed bristling rows of sharp teeth lining every jaw, which I reckon are used to snare and shred its prey.
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Attention

Science and Consensus

Willis Eschenbach
Watts Up with That
Tue, 22 Jun 2021 17:14 UTC
Pastafarian God
© Watts Up with That
I got to thinking about how science progresses. Science is a funny beast. It's not a "thing", it's a process. The process works like this:
  • One or more people make a falsifiable claim about how the physical world works. They support it with logic, math, computer code, examples, experience, experimental results, thought experiments, or other substantiating backup information.
  • They make all of that information public, so others can replicate their work.
  • Other people try to find things that are wrong with the original claim, including errors in the logic, math, computer code, examples, and the rest.
  • If someone can show the original claim is wrong, that claim is falsified and rejected.
  • If nobody can show the claim is wrong, then it is provisionally accepted as scientifically valid ... but only provisionally, because at any time new information of any kind may show that the claim actually is wrong.
Note that there is two things that must be present for this process we call "science" to work. The first is total transparency. If the author of the claim refuses to provide the data, computer code, or any part of the supporting evidence, the claim cannot be either replicated or falsified and thus it is not a part of science.

The second necessary component is that the claim must be falsifiable. If I say "There is a Pastafarian God who controls the universe through his noodly appendages", (image above) no one can falsify that statement ... so it's not a scientific claim.
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