Science & TechnologyS


Music

Earth's atmosphere rings like a bell


University of Hawaii
Wed, 08 Jul 2020 09:17 UTC
Earth
The thin, critical envelope of the Earth's atmosphere is just visible on this global image.

A ringing bell vibrates simultaneously at a low-pitched fundamental tone and at many higher-pitched overtones, producing a pleasant musical sound. A study, published in Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, by scientists at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and Kyoto University, shows that the Earth's entire atmosphere vibrates in an analogous manner, in a striking confirmation of theories developed by physicists over the last two centuries.

In the case of the atmosphere, the "music" comes not as a sound we could hear, but in the form of large-scale waves of atmospheric pressure spanning the globe and traveling around the equator, some moving east-to-west and others west-to-east. Each of these waves is a resonant vibration of the global atmosphere, analogous to one of the resonant pitches of a bell.

Comment: See also: And check out SOTT radio's: Behind the Headlines: Earth changes in an electric universe: Is climate change really man-made?

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Question

4 mysterious, unidentified circular objects discovered in outer space

Mara Johnson-Groh
Live Science
Thu, 09 Jul 2020 19:17 UTC
CSIRO's ASKAP
© CSIROAntennas of CSIRO's ASKAP telescope at the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory in Western Australia.
There's something unusual lurking out in the depths of space: Astronomers have discovered four faint objects that at radio wavelengths are highly circular and brighter along their edges. And they're unlike any class of astronomical object ever seen before.

The objects, which look like distant ring-shaped islands, have been dubbed odd radio circles, or ORCs, for their shape and overall peculiarity. Astronomers don't yet know exactly how far away these ORCs are, but they could be linked to distant galaxies. All objects were found away from the Milky Way's galactic plane and are around 1 arcminute across (for comparison, the moon's diameter is 31 arcminutes).

In a new paper detailing the discovery, the astronomers offer several possible explanations, but none quite fits the bill for all four new ORCs. After ruling out objects like supernovas, star-forming galaxies, planetary nebulas and gravitational lensing — a magnifying effect due to the bending of space-time by nearby massive objects — among other things, the astronomers speculate that the objects could be shockwaves leftover from some extragalactic event or possibly activity from a radio galaxy.

"[The objects] may well point to a new phenomenon that we haven't really probed yet," said Kristine Spekkens, astronomer at the Royal Military College of Canada and Queen's University, who was not involved with the new study. "It may also be that these are an extension of a previously known class of objects that we haven't been able to explore."
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Seismograph

The sixth sense of animals: An early warning system for earthquakes?


Phys.org
Fri, 03 Jul 2020 16:01 UTC
Professor Martin Wikelski attaches accelerometers to the collars of farm animals
© Max Planck Institute of Animal BehaviorProfessor Martin Wikelski attaches accelerometers to the collars of farm animals.
Even today, nobody can reliably predict when and where an earthquake will occur. However, eyewitnesses have repeatedly reported that animals behave unusually before an earthquake. In an international cooperation project, researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior in Konstanz/Radolfzell and the Cluster of Excellence Center for the Advanced Study of Collective Behavior at the University of Konstanz, have investigated whether cows, sheep, and dogs can actually detect early signs of earthquakes.

To do so, they attached sensors to the animals in an earthquake-prone area in Northern Italy and recorded their movements over several months. The movement data show that the animals were unusually restless in the hours before the earthquakes. The closer the animals were to the epicenter of the impending quake, the earlier they started behaving unusually. The movement profiles of different animal species in different regions could therefore provide clues with respect to the place and time of an impending earthquake.

Experts disagree about whether earthquakes can be exactly predicted. Nevertheless, animals seem to sense the impending danger hours in advance. For example, there are reports that wild animals leave their sleeping and nesting places immediately before strong quakes and that pets become restless. However, these anecdotal accounts often do not stand up to scientific scrutiny because the definition of unusual behavior is often too unclear and the observation period too short. Other factors could also explain the behavior of the animals.
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Blue Planet

Best of the Web: What a mass of rotting reindeer carcasses taught scientists

Phoebe Weston
The Guardian
Wed, 08 Jul 2020 07:54 UTC
reindeer
© Olav StrandIn August 2016, 323 wild tundra reindeer were killed in a freak lightning event on Norway's Hardangervidda plateau.
In August 2016, a park ranger stumbled upon 323 dead wild tundra reindeer in Norway's remote Hardangervidda plateau. They had been killed in a freak lightning event. But instead of removing the carcasses, the park decided to leave them where they were, allowing nature to take its course - and scientists to study this island of decomposition and how it might change the arctic tundra ecosystem.

Over the years scientists observed the bloated, fly-infested bodies turn into dry skeletons. The latest paper, published by the Royal Society in June, looked at the creation of a "landscape of fear", as top predators such as wolverines, golden eagles and arctic foxes took advantage of the carrion.

"The landscape of fear framework has provided a better understanding of animal decisions in relation to food and safety trade-offs, predator-prey relationships and how communities are structured across trophic levels," it concluded.

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

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Blue Planet

Fossil jawbone from Alaska forces rethink of dinosaurs in the Arctic

Public Library of Science
Phys.org
Wed, 08 Jul 2020 20:51 UTC
dromaeosaurid
© A. ChiarenzaFossil jawbone from Alaska is a rare case of a juvenile Arctic dromaeosaurid dinosaur.
A small piece of fossil jawbone from Alaska represents a rare example of juvenile dromaeosaurid dinosaur remains from the Arctic, according to a study published July 8, 2020 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Alfio Alessandro Chiarenza of the Imperial College London, UK, and co-authors Anthony R. Fiorillo, Ronald S. Tykoski, Paul J. McCarthy, Peter P. Flaig, and Dori L. Contreras.

Dromaeosaurids are a group of predatory dinosaurs closely related to birds, whose members include well-known species such as Deinonychus and Velociraptor. These dinosaurs lived all over the world, but their bones are often small and delicate and rarely preserve well in the fossil record, complicating efforts to understand the paths they took as they dispersed between continents.

The Prince Creek Formation of northern Alaska preserves the largest collection of polar dinosaur fossils in the world, dating to about 70 million years ago, but the only dromaeosaurid remains found so far have been isolated teeth. The jaw fossil described in this study is a mere 14mm long and preserves only the tip of the lower jaw, but it is the first known non-dental dromaeosaurid fossil from the Arctic. Statistical analysis indicates this bone belongs to a close relative of the North American Saurornitholestes.

Comment: See also:

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Brain

Neurologists warn of potential for serious brain disorders in people with mild coronavirus symptoms

Ian Sample
The Irish Times
Wed, 08 Jul 2020 16:29 UTC
Fulminating ADEM showing many lesions.
© Rodríguez-Porcel F, Hornik A, Rosenblum J, Borys E, Biller JFulminating Acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM) showing many lesions.
Doctors may be missing signs of serious and potentially fatal brain disorders triggered by coronavirus, as they emerge in mildly affected or recovering patients, scientists have warned.

Neurologists are today publishing details of more than 40 UK Covid-19 patients whose complications ranged from brain inflammation and delirium to nerve damage and stroke. In some cases the neurological problem was the patient's first and main symptom.

The cases, published in the journal Brain, reveal a rise in a life-threatening condition called acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (Adem), as the first wave of infections swept across Europe. At University College London's Institute of Neurology, Adem cases rose from one a month before the pandemic to two or three a week in April and May. One woman, who was 59, died of the complication.

Comment: Considering the general consensus that Covid-19 did not have a natural origin, perhaps one might wonder about its proclivity to attack the brain and nervous system . . .

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Fireball 2

Five MORE asteroids to fly past Earth in coming week, as NASA identifies space rock with highest odds of hitting us


RT
Tue, 07 Jul 2020 16:55 UTC
asteroid flyby earth illustration
© Pixabay / urikyo33
NASA's asteroid watchers have given a heads-up about five asteroids headed toward Earth in the coming days, while the agency's automated Sentry system has identified the space rock which has the highest chance of impact.

Over this weekend, two asteroids - 2020 MU1 (120ft diameter or half the wingspan of a 747 jet) and 2020 ML (73ft diameter, roughly half the height of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris) - are expected to shoot past us at a distance of 4.4 million and 2.7 million miles respectively.

Lest anyone get too comfortable and breathe a sigh of relief, however, NASA warns that a further three space rocks are expected in these parts next week.
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Moon

Chinese scientists reveal analysis of weird substance found on the moon's far side by Yutu 2 rover

Hanneke Weitering
space.com
Tue, 07 Jul 2020 04:14 UTC
lunar lander
© AP Photo / China National Space Administration/Xinhua News Agency
Chinese scientists have published an analysis of a curious substance on the moon which generated widespread interest following its discovery by the Yutu 2 rover last year.

The discovery was made by a Yutu 2 drive team member in July 2019, during lunar day 8 of the rover's mission, which is part of China's Chang'e 4 mission to explore the far side of the moon. A report by Our Space, a Chinese-language science-outreach publication, revealed the discovery on Aug. 17 and described the substance using the term "胶状物" ("jiao zhuang wu"), which can be translated as "gel-like."

This description, along with the initial absence of images, sparked wide interest as well as speculation among lunar scientists.

However the substance is, as expected by scientists, made up of rock. In their article in "Earth and Planetary Science Letters", Gou Sheng and colleagues analyzed data from Yutu 2's panoramic and hazard avoidance cameras, and the rover's Visible and Near-Infrared Spectrometer (VNIS) instrument.
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Butterfly

Temperate zones not tropics may host more modern evolutionary innovation according to plant study

Natalie van Hoose
Florida Museum
Mon, 06 Jul 2020 12:00 UTC
hibiscus
The tropics are the birthplace of most rosids, a massive group of flowering plants that includes this hibiscus, a member of the mallow family. But researchers found new rosid species are evolving in temperate zones twice as quickly as the tropics, a finding that challenges a longstanding hypothesis.
In a surprise twist, a major group of flowering plants is evolving twice as quickly in temperate zones as the tropics. The finding runs counter to a long-held hypothesis that tropical regions, home to the planet's richest biological diversity, outpace their temperate counterparts in producing new species.

The tropics are the birthplace of most species of rosids, a group that makes up more than a quarter of flowering plants, ranging from mangroves to roses to oaks. But in an analysis of about 20,000 rosid species, researchers found the speed of tropical rosid evolution lags far behind that of younger communities in temperate habitats.

Although rosids originated 93-115 million years ago, the rate at which the group diversified, or formed new species, dramatically increased over the last 15 million years, a period of global cooling and expanding temperate habitats. Today, rosids are diversifying far faster in places such as the southeastern U.S. than in equatorial rainforests, said study co-lead author Ryan Folk, assistant professor of biological sciences and herbarium curator at Mississippi State University.

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

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Moon

Unexpected metal on moon could signal close connection with early earth

Elizabeth Howell
Space.com
Tue, 07 Jul 2020 20:38 UTC
moon
© NASA/GSFC/Arizona State UniversityAn image of the near side of the moon based on data from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Earth's moon is more metal than scientists imagined.

NASA's prolific Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) found rich evidence of iron and titanium oxides under the surface of the moon, which may show a close connection with Earth's early history.

Scientists have been debating how the moon formed for decades. The leading theory suggests that a Mars-size world collided with Earth billions of years ago. The colliding world shattered upon impact and blasted part of the proto-Earth's surface into space. The debris surrounded Earth with a ring; the moon we see today is the result of that ring slowly collapsing under its own gravity.


Comment: Why is Earth missing a huge part of its crust?


The moon's chemical composition, however, doesn't show clear evidence of that theory. The lunar highlands on the moon, visible from the Earth as bright regions, have rocks with smaller amounts of metal-bearing minerals relative to our planet.
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