Science & TechnologyS


Telescope

SETI reports two newly discovered meteor showers


SETI
Fri, 22 May 2020 19:41 UTC
New meteor showers SETI Institute
Peter Jenniskens, a meteor astronomer with the SETI Institute, reports that the southern hemisphere CAMS networks detected two new meteor showers on 2020 May 15-17.

The networks do a video surveillance of the night sky and by triangulation calculate the direction from which meteoroids approach Earth. The figure above shows the approach directions on those days (full interactive maps are at http://cams.seti.org/FDL/ ). Meteor showers are the "blobs" in this graph, groups of meteoroids approaching from the same direction.

The two new showers were reported to the IAU Meteor Data Center and are now added to the IAU Working List of Meteor Showers as showers number 1034 and 1035. A telegram was issued today by the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams.

Both showers are caused by meteoroids from unknown long-period comets. The most southern shower, now called the sigma Phoenicids, is compact, suggesting it was created by a long-period comet that can pass close to Earth's orbit. Most detected sigma Phoenicids were seen during a period of only 12 hours on May 16.
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Pi

SOTT Focus: The Science is Conclusive: Masks and Respirators do NOT Prevent Transmission of Viruses

Dr. Denis G Rancourt, PhD
researchgate.net
Mon, 20 Apr 2020 20:47 UTC

Comment: The following review of the scientific literature on wearing surgical and other facemasks as a means of preventing the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and thus preventing contraction of 'Covid-19' was published a month ago. And absent some miraculous suspension of decades of hard science on the transmission of viruses, it's settled...


face mask
Abstract

Masks and respirators do not work. There have been extensive randomized controlled trial (RCT) studies, and meta-analysis reviews of RCT studies, which all show that masks and respirators do not work to prevent respiratory influenza-like illnesses, or respiratory illnesses believed to be transmitted by droplets and aerosol particles.

Furthermore, the relevant known physics and biology, which I review, are such that masks and respirators should not work. It would be a paradox if masks and respirators worked, given what we know about viral respiratory diseases: The main transmission path is long-residence-time aerosol particles (< 2.5 μm), which are too fine to be blocked, and the minimum-infective-dose is smaller than one aerosol particle.
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Info

Active object in Jupiter's orbit is first of its kind seen by astronomers


University of Hawaii
Wed, 20 May 2020 19:35 UTC
asteroid 2019LD2
© JD Armstrong/IfA/LCOGTImage of asteroid 2019LD2 taken on June 11th, 2019, using the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope (LCOGT) NetworkÊ »s 1.0-meter telescope at Cerro Tololo, Chile.
We often think of asteroids and comets as distinct types of small bodies, but astronomers have discovered an increasing number of "crossovers." These objects initially appear to be asteroids, and later develop activity, such as tails, that are typical of comets.

Now, the University of Hawaiʻi's Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) has discovered the first known Jupiter Trojan asteroid to have sprouted a comet-like tail. ATLAS is a NASA-funded project using wide-field telescopes to rapidly scan the sky for asteroids that might pose an impact threat to Earth. But by searching most of the sky every two nights, ATLAS often finds other kinds of objects - objects that aren't dangerous, but are very interesting.

Early in June 2019, ATLAS reported what seemed to be a faint asteroid near the orbit of Jupiter. The Minor Planet Center designated the new discovery as 2019 LD2. Inspection of ATLAS images taken on June 10 by collaborators Alan Fitzsimmons and David Young at Queen's University Belfast revealed its probable cometary nature. Follow-up observations by the University of Hawaiʻi's J.D. Armstrong and his student Sidney Moss on June 11 and 13 using the Las Cumbres Observatory (LCO) global telescope network confirmed the cometary nature of this body.

Later, in July 2019, new ATLAS images caught 2019 LD2 again - now truly looking like a comet, with a faint tail made of dust or gas. The asteroid passed behind the Sun and was not observable from the Earth in late 2019 and early 2020, but upon its reappearance in the night sky in April of 2020, routine ATLAS observations confirmed that it still looks like a comet. These observations showed that 2019 LD2 has probably been continuously active for almost a year.
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Roses

Bumblebees bite plants to make them flower early

Virginia Morell
National Geographic
Fri, 22 May 2020 18:18 UTC
bumblebee
© Stephen Dalton, Minden PicturesA buff-tailed bumblebee flies among flowers in England. Many bumblebee species are declining due to climate change.
How it actually works remains a mystery, but if replicated by humans, it could be a boon for agriculture.

Bumblebees aren't merely bumbling around our gardens. They're actively assessing the plants, determining which flowers have the most nectar and pollen, and leaving behind scent marks that tell them which blooms they've already visited.

Now, a new study reveals that bumblebees force plants to flower by making tiny incisions in their leaves — a discovery that has stunned bee scientists.

"Wow! was my first reaction," says Neal Williams, a bee biologist at the University of California, Davis. "Then I wondered, how did we miss this? How could no one have seen it before?"

Comment: See also:

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Bulb

An Italian philosophy journal takes a small step towards Intelligent Design


Evolution News
Thu, 21 May 2020 17:24 UTC
socrates bust
© Wikimedia CommonsSocrates, a bust displayed in the Vatican Museum
Philosophers are making some important and interesting contributions to the conversation about biological origins. Earlier today we saw that philosopher Subrena E. Smith registered a harsh critique of evolutionary psychology in the journal Biological Theory, even saying that evo psych explanations are "impossible." Now, a new paper in the Italian philosophy journal Humana Mente, "Residuals of Intelligent Design in Contemporary Theories about Language Nature and Origins," observes that the arguments of intelligent design proponents are applicable to many explanations of the origins of language. The authors are cognitive scientists at the University of Messina, and although the English translation isn't always easy to follow and some of their ideas about ID are both dated and heavily critical, the openness to taking ID seriously is clear.

First, the authors semi-accurately describe ID arguments, noting:
ID's current and general criticism — not only to evolutionism but also to biological science — is not that complex phenomena can't be explained without the participation of a creator God, but rather that they can't be entirely solved inside a radically monistic theory. In other words, they can't be exposed to a naturalistic reduction...
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Pi

Bionic eye with sharper vision than real eye could be ready in just five years, experts say

Shaun Wooller
NY Post
Thu, 21 May 2020 17:25 UTC
bionic eye
© SWNSThe bionic eye converts images through tiny sensors that mirror a human's light detecting photoreceptor cells.
A bionic eye could give sight to millions in just five years, experts say.

The world's first 3D artificial eyeball is capable of sharper vision than a real human eye. Images are converted through tiny sensors that mirror the light-detecting photoreceptor cells.

The sensors are packed into a membrane of aluminium and tungsten shaped into a half sphere, mimicking a retina. The electrochemical eye, name EC-EYE, resembles sinister super computer HAL in 1968 sci-fi film 2001: A Space Odyssey.
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Radar

Want one? Russia's newest radar, with ability to track 1K+ fast-moving and hypersonic weapons, is up for sale


RT
Thu, 21 May 2020 12:52 UTC
Russian radar
© RosoboronexportRussian hypersonic radar
Russia once claimed gold in the race for hypersonic dominance after rolling out a range of ultra-fast projectiles. Now it's offering unique radar protecting against weapons of the same kind - even if they come in huge numbers.

Having unbeatable offensive weapons - for example hypersonic missiles - could be a game-changer in the age of modern, fast-paced warfare. But it's equally crucial to have something that shields you from those designed or deployed by an adversary.

And Russia's newest radar station is able to fit the bill, Rosoboronexport, the government agency in charge of arms trade, said this Wednesday. The radar, which is the latest addition to the Protivnik (Adversary) family, is likely to turn a few heads abroad due to its capability to "efficiently detect a wide range of existing and future flying objects, including hypersonic targets."

The looks of the radar, mounted atop a standard military-issue KAMAZ truck, isn't as impressive as its unique features. Its antenna is sensitive enough to detect targets flying at 8,000kph (nearly 5,000mph) and at a distance of up to 450km (280 miles). The newest edition of the Protivnik series "can simultaneously track at least 1,000 thousand objects" and distinguish between eight classes of missiles, Rosoboronexport revealed.
Crew compartment
© RosoboronexportCrew compartment
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Info

Hawaii just got two new 'largest volcanoes'

Brandon Specktor
Live Science
Thu, 21 May 2020 13:15 UTC
The Gardner Pinnacles
© Google MapsThe Gardner Pinnacles are all that's visible of what is now considered the world's largest, and hottest, volcano. It's called Pūhāhonu, and it lies northwest of Honolulu, Hawaii.
Poking out of the sea 590 miles (952 kilometers) northwest of Honolulu, Hawaii, two barren peaks rear their heads. The little pinnacles, which stand about 170 feet (52 meters) above sea level at their highest point, bely a monstrous mountain of ancient magma beneath them. Turns out, these two unassuming nubbins are actually the tips of Pūhāhonu — the single largest volcano on Earth, scientists have found.

Pūhāhonu — meaning "turtle rising for breath" in Hawaiian — is part of the long chain of undersea mountains and volcanoes that stretch from the Hawaiian Islands to the eastern edge of Russia. Many of the chain's 120-or-so volcanoes are long dead and buried beneath the waves, though the relatively young peaks that make up the Hawaiian Islands still tower over the land (and, occasionally, blow their tops).

Mauna Loa, the gently-sloping behemoth that bulges out of Hawaii's Big Island, has long been designated the world's largest volcano. From its base on the seafloor to its summit thousands of feet over the island, Mauna Loa rises more than 30,000 feet (9,170 m) — making it technically taller than Mount Everest — and encompasses more than 19,200 cubic miles (80,000 cubic km) in volume. There's no question it's gargantuan; however, researchers now claim that Pūhāhonu actually has Mauna Loa beat — thanks largely to tens of thousands of cubic miles of volcanic rock buried beneath the ocean floor.
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SOTT Logo Radio

SOTT Focus: MindMatters: Directed Panspermia, Intelligent Design and the Role of Psi

Corey Schink and Harrison Koehli
Sott.net
Thu, 21 May 2020 00:00 UTC
intelligent design
On today's show we continue our wide-ranging discussion of the Holy Grail, cometary bombardments, and the role of intelligence in the universe. As we've discovered, understanding these three, seemingly unconnected, topics may be more critical than ever to understanding the origins of life and the extreme times the earth is once again going through.

While many proponents of intelligent design strive to illustrate the sheer impossibility of 'random' processes to account for the origins of life, they typically remain silent on the nature of the intelligence capable of doing so, and the means by which it implements its design. It's no wonder, since their scientific reputations are already on the line and the field of study that seeks to understand the mind's potential to interact with the universe in many mysterious ways - parapsychology - is itself verboten in modern scientific discourse.

But we here at MindMatters don't face such constraints. If intelligence accounts for the myriad designs of life, then it is in the science of the mind that we should seek our answers. So today we turn to the vilified field of parapsychology to tease out a mechanism that can explain how an intelligence could, without a trace, initiate and maintain the grand experiment of life on earth.


Running Time: 00:55:21

Download: MP3 — 50.7 MB

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Telescope

Astronomers have just detected a new kind of asteroid orbiting Jupiter

Michelle Starr
Science Alert
Thu, 21 May 2020 17:16 UTC
new type asteroid
© ATLAS/University of Hawai'iNew asteroid found to have faint comet-like tail
We tend to think of asteroids and comets as pretty strictly delineated categories.

Comets have long, looping orbits and are loaded up with volatile ices that sublimate, generating a dusty, misty halo and tail when the comet comes close to the Sun. Asteroids, on the other hand, are generally considered rocky, dry and inert, with orbits in the Solar System similar to those of the planets.

Every now and again, though, we come across something that challenges these definitions. And a newly discovered asteroid called 2019 LD2 is truly special - an asteroid of a kind we've never seen before.

It has an asteroid-like orbit, but a comet-like tail. That's rare, but not unknown - we call asteroids that exhibit comet-like characteristics (such as outgassing and sublimation) active asteroids. It's not the what, but the where that makes 2019 LD2 unique.

Comment: Astronomers are still holding on to the 'icy snowball' theory of comets for dear life. Notice the mental gymnastics they engage in to explain an asteroid behaving like a comet. The Electric Universe theory postulates that all comets are asteroids traversing fields of electrical charge, a view that fits the observed facts.

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