Science & TechnologyS


Fireball 5

6 doomsday asteroids that may crash into Earth someday, scientists warn

Prisha
WION
Sun, 08 Sep 2024 14:28 UTC
Representational image of asteroid.
Representational image of asteroid.
Recently, scientists were caught off guard when an undetected asteroid crashed into the atmosphere of Earth on Wednesday (Sep 4) and burned in space.

The astronomers spotted the asteroid just eight hours before it turned into a fireball above the Philippines.


Comment: Moment asteroid hits Earth's atmosphere like a ball of fire over the Philippines on September 5


However, asteroid 2024 RW1 - which crashed into the atmosphere of the Earth - was too small to cause any damage.

But its late detection and crash into the atmosphere of Earth reminded experts of the dangers which have been lurking in the solar system.

Here are six asteroids which carry the risk of crashing into Earth

The experts have warned that from 'Valentine's Day asteroid' to other space rocks, six asteroids stand a chance of smashing into the Earth. These asteroids are:
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Info

Hints of a hidden structure detected at the edge of the Solar System

Michelle Starr
Science Alert
Fri, 06 Sep 2024 16:38 UTC
An artist's impression of the Kuiper Belt.
© ESO/M. KornmesserAn artist's impression of the Kuiper Belt.
If you travel far enough away from the Sun, the Solar System becomes a lot more populated.

Out past the orbit of Neptune lies the Kuiper Belt, a vast, ring-shaped field of icy rocks. This is where Pluto resides, and Arrokoth, and countless other small objects in the cold and the dark.

These are known as Kuiper Belt objects or KBOs, and astronomers have just found hints of an unexpected rise in their density, between 70 and 90 astronomical units from the Sun, separated by a large, practically empty gap between it and an inner population of KBOs closer to the Sun.

It seems, almost, like there are two Kuiper Belts, or at least two components - something nobody was expecting to find.

"If this is confirmed, it would be a major discovery," says planetary scientist Fumi Yoshida of the University of Occupational and Environmental Health Sciences and Chiba Institute of Technology in Japan.

"The primordial solar nebula was much larger than previously thought, and this may have implications for studying the planet formation process in our Solar System."

The objects in the Kuiper Belt are thought to represent the most pristine material our Solar System contains.
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Nebula

Food dye tartrazine makes mice skin as transparent 'as glass', revealing organs, scientists discover

Lauren J. Young
Scientific American
Fri, 06 Sep 2024 20:18 UTC
tartrazine
© Keyi “Onyx” Li/U.S. National Science FoundationNew research harnessed the highly absorbent dye tartrazine, used as the common food coloring Yellow No. 5, to turn tissues in living mice clear — temporarily revealing organs and vessels inside the animals. Skin normally scatters light, a phenomenon represented by white lines in the beginning of this clip. When the food, drug and cosmetic dye Yellow No. 5 is absorbed by skin, however, it reduces scattering and allows light to penetrate deeper, making the tissue transparent. (This technique has not been tested on humans. Dyes may be harmful. Always exercise caution with dyes and do not consume them directly, apply them to people or animals or otherwise misuse them.)
In mere minutes, smearing mice with a common food dye can make a desired portion of their skin almost as transparent as glass.

In a study published today in Science, researchers spread a solution of the dye tartrazine, a common coloring for foods, drugs and cosmetics, onto living mice to turn their tissues clear — creating a temporary window that revealed organs, muscles and blood vessels in their body. The procedure — a new form of a technique known as "optical tissue clearing" — has not yet been tested in humans, but it may someday offer a way to view and monitor injuries or diseases without the need of specialized imaging equipment or invasive surgery.

"One unique part about our strategy is that we are changing the optical properties of the tissue directly," says the study's lead author Zihao Ou, a physicist at the University of Texas at Dallas.

Comment: Considering how many significant discoveries are still being made about the human body, and the profound impact these are having on our health, this seems notable: The following documentary detailing the real time study of fascia, made possible by technological advances of the time, perhaps gives an idea of the discovery's possible implications:



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Cupcake Pink

Evidence of human genetic adaptation to carbohydrates since adoption of agriculture 12,000 years ago revealed in new study

Laura Baisas
Popular Science
Thu, 05 Sep 2024 18:18 UTC
Bronze Age
© Nikola NevenovFILE: Bronze Age family harvesting grain. Some human populations gained extra genes to help break down starch in only 12,000 years.
High-carbohydrate staples like wheat dramatically increased in the human diet when agriculture began to spread.

Our bodies absolutely need carbohydrates for energy. It's a matter of survival.


Comment: The majority of humans do appear to need some carbohydrates in their diet, however, note that these particular adaptations appear to have occurred in just the last 12,000 years, so it seems that, whilst humans have been on the planet for at least 200,000+ years, their dietary needs, or more likely their consumption habits, changed relatively recently.


So much so, that some human populations have actually increased the number of genes that help break down starches and sugars over the past 12,000 years. In that time, Europeans have gone from an average of eight starch breaking down genes to over 11.

The adaptation tracks a shift from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to a more agrarian one, as agriculture spread across Europe from the Middle East. High-carbohydrate staples like wheat dramatically increased in the human diet and the ability to efficiently absorb all of that energy was advantageous. The findings are detailed in a study published September 4 in the journal Nature.


Comment: The ability to absorb it more efficiently may have been advantageous when meat was, for whatever reason, more scarce. Because, otherwise, the data show that grain consumption for humans is. overall, deleterious.


Focus on the 'amylase locus'

Comment: Some groups of humans also evolved to be better able to digest animal milk components, like the fat, protein, and sugars, however it appears that, again, this was an evolutionary matter of survival. And there's evidence showing that these dietary shifts such occurred alongside significant climatic upheaval. So it may be that, at least for a period, the consumption of milk, relatively suddenly, became a necessity for survival.

Given how the archeological record shows how the adoption of agriculture had various deleterious effects on human health, and so it may be that these particular genetic adaptations for carbohydrates were also a matter of survival:

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Cassiopaea

Best of the Web: Sunspot activity reaches 23 year high, DOUBLE the official forecast for solar cycle 25


Space Weather
Wed, 04 Sep 2024 23:24 UTC
Solar activity continues to intensify. In August 2024, the average monthly sunspot number exceeded 200 for the first time in 23 years, almost doubling the official forecast:
sunspot forecast 2024
The current solar cycle (Solar Cycle 25) wasn't expected to be this strong. When it began in Dec. 2019, experts predicted it would be weak like its immediate predecessor Solar Cycle 24. Instead, Solar Cycle 25 may be on pace to rival some of the stronger cycles of the 20th century.

Already in May 2024 we have experienced a century-class geomagnetic storm with auroras sighted in the South Pacific, central America and south Africa.


Comment: Reported here: Unprecedented South Pacific auroras confirm recent geomagnetic storm as 'Great Storm', in same class as 1859 Carrington Event


The last time sunspot counts were this high, in Sept.-Dec. 2001, the sun was winding up to launch the Great Halloween Storms of '03, which included the strongest X-ray solar flare ever recorded (X45) and a CME so potent it was felt by Voyager at the edge of the solar system. A repeat is not guaranteed, but current sunspot counts tell us it's possible.

Comment: NOAA recently admitted that their forecasts were so wrong that they were no longer going to be forecasting solar cycles a year in advance, and instead they were now going to issue monthly predictions.

And NASA, who is apparently equally baffled, acknowledged the research of some independent scientists who predicted that this solar cycle may conclude with a 'terminator' event:
But suddenly and without warning, this localized field disappears, releasing the brake and enabling solar activity to ramp up. This drastic change is what the team dubbed solar cycle termination events, or terminators. (Because solar terminators occur at the exact moment solar minimums end, they occur after each solar cycle has officially begun.)
Taken together, whilst these official bodies do appear to have some idea of how the Sun usually behaves, there are other accredited researchers whose research shows that there are not only other phases to the solar cycles, but there are other factors, such as ours Sun's twin, that are likely modulating its rhythms.

This is of particular import when one considers the potential threat that a Carrington-like poses to life on our planet, but also with regards to solar activity and the potential correlation that has with extinction, and evolutionary episodes.

There have already been a number of anomalous events associated with solar activity that seem to reveal we have already entered unprecedented times: And check out SOTT radio's:

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Nuke

Japan prepares to launch world's first pilot steady-state nuclear fusion reactor

Prabhat Ranjan Mishra
Interesting Enginering
Sat, 31 Aug 2024 20:16 UTC
steady state nuclear fusion reactor japan
© Helical FusionThe construction cost of the first-of-its-kind (FOAK) power plant is estimated to be around USD 5 billion. (Representational image)
The reactor is anticipated to have an initial power generation capacity ranging from 50 to 100 megawatts.

A startup is aiming to transform power generation with a cleaner method that could offer limitless energy. Helical Fusion plans to launch a steady-state fusion reactor that would be the first of its kind worldwide.

The Tokyo-based company intends to initially develop a pilot reactor based on the helical method, a magnetic confinement technique. The reactor is projected to have an initial power generation capacity of 50-100 megawatts.

The reactor could be a kind of stellarator called a heliotron, composed of two continuous helical coils, similar to the Large Helical Device, and could operate without plasma current. The company also has plans to commercialize the power once the reactor is successfully developed.
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Info

NASA discovers a long-sought global electric field on Earth

Miles Hatfield and Rachel Lense
NASA
Wed, 28 Aug 2024 22:50 UTC
North Pole
© NASAThe geographic North Pole seen from the Endurance rocket ship at 477 miles (768 kilometers) altitude above the Arctic. The faint red and green streaks at the top of the image are artifacts of lens flare.
Key Points
  • A rocket team reports the first successful detection of Earth's ambipolar electric field: a weak, planet-wide electric field as fundamental as Earth's gravity and magnetic fields.
  • First hypothesized more than 60 years ago, the ambipolar electric field is a key driver of the "polar wind," a steady outflow of charged particles into space that occurs above Earth's poles.
  • This electric field lifts charged particles in our upper atmosphere to greater heights than they would otherwise reach and may have shaped our planet's evolution in ways yet to be explored.
Using observations from a NASA suborbital rocket, an international team of scientists has, for the first time, successfully measured a planet-wide electric field thought to be as fundamental to Earth as its gravity and magnetic fields. Known as the ambipolar electric field, scientists first hypothesized over 60 years ago that it drove how our planet's atmosphere can escape above Earth's North and South Poles. Measurements from the rocket, NASA's Endurance mission, have confirmed the existence of the ambipolar field and quantified its strength, revealing its role in driving atmospheric escape and shaping our ionosphere — a layer of the upper atmosphere — more broadly.

Understanding the complex movements and evolution of our planet's atmosphere provides clues not only to the history of Earth but also gives us insight into the mysteries of other planets and determining which ones might be hospitable to life. The paper was published Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2024, in the journal Nature.
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Bulb

New, exceptionally bright photons bring 'unbreakable' quantum communication closer to reality

Peter Ray Allison
Live Science
Mon, 26 Aug 2024 19:33 UTC
bright photons cryptography quantum communications
© Pitris/Getty ImagesA future quantum internet could beam data at much longer distances than previously thought possible thanks to an exceptionally bright light source made by combining existing technologies in a new way.
Scientists build a new light source for quantum communications by combining existing technologies together to create a stronger and more robust quantum signal.

A future quantum internet could beam data at much longer distances than previously thought possible thanks to an exceptionally bright light source made by combining existing technologies in a new way. (Image credit: Pitris/Getty Images)

Scientists have created an "exceptionally bright" light source that can generate quantum-entangled photons (particles of light) which could be used to securely transmit data in a future high-speed quantum communications network.

A future quantum internet could transmit information using pairs of entangled photons — meaning the particles share information over time and space regardless of distance. Based on the weird laws of quantum mechanics, information encoded into these entangled photons can be transferred at high speeds while their "quantum coherence" — a state in which the particles are entangled — ensures the data cannot be intercepted.
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Satellite

Boeing Starliner astronauts will spend at least 240 days stuck in space - is that a new record?

Brandon Specktor
LiveScience
Tue, 27 Aug 2024 00:00 UTC
astronauts
© NASANASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suita Williams to spend more than 240 days in space before journeying home.
NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams will spend at least eight consecutive months aboard the International Space Station as their Boeing Starliner spacecraft returns to Earth empty. Is their extended spaceflight record-setting?

On Saturday (Aug. 24), NASA announced its long-awaited plan to bring astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams home from the International Space Station (ISS) no earlier than February 2025 — at least eight months longer than the initial eight-day trip they signed up for.

The return flight — which will ditch the troubled Boeing Starliner spacecraft that the crew rode to the ISS, in favor of a SpaceX vehicle — has no confirmed date. However, in the best-case scenario of an early-February return, the Starliner crew's time in space will amount to no fewer than 240 consecutive days since the spacecraft's launch on June 5, 2024. A March departure could bump that number up to nearly 270 days.

Eight straight months in space sounds like a lot, but it's far from a new record. Astronauts typically spend an average of six months aboard the ISS, where they conduct experiments and maintain the space station before returning to Earth, according to Live Science's sister site Space.com. However, missions can extend many months longer, for a variety of reasons, including long-duration experiments and unforeseen incidents.
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Brain

SARS-CoV-2 virus uses a secret 'back door' to infect the brain

Michael Schubert
Live Science
Tue, 27 Aug 2024 23:19 UTC
covid virus back door brain infection
© KATERYNA KON/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY/Getty ImagesA new study in mice shows that a mutation on the spike protein may help SARS-CoV-2 better infect the brain.
A mutation on the spike protein of the virus that causes COVID-19 could help it infect the brain by forcing it to use a cellular "back door."

SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, may preferentially use a "back door" into cells to infect the brain, a new mouse study suggests.

The finding could partly explain why many people have neurological symptoms such as fatigue, dizziness, brain fog, or loss of smell or taste during or after a bout with the virus. Scientists think these symptoms may arise when SARS-CoV-2 enters the central nervous system, but how and why the virus moves from the respiratory tract to the brain wasn't clear until now.

In an article published Aug. 23 in the journal Nature Microbiology, researchers discovered mutations in the virus's spike protein, which it uses to enter human cells by binding to a molecule called ACE2 on the cells' surface.

Comment:

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