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Sat, 23 Oct 2021
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Telescope

Mysterious Explosion Caused Massive Star to Brighten



eta-carinae
©NASA
A Hubble Space Telescope image of the massive star Eta Carinae shows two large bubbles of gas expanding in opposite directions from its bright central region.

Stars have onion-like layers that blow off in fiery explosions before a final killing blow - a supernova - turns them into black holes, according to a new theory of star death.

These repetitive blasts are too powerful to be caused by stellar winds, as previously believed - so they must come from a new type of explosion originating in the star's interior, astronomers say.

Robot

Why the future doesn't need us

Our most powerful 21st-century technologies - robotics, genetic engineering, and nanotech - are threatening to make humans an endangered species.

From the moment I became involved in the creation of new technologies, their ethical dimensions have concerned me, but it was only in the autumn of 1998 that I became anxiously aware of how great are the dangers facing us in the 21st century. I can date the onset of my unease to the day I met Ray Kurzweil, the deservedly famous inventor of the first reading machine for the blind and many other amazing things.

Comment: Though the author makes some good points regarding the results of scientific advancement without the parallel development of conscience, what is missing from his account is the awareness that some of these technologies are deliberately invented to be used against the majority of common people, by the pathocratic elite.


Telescope

Upper Mass Limit For Black Holes?

There appears to be an upper limit to how big the Universe's most massive black holes can get, according to new research led by a Yale University astrophysicist and published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Image
©NASA
Researchers have found that ultra-massive black holes, which lurk in the centers of huge galaxy clusters like the one above, seem to have an upper mass limit of 10 billion times that of the Sun.

Once considered rare and exotic objects, black holes are now known to exist throughout the Universe, with the largest and most massive found at the centres of the largest galaxies. These "ultra-massive" black holes have been shown to have masses upwards of one billion times that of our own Sun. Now, Priyamvada Natarajan, an associate professor of astronomy and physics at Yale University and a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, has shown that even the biggest of these gravitational monsters can't keep growing forever. Instead, they appear to curb their own growth - once they accumulate about 10 billion times the mass of the Sun.

These ultra-massive black holes, found at the centres of giant elliptical galaxies in huge galaxy clusters, are the biggest in the known Universe. Even the large black hole at the centre of our own Milky Way galaxy is thousands of times less massive than these behemoths. But these gigantic black holes, which accumulate mass by sucking in matter from neighbouring gas, dust and stars, seem unable to grow beyond this limit regardless of where - and when - they appear in the Universe. "It's not just happening today," said Natarajan. "They shut off at every epoch in the Universe."

Key

Massive particle collider passes first key tests

Geneva - The world's largest particle collider passed its first major tests by firing two beams of protons in opposite directions around a 17-mile (27-kilometer) underground ring Wednesday in what scientists hope is the next great step to understanding the makeup of the universe.

Binoculars

Hawking bets CERN mega-machine won't find 'God's Particle'

London - Renowned British astrophysicist Stephen Hawking has bet 100 dollars (70 euros) that a mega-experiment this week will not find an elusive particle seen as a holy grail of cosmic science, he said Tuesday.

LCH scientists
©Fabrice Coffrini/Pool/Reuters
Scientists look at a computer screen at the control centre of the CERN in Geneva September 10, 2008. Scientists at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) started up a huge particle-smashing machine on Wednesday, aiming to re-enact the conditions of the 'Big Bang' that created the universe.

Magnify

Odd Gender Differences Found in Walking

If we see a shadowy figure walking down a dark street, our sense of whether it is coming at us or walking away depends on whether we see it as a he or a she, new research finds.

This new result sheds light on the subtle judgments the brain makes when it notices motion.

Display

Google goes after 3 billion with super satellite

Hella lotta Gmail

Google has hooked up with Liberty Global and HSBC Principle Investments to start funding a satellite network aimed at connecting the three billion people who still can't get access to the internet, at least those living near the equator.

Monkey Wrench

Tracking Down The Menace In Mexico City Smog



mexico smog
©Mary Gilles
A clear day and a smoggy day, as seen from the MILAGRO Campaign's T0 test site on the roof of the Mexican Institute of Petroleum in northern Mexico City

A new report by scientists who are part of the international MILAGRO Campaign indicates that some of the most harmful air pollution in Mexico City may not come from motor vehicles but instead originates with industrial sources - and that the culprit may be garbage incineration.

Telescope

Presence Of Planets In Young Gas Discs Hinted At Using Clever New Astronomical Method

Astronomers have been able to study planet-forming discs around young Sun-like stars in unsurpassed detail, clearly revealing the motion and distribution of the gas in the inner parts of the disc. This result, which possibly implies the presence of giant planets, was made possible by the combination of a very clever method enabled by ESO's Very Large Telescope.

planet-forming discs
©ESO
The studied discs were known to have gaps in the dusty discs (represented by the brownish color in the image) but the astronomers found that gas is still present inside these gaps (represented by the white color in the image). This can either mean that the dust has clumped together to form planetary embryos, or that a planet has already formed and is in the process of clearing the gas in the disc.

Planets could be home to other forms of life, so the study of exoplanets ranks very high in contemporary astronomy. More than 300 planets are already known to orbit stars other than the Sun, and these new worlds show an amazing diversity in their characteristics. But astronomers don't just look at systems where planets have already formed -- they can also get great insights by studying the discs around young stars where planets may currently be forming.

"This is like going 4.6 billion years back in time to watch how the planets of our own Solar System formed," says Klaus Pontoppidan from Caltech, who led the research.

Info

Childbirth Was Difficult For Neanderthals

Neanderthals had a brain at birth of a similar size to that of modern-day babies. However, after birth, their brain grew more quickly than it does for Homo sapiens and became larger too. Nevertheless, the individual lifespan ran just as slowly as it does for modern human beings.

Neanderthals had a brain at birth
©Ch. Zollikofer, courtesy of University of Zurich
Neanderthals had a brain at birth of a similar size to that of modern-day babies.

These new insights into the history of human evolution are being presented in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, by researchers from the University of Zurich.

Dr. Marcia Ponce de León and Prof. Christoph Zollikofer from the Anthropological Institute of the University of Zurich examined the birth and the brain development of a newborn Neanderthal baby from the Mezmaiskaya Cave in the Crimea. That Neanderthal child, which died shortly after it was born, was evidently buried with such care that it was able to be recovered in good condition from the cave sediments of the Ice Age after resting for approximately 40,000 years.