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Thu, 30 Sep 2021
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Comet

Quadruple outburst of Comet 29P - Now at its brightest for 40 years

Bob King
Sky & Telescope
Wed, 29 Sep 2021 10:26 UTC
Comet 29P
© Martin Mobberley
Martin Mobberley captured this image of the bright outburst of Comet 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann around 9:50 UT on September 29th.
Catch one of the most active small bodies in the solar system during a rare superoutburst.

A comet infamous for its explosive personality has been in near-continuous outburst since September 25th. The brightness of Comet 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann is steadily rising, and it now appears as a tiny, 11th-magnitude object easily visible in 8-inch and larger telescopes. If you've never seen a comet masquerade as a star-like planetary nebula, don't pass up the chance — look soon. As the outburst evolves the comet's coma will expand but also fade.

Comment: The unusual outbursts of Comet 29P is just the latest in a flurry of out of the ordinary phenomena and stunning discoveries documented of late: And check out SOTT radio's:

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Comet

Megacomet Bernardinelli-Bernstein is the find of a decade, here's why

Meghan Bartels
Space.com
Thu, 30 Sep 2021 09:40 UTC
Bernardinelli-Bernstein
© Dark Energy Survey/DOE/FNAL/DECam/CTIO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/P. Bernardinelli & G. Bernstein (UPenn)/DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys. Acknowledgments: T.A. Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage/NSF’s NOIRLab)/M. Zamani (NSF’s NOIRLab)/J. Miller (NSF’s NOIRLab)
An image taken by the Dark Energy Survey shows Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein in October 2017.
The scientists that found Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein are an unlikely pair.

Even Pedro Bernardinelli and Gary Bernstein admit they're an unlikely pair of scientists to end up with a record-breaking comet named in their honor.

Scientists briefly estimated that Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein, as it's now known, was the largest such icy body identified to date, perhaps more than 100 miles (160 kilometers) across. Additional observations have cast that into doubt, but given the "megacomet" a new distinction: it sprouted a tail remarkably far from the sun, suggesting more revelations to come. All told, the object offers astronomers an unprecedented opportunity to watch the antics of a comet.


Comment: The reason the comet's corona and tail has surprised scientists is because the mainstream paradigm doesn't account for the electrical activity involved in the formation of its corona and tail. In Pierre Lescaudron's book Earth Changes and the Human-Cosmic Connection he summarises it as follows:
The fundamental difference between asteroids and comets is not their chemical composition, i.e. dirty, fluffy icy comets vs. rocky asteroids. Rather, as has long been put forward by plasma theorists, what differentiates 'comets' from 'asteroids' is their electric activity.

When the electric potential difference between an asteroid and the surrounding plasma is not too high, the asteroid exhibits a dark discharge mode1 or no discharge at all. But when the potential difference is high enough, the asteroid switches to a glowing discharge mode.2 At this point the asteroid is a comet. From this perspective, a comet is simply a glowing asteroid and an asteroid is a non-glowing comet. Thus the very same body can, successively, be a comet, then an asteroid, then a comet, etc., depending on variation in the ambient electric field it is subjected to.3
2) An intense circulation of ions and electrons occurs between the asteroid and the surrounding space. The energy provided by this intense transfer 'excites' electrons which generate photons, hence the glow of the asteroid. See: Meichsner, J. Nonthermal Plasma Chemistry and Physics, p.117


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

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Info

Unbreakable glass developed, inspired by seashells


McGill University
Tue, 28 Sep 2021 17:13 UTC
Seashell on the seashore
© Image by Pi-Lens.
Shiny nacre of Abalone washed ashore.
Scientists from McGill University develop stronger and tougher glass, inspired by the inner layer of mollusk shells. Instead of shattering upon impact, the new material has the resiliency of plastic and could be used to improve cell phone screens in the future, among other applications.

While techniques like tempering and laminating can help reinforce glass, they are costly and no longer work once the surface is damaged. "Until now there were trade-offs between high strength, toughness, and transparency. Our new material is not only three times stronger than the normal glass, but also more than five times more fracture resistant," says Allen Ehrlicher, an Associate Professor in the Department of Bioengineering at McGill University.
Glass Compsite
© McGill University
(A) Glass composite (without index-matching strategy on left and with index-matching on right), (B) Glass composite’s microstructure, (C) View of the nacreous layer in red abalone shell, and (D) Nacre’s microstructure.
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Robot

FedEx to begin self-driving truck trials on US highways between Dallas and Houston

David Mullen
Sunday Times Driving
Fri, 24 Sep 2021 00:01 UTC
fedex truck
Claim they will come without safety drivers by 2023.

US parcel delivery firm FedEx is to begin testing a fleet of self-driving trucks on highways in the state of Texas in partnership with Aurora, an autonomous vehicle start-up.

The pilot programme will see autonomous trucks make the 500-mile roundtrip primarily along the I-45 highway between the cities of Dallas and Houston several times a week. Each lorry will have a supervisor on hand to monitor the road ahead — for the moment, at least.

A spokesperson for Aurora Innovations has said that "at the end of 2023 we will launch our trucking business and haul loads autonomously between terminals without a safety driver."

Comment: See also:

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Question

Community masking: Where did 'The Science' come from?

Noah Carl
Daily Sceptic
Tue, 28 Sep 2021 08:53 UTC
Chris Whitty
Before 2020, evidence for the efficacy of community masking - that is, asking ordinary members of the public to wear cloth or surgical masks when going about their business - was shaky at best.

This evidence was reviewed in detail by Jeffrey Anderson, a former director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics. He notes that:
of the 14 RCTs that have tested the effectiveness of masks in preventing the transmission of respiratory viruses, three suggest, but do not provide any statistically significant evidence in intention-to-treat analysis, that masks might be useful. The other eleven suggest that masks are either useless — whether compared with no masks or because they appear not to add to good hand hygiene alone — or actually counterproductive.

Comment: See also:

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Rocket

DARPA touts 'historic free flight test' of Raytheon's hypersonic missile prototype as US struggles to catch up with Russia


RT
Tue, 28 Sep 2021 03:20 UTC
Hypersonic
© Reuters / Raytheon Missiles & Defense Handout
An artist's depiction of the Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapons Concept (HAWC) missile system still under development by DARPA.
The US military's secretive R&D wing has announced a successful flight test for a hypersonic missile system developed by Raytheon, after a previous trial using Lockheed Martin's rival model ended in failure last year.

The free-flight launch for the Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept (HAWC) was conducted successfully last week and met "all primary test objectives," the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) said in a press release on Monday. It was the first successful test of the system made public by the military.

"This brings us one step closer to transitioning HAWC to a program of record that offers next generation capability to the US military," said Andrew Knoedler, who heads the HAWC program in DARPA's Tactical Technology Office, adding that the test "was a successful demonstration of the capabilities that will make hypersonic cruise missiles a highly effective tool for our warfighters."

Comment: It's telling of the corruption ruining America that, despite their obscene military budget, it is still leagues behind Russia:

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Jupiter

Jupiter's great red spot is spinning faster says NASA


Hubblesite
Mon, 27 Sep 2021 17:21 UTC
Red Spot Winds
© NASA, ESA, Michael H. Wong (UC Berkeley)
By analyzing images taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope from 2009 to 2020, researchers found that the average wind speed just within the boundaries of the Great Red Spot, set off by the outer green circle, have increased by up to 8 percent from 2009 to 2020 and exceed 400 miles per hour. In contrast, the winds near the storm's innermost region, set off by a smaller green ring, are moving significantly more slowly. Both move counterclockwise.
Like the speed of an advancing race car driver, the winds in the outermost "lane" of Jupiter's Great Red Spot are accelerating - a discovery only made possible by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, which has monitored the planet for more than a decade.

Researchers analyzing Hubble's regular "storm reports" found that the average wind speed just within the boundaries of the storm, known as a high-speed ring, has increased by up to 8 percent from 2009 to 2020. In contrast, the winds near the red spot's innermost region are moving significantly more slowly, like someone cruising lazily on a sunny Sunday afternoon.

The massive storm's crimson-colored clouds spin counterclockwise at speeds that exceed 400 miles per hour - and the vortex is bigger than Earth itself. The red spot is legendary in part because humans have observed it for more than 150 years.

"When I initially saw the results, I asked 'Does this make sense?' No one has ever seen this before," said Michael Wong of the University of California, Berkeley, who led the analysis published today in Geophysical Research Letters. "But this is something only Hubble can do. Hubble's longevity and ongoing observations make this revelation possible."

Comment:



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Heart

Radiation therapy reprograms heart muscle cells

Julia Evangelou Strait
Washington University School of Medicine
Fri, 24 Sep 2021 18:53 UTC
Radiation Therapy
© Getty Images
Radiation therapy for ventricular tachycardia — a life-threatening irregular heart rhythm — appears to work by reverting heart muscle cells to a younger state, reducing the irregular rhythms, according to a new study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
New research from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis suggests that radiation therapy can reprogram heart muscle cells to what appears to be a younger state, fixing electrical problems that cause a life-threatening arrhythmia without the need for a long-used, invasive procedure.

In that invasive procedure — catheter ablation — a catheter is threaded into the heart, and the tissue that triggers the life-threatening irregular heart rhythm — ventricular tachycardia — is burned, creating scars that block the errant signals. The new study, however, shows that noninvasive radiation therapy normally used to treat cancer can reprogram the heart muscle cells to a younger and perhaps healthier state, fixing the electrical problem in the cells themselves without needing scar tissue to block the overactive circuits. The study also suggests that the same cellular reprogramming effect could be achieved with lower doses of radiation, opening the door to the possibility of wider uses for radiation therapy in different types of cardiac arrhythmias.

The study appears Sept. 24 in the journal Nature Communications.

Physician-scientists at Washington University showed in 2017 that radiation therapy typically reserved for cancer treatment could be directed at the heart to treat ventricular tachycardia.
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Cassiopaea

Nearly all of evolution is best explained by engineering

Brian Miller
Evolution News
Fri, 24 Sep 2021 07:01 UTC
maize
In recent articles, I have summarized lectures at CELS (Conference on Engineering in Living Systems) that described an engineering model for adaptation and explained how adaptation derives from organisms' internal capacities (here, link). Now I will summarize another CELS lecture that expanded upon these themes by outlining a second complementary engineering model for adaptation.

Comparing Models

Standard evolutionary theory assumes that genetic variation expands through DNA mutating or otherwise altering randomly. Concurrently, natural selection and other processes transform species over time gradually through numerous, successive, slight modifications. The results are unpredictable, and in different subpopulations they can vary greatly.

Comment: See also:

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Mars

Three record-breaking quakes detected on Mars, and they're fascinating

Michelle Starr
Science Alert
Thu, 23 Sep 2021 12:00 UTC
Mars InSight
© NASA/JPL-Caltech
Mars InSight, covered in dust.
NASA's Mars InSight lander has detected its three most powerful quakes yet.

On 25 August, InSight detected two quakes, at magnitude 4.1 and 4.2. Then, on 18 September - the lander's 1,000th Mars day of operation - it picked up the rumbles of another magnitude 4.2 quake.

These new quakes blow the previous record of a magnitude 3.7 quake detected in 2019 out of the water. Fascinatingly, the largest of the August quakes was the most distant detected yet, with an epicenter some 8,500 kilometers (5,280 miles) from InSight.

Analysis is still ongoing, but scientists are excited about the possibility of learning something new about the interior of the red planet.

Comment: Is it possible that, as seems to be the case on Earth, and elsewhere in our solar system, that Mars is experiencing an uptick in various phenomena that point to a solar system-wide cosmic shift afoot? For more, check out SOTT radio's:

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