Posted on Nov 15, 2022 in Climate Change, Consciousness, Evolution, Extraterrestrial Life, Future, James Webb Space Telescope, Physics, Planet Earth, quantum physics, Science, Science News, Technology
Today’s stories include Why a Puzzling New Image Of Jupiter Could Help Us Find Life Beyond Earth to Scientists Test Einstein’s Relativity On A Cosmological Scale and Discover Something Strange, and much more.
Why This Puzzling New Image Of Jupiter Could Help Us Find Life Beyond Earth, reports Jamie Carter for Forbes. A strange new image of Jupiter was published today that will, say scientists, help them identify Earth-like planets orbiting distant stars. The odd image from the W. M. Keck Observatory in Maunakea, Hawaii comes from “first light” of its new instrument, the Keck Planet Finder, which is expected to revolutionize the hunt for life beyond Earth from spring 2023 onwards.
Chinese scientists build atom-sized quantum engine, reports South China Morning News. “Researchers use lasers to increase or suppress an ion’s quantum characteristics and generate power at microscopic level. The novel approach is outside mainstream quantum theory and divided scientific opinion during the peer-review submission process.”
Evolution of the tree roots may have caused mass extinction 300 million years ago–The emergence of tree roots that shook the Earth’s waters around 300 million years ago may have set off a sequence of major extinctions, reports Interesting Engineering.
How to Think About Relativity--Albert Einstein’s ideas about space-time aren’t exactly intuitive, and they aren’t exactly Einstein’s, either, writes Sean Carroll for Quanta. “One of the major reasons why relativity has a reputation for being difficult to understand is that our intuitions train us to think of space and time as separate things.”
Earth now has 8 billion people—and counting. Where do we go from here?–“From the emergence of Homo sapiens, it took roughly 300,000 years before one billion of us populated the Earth. That was around 1804, the year morphine was discovered, when Haiti declared independence from France, and when Beethoven first performed his Third Symphony in Vienna. The implications for the planet—and our own welfare—hinge on how we tackle climate change, reports National Geographic.
Scientists accidentally found life under 3,000 feet of ice in Antarctica. ‘Never in a million years’ would they have expected it, the lead scientist said. “The creatures were found attached to a boulder in the arctic seas under the Filchner-Ronne ice shelf. Experts from the British Antarctic Survey drilled through 2,860 feet of ice before making the discovery. “The area underneath these ice shelves is probably one of the least-known habitats on Earth,” said Huw Griffiths, one of the scientists who made the discovery, in a Twitter video.”
Earth’s largest iceberg – 2 times bigger than London – is floating toward the equator. It is drifting around Antarctica for more than a year, reports Interesting Engineering. “According to the information shared by NASA’s Earth Observatory on October 31, the world’s largest iceberg, A-76A, has entered the Drake Passage, a waterway that contains a fast-moving ocean current that will send the mighty berg on a one-way trip to its watery grave.”
Great Filter means we could die out before we discover alien life, reports The Times of London.
NASA war-games an asteroid impact disaster and it goes badly, reports The Hill. NASA and a number of other federal, state and local organizations war-gamed an asteroid impact on Winston-Salem, North Carolina, according to Scientific American. The scenario depicted an asteroid measuring 70 meters in diameter being detected shortly before it entered the Earth’s atmosphere.”
Ellerman bombs: A tiny explosion on the Sun that has the power of 100,000 atomic bombs–A coronal mass ejection from a solar filament is expected later in the week, reports Interesting Engineering. “Space enthusiasts are in for a treat this week after a photographer captured a phenomenon called Ellerman bombs on the surface of the Sun. The image was shared by Spaceweather.com and sparked quite an interest in what it means as the solar cycle is approaching its peak.”
Scientists just found a hidden 6th mass extinction in Earth’s ancient past, reports Joshua A. Krisch for Live Science. “A global drop in oxygen levels about 550 million years ago led to Earth’s first known mass extinction, new evidence suggests.”
Honey Bee Lifespans are 50% Shorter Today Than They Were 50 Years Ago--“A drop in longevity for lab-kept honey bees could help explain colony losses and lower honey production in recent decades.”
How Australia became the world’s greatest lithium supplier, reports BBC Future. “As demand soars for electric vehicles and clean energy storage, Australia is rising to meet much of the world’s demand for lithium. While this helps reduce the need for fossil fuels, it raises another question – how can we source lithium sustainably?”
Life on Mars? Australian rocks may hold clues for Nasa rover, reports The BBC. “Researchers studying the Australian rocks say only ancient microbes could have shaped them the way they are. Nasa’s Perseverance rover should look for similarities when exploring rocks of a similar age on Mars, they say.”
How JWST Is Changing Our View of the Universe--The James Webb Space Telescope has sparked a new era in astronomy, reports Clara Moskowitz for Scientific American.
Brain area thought to impart consciousness, behaves instead like an Internet router –“Tucked underneath the brain’s outer, wrinkly cortex is a deeply mysterious area, known as the claustrum. The legendary scientist Francis Crick, PhD, of DNA-discovery fame, first postulated in 2005 that the claustrum is the seat of consciousness. In other words, the region of the brain enabling awareness of the world and ourselves.” New research from University of Maryland School of Medicine suggests Crick was wrong.
Scientists Test Einstein’s Relativity On A Cosmological Scale and Discover Something Strange Researchers will be able to use these statistical methods to improve general relativity and pave the way for resolving cosmological challenges, reports NDTV.
What it’s like living as a female psychopath, reports BBC Future. “Psychopathy is a condition that reviles and fascinates many people in equal measure, but the deeply entrenched stigma surrounding it means the disorder is still poorly understood – especially when it occurs in women.”
The surprising benefits of blue spaces, reports The BBC Future–“Mindfulness exercises have become increasingly mainstream in the last decade, but they tend to be practiced from the comfort of the home or a therapist’s office – not the deck of a ship.
Prehistoric predator? Artificial intelligence says no, reports the University of Queensland. “Artificial intelligence has revealed that prehistoric footprints thought to be made by a vicious dinosaur predator were in fact from a timid herbivore.”
Curated by The Daily Galaxy Editorial Staff
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