News Feeds

The 2008 documentary film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed was released to widespread media coverage and hype. Starring Ben Stein—a conservative commentator, actor, and former speechwriter for Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford—the film argued there was a conspiracy within academia to censor Intelligent Design (ID) and to cover up evidence that belief in evolutionary theory led to everything from atheism to the Nazi Holocaust. Expelled opened in over 1,300 theaters and earned nearly $8 million. In addition to ID theorists, the film included interviews with noted proponents of evolutionary theory such as Richard Dawkins, Eugenie Scott, Christopher Hitchens, and Michael Shermer.

As the film’s co-writer, I was part of the crew that came to the Skeptic magazine office to interview Michael Shermer. Here is how he described his experience with us:

Ben Stein came to my office to interview me about what I was told was a film about “the intersection of science and religion” called Crossroads (yet another deception). I knew something was afoot when his first question to me was on whether or not I think someone should be fired for expressing dissenting views. I pressed Stein for specifics: Who is being fired for what, when, and where? In my experience, people are usually fired for reasons having to do with budgetary constraints, incompetence, or not fulfilling the terms of a contract. Stein finally asked my opinion on people being fired for endorsing Intelligent Design. I replied that I know of no instance where such a firing has happened.

This seemingly innocent observation was turned into a filmic confession of ignorance when my on-camera interview abruptly ends there, because when I saw Expelled at a preview screening at the National Religious Broadcasters’ convention (tellingly, the film is being targeted primarily to religious and conservative groups), I discovered that the central thesis of the film is a conspiracy theory about the systematic attempt to keep Intelligent Design creationism out of American classrooms and culture.

Although I was in agreement with the film’s agenda at the beginning, throughout the long production process, my feelings about the project and the ID movement underwent a significant shift. But I stayed on board in the hope of providing a counterbalance to the producers’ desire to create what amounted to a piece of pro-ID propaganda. I eventually realized, however, that whoever controls the money controls the point of view, so there was only so much that I could do as a fledgling screenwriter.

In the years since Expelled came out, the transformation of my views has continued apace, so I wrote to Shermer to apologize for the damage the film did and the duplicitous circumstances under which some of our interviews were obtained. In response, he invited me to write an article describing my experience on Expelled as well as my subsequent reflections on the ID movement and the larger issue of the relation between science and religion.

• • • • • •

During the two and a half years I spent working on Expelled, one of the key dynamics I observed was how bitterly divided people were over the notion of ID as a concept, and even more so as a movement. After reading countless books and articles on the subject and participating in interviews with people on all sides, I realized that no matter which way one approached the topic of Darwinian evolution versus intelligent design—and by extension, science and religion—the individuals on the frontlines were virtually all highly intelligent people of goodwill. Unfortunately, some of the leading voices were also exceedingly argumentative by nature. Thus, rather than engage in dialogue that sought to establish common ground and then work together to build bridges toward truth, interactions between the ID movement and its critics often amounted to one side lobbing a verbal grenade at the other and then hunkering down in the trenches as it exploded, all the while chuckling about how foolish the folks on the other side were. Rather than emulate that spirit, I decided I would try to engage my critics in constructive conversation. I wanted to see if it was possible to cross no man’s land and find some sort of common bond with the “enemy.”

Over the several weeks leading up to the film’s release, I did exactly that, spending hours each day engaged with people on my personal blog and other online forums. Despite my legitimate desire to conduct a meaningful dialogue with my opponents, my efforts were often met with an unrelenting wall of bitterness and sarcasm. Perhaps not surprisingly (considering the relentless barrage of abuse) and despite my good intentions, I occasionally succumbed to a similar rhetorical approach, adding a heavy dose of sarcasm to my own barbed responses. Even so, I was truly seeking to abide by motivational speaker Steven Covey’s “highly effective” habit number five: seek first to understand, then to be understood.

I hoped the film could do away with the need to “win” the debate over ID. One way or the other and instead unite these contending minds around their mutual desire to move science forward.

Over time, I recognized a pattern across the various responses that I received, one that matched a famous quote by Richard Dawkins: “It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid, or insane (or wicked, but I’d rather not consider that).” On the surface, this sounds like an incredibly arrogant thing to say, relegating one’s opponents to varying levels of intellectual inferiority, insanity, or iniquity. But as I thought about it, I realized that’s how many of us treat those who don’t share our beliefs. When we encounter someone who disagrees with us, at first we assume they simply don’t know what we know, so we attempt to educate them. If that fails, we may briefly entertain the idea that the person is incapable of understanding what we recognize as truth. But if they display a reasonable level of intelligence, we seem to be left with only two options: either they know what we know to be true, and they’re purposely suppressing or obscuring that information (which puts them in the wicked category), or they’re so out of touch with reality that they’re a lost cause.

This was exactly the continuum I found myself traveling along with my neo-Darwinian debating partners. While, in their minds, I made a brief stop at “ignorant,” once I demonstrated that I was reasonably well informed on the relevant issues, they quickly shuffled me into the “wicked” category, with brief stopovers at “stupid” and “insane.” Their favorite name for me was “liar,” which I found frustrating because, despite how one might interpret the rhetorical position of Expelled, a film in which I had authorial influence but no editorial control, I wasn’t trying to be deceptive at all. I was sincerely seeking the truth, not claiming to have it.

In retrospect, though, I empathize with my opponents’ frustration. My stubborn refusal to concede my views probably led them to believe their efforts to correct my faulty thinking were in vain. As it turned out, it was the opposite. Even though I was championing a documentary that many regarded as contrary to science and truth in general, cracks had begun to form in my own beliefs about the ID movement and the branch of evangelical Christianity to which I had converted as a child.

The process began about six years before I signed on to Expelled when I took a class on Science and Christianity at Regent College (a seminary in Vancouver, BC) co-led by historians Mark Noll and David N. Livingstone, author of Darwin’s Forgotten Defenders. That class served as a rebuttal to the commonly held belief that evolution and Christianity must be inherently at odds. As Livingstone outlines in his book, the initial Christian response to Darwin’s theory was characterized by accommodation rather than confrontation. Rather than refute Darwin’s theory, many theologians focused on harmonizing evolution with the notion of divine design instead. It wasn’t until the rise of Christian fundamentalism in the early 20th century—which lumped evolutionary theory together with higher criticism and other attacks on a literal approach to the Bible—that a split between evolutionary science and some branches of Christianity developed.

Noll and Livingstone’s class triggered a desire to go deeper into the subject, leading me to focus on epistemology in general and the philosophy of science in particular. I was fascinated by the concept of warranted belief and the reliability of belief-producing processes. Are humans capable of discerning truth? If so, how? Does objective truth even exist? If so, is it possible to know it?

While my belief in God was still relatively intact at that point, by the time we started development on Expelled in late 2005, the epistemological ground beneath me had shifted. I don’t recall when it was exactly, but sometime over the next six months, I was in a coffee shop doing research for the film when I ran into my pastor and confessed that I no longer believed in Satan, angels, or demons. I can still clearly recall the look of deep disappointment on his face.

My confession was as much a revelation to me as it was to him. I can’t point to any one thing that led to that conclusion, but by then I had steeped myself in the writings of those at the forefront of the fight against ID, including Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins, Michael Shermer, Kenneth Miller, Michael Ruse, Eugenie Scott, and Sam Harris. I had also read and interacted with several leading proponents of the ID movement, including Stephen Meyer, David Berlinski, William Dembski, Philip E. Johnson, and Michael Behe. Altogether, the more my understanding of the relevant science grew, the less work there seemed to be required of God to create the universe. No matter to which gap in our knowledge one could point, claiming God’s handiwork could always be found there, even if the history of science appeared to be one long, inexorable march toward shining a light into those very gaps, revealing not God but the same natural processes that we observe today, removing the need to resort to any sort of divine intervention as a cause.

To my way of thinking, that didn’t necessarily negate the concept of God or some sort of guiding intelligence in the universe. However, even if such a being existed, it seemed the most one could say was that “life, the universe, and everything” were the product of secondary rather than primary causes. God may have created the scale by which all things are measured, but apart from a few moments where a nudge in the right direction was required, his finger was never on it.

This put me in an ideal frame of mind to accept the primary claims of the ID movement. Many proponents of ID accept most aspects of the neo-Darwinian synthesis, agreeing that the majority of what we observe in the universe is the product of secondary causes. However, while ID proponents agree that natural selection can account for relatively minor changes within species, they argue that it is wholly inadequate when it comes to explaining the origin of new species or of life itself, not to mention the origin of the universe. Not only do ID proponents believe life is too complex to be attributed to “blind” natural causes, they also argue that it is “irreducibly complex,” as Michael Behe puts it, wherein “a single system which is composed of several well-matched interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning” could not possibly be the product of a gradual process because the system’s function couldn’t be produced by selection until all the pieces were in place.

Furthermore, ID proponents such as William Dembski and Stephen Meyer argue for something called “specified complexity,” whereby if something exhibits both complexity and specificity (i.e., information), one must infer that it is the product of intelligence, given that intelligence is the only source of information in the universe of which we are aware. Hence, even if blind, natural processes could account for how that information is edited (something else that ID proponents dispute), such causes could not explain how that information arose in the first place, much less how the universe in which that information is processed came into being.

Richard Dawkins being interviewed by Ben Stein for Expelled, at the Natural History Museum in London

Of course, opponents of ID have rebuttals to each of these arguments. Primarily, as Richard Dawkins argued in The God Delusion, rather than end the argument regarding origins, proposing an intelligent designer to account for irreducible or specified complexity merely punts the ball down the field because such a designer would have to be the product of the same processes as the phenomenon the designer is invoked to explain. So, as Shermer articulates in Why Darwin Matters, if complexity necessitates an intelligent designer, then there must be a super-intelligent designer, which itself necessitates a super-duper- intelligent designer, and so on in an infinite regress.

Despite such objections to ID, I realized both sides of the debate faced the same sort of infinite regression when it came to explaining origins. Just as positing a designer merely postpones the problem, so does a purely materialistic point of view, with natural selection seemingly incapable of providing an account for how it came to be without invoking itself. The same goes for the seemingly immutable laws of nature within which natural selection operates. We have all sorts of theories for how these forces might have come into being and what holds them constant, but as for an ultimate explanation for the origin of the laws of nature, no one knows for sure. Accordingly, it appeared to me that on a philosophical level at least, ID’s proponents and its materialist critics were on equal footing. Each side was proceeding from a set of philosophical presuppositions about how the world came into being that cannot be proven, and each was at the same time equally certain that the other side’s philosophical presuppositions were wrong.

To add another level of similarity, many individuals on each side claimed that their presuppositions were a scientific inference rather than a philosophical preference. That is, they insisted their axiomatic beliefs were a product of their scientific observations rather than something they brought to the table with them beforehand, only to have those beliefs consciously or affect their scientific observations. Those observations were then predisposed to conform to what they already believed.

If we continue to expel, cancel, and block each other over our differences of opinion rather than dialogue and partner together to share our unique perspectives, there really is no hope for science, freedom, or truth.

When it came to Expelled, it was this interplay between philosophical presuppositions and the day-to-day practice of science that interested me most. After all, any honest observer has to admit that philosophical presuppositions affect how we approach science, for example by determining what is and is not accepted as evidence. At the same time, a truly scientific person must always be willing to revise their presuppositions in light of new evidence and/or arguments. My highest hope for the film was that it could explore this reciprocal relationship between science and philosophy, leading to the very common ground that I had sought to establish with my online debating partners. Perhaps operating from a place of naïve optimism, I hoped the film could do away with the need to “win” the debate over ID one way or the other and instead unite these contending minds around their mutual desire to move science forward.

Alas, that was not to be. For one thing, early in the process of making Expelled, I realized that the film’s producers weren’t interested in open-minded inquiry. They had an axe to grind against what they saw as an oppressive scientific establishment that was unwilling to “allow one divine foot in the door” (as geneticist Richard Lewontin put it), and they were determined to change that. Initially, I bought into this agenda as well, feeling like we were on the right side of history because we were fighting for free and open inquiry, not just on behalf of ID, but also on behalf of science itself. Why shouldn’t scientists be able to follow the evidence wherever it leads? And why shouldn’t intelligence be considered as a potential explanation for particular phenomena until proven otherwise? Hadn’t a presumption of theism, or at least deism, guided most of the early scientists, leading to all sorts of fruitful inquiry? If so, why couldn’t that continue?

My interactions with some of the leading lights of ID also had a chilling effect on my belief that we were on the right side of the debate. For example, when Ben Stein asked Michael Behe how biology would be different if it had ID theory as its foundation, Behe was left groping for an answer. Then when Stein was interviewing David Berlinski outside the Berlin Wall, trying to coax him into saying that an unnecessary ideological wall had been erected to keep any notion of God out of science—just as the Berlin Wall had been erected to keep “dangerous” ideas out of the Soviet bloc—Berlinski refused to acquiesce. Instead, he insisted that we need boundaries in science to help define the field. For example, we don’t accept astrology as part of science, nor should we. Walls aren’t bad in and of themselves, Berlinski argued; it’s more a matter of where we build them and why.

Of course, how we make such a determination is a product of our philosophical presuppositions, which are becoming increasingly impossible to agree on as we all break away from traditional meta-narratives and drift off into our own private definitions of reality. But even if we don’t agree with some or all of a field’s presuppositions, if we presume competence and goodwill amongst scientists, it’s only logical to assume that these boundaries exist not to limit the production of good science but to facilitate it. Otherwise, we find ourselves in the absurd position of arguing that scientists are working against their own self-interest.

Michael Shermer with the film’s press kit

I realize that a presumption of competence and goodwill is increasingly difficult to maintain these days as our confidence in the integrity of various institutions wanes. The problem is, considering the increasing complexity of the modern world, we are facing what energy theorist Vaclav Smil describes as a growing “comprehension deficit,” which makes our need to rely on experts greater than ever. This being the case, how can we determine when a dissident group, such as the ID movement, which is challenging the majority opinion in a field, is correct or whether they are a destructive force that really should be “expelled” out into the cold?

I continue to believe that a presumption of competence and goodwill amongst experts is the most fruitful and cognitively healthy way to proceed. I’m willing to go with the majority view in any given field until given good reason to think otherwise. But I have to admit I’m far more skeptical than I used to be. And who doesn’t love the idea of a plucky group of rebels who risk everything to stand up to oppressive, corrupt authorities, and by opposing them restore freedom, truth, and justice? Everyone from political leaders such as Lenin and Hitler, to storytellers like George Lucas, have exploited this universal narrative, which is becoming increasingly attractive as we all sense a growing lack of control over our circumstances due to the increasing pace and complexity of change, technological and otherwise.

This was exactly the narrative that we sought to tap into when making Expelled, knowing it would resonate with viewers on an emotional level. The question is, were we right when it came to the ID movement? Were they really courageous dissidents standing up against the evil Darwinian empire? I certainly believed it at the time, but I no longer think so now.

Despite the radical change in my views, fifteen years after Expelled I can’t say I regret being involved with the film. It provided me with a blank check to indulge my passion for research, to travel the world, to meet some of the brightest minds in science, to work with people who eventually became some of my closest friends, and to establish myself in the film industry. More importantly, over the long term, it completely transformed my view of life and culture, bringing me much closer to those whom I used to regard as standing on the opposite side of the aisle. But I do have significant regrets about how the film itself turned out, the distrust it sowed amongst viewers regarding the scientific establishment, and the deceptive practices we engaged in to make the film happen.

One example of those deceptive practices was hiring hundreds of extras to serve as Ben Stein’s “audience” during the speech he gives that bookends the film, making it seem as if he’s leading a groundswell of young people who are looking to overthrow the tyrannical Darwinian academy. This was filmed at Pepperdine University, Shermer’s alma mater, so he wrote them to ask how this happened:

The biology professors at Pepperdine assure me that their mostly Christian students fully accept the theory of evolution. So who were these people embracing Stein’s screed against science? Extras. According to Lee Kats, Associate Provost for Research and Chair of Natural Science at Pepperdine, “the production company paid for the use of the facility just as all other companies do that film on our campus” but that “the company was nervous that they would not have enough people in the audience so they brought in extras. Members of the audience had to sign in and the staff member reports that no more than two to three Pepperdine students were in attendance. Mr. Stein’s lecture on that topic was not an event sponsored by the university.” And this is one of the least dishonest parts of the film.

Kevin Miller holding our Big Foot fake-tracks shoe for cryptozoology tomfoolery at the former Skeptic Magazine headquarters in Altadena, CA, where segments of Expelled were filmed

Another was creating a fake production company, complete with a website listing several dummy film projects. We used this website to mislead potential interviewees into believing we were taking an objective approach to the subject matter, which couldn’t have been further from the truth. I’ve been involved in several controversial documentaries since Expelled, and landing interviews with potentially hostile subjects is always a challenge. In such circumstances, I admit to being less than forthcoming about my point of view at times because I’d rather get a “clean read” than a confrontational exchange, a relaxed conversation where the subject expresses their views similar to how they might talk to a friend, but not since Expelled have I taken things to such an extreme.

Like anyone who believes they have the truth (or possibly even God) on their side, while making Expelled we felt the ends justified the means. As history shows time and time again, though, just when we think we’re most virtuous, we’re also at our most dangerous. When facing off against what we regard as a great evil, belief in our own righteousness can blind us to the very evils we ourselves are committing in response.

If Expelled had been made today, it probably would have been called Canceled or Blocked instead because too often when we encounter ideas that offend our philosophical presuppositions, our emotional sensibilities, or our fragile sense of identity, that’s exactly what we do. And unlike the way the scientific establishment is portrayed in Expelled, it’s not just those in authority who do this. More often than not, mobs of regular people are leading the charge. Driven by a sense of self-righteousness and/or a weaponized form of compassion, they summarily destroy people’s lives, due process be damned.

This article appeared in Skeptic magazine 29.2
Buy print edition
Buy digital edition
Subscribe to print edition
Subscribe to digital edition
Download our app

Lack of common ground, a shared version of reality in which to engage, remains a problem. And with traditional means (such as religion) of establishing this common ground rapidly fading away, it seems like an impossible goal to achieve. If we continue to expel, cancel, and block each other over our differences of opinion rather than dialogue and partner together to share our unique perspectives, there really is no hope for science, freedom, or truth.

We may never be able to achieve unanimity of belief, but if we can at least aspire toward unity of purpose and intent, agreeing to operate from a position of goodwill, charity, and curiosity rather than selfish gain or the need to bolster our identity by scapegoating others, maybe we can find a way to work together despite our differences.

Despite this discouraging state of affairs, I still believe in the power of conversation and debate as perhaps the only way forward. It worked to change my mind (eventually), so why couldn’t it work for others?

About the Author

Kevin Miller is an award-winning author and filmmaker. He has written, directed, and produced several documentary films, including Hellbound? and J.E.S.U.S.A. He is also the author of the best-selling Milligan Creek Series for middle-grade readers as well as numerous other books for children and adults, both fiction and non-fiction.

I hope many of you saw auroras (northern lights) last night! I briefly saw the strongest steady red glow I myself have ever observed, visible even amid street lights and my neighbors’ house lights.

The skies, shown only slightly brighter than to the naked eye, as seen at 8pm Boston time. Credit: Matt Strassler

Then, after a break as some clouds rolled in, we were graced with a few hours of mostly diffuse green glow with patches of dim but distinct red that would come and go. All these colors were visible with the naked eye, albeit much less bright than shown in photos. It was quite a storm, not as violently active as the one earlier this year, but very persistent.

The storm lasted all night, though the auroras varied greatly in brightness. Data from https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/

I also tried to find Comet A3 just after sunset, but failed, even with the help of binoculars. Apparently the brief spike in its brightness, due to “forward scattering” as it passed between us and the Sun, may have died off too quickly, leaving it impossible to see in early twilight. It will become dimmer day by day, but it will also be visible later each evening, and at some point should become easy to see in dark skies. Let me know when you first observe it!

This year I didn’t have a contest to name the winners of the two prizes above, for nobody ever wins. And, indeed, I’m not sure if these awards were all that predictable, though Literature Laureate Han Kang did win a Booker Prize for international fiction.  So, here we go:

The Peace Prize was awarded this morning to an organization: the Japanese group Nihon Hidankyo. short for Nihon gensuibaku higaisha dantai kyōgi-kai (日本原水爆被害者団体協議会), or The Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations, started in 1956.  The press release says this:

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 to the Japanese organisation Nihon Hidankyo. This grassroots movement of atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, also known as Hibakusha, is receiving the Peace Prize for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again.

In response to the atomic bomb attacks of August 1945, a global movement arose whose members have worked tirelessly to raise awareness about the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of using nuclear weapons. Gradually, a powerful international norm developed, stigmatising the use of nuclear weapons as morally unacceptable. This norm has become known as “the nuclear taboo”.

The testimony of the Hibakusha – the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki – is unique in this larger context.

These historical witnesses have helped to generate and consolidate widespread opposition to nuclear weapons around the world by drawing on personal stories, creating educational campaigns based on their own experience, and issuing urgent warnings against the spread and use of nuclear weapons. The Hibakusha help us to describe the indescribable, to think the unthinkable, and to somehow grasp the incomprehensible pain and suffering caused by nuclear weapons.

They are of course on a mission from Ceiling Cat, and I wish we’d just have worldwide disarmament. With a bunch of rogue regimes like Iran and North Korea getting the bomb, it’s only a matter of time before some demented leader decides to use it. But I am grateful that a worthy organization got it; I was a bit afraid because I heard that UNRWA was nominated. (Remember that Henry Kissinger shared that prize a while back.)

Here’s the announcement (the awardees are told in advance, but cannot share the news until the announcement).

*******************

And. . . . the literature prize, which this year went to Korean writer Han Kang, who’s only 53.

The press release is very short, just says this:

The Nobel Prize in Literature for 2024 is awarded to the South Korean author Han Kang,

“for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life”.

I had never heard of her, but Wikipedia fills out her literary biography:

She is best known for the novel The Vegetarian, which traces a woman’s mental illness and neglect from her family. In 2016, in its English translation, it was the first Korean language novel to win the International Booker Prize for fiction. In 2024, Han became the first Korean writer and the first Asian woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

. . . . .The Vegetarian was Han’s first novel translated into English, although she had already attracted worldwide attention by the time Deborah Smith translated it. There has been some controversy over the translation, as scholars have detected mistakes in it; among other things, there is concern that Smith attributed some of the dialogue to the wrong characters.  The translated work won the International Booker Prize 2016 for both Han and Smith. Han was the first Korean to be nominated for the award, and, in its English translation, it was the first Korean language novel to win the International Booker Prize for fiction. The Vegetarian was also chosen as one of “The 10 Best Books of 2016” by The New York Times Book Review.

. . .The Vegetarian made it to place 49th in The New York Times‘s “100 Best Books of the 21st century” in July 2024.

If you want that NYT “21st century” list to find reading material, the archived link is here. I have read seven of the top ten books, but not #1 (My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante). More from the entry:

Han’s third novel, The White Book, was shortlisted for the 2018 International Booker Prize.

Han’s novel Human Acts was released in January 2016 by Portobello Books. Han received the Premio Malaparte for the Italian translation of Human Acts, Atti Umani, by Adelphi Edizioni, in Italy on 1 October 2017. Her 2017 autobiographical novel The White Book centers on the loss of her older sister, a baby who died two hours after her birth.[18]

Han’s novel We Do Not Part was published in 2021. It tells the story of a writer researching the 1948–49 Jeju uprising and its impact on her friend’s family. The French translation of the novel won the Prix Médicis Étranger in 2023.

In 2023, Han’s fourth full-length novel, Greek Lessons, was translated into English. The Atlantic called it a book in which “words are both insufficient and too powerful to tame”

You can order the book from Amazon by clicking on the cover below (I’ve already requested it via interlibrary loan, as I have no more room for books):

And the announcement, which gives a bit more about the reasons she won the prize:

Here’s an interview with the new Laureate:

When a supermassive black hole consumes a star, it doesn’t just swallow it whole. It shreds the star, ripping it apart bit by bit before consuming the remains. It’s a messy process known as a tidal disruption event (TDE). Astronomers occasionally catch a glimpse of TDEs, and one recent one has helped solve a mystery about a type of transient X-ray source.

Known as quasi-periodic eruptions (QPEs), they are soft X-rays that emanate from the centers of galaxies every few hours or a few weeks. QPEs are rare, so they are difficult to study, and we aren’t sure what causes them. One idea is that they are caused by a large star or stellar black hole orbiting the supermassive black hole in such a way that its orbit intersects with the accretion disk of the supermassive black hole. Each time the smaller object passes through the disk, it triggers superheated plasma to release X-rays. We’ve seen a similar effect with blazars, for example.

Given the short periodicity of QPEs the companion object would need to orbit the black hole very closely, just on the edge of a stable orbit distance. And when it starts intersecting with accretion disk material, its orbit will decay on a short cosmic timescale. This would explain why QPEs are so rare. But to prove this model, astronomers would need to observe this happening in real time, which is what a team of astronomers has recently done. The results will be published in Nature later this month.

AT2019qiz seen in X-ray and optical light. Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Queen’s Univ. Belfast/M. Nicholl et al.; Optical/IR: PanSTARRS, NSF/Legacy Survey/SDSS

The story begins with an observation by the Zwicky Transient Facility back in 2019. The ZTF captured an optical flare that had all the markings of a tidal disruption event. It came to be known as TDE AT2019qiz. According to black hole models, when a star is ripped apart, much of the material forms an accretion disk around the black hole within a few years. This would make for perfect QPE conditions if there was a close companion object. So the team aimed the Chandra X-ray Observatory at AT2019qiz occasionally, hoping to capture a quasi-periodic eruption. Sure enough, in 2023, the team started to observe X-ray flashes erupting about every 48 hours. Observations from the Swift and AstroSAT telescopes further confirmed the result.

It isn’t known whether the companion is a star or small black hole, and the team would like to capture more QPEs occurring after known tidal disruption events, but this initial result is pretty clear.

Reference: Nicholl, M., et al. “Quasi-periodic X-ray eruptions years after a nearby tidal disruption event.” arXiv preprint arXiv:2409.02181 (2024).

The post A Black Hole has Destroyed a Star, and Used the Wreckage to Pummel Another Star appeared first on Universe Today.

SpaceX claims the fifth test flight of its Starship rocket will happen “within days”, but the Federal Aviation Administration has not yet approved the launch

I have to admit that my favorite superhero as a kid, and still today, is Spider-Man (and yes, that’s the correct spelling). There are a number of narrative reasons for this that I grew to appreciate more as I aged. First, Spider-Man is in the sweet spot of super abilities – he is strong, fast, agile, and has “spidey senses”. But he is not boringly invulnerable like Superman. He doesn’t brute force his way to solving situations. You don’t have to retcon questions like – if Ironman has the technology to produce immense energy, why doesn’t he just make it available to the world? He would save more lives that way.

But of course the coolest aspect of Spider-Man is his webslinging. This allows him to fly through the city, and to tie-up villains for the police to collect. This is also one aspect of the Spider-Man story that I thought was a bit contrived (even for the superhero genre where being bitten by a radioactive spider gives you super powers). In science fiction you generally get one gimmie – the author is allowed to make up just one fantastical fact to use as a cornerstone of their story. But they should not introduce multiple such gimmies. It breaks the unwritten contract between author and reader.

With Spider-Man, the one gimmie is the whole radioactive spider thing. That’s the one thing we are being asked to just accept and not question. I do like how more modern versions of the story changed that to genetic engineering – still fantastical, but way more plausible than radioactivity. I also liked that in the Tobey Maguire Spider-Man his webbing was part of the genetic engineering, and he produced the spider silk himself and extruded it from spinners in his wrists. For other versions we are asked to accept a double-gimmie – first, the whole spider thing, and second that Peter Parker also happens to be such a genius that he invented practically overnight something that scientists have been unable to do in decades, mimic the spider silk-spinning of spiders. Spider-Man was created in 1962, and here we are more than 60 years later and this remains an intractable problem of material science.

Or is it?

OK, we are not there quite yet, but scientists have made a significant advance in artificially creating strands of silk. The problem has always been spinning the silk into threads. We can genetically engineer animals to produce spider silk, but it comes out as a glob. Spiders, however, are able to keep their silk a liquid, and then extrude it from their spinnerets as threads with variable properties, such as stickiness. We really want to be able to do this artificially and at scale because spider silk is really strong – depending on what type of strength you are talking about, spider silk can be as strong or stronger than steel. When you hear this statistic, however, that often is referring to specific strength, because spider silk is much lighter than steel, it is stronger per unit weight than steel. In any case – it’s strong.

Perhaps a better comparison is Kevlar. Spider silk has several advantages over this modern material – it is more resilient, flexible, and in some cases tougher. But we are still not close to spinning spider-silk bullet-proof vests.

The current study has a title that does not betray its possible significance – Dynamic Adhesive Fibers for Remote Capturing of Objects. That’s a technical way of saying – you can shoot freaking spider webs. What the researchers found is that if you take a liquid silk from B. mori, which is a domestic silk moth, and combine it with a solvent like alcohol or (as in this case) acetone, it will become a semi-solid hydrogel. But the process takes hours. You can’t have your villain waiting around for hours for the webbing to solidify. But, if you also add dopamine to the mix, the dopamine helps draw water away from the silk quickly, and the solidification process becomes almost instant. Shoot this combination as a stream and the acetone evaporates in the air while the dopamine draws away the water and you have -an instant sticky string of silk. You can literally shoot this at a object at range and then pick it up. The silk will stick to the object.

This is a massive advance, figuring out a key component to the process. Spiders and silk-producing insects also use dopamine in the process. Spiders generally don’t shoot their webs. They adhere it to an anchor and then draw it out. So in a way they have done spiders one better. But the real goal is making artificial silk that can then be made into fibers that can then be made into stuff.

Now, the main limiting factor here – spider silk is still about 1000 times stronger than the resulting silk in this study. It’s strong and sticky enough to pick up small objects, but it’s not going to replace Kevlar. But the authors point out – the properties of this silk are “tunable”. They write:

“Furthermore, the possibility of tuning these properties is demonstrated by adding chitosan (Ch) and borate ions (BB), leading to remarkable mechanical and adhesive performances up to 107 MPa and 280 kPa, respectively, which allows the retrieval of objects from the ejected structure. This process can be finely tuned to achieve a controlled fabrication of instantaneously formed adhesive hydrogel fibers for manifold applications, mimicking living organisms’ ability to eject tunable adhesive functional threads.”

Spider silk has a tensile strength of about 1 GPa, so that is still 100 times this silk. Of course, they are just getting started. The hope is that further research will reveal formulas for tuning the properties of this silk to make it super strong, or have whatever other properties we need. I don’t want to trivialize this. As I have frequently pointed out – when scientists say “all we have to do is” they really mean “there is a huge problem we cannot currently fix, and may never be able to fix.”

It’s possible this method of spinning silk fibers may end up being little more than a laboratory curiosity, or may have a few niche applications at best. It is also possible this is the beginning of the next plastic or carbon fibers. Probably we will end up somewhere in between. But I am hopeful. There is a reason material scientists have been trying to crack the spider silk puzzle for decades – because the potential is huge. This really is an amazing material with incredible potential.

The post Spider-Man’s Web Shooter first appeared on NeuroLogica Blog.

Autonomous taxis are already operating on US streets, while Elon Musk has spent years promising a self-driving car and failing to deliver. The newly announced Tesla Cybercab is unlikely to change that

The UK government's decision to return the Chagos Islands to Mauritius surprisingly threatens the extinction of millions of website addresses ending in ".io", and no one is quite sure what will happen next

In the opening to Rachel Kushner's Booker-shortlisted novel Creation Lake, the latest pick for the New Scientist Book Club, we meet undercover operative Sadie Smith as she secretly reads the emails of an eco-activist group

It's Skeptoid's 18th birthday! Won't you help us celebrate by giving us a little birthday present?

It doesn't bode well for the future that "leaders" of major American institutions look at naked emperors and compliment them on their beautiful clothes.

The post The President of Stanford Wants Us To Debate Which Number is Larger, 9 or 133 first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

Scientists have discovered a low-cost method to significantly reduce this pollution from hydrogen internal combustion engines by improving the efficiency of their catalytic converters. The researchers found that infusing platinum in catalytic converters with a highly porous material called Y zeolites greatly enhances the reactions between nitrogen oxides and hydrogen, converting unhealthful nitrogen oxides into harmless nitrogen gas and water vapor.

Researchers have observed electric charges traveling across the interface of two different semiconductor materials. Using scanning ultrafast electron (SUEM) techniques, the research team has directly visualized the fleeting phenomenon for the first time.

Researchers have observed electric charges traveling across the interface of two different semiconductor materials. Using scanning ultrafast electron (SUEM) techniques, the research team has directly visualized the fleeting phenomenon for the first time.

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl chemicals, known commonly as PFAS, could take over 40 years to flush out of contaminated groundwater.

Chemists have developed a new chemical reaction that will allow researchers to synthesize selectively the left-handed or right-handed versions of 'mirror molecules' found in nature and assess them for potential use against cancer, infection, depression, inflammation and a host of other conditions.

The small island nations of the South Pacific are facing the harsh reality of sea level rise. Within 50 years they will be swamped by rising seas linked to climate change. That’s part of a stark forecast from a sea level change science team at NASA and leading universities.

The group used satellites to predict rising ocean levels. According to their data, Pacific nations such as Tuvalu, Kiribati, and Fiji will experience an increased rise in sea levels. That threatens the homes and livelihoods of millions of people.

The Team’s Work

The team that examined the rise of sea levels threatening South Pacific nations is part of an interdisciplinary research group at NASA. Its job is to improve our understanding of sea-level change over time. The members analyzed the South Pacific threat at the request of the affected nations and coordinated with the U.S. State Department. They created high-resolution maps showing which areas of different Pacific Island nations would be vulnerable to high-tide flooding. The maps outline the potential for flooding. In addition, they take into account different greenhouse gas emissions scenarios, ranging from best-case to business-as-usual to worst-case.

One of the islands of Tuvalu. Sea level rise threatens to swamp the islands of this nation within 50 years. Courtesy NASA.

A combination of space-based and ground-based measurements can yield more precise sea level rise projections. That should give an improved understanding of the impacts on countries in the Pacific. Still, it’s one thing to create predictive models and share that data with affected nations. It’s quite another to actually experience the gradual rise of sea levels as the people of the South Pacific islands and other low-lying areas along the world’s coastlines.

“I am living the reality of climate change,” said Grace Malie, a youth leader from Tuvalu who is involved with the Rising Nations Initiative, a United Nations-supported program led by Pacific Island nations to help preserve their statehood and protect the rights and heritage of populations affected by climate change. “Everyone (in Tuvalu) lives by the coast or along the coastline, so everyone gets heavily affected by this.”

How NASA Tracks Sea-level Rise

Researchers from the University of Hawaii, the University of Colorado, and Virginia Tech all took part in the study, which used a new Pacific Islands Flooding Tool for the project. The data they use comes from measurements by satellites, shipboard and airborne instruments, and supercomputer analysis. The result is a more precise assessment of sea levels and their rise and fall over time. Using this data, the science teams found some worrying trends.

The portal to NASA’s Pacific Islands flooding analysis tool to help scientists assess sea level rise in low-lying areas. Courtesy NASA.

“Sea level will continue to rise for centuries, causing more frequent flooding,” said Dr. Nadya Vinogradova Shiffer, who directs ocean physics programs for NASA’s Earth Science Division. “NASA’s new flood tool tells you what the potential increase in flooding frequency and severity look like in the next decades for the coastal communities of the Pacific Island nations.”

What Affects Sea Level?

Sea level rise is based on a number of factors, including melting of glaciers and other ice packs and ocean warming related to pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Based on the data from NASA satellites, the Pacific Islands most at risk will see at least a 15-cm sea level rise by 2050. That’s nearly an order of magnitude higher than all Pacific Island nations experience now. To give you an idea of how that will affect specific places, Tuvalu currently sees less than five high tide flood days per year. By 2050, residents will experience at least 25 flood days each year. Kiribati will see 65 flood events. The maps produced by the NASA-led team for these and other islands should help these nations plan for future flood mitigation efforts.

“Science and data can help the community of Tuvalu in relaying accurate sea level rise projections,” said Malie. “This will also help with early warning systems, which is something that our country is focusing on at the moment.”

Assessing Sea Level Rise

Not every area in the world experiences the same amount of flooding. Local conditions and coastlines contribute to area-specific floods. The impact that 15 centimeters of sea level rise will have varies from country to country. Some regions will see nuisance flooding several times a year in flat or low-lying areas. Others face inundation for longer periods with higher amounts of water.

“We’re always focused on the differences in sea level rise from one region to another, but in the Pacific, the numbers are surprisingly consistent,” said Ben Hamlington, a sea level researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California and the agency’s sea level change science team lead.

The impacts of sea level rise will vary from place to place and depend on topography, shapes of coastlines, and other factors. Better predictive tools will help scientists understand where sea levels will rise the most and share that information with affected populations. Researchers would like to combine satellite data on ocean levels with ground-based measurements of sea levels at specific points, as well as with better land elevation information. “But there’s a real lack of on-the-ground data in these countries,” said Hamlington.

Real-world Experience

The combination of space-based and ground-based measurements can yield more precise sea level rise projections and an improved understanding of the impacts on countries in the Pacific. Still, it’s one thing to create predictive models and share that data with affected nations. It’s quite another to actually experience the gradual rise of sea levels as the people of the South Pacific islands and other low-lying areas along the world’s coastlines.

People in these regions experience different types of threats from the oceans. Flooding can occur when the ocean inundates the land during tropical storms, typhoons, and hurricanes. It can also happen during exceptionally high tides, called king tides.

An example of sunny day king tide flooding submerging street infrastructure outside the City of Miami Fire Station 13. Sea level rise contributes to increased incidences of such flooding. Credit: Mike Sukop/NOAA.

Another avenue for flooding is saltwater intrusion into underground areas. That pushes the water table to the surface. “There are points on the island where we will see seawater bubbling from beneath the surface and heavily flooding the area,” Malie added.

Places like Tuvalu will benefit from better tools to predict sea level rise. It’s not just a matter of preventing flooding, but one of a nation’s survival now and over the next few decades. “The future of the young people of Tuvalu is already at stake,” said Malie. “Climate change is more than an environmental crisis. It is about justice, survival for nations like Tuvalu, and global responsibility.”

For More Information

NASA Analysis Shows Irreversible Sea Level Rise for Pacific Islands
Sea Level Change
Pacific Islands Flooding Tool

The post Satellites are Tracking the Ongoing Sea Level Rise Swamping Pacific Island Nations appeared first on Universe Today.

In recent years, the number of known extrasolar planets (aka. exoplanets) has grown exponentially. To date, 5,799 exoplanets have been confirmed in 4,310 star systems, with thousands more candidates awaiting confirmation. What has been particularly interesting to astronomers is how M-type (red dwarf) stars appear to be very good at forming rocky planets. In particular, astronomers have detected many gas giants and planets that are several times the mass of Earth (Super-Earths) orbiting these low-mass, cooler stars.

Consider TOI-6383A, a cool dwarf star less than half the mass of the Sun that orbits with an even smaller, cooler companion – the red dwarf star TOI-6383B. In a recent study, an international team of astronomers with the Searching for Giant Exoplanets around M-dwarf Stars (GEMS) survey detected a giant planet transiting in front of the primary star, designated TOI-6383Ab. This planet is similar in size and mass to the system’s companion star, which raises questions about the formation of giant planets in red dwarf star systems.

The team was led by Lia Marta Bernabò, a PhD astronomy student at the University of Texas at Austin (UTA) and the German Aerospace Center (DLR). She was joined by colleagues with the GEMS collaboration, which includes astronomers from the Center for Planetary Systems Habitability, the Carnegie Science Earth and Planets Laboratory, the Center for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds, the ETH Zurich Institute for Particle Physics & Astrophysics, the Anton Pannekoek Institute for Astronomy, NOIRLab, the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, and multiple universities and institutes. The paper that details their findings was recently accepted for publication by the Astronomical Journal.

A giant star orbits one of the stars in the binary star system TOI-6383. As both stars are dwarf stars, a problem due to the mass budget comes up. Credit: DLR

The TOI6383 system consists of two red dwarf stars located about 560 light-years from Earth. The primary (A) is about 46% as massive as the Sun and about as large and has an estimated surface temperature of 3444 K (3,170 °C; 5,740 °F) – about 60% of the Sun’s surface temperature. Its companion (B) is 20.5% as massive as our Sun, 22% its size, and has an estimated surface temperature of 3121 K (2848 °C; 5,158 °F). Meanwhile, TOI6383Ab has a mass and size comparable to Jupiter and an orbital period of about 1.79 days.

Based on the all-sky coverage of NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), the GEMS survey team is dedicated to searching for giant exoplanets around M-dwarf stars (GEMS) using the Transit Method (Transit Photometry). This consists of monitoring stars for periodic dips in brightness, which could indicate planets passing (aka transiting) in front of their parent stars relative to the observer. The exoplanet was detected by TESS and confirmed by a combination of follow-photometry and radial velocity measurements using ground-based telescopes.

This survey aims to test theories of how planets form, which can be divided into two main categories. The first scenario is the core-accretion model, where planetesimals coagulate around a massive core. However, this model has come to be questioned in recent decades, largely because it is inconsistent with the mass budget and time scales for the formation of M dwarfs. Dwarf stars typically have less massive protoplanetary disks around them, meaning there is insufficient material to form giant planets.

The second scenario is the rapid formation model, where a massive protostellar disk disintegrates into clumps under its own gravity, which then accrete material and form planets. The discovery of this latest massive planet around a low-mass star will help astronomers to test these competing models. To date, only 20 massive exoplanets have been detected around M-type red dwarfs. The GEMS survey seeks to increase this inventory to at least 40, whereupon more precise tests of these models can be made.

Further Reading: DLR Institute of Planetary Research, Astronomical Journal

The post Exoplanet Discovered in a Binary System Could Explain Why Red Dwarfs Form Massive Planets appeared first on Universe Today.

A new technique uses glowing molecules, laser light and microscopes to measure distances as minuscule as 0.1 nanometres – the width of a typical atom

When three massive objects meet in space, they influence each other through gravity in ways that evolve unpredictably. In a word: Chaos. That is the conventional understanding. Now, a researcher has discovered that such encounters often avoid chaos and instead follow regular patterns, where one of the objects is quickly expelled from the system. This new insight may prove vital for our understanding of gravitational waves and many other aspects of the universe.