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A team of researchers had already been working with electricity price data for years before Russia's invasion of Ukraine, exploring statistics and developing forecasting methods. Now they zero in on how prices in different countries relate and how countries were affected by the energy crisis and address the interdependencies of different markets. Their approach combines statistical physics and network science, identifying communities and the fundamental spatiotemporal patterns within the electricity price/time data from all countries. The researchers hope their work will strengthen the European perspective in the political debate about electricity markets and prices, because problems like this are best tackled via international cooperation.

Raising the energy state of an atom's nucleus using a laser, or exciting it, would enable development of the most accurate atomic clocks ever to exist. This has been hard to do because electrons, which surround the nucleus, react easily with light, increasing the amount of light needed to reach the nucleus. By causing the electrons to bond with fluorine in a transparent crystal, UCLA physicists have finally succeeded in exciting the neutrons in a thorium atom's nucleus using a moderate amount of laser light. This accomplishment means that measurements of time, gravity and other fields that are currently performed using atomic electrons can be made with orders of magnitude higher accuracy.

A research effort has made advances that could enable a broader range of currently unimagined optoelectronic devices.

A research effort has made advances that could enable a broader range of currently unimagined optoelectronic devices.

The release in July 2024 of the blockbuster film Twisters (centred around a social-media celebrity storm-chaser) demonstrates an ongoing public fascination in hazards and extreme weather. The arrival of camera and streaming technologies have made it easier to collect and share such footage in recent years, resulting in often dramatic footage being live-streamed on platforms such as YouTube, TikTok and Discord. Now, a new study has analyzed what might be motivating people to watch these streams -- in some instances for up to 12 hours at a time.

The release in July 2024 of the blockbuster film Twisters (centred around a social-media celebrity storm-chaser) demonstrates an ongoing public fascination in hazards and extreme weather. The arrival of camera and streaming technologies have made it easier to collect and share such footage in recent years, resulting in often dramatic footage being live-streamed on platforms such as YouTube, TikTok and Discord. Now, a new study has analyzed what might be motivating people to watch these streams -- in some instances for up to 12 hours at a time.

Scientists have taken on the daunting challenge of mapping all the chemicals around us. They take inventory of the available science and conclude that currently a real pro-active chemical management is not feasible. To really get a grip on the vast and expanding chemical universe, they advocate the use of machine learning and AI, complementing existing strategies for detecting and identifying all molecules we are exposed to.

Scientists have taken on the daunting challenge of mapping all the chemicals around us. They take inventory of the available science and conclude that currently a real pro-active chemical management is not feasible. To really get a grip on the vast and expanding chemical universe, they advocate the use of machine learning and AI, complementing existing strategies for detecting and identifying all molecules we are exposed to.

Researchers have uncovered significant flaws in current climate risk assessment techniques that could lead to a severe underestimation of climate-related financial losses for businesses and investors.

Is nature really as strange as quantum theory says -- or are there simpler explanations? New neutron measurements prove: It doesn't work without the strange properties of quantum theory.

Is nature really as strange as quantum theory says -- or are there simpler explanations? New neutron measurements prove: It doesn't work without the strange properties of quantum theory.

The reality of the climate impact of long-distance passenger travel has been revealed in new research.

A new microscopy method has allowed researchers to detect tiny changes in the atomic-level architecture of crystalline materials -- like advanced steels for ship hulls and custom silicon for electronics. The technique could advance our ability to understand the fundamental origins of materials properties and behavior.

Physicists have made a significant breakthrough in solar cell technology by developing a new analytical model that improves the understanding and efficiency of thin-film photovoltaic (PV) devices.

Physicists have made a significant breakthrough in solar cell technology by developing a new analytical model that improves the understanding and efficiency of thin-film photovoltaic (PV) devices.

Researchers developed a prototype of an implantable microphone for a cochlear implant. Their device, which senses the movement of the ear drum in the inner ear, performed as well as commercial hearing aids and could someday enable a fully internalized cochlear implant.

Ants are one of the few animals that tend to the injuries of their peers, and now it seems they are also the first non-humans known to perform life-saving amputations

Remote sensing, including lidar, reveals that the Amazon was once home to millions of people. The emerging picture of how they lived challenges ideas of human cultural evolution

Humans finally achieved controlled flight on another planet for the first time just a few years ago. Ingenuity, the helicopter NASA sent to Mars, performed that difficult task admirably. It is now taking a well-deserved rest until some intrepid human explorer someday comes by to pick it up and hopefully put it in a museum somewhere. But what if, instead of a quadcopter, NASA used a series of flexible-wing robots akin to bees to explore the Martian terrain? That was the idea behind the Marsbee proposal by Chang-Kwon Kang and his colleagues at the University of Alabama at Huntsville. The project was supported by a NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) grant back in 2018 – let’s see what they did with it.

The concept was initially inspired by work at the University of Tokyo on a dragonfly-like micro aerial vehicle (MAV). It is one of the few drones able to fly in Earth’s gravity using flexible wings that flap. But would it be useful on Mars?

Mars has both advantages and disadvantages compared to Earth when considering whether flexible wing flight is possible. In the advantage column, it has about ? of the gravity of our home planet, so less force is necessary for an aircraft to lift off. However, there is only about 1% of the atmosphere on Mars compared to Earth, so a flexible-wing aircraft would have significantly less atmosphere to push off to create that force.

Fraser explains Ingenuity’s final fate.

Ultimately, part of the Phase I project for the Marsbee grant was to determine whether the approach was feasible. But why do so in the first place? Ingenuity, known at the time as the Mars 2020 Helicopter, was already on the path to conducting the first powered flight on another planet. While it was successful at its stated mission, it had several downsides, including a relatively large size, which is at a premium on interplanetary trips, and a flight time limited to only about 3 minutes. 

Neither of those limitations was a show-stopper, obviously, but a flexible-wing aircraft that is smaller and lighter could solve both of those problems. Engineers could potentially even store multiple craft in the same space as what Ingenuity needed in its ride-along with Perseverance. But would they work?

The short answer appears to be “not without additional technical development.” Modeling of the design showed weaknesses in a few areas that must be addressed before launching any successful Marsbee mission. The biggest hurdle appeared to be how flexible structures, like those that would make up the system’s wings, interacted with the uncertain aerodynamic environment of the Red Planet. 

Video describing the Marsbee concept.
Credit – NASA 360 YouTube Channel

Other challenges include the weight of the battery pack and the development of a guidance and control system that could deal with the randomly windy Martian atmosphere while remaining small and light enough to fit on a flexible wing flyer. Also, it would be challenging to direct the flyers without a GPS, which doesn’t yet exist on Mars.

For now, efforts to develop Marsbees seem to have been put on hold, at least for the last several years. With the success of Ingenuity, many questions about the feasibility of flight on the Red Planet have already been answered. But with a little more technical development and derisking, it might be possible that someday we’ll see flights of robotic bees buzzing around the Red Planet.

Learn More:
Kang et al. – Marsbee – Swarm of Flapping Wing Flyers for Enhanced Mars Exploration
UT – The Ingenuity Team Downloads the Final Data from the Mars Helicopter. The Mission is Over
UT – A Helicopter is Going to Titan. Could an Airplane be Next?
UT – Cruising the Cloud Tops of Venus With a Solar-Powered Airplane

Lead Image:
Artist’s depiction of the Marsbee concept.
Credit – Kang et al.

The post Could We Replace Ingenuity With a Swarm of Robotic Bees? appeared first on Universe Today.

As the war in Gaza proceeds—and remember that Israel said it would take a long time—the world’s opprobrium against Israel continues to increase. What frustrates many of us who are sympathetic to Israel is that those who denigrate it—and I’m talking not about Netanyahu but about worldwide criticism of the conduct of the war itself, or of the existence of Israel and Jews themselves—base their opprobrium on either lies or misconceptions.  These include what I call the Three Big Lies:

1.) Israel is an apartheid state (it’s not clear to me what’s being said here: whether it means apartheid within the country or, somehow, apartheid between Israel and other Arab countries),

2.) Israel is committing genocide in Gaza (that is, actions designed to wipe out all the people of Gaza),

and the one I’ll discuss today:

3.) Israel is killing too many Gazan civilians, and therefore the war should be stopped. This is connected with #2 above.  The “too many” is often couched as a disproportionality: there are too many Gazan civilians killed compared to Gazan combatants killed (Hamas, Islamic Jihad, etc.).

Of all of these accusations, it is the last that has brought the wrath of the world down on Israel, and, though the deaths of Gazan civilians seem to have been part of Hamas’s own strategy to get the world to hate Israel, let’s ignore that, too, and look at the “proportionality” argument.

Let me begin by saying that I am not trying to ignore the human toll in Gaza: every civilian gone represents a life that was surrounded by friends, relatives, and loved ones. This is the case in every war, and, unfortunately, there’s no such thing as a war that leaves all civilians untouched. But we’re dealing with the world’s view that too many Palestinian civilians have died. Of course when you say “too many”, you must specify, given the fact that there will always be civilian deaths in wartime, what figure would not be too many.

How many Gazan civilians have been killed in comparison to Gazan combatants?  This of course must always be an approximation. The Hamas-run Gazan Ministry of Health estimates a total of over 35,000 Gazans have been killed since October 7, not breaking them down by status as combatant or noncombatant.  These Ministry of Health figures were of course reported uncritically by the world’s media.

In May the UN itself revised Hamas’s overall death toll, saying that 24,686 Gazans who were dead have been “fully identified.” This again includes both civilians and combatants (some of which are “children” according to the convention of “people under 18 years old”), and realize that some of the dead were killed by misfired Hamas rockets or directly by Hamas themselves.  It’s not clear whether how many of the “unidentified” dead were really killed, and whether they were combatants or civilians.

We can assume, then, that the number of Gazans killed lies somewhere between 25,000 and 35,000, depending on whether you are closer to accepting Hamas’s figures or the UN’s. These include both fighters and civilians.

How many of these were combatants? Newsweek reports: about 15,000 from a month ago. Note that this is Israel’s estimate, and of course is also an approximation. In this messy urban warfare, we’re going to have to make do with rough guesses.

Finally, how many Israelis have been killed? 1200 were killed on October 7, and about 700 Israeli soldiers and reservists have been killed since October 7, making a total of roughly 2000, including Israeli civilians killed since October 7. This is relevant, as we’ll see, only to a misguided notion of “proportionality.”

If you calculate, then, the ratio of Gazan civilians killed to Gazan combatants killed using these rough figures, you figures ranging from 0.64 to ([24,686-15,000/15,000, using the UN’s figures) to 1.3 ([35,000-15,000]/15,000). Note again we’re using Israel’s figures for the deaths of Gazan combatants in both calculations, but using higher (Hamas) and lower (UN) estimates for total deaths of Gazan civilians.

The point I want to make is that figures for ratios of Palestinian civilian/combatant deaths in Gaza, ranging from 0.64 to 1.3, are extraordinarily low for warfare—lower than any figures I’ve seen bandied about in other conflicts (see below). Note that these figures are in the ballpark calculated by military and urban warfare expert John Spencer: about 1 to 1, though, if you use Hamas’s figures, you get 1.5 or 1.6 to 1.

How does this compare with estimates from other modern wars?  Spencer adds this:

In the 2016-2017 Battle of Mosul, the biggest urban battle since WWII, the U.S. led Iraqi Security Force killed 10,000 civilians to destroy 4,000 ISIS in the city. That is a 1 to 2.5 combatant to civilian death ratio [JAC: 2.5 in the calculations above]. In the 1945 Battle of Manila (which did have some variables similar to Gaza like high number of defenders, tunnels, and hostages), the American military killed 100,000 civilians to destroy 17,000 Japanese defenders, that is a 1 to 6 ratio [or 6 to 1 by my ratio]. The 1950 Second Battle of Seoul (another battle with similar variables to the battles in Gaza) American forces likely killed 10s of thousands (there is no record out how many died in the city battle out of the 2 million civilians that died in the war) to kill 7,000 North Korean enemy.

Spencer adds two caveats:

But the IDF also did reduce an already low combatant to civilian casualty ratio in the war. The New York Times reported in January that the daily civilian death toll had more than halved in the December and was down almost two-thirds from its peak by January. By time I visited Khan Yunis in February the civilian deaths caused by IDF actions in the war was very low.

The real truth is that no one knows how many civilians have died in Gaza, especially not Hamas. There has never been a war/battle, especially an urban battle, where anyone could track the civilian deaths on a day-to-day basis and especially not down to the single digit. It is impossible. A year after the 2016-2017 Battle of Mosul, the Iraqi government did not know how many civilians had died in the battle with estimates from 11,000 to 40,000.

All we can do is base our present conclusions on what figures are reported. And those figures seem to show, as I’ve written before, that the ratio of civilian deaths to combatant deaths among Palestinians in Gaza is very low when compared to other wars—wars in which Americans fought. The conclusion that this ratio is “too high” probably comes from the media, propaganda, and ignorance of history. If you’ve followed the war, you know that Israel is taking a number of steps to reduce civilian casualties, often at the risk of the lives of IDF soldiers. This probably accounts for a civilian/combatant death ratio lower than that produced by warfare involving the U.S.—wars when we heard little or nothing about a ratio that was too high.

 

When people talk about disproportionality, you might think they mean instead that the ratio of Palestinian deaths to Israeli deaths is too high, but that’s not the take I get from the news, nor from the world’s reaction. For if this is what you mean by “disproportionality,” then you’d have to say, given that Israel continues to pursue this war while trying to minimize civilian deaths, that Israel needs to let more of its soldiers and civilians get killed.  Perhaps they should dismantle the Iron Dome, or simply pull out of Gaza.  And those actions aren’t on the table.

It is these figures that give the lie to the fact that Israel is committing a genocide, or is producing an inordinately high ratio of civilian deaths to combatant deaths. Even given Hamas’s figures (and remember, the estimates of deaths of Hamas combatants comes from Israel), the data themselves cannot be what’s angering the world. Why the world is angry about this reflects, in my view, the fact that it is the Israeli army (mostly Jews) who are doing the fighting, and Jews cannot be allowed, as Douglas Murray says, to win a war.

Will knowing such figures and their historical context get the world to stop baying at Israel?  I wouldn’t count on it, for the howls come not from data, but from feelings about Israel and the Jews.