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We are all too aware of the pollution on planet Earth. There are increased amounts of plastic and garbage on the world’s beaches and debris littering the oceans. Until now, it was thought that satellites weren’t capable of tracking marine debris but a supercomputer algorithm challenges that. 300,000 images were taken every three days at a resolution of 10 metres and were able to identify large concentrations of debris. 

Upper estimates of plastic in our oceans peak at around 200 million tons! Every day it is believed another 8 million pieces of plastic make their way into the marine environment. Now, a study led by a team at the Institut de Ciencies del Mar at the University of Cadiz believe it may be possible to study and track the surface debris in the oceans. Using supercomputers and advanced algorithms, the team have shown that satellites can indeed be used. 

Using data from the European Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellite, a total of 300,000 images of the Mediterranean Sea were analysed. The images were taken every 3 days at a resolution of 10 metres. Typically of course, there is not much debris in the sea which is that big but accumulations of debris have grown to that size. The aggregations are known as ‘windrows’ and have built up as ocean currents and winds bring debris together to form large structures. 

The output from the study reveals the most polluted areas of the Mediterranean and the main entry points from the mainland. It will help us to improve our understanding of the processes and mechanisms that transport debris across the ocean and even help us to perhaps predict movement. The results also show that the amount of debris in the Mediterranean covers around 95 square kilometres.

Eastern Mediterranean Sea Area June 1993

Unfortunately the research does not help resolve the issue of pollution but it does help us understand the scale. The team propose future satellites should be equipped with detectors to monitor the debris. It would increase the ability to detect plastic in the open ocean by a factor of 20 and help to model the impact of marine pollution on first, tourism and the marine ecosystem. 

One element of the studies conclusion is that population density, geography and rainfall patterns play an important part in the accumulation of marine litter. Dry arid lands like deserts that play host to cities seem to contribute much less to marine litter while those that are much more temperate with higher rainfall seem to contribute more. 

It is also interesting to note that the majority of litter that originates from land masses seems to be confined to 15 kilometres form the coast and subsequently returns after a few days of months. The team conclude that satellite based monitoring is an essential element in our battle against litter in the ocean. The technology can also be used for the detection of other floating objects such as the loss of ships, oil spills and even search and rescue elements. 

Source : Satellites to monitor marine debris from space

The post Satellites are Going to Track Garbage Drifting Across the Oceans appeared first on Universe Today.

I’m tired of Bret Weinstein pushing conspiracy theories, and just as tired of him making proclamations about evolutionary biology that are misleading or flat wrong.  I’m especially peeved today because, in the video below, he claims that both Richard Dawkins and I have said that “evolution biology is settled” because I, at least, claimed that the big advances at the beginning of the field, involving people like Darwin, Fisher, Haldane, Sewall Wright, and Ernst Mayr, established the foundations of the field, and we don’t see such big advances any more.  Where are today’s Darwins? (This was a question posed to me by Dick Lewontin when I interviewed him some years ago.) And yes, I probably said that and do believe it. But that doesn’t mean that evolutionary biology is “settled”. It’s that our approach to understanding evolution in nature has been somewhat asymptotic, with a big leap at the beginning and then incremental progress since the 1940s.  Indeed, I think that advances such as the “modern synthesis” of the 1930s and 1940s, showing that Darwinian natural selection was compatible with modern genetics, was a huge synthesis that hasn’t been equaled. And, of course, science of any sort never reaches an asymptote, for that would be “complete understanding: the ultimate truth,” which is unattainable.

In the video below, Weinstein and Heying argue that Dawkins and I think that evolutionary biology is “settled,” and that our view impedes progress in the field, allows evolutionary biology to stagnate, and, most important, impedes people’s failure to take Intelligent Design theory seriously for raising serious problems with neo-Darwinism.  Further, he says that we’ve discouraged graduate students from entering the field and have not produced, as mentors, our “replacements.” He’s dead wrong here, at least for me: I’d put my graduate students (and their graduate students) up against anybody’s as having made substantial progress in evolutionary genetics.

Yes, we have nobody around today who’s made advances as big as those of Darwin or Fisher. But that doesn’t mean at all, as Weinstein and Heather Heying assert in the video below, that we think evolutionary biology is “settled.”  Far from it! First of all, neutral theory was a big step forward in evolutionary genetics, and that was introduced in 1968 and is still being developed.  We still don’t understand exactly why organisms reproduce sexually; we don’t understand how often speciation occurs without geographic isolation; we don’t understand what females, during sexual selection, are looking for when they choose a mate. I could list tons of other questions, but these are three that I’ve written about and are mentioned by Weinstein.

Weinstein and Heying’s claim in the video is that there are huge advances, on the scale of Darwin’s and Fisher’s, to be made, perhaps by people who are working in intelligent design. (Weinstein implies that he has a theory that may be on this scale as well.) To be sure, they note that the IDers like Stephen Meyer and his “high-quality colleagues”, are motivated by religion, but Weinstein sees them still asking important and serious questions that evolutionists haven’t answered, thus motivating evolutionists to better understand nature.  Nope. ID adocates have wasted the time of evolutionists in refuting IDer’s specious arguments. Why do they do this? To let the credulous public, much of which buys ID, know that science can answer those criticisms.  That’s why there were so many critiques of Michael Behe’s books by reputable scientists.

Three questions that evolutionists have supposedly set aside and neglected are these: “What caused the Cambrian explosion?”, “Why are there gaps in the fossil record?” and “How can we get complex working proteins when their existence is so improbable?”

The answer to the first question is “We don’t know, but there are theories and some of them are being tested.”

The second question has a spate of possible answers (lack of sediment deposition, rapid evolution in relatively short evolutionary times, and so on). But one thing we know is that Gould’s explanation—the theory of punctuated equilibrium—is not likely to be the answer, as the theory doesn’t work. (People don’t often realize that punctuated equilibrium, as advanced by Gould and Eldredge, is more than just a jerky pattern in the fossil record: it’s also a theory about why the pattern is supposedly ubiquitous. The ubiquity of the pattern in fact is still being argued, but we know that it’s not ubiquitous.) But in the end, Gould’s explanation—the really novel and non-Darwinian part punctuated equilibrium—was simply wrong.

As for the third question, the claim that the origin of complex proteins is improbable is not one taken seriously by molecular evolutionists, simply because we have no indication that it really is a problem. The idea that it is a problem comes from specious claims of IDers that such proteins assemble themselves randomly rather than by selection, or that mutation is too unlikely to fuel the process (there are other fuels, of course, like gene duplication and insertions of DNA).

At 2:56, in the video below, Weinstein asserts that evolutionary biologists have simply left the Big Questions “on the table”, questions like “where did all the species come from?” and “why do females put males in so many species to challenges that then cause them to burden their male offspring with elaborate displays that are not helpful?”

Weinstein is apparently unaware that I wrote a comprehensive and scholarly book on speciation in 2004 and outlined a lot of unanswered questions, so no, Dr. Weinstein, I did NOT think that the question “wasn’t worthy of my time”. And yes, we do have considerably more understanding these days about how species form. That’s also described in the book.

He’s also apparently unaware that many biologists have been working on sexual selection, which is simply a hard problem to test in nature. And he doesn’t understand that elaborate displays by males are helpful: they help males get mates. Peacocks with more “eyes” in their tails, for example, get more offspring. Widowbirds whose tails are artificially elongated by gluing on extra feather get more mates, too.  Weinstein is ignorant about how sexual selection works, and how theories about it have been tested.

At any rate, I no longer take Weinstein seriously as a biologist, or even as an intellectual. He may have been a good teacher at Evergreen State, but he’s not on the rails when it comes to evolutionary biology (his last peer-reviewed paper was in 2005, and Researchgate lists 4 total publications). He’s also advanced specious theories about ivermectin being both a good preventive and cure for Covid, he’s suggested that AIDS was caused by party drugs and not a virus, and he’s suggested that the death of Nobel Laureate Kary Mullis was suspicious, perhaps because Mullis has criticized Anthony Fauci (did Fauci order a hit? LOL!).  Weinstein’s even wrapped his cameras in aluminum foil because he suspected some sinister forces were impeding his transmission. He gave his cameras tinfoil hats!

A tweet from Michael Shermer, aimed at Weinstein, about Kary Mullis’s death:

In his Substack column below, Jesse Singal shows other conspiracy theories/dubious theories that Weinstein and Heying have advanced (Weinstein is more vociferous than Heying, so I give him most of the opprobrium). Click to read:

Here you can see Weinstein going after Dawkins and me by misrepresenting our views. Yes, I do think that understanding of evolution has slowed down since Darwin and since the 1940s, since most of these “founders” seem to have gotten the major parts of the modern synthesis right—except for neutral theory, which was a huge advance. But I surely do not believe (nor do I think that Dawkins believes) that we have pretty much completed our understanding of evolution. But I’ll let Dawkins speak for himself.

And of course the IDers love Weinstein and Heyer’s podcast, because they give so much credit to Intelligent Design in pinpointing the “neglected” Big Questions about evolution.It’s thus a pity that IDers, like Weinstein himself, hardly have any peer-reviewed papers in real scientific journals advancing their theories! Read below to see how much IDers love Weinstein.

 

Now I surely don’t think that Weinstein is stupid at all; he’s really quite smart. But I think that, in his desire to find a niche for himself, and garner a measure of public approbation, he’s deliberately embraced conspiracy theories, highly praised the gussied-up creationism of Intelligent Design, and, most annoying, almost willfully misunderstood evolutionary biology.

By representing data as folds in paper, the principles of origami can theoretically be used to compute anything imaginable

When the planet Mercury formed 4 billion years ago, conditions may have been just right to form a thick layer of diamonds below its surface

Astronauts are considered by many to be an elite bunch of people; healthy, fit and capable in many disciplines. Went they travel into space they can face health issues related to weightlessness from reduction in bone density to issues with their eyesight. These are people at the peak of physical fitness but what will happen to the rest of us when space tourism really kicks off. It is likely that anyone with underlying health issues could worsen in space. A new study suggests those with cardiovascular issues may suffer heart failure in space!

Space travel and automatic intelligence (AI) are two fabulously interesting topics. Combine them and you have a fascinating story. Dr Lex Van Loon from the Australian National University has been using AI and mathematical models to explore human physiology and the impact of space exploration. In a recent study he created digitally identical AI twins, one with an underlying heart condition. 

The interest driving the study is the advancement toward space tourism and the opening up of space to those less physically fit than astronauts. As space travel becomes more available to the mass population we will start to see a shift in demographic of space travellers to older, more wealthy individuals but they are more likely to have health issues. We will eventually see people with a whole multitude of conditions wanting to holiday in space, but what are the likely impacts. 

ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst gets a workout on the Advanced Resistive Exercise Device (ARED). Credit: NASA

Microgravity causes a redistribution of fluids around the body and can cause conditions like ‘puffy face bird leg syndrome.’ The name aptly describes the effect, the face swells up and the legs thin. It results in an increase in venous pressure in the upper body, this is fine for healthy people but heart failure sufferers are at a much higher risk. Given that there are over 100 million people around the world that suffer heart failure it is essential this is explored. 

Looking at the wide spectrum of heard failure, conditions can be grouped into two categories; a weak hart that cannot pump effectively and a heart that cannot relax and fill properly. All possible conditions need to be studied with specific ways to treat and mitigate the risk during space travel. 

This is a study that is difficult to collect real data in space so we have to turn to computer modelling to simulate the effects. The team led by Dr Loon showed that a microgravity environment leads to an increase in cardiac output (the quantity of blood pumped by the heart in a given period of time.) This is not a problem for most people but with heart failure patients it is accompanied by a rise in pressure in the left atrial region of the heart, to dangerous levels. If left unchecked, it can lead to a condition where fluid accumulates in the lungs known as a pulmonary edema, making it difficult to breathe!

With the increase in corporate interest in space travel, space tourism is slowly becoming a reality. People can already pay for trips into space but as costs come down, the number of people heading out into space will increase. Eventually, trips into space will be as common as trips to other countries. It is imperative we understand the impact on our health and what we can do to make space as widely accessible as possible without putting our health at risk. 

Source : Heart failure in space: scientists calculate potential health threats facing future space tourists in microgravity

The post Will Space Tourists Be Getting Heart Attacks in Space? appeared first on Universe Today.

For those of you currently in western Massachusetts or eastern upstate New York, some news: I’ll be speaking about my book today, Monday, June 24th, 5:30 pm, in Lenox, MA. At this free event, held at the local institution known simply as “The Bookstore“, I’ll read from the text and discuss its central message. After that, I’ll answer questions from the audience and sign books.

In other news — for those of you waiting (im)patiently for the audiobook, I am glad to report that there is finally some forward movement on that front. I’m still not sure how long it will take for the audio version to become available, but progress should be steady and rapid from here.

I know it’s only been a couple of weeks since I wrote about cement, but now I need to write about concrete, or potential version of concrete that is able to function as a battery. If we can get the technology to work this could an extremely useful item for a future of green energy.

The idea is one example of a more general idea – making structural material that can double as energy storage, either as a battery or supercapacitor. Imagine, for example, if the frame of your car was its battery. Similarly, imagine if the foundation of your house was a massive supercapacitor. That is the idea behind an MIT research project, which right now is in the proof-of-concept laboratory phase.

The researchers added carbon black to cement and the usual other ingredients to make concrete that can function as a supercapacitor. The carbon black is highly conductive, and it can form many branching tendrils in the concrete. These conductive bits are separated by insulating bits – and that is the basic structure of a capacitor. Charge can build up in the conductive carbon black and be maintained by the insulating layers.

At this point their test material can store 300 watt hours per cubic meter. A typical US home uses about 30 kwh per day, so would need 100 cubic meters to have one day’s worth of energy storage. That is in the order of magnitude of the volume of concrete in a, say, 1,500 sq foot home’s foundation (about 50 cubic meters). Larger homes would have larger foundations, and of course the foundations can be made deliberately thick to increase the storage. In other words, this is a useful amount of energy, theoretically. Any incremental advances in energy density would also be very useful, and the researchers are working on that.

The state of the research is still preliminary – proof of concept. One of the authors, Damian Stefaniuk, said the magic words in the BBC interview – “If it can be scaled up, the technology can help solve an important issue – the storing of renewable energy, ” – those fateful words that have killed many a promising new technology – if it can be scaled up. There are some issues that need to be worked out. One is, the more carbon black in the mixture the greater the energy density of the resulting capacitor, but the lower the strength of the resulting concrete. So there is a sweet spot where these tradeoffs are balanced. Of course, we may be able to combine this technology with one of the cement technologies I wrote about earlier that increase the strength of concrete.

Supercapacitors vs batteries also have some interesting tradeoffs. Supercapacitors can store energy very quickly, and don’t degrade over time like batteries do. But they also tend to release their energy quickly, rather than at a slow steady pace over a long period of time. Being able to control the rate of energy release will have to be built into the overall device somehow. Again this is something the researchers are working on by playing with the recipe.

But the big thing is – we simply don’t know what will happen when you start building foundation-sized slabs of this capacitor concrete. How will it function? And what happens when you fill it up with energy? Will the entire foundation need to be insulated in some way? What will this do to the cost of construction? Will this be economically feasible? What is the longevity of the resulting concrete and its energy storage? There are lots of potential deal-killers here. But none are absolute any they may all be solvable with continued development of this technology.

Now let’s play what if. What if this technology ultimately works, is reasonably cost effective (costing no more than adding any other battery storage to a home, let’s say), with reasonable capacity (1-2 days of backup power for a typical home), and there are no deal-killers? What are the likely applications? Obviously, the one I have been discussing – making the foundation of any building into a giant energy-storing supercapacitor. This won’t be viable as a retrofit so only will apply to new buildings going forward. But eventually it would be nice if, say, all new homes came with solar panel roofs and energy storage foundations.

I could also see this being used for grid storage. You know what else needs foundations – wind turbines. Land-based wind turbines need large foundations, with about 700-800 cubic meters of concrete. Let’s say we build a generous foundation with 1000 cubic meters of energy storing concrete. That’s 300 kwh of energy storage, enough to power 10 homes for a day. Perhaps we make deliberately huge concrete foundations for them, making them more stable but also adding energy storage, say 10,000 cubic meters (3 mwh). Multiply that by the more than 70,000 wind turbines in the US and we have 210 gigawatt hours (GWh) of grid storage. The US uses about 11 TWh per day. So that would be about 30 minutes of energy storage for the entire country (I think I did all those calculations correctly but feel free to double check me). This level of storage is useful for short term energy shifting and balancing the grid.

We could also build foundations for fields of solar panels. I wonder if a version of this material could be strong enough for a dam that is part of a hydroelectric plant. What about the containment vessel for a nuclear power plant, or part of a geothermal plant? Any giant construction is likely to use a lot of concrete, and could theoretically double as energy storage.

We could also theoretically make roads out of a version of this material. Could this lead to the infamous “solar roads”? In this more plausible version the roads themselves will not be photovoltaics but just energy storage, while solar panels, or some other energy source, will be placed more optimally. But powered roads could be interesting, allowing for recharging of electric vehicles while driving, or led road signs. I doubt this will happen, and I have questions about what a charged road would be like. What happens if you walk on it? Is the surface entirely insulated, and if so, how does it charge cars? Would we need to also incorporate wireless charging technology into the roads?

As I wrote in the previous article, the world produces 4.4 billion tons of concrete each year. If some of that is energy storage concrete that could go a long way to fill our energy storage needs. It’s also better than using lithium or other limited resources that we need for high specific energy batteries for cars. But for now we are in the “if it can be scaled up” phase.

 

 

 

The post Concrete Battery first appeared on NeuroLogica Blog.

A study of small city gardens in the Netherlands found insects were just as abundant in those with exotic plants as in those filled with native plants

My former science idol John Ioannidis has published a paper citing a Delphi consensus statement on COVID-19 as evidence that the scientific community is "biased" against his anti-"lockdown" pro-virus views. The descent continues apace.

The post “‘Panel stacking”: John Ioannidis versus a Delphi consensus statement on COVID-19 first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

Four years ago, the supermassive black hole hidden in the heart of galaxy SDSS1335+0728 roared awake and announced its presence with a blast of radiation. It marks the first time astronomers witnessed a sudden activation of a supermassive black hole in real time.

“Imagine you’ve been observing a distant galaxy for years, and it always seemed calm and inactive,” said Paula Sánchez Sáez, an astronomer at ESO in Germany and lead author of the study of this object. “Suddenly, its [core] starts showing dramatic changes in brightness, unlike any typical events we’ve seen before.”

This is what happened to SDSS1335+0728, which is now officially classified as having an active galactic nucleus (AGN). It experienced what’s called a “nuclear transient.” Essentially, that means the galaxy now has a very bright compact region. However, it wasn’t always that bright and astronomers want to understand what caused it to wake up.

This artist’s impression shows two stages in the formation of a disc of gas and dust around the massive black hole at the center of the galaxy SDSS1335+0728. The core of this galaxy lit up in 2019 and keeps brightening today — the first time astronomers observed a massive black hole become active as it happened. Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser Looking for Transients in all the Right Places

The unusual brightness variations were detected by the Zwicky Transient Facility in California, which gives constant, real-time alerts about such things as transient flaring and brightening in the hearts of galaxies like SDSS1335+0728. In addition, several other facilities observed the variations, too, and brightness changes were found in archival data from several other observatories.

The sudden brightenings could be due to many things, including the cannibalization of stars and clouds of gas that stray too near supermassive black holes. How often they brighten and how a quiescent galaxy nucleus changes to an active one are topics that astronomers are using such surveys and observations to understand. They’re looking not just at distant galaxies, but activity within the neighborhood of our own galaxy’s supermassive black hole, too.

A Galaxy and Its Supermassive Black Hole

Most galaxies have stupendously massive black holes at their hearts. They typically sequester away at least a hundred thousand times the mass of the Sun (sometimes more). It’s all trapped by gravity and nothing ever escapes, not even light. “These giant monsters usually are sleeping and not directly visible,” said study co-author Claudio Ricci, from Chile’s Diego Portales University. “In the case of SDSS1335+0728, we were able to observe the awakening of the massive black hole, [which] suddenly started to feast on gas available in its surroundings, becoming very bright.”

A black hole itself doesn’t emit any light at all. Instead, it sucks everything in, including light. However, the region around the black hole—called the accretion disk—is a pretty active place. It’s where material trapped by the intense gravitational pull of the black hole swirls around like water going down a drain. All that stuff—mostly gas, some dust—is threaded through with magnetic fields. Friction between accretions of the material heats it up. And, that act of heating gives off radiation. If there’s enough of it, we see light being given off. Intense active regions emit x-rays, which indicate the level of activity.

Gravity’s Slice-and-dice Activity

There’s also something called tidal disruption, which happens when something like a star or a cloud of gas gets trapped in the gravitational field. These things take time—on the order of years to occur. When they happen, the gravitational pull of the black hole eventually rips the star or cloud apart. That also gives off radiation. In fact, a very slow-motion tidal disruption event may be occurring at the heart of SDSS1335+0728. If so, it could be one of the longest and dimmest ones ever seen.

Regardless of what’s causing the brightening, the ultimate fate of some of the material is to end up inside the black hole. The rest of it gets superheated in the accretion disk and signals its fate through increased radiation.

Black Hole Growth and a Wake-up Call

The supermassive black holes in the hearts of galaxies grow from smaller ones to larger ones through mergers. We don’t see those growth patterns in real time, since they occur over millions of years. The merger scenario says that when galaxies come together, their central black holes (if they have them) do, too.

Simulation of merging supermassive black holes. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Scott Noble

Eventually you get these gargantuan monsters. They just sit there and nibble away at passing gas clouds to gain additional mass. That’s how they gain mass through acquisitions, which occur over shorter timescales. This is apparently what the one in SDSS1335+0728 is doing now. It’s just not often that astronomers get to see one wake up and start munching away in a short period of time.

So, a lot of questions remain about this one, mostly about its formation history. Since the mergers take a long time, it’s hard to know what’s happened to this one in the past. If this is a tidal disruption event, astronomers want to know how often such things happen.

This artist’s illustration depicts what astronomers call a “tidal disruption event,” or TDE, when an object such as a star wanders too close to a black hole and is destroyed by tidal forces generated from the black hole’s intense gravitational forces. (Credit: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss.)

At the moment, for SDSS1335+0728, there’s no immediate evidence of prior outbursts signaling prior awakenings of the supermassive black hole. Astronomers need to do a lot of follow-up observations to understand what’s really happening there, and perhaps find evidence for other eruptions and activity associated with the black hole, according to Sánchez Sáez. “Regardless of the nature of the variations, [this galaxy] provides valuable information on how black holes grow and evolve,” she said, noting that advanced instruments at ESO’s Very Large Telescope should give astronomers a better idea of the processes occurring at this black hole. In addition, further time-domain all-sky surveys with the upcoming Vera C. Rubin telescope should be able to track this galaxy’s nuclear brightenings.

For More Information

Astronomers See a Massive Black Hole Awaken in Real Time
SDSS1335+0728: The awakening of a ~10^6 M_sun Black Hole
arXiv preprint

The post Astronomers See a Black Hole Wake Up from its Ancient Slumber appeared first on Universe Today.

If approved, donanemab would be the third FDA approved disease-modifying beta-amyloid treatment for Alzheimer’s disease.

The post FDA Advisory Committee Recommends approval of new Alzheimer’s drug Donanemab first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

Flatfish, in the order Pleuronectiformes, have long been an evolutionary puzzle, for all the fish in this order lie on the substrate—on their sides—with both eyes on one side of their  body, like the flounder below:

By Moondigger – Own work, CC BY-SA 2.5

Phylogenetic analysis shows that flatfish evolved from “regular” fish, fish having one eye on each side and swimming vertically, that evolved over time to lie on their sides. The bizarre thing about this evolution is that it involved genetic changes so that “normal” fish had their eyes move over the top of their head so that both eyes look upwards.  Their skin changes color and texture, too, with the top half colored, as above, and the bottom half pale.

And all flatfish begin their development like “normal fish”, swimming vertically and having one eye on each side of the head. Then, as the fish gets older, one eye migrates over the top of the skull to the other side! (You can see that in the video below.)

When the eyes are both on one side, the flatfish tip onto their sides and spend the rest of their adult life lying on one side. (The side varies among species: some have 100% right-sided individuals, others 100% left-sided, and some species are random, with half of the individuals having the right eye move over (and lying on their right side), and the other half having the left eye move.

Living on the substrate like this, and often camouflaged as the flounder above, is an advantage for the fish, both protecting them from predators and, since they are predatory piscivores (fish eaters), hiding from their prey.

Here’s a video of the development of a young flatfish, showing the eye migration.  Since the ancestor had both eyes on one side, like the young flatfish, this is a case of “ontogeny recapitulating phylogeny”—that is, the development of a single living fish goes through a process mimicking the evolution of their adult ancestors.

But since the weird developmental pathway is presumably an adaptation that evolved by (presumably stepwise) natural selection, two big questions immediately arise:

1. What were the intermediate evolutionary stages of eye migration?
2. What were the evolutionary advantages of this migration, which presumably involved a gradual evolutionary movement of the eye from the side to the top of the head, and then over the head to the other side?  It’s hard to see how, for example, an eye that’s halfway around, so it’s close to the top of the skull but hasn’t moved to the other side, could leave more offspring, or survive better, than their ancestors. What would be the advantage of each small step of the migration?

It’s hard to envision a gradual Darwinian process that could produce this migration. As Carl Zimmer wrote in a new NYT article that summarizes recent flatfish findings (click below), Darwin’s critics used both questions about to cast doubt on his theory.  In response, some “saltationists”, who assumed that major evolutionary changes occurred in one huge step rather than a series of gradual steps, said that a single mutation moved the eye from one side to the other. (But that would not be advantageous unless the fish had already evolved to lie on its side!)

Click below to read the Zimmer piece in the NYT here (the drawing is animated), or find it archived here. 

 

As Carl reports, there was another weird finding that now seems doubtful: a 2001 paper by a group of Chinese researchers who, using DNA=based family trees, seemed to show that flatfish evolved twice.  You can see that paper in Nature Genetics by clicking on the headline below, or read the pdf here.  The discovery that flatfish seemed to be “polyphyletic”—with more than one evolutionarily independent origin—was deeply weird, because the hormone-induced eye migration, which is extraordinarily complex, would have had to evolve twice. It’s not impossible, but seemed unlikely. One of the doubters was evolutionist Matt Friedman, who got his Ph.D. here and is now a professor at the University of Michigan and director of its Museum of Paleontology.

A while back, when he was still at Chicago, Friedman published what I see as the most interesting of the three papers highlighted here. This one was in Nature, and you can read it by clicking below or seeing the pdf here

Note that this paper was a lot of work, and yet, unlike the others, Friedman was the sole author. I love to see single-person research efforts like this.  That aside, what Friedman found were two fossil evolutionary intermediates between adult “normal” fishes (the presumed ancestors of flatfish) and modern flatfishes, having both eyes on one side. Friedman reanalyzed a neglected species, Amphistium paradoxum, and a described a new fossil fish, Heteronectes chaneti, both from the lower Eocene, about 50 million years ago.

Amazingly, both species (the former randomly sided and the latter lying on its left side) showed an intermediate placement of the eyes in the adult fish. Both eyes were on the same side of a vertically-oriented fish, but one eye had migrated upwards toward the top of the skull, so that the fish could presumably see both to the side and also, perhaps, a bit above them.  Thus we have two evolutionary intermediates of the adult stage, likely showing that the eye movement did not occur in one big evolutionary leap.

Here’s a photo from the 2008 paper of the left and right sides of the H. chaneti skull, showing the eye sockets, which I’ve circled.  The asymmetry is obvious:

(from the paper): a, Heteronectes chaneti gen. et sp. nov., holotype, NHMW 1974.1639.25 (dextral morph); transfer preparation dusted with ammonium chloride and presented in right-lateral view. b, Counterpart, NHMW 1974.1639.24; transfer preparation dusted with ammonium chloride and presented in left-lateral view, showing migrated orbit.

And a reconstruction of the Amphistium species, showing both sides. The asymmetry is again clear, but the eyes of the adults are still on opposite sides of the head:

(From the paper): b, Reconstruction of Amphistium, showing sinistral (front) and dextral (back) individuals in the left lateral view (modified from ref. 20)

You’ve probably realized that this addresses question #1 above, showing that the movement was presumably gradual over evolutionary time, though we need more fossils to show that it was a continuous series of small steps. But at least the movement didn’t seem to involve one big leap.

But that leaves question #2, which I’ll address in a moment.

The reason Zimmer’s note came out now, though the papers above date from 2008 and 2021, is that a group of authors recently published another DNA based analysis in Nature Genetics showing that the Chinese group was probably wrong: flatfishes and their eye movements seem to have had a single evolutionary origin. (The Chinese group maintains that their “polyphyly” conclusion is still the best one.)

Click below to read, or find the pdf here.

 

Before returning to the Big Unsolved Question, I’ll show the phylogeny advanced in the 2001 paper (bottom), showing two origins of flattening and eye migration, and the newer analysis by Duarte-Ribiero et al.  at the top (Friedman is the third author), showing a single origin of flatfish (I’ve circled it).  This newer paper also singles out some genes that, showing signs of selection in their DNA sequence, may be involved in the evolutionary transformation, but I’ll leave that issue aside.  Green silhouettes are flatfish, black are nonflat fish.

(Part of it from paper): (From paper, and there’s more): a, FM tree estimated using LEA’s dataset with ASTRAL under an NHM (GHOST) of nucleotide substitution (see Supplementary Note 2 for details on time calibration). b, FP tree illustrates the phylogenetic hypothesis and divergence times proposed by LE

Now for the big mystery.  How could there possibly be an evolutionary advantage to each step of the eye movement? Presumably the adult either laid on its side or swam “normally”, and what would be the advantage of intermediate stages when the eye gradually moved up, across the top of the skull, and settling on the other side?  The movement is presumably advantageous only when the fish is already on its side, but then what would be the advantage of moving a few mm towards the top of the skull?

Well, perhaps the fish didn’t lie fully on its side. Here’s one clue in a quote from the 2008 paper:

Questions about the possible selective advantage of incomplete orbital transit arise from the discovery of stem flatfishes. Clues are given by living taxa, which often prop their bodies above the substrate by depressing their dorsal- and anal-fin rays. Similar behaviour might have permitted Amphistium and Heteronectes—both of which have long median-fin rays—the use of both eyes while on the sea floor. The unusual morphology and resting orientation of pleuronectiforms have been interpreted as adaptations for prey ambus, and it is clear that stem flatfishes, like morphologically primitive living forms, were piscivorous; one specimen of Amphistium (MCSNV V.D.91+92) contains the remains of a fish nearly half its own length.

So perhaps this happened: a normal ancestor, through behavioral evolution, adapted to hanging around the sea bottom, as they were less conspicuous and could get more prey.  But they’d have a more difficult time seeing upwards with eyes on both sides of the head. Movements of the eyes toward the top of the skull could be advantageous so long as they occurred in concert with behavioral changes (first perhaps learned, then evolved) involving propping themselves up with their fins. The advantage of tilting a bit would be that the fish might become a bit less conspicuous.

This whole scenario, as I proposed it (and I’m sure others have before in some form) presumes that the eye movement is either induced by or occurs in concert with changes in the fish’s behavior, which initially could have been learned and not coded in the genes. (Ernst Mayr once said something like “all major evolutionary changes begin with a change in behavior”). I don’t know how to test the hypothesis, as even finding more fossils with intermediate stages of eye migration will tell us little about the selective pressures involved. But for sure the movement involved natural selection rather than other evolutionary forces like genetic drift, for we have a big directional change involving many genes, genes that involve both morphology and behavior.

In short, I don’t know how it happened. But seeing that modern fishes can use their fins to prop themselves up on the sea floor may give us a clue. And other scenarios may be possible; readers can entertain themselves by finding alternative ways this change could have occurred by natural selection.

Watching meteoroids enter the Earth’s atmosphere and streak across the sky as the visual spectacle known as meteors, it is one of the most awe-inspiring spectacles on Earth, often exhibiting multiple colors as they blaze through the atmosphere, which often reveals their mineral compositions. But what if we could detect and observe meteors streaking through the atmospheres of other planets that possess atmospheres, like Venus, and use this to better determine meteoroid compositions and sizes?

This is what a recently accepted study to Icarus hopes to address as a pair of international researchers investigate how a future Venus orbiter could be used to study meteors streaking through the planet’s thick atmosphere. This study holds the potential to help scientists better understand meteoroids throughout the solar system.

Here, Universe Today discusses this study with Dr. Apostolos Christou, who is an astronomer at the Armagh Observatory and Planetarium, regarding the motivation behind the study, significant results, potential follow-up studies, potentially turning this concept into reality, and potentially observing meteors on other planets throughout the solar system. Therefore, what was the motivation behind the study?

“The underlying problem we want to solve is the measurement of the flux of solid particles in space,” Dr. Christou tells Universe Today. “The smallest particles (what we normally refer to as ‘dust’) can be efficiently counted with small-area impact detectors mounted on spacecraft, while objects larger than a meter or two (asteroids) we can find at the telescope. However, anything between a couple of hundred microns and a meter fall into a kind of gap; they are too rarefied to count with impact detectors and also too small to see with a telescope. The best way to look for those particles is to see them burning up as meteors in the atmosphere, essentially by treating entire planets as area detectors.”

For the study, the researchers used a survey simulation toolkit known as SWARMS (Simulator for Wide Area Recording of Meteors from Space) to ascertain the feasibility if a camera onboard a future Venus orbiter could observe meteors within Venus’ atmosphere. Parameters for SWARMS included using the same meteoroid populations observed on Earth for Venus, along with atmospheric modeling and the type of instrument, with the researchers putting a hypothetical meteor camera onboard the upcoming European Space Agency’s EnVision orbiter.  

In the end, the researchers found the number of meteors their orbiter camera could observe in the Venusian atmosphere would be 1.5 to 2.5 times greater than on Earth. The team notes this indicates the feasibility of observing meteors within the Venusian atmosphere, assuming the data would be successfully sent back to Earth. So, what were the most significant results from this study?

Dr. Christou tells Universe Today, “I’d say the two principal results are (a) that meteors at Venus occur well above the cloud layers, and (b) that they should be consistently brighter than their Earth counterparts. Point (a) removes one potential obstacle in detecting those particles in the orbital camera while point (b) tells us that any camera design flight-proven in Earth orbit should perform at least as well and probably better at Venus.”

Regarding follow-up studies, Dr. Christou tells Universe Today, “There were a number of assumptions made in the study that we want to explore in later work. One of the assumptions is that the camera is at a fixed altitude above the surface. We want to better understand the implications of observing from an elliptical orbit where the altitude and therefore the range to the target changes with time and location. In addition, Venus’s orbit is close to Earth’s, and it may just be possible to detect the brightest meteors (we call these fireballs) with telescopes from the ground as we have done with Jupiter. A future study will better quantify this possibility.”

This study comes as NASA plans to launch the VERITAS (Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography, and Spectroscopy) orbiter sometime between 2029 and 2031, whose goal is to obtain high-resolution maps of Venus’ surface using synthetic aperture radar and near-infrared spectroscopy to penetrate Venus’ thick atmosphere. The images obtained will provide updated data from NASA’s Magellan probe in the 1990s, as this is the most recent surface data available regarding Venus’ surface activity. Additionally, the European Space Agency is slated to launch EnVision in 2032 with the goal of mapping Venus’ surface using synthetic aperture radar, as well. Therefore, since this study involves putting a hypothetical meteor camera onboard the EnVision orbiter, what plans are in the works for putting such a camera on a future spacecraft?

Dr. Christou tells Universe Today, “There are no specific plans to my knowledge, however with the current level of international interest in exploring Venus, I believe this is the right time to advocate for it. Actually, there is an instrument called Mini-EUSO recording meteors from the ISS with a detection rate of ~16,000 meteors for every month of observing time. In comparison, a meteor survey of the kind we explore in the paper requires to detect ~200 meteors every month. This indicates that the concept is technically mature and could be implemented over the next 5-10 years say.”

Venus was the sole focus of this study due to its thick atmosphere, while also having the thickest atmosphere of the terrestrial planets additionally comprised of Mercury, Earth, and Mars. Given the results of this study, a future Venus orbiter designed to observe and detect meteors within Venus’ atmosphere could be feasible while providing valuable scientific knowledge pertaining to the properties and populations of meteoroids throughout the solar system.

However, Venus is not the only planet comprised of a thick atmosphere, as the gas giants of the outer solar system (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune) boast even thicker atmospheres mostly comprised of hydrogen and helium with no visible surfaces underneath. Therefore, could this meteor survey method potentially be used to identify meteors on those planets?

Dr. Christou tells Universe Today, “In some sense, we already have! In 1994, the world observed the fragments of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 enter the atmosphere of Jupiter. More recently, amateur astronomers have observed the meteors caused by smaller, decameter-class objects against the disk of the planet. To observe fainter meteors, one would have to bring the detector and the planet closer together but, given that the gas giants have 1-2 orders of magnitude (with an order of magnitude being a factor of 10) more surface area than Earth, the potential is definitely there. Actually, such fainter meteors were detected by Voyager 1 during the brief encounter in 1979 and again more recently by the Juno orbiter. These incidents bode well for future orbital surveys.”

Studying meteoroids and meteors enables scientists to better understand the composition and properties of other planetary bodies throughout the solar system which also teaches us about the formation and evolution of the solar system, as well. As the exploration of Venus expands in the coming years, studying meteors within its thick atmosphere could provide even more clues to how we came to be, overall.

Dr. Christou concludes by telling Universe Today, “Meteors should be ubiquitous to planets and moons with appreciable atmospheres. For instance, one should expect to see meteors on Titan and even on Triton, the largest moon of Neptune where the atmospheric pressure at the surface is 100,000x lower than Earth.”

Will scientists send a Venus orbiter to study meteors within the Venusian atmosphere in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!

As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!

The post Venus is the Perfect Place to Count Meteors appeared first on Universe Today.

Does proton decay exist and how do we search for it? This is what a recently submitted study hopes to address as a team of international researchers investigate a concept of using samples from the Moon to search for evidence of proton decay, which remains a hypothetical type of particle decay that has yet to be observed and continues to elude particle physicists. This study holds the potential to help solve one of the longstanding mysteries in all of physics, as it could enable new studies into deep-level and the laws of nature, overall.

Here, Universe Today discusses this research with Dr. Patrick Stengel, who is a postdoctoral fellow in the Cosmology Group at INFN Ferrara Division, regarding the motivation behind the study, significant results, significance of searching for proton decay, implications for confirming the existence of proton decay, and turning their concept into reality. Therefore, what is the motivation behind the study?

Dr. Stengel tells Universe Today this research started around 2018 with lead author, Dr. Sebastian Baum, and other scientists regarding the use of paleo-detectors, which is a proposed method to examine particles that span vast periods of geological timeframes. This led to discussions with study co-author, Dr. Joshua Spitz—who became interested in paleo-detectors after several papers examined their potential to search for dark matter—and one of Dr. Spitz’s PhD students, regarding how paleo-detectors could be used to discover the existence of proton decay. However, the team published a study discussing how finding proton decay on Earth wasn’t possible due to atmospheric neutrinos.

“About one year after finishing atmospheric neutrino paper, Spitz suggested we consider mineral samples from the Moon,” Dr. Stengel tells Universe Today. “Due to the lack of an atmosphere, the cosmic ray-induced neutrino flux on the Moon is highly suppressed compared to the Earth. The corresponding suppression of the cosmic ray-induced neutrino interactions in paleo-detectors allows for a search for proton decay to at least be feasible in principle.”

For the study, the researchers proposed a hypothetical concept using paleo-detectors that would involve collecting mineral samples from more than 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) beneath the lunar surface and analyzing them for presence of proton decay, either on the Moon itself or back on Earth. The researchers note these lunar paleo-detector samples could yield proton lifetimes up to 1034 years. For context, the age of the universe is approximately 13.7 x 109 years. Therefore, what are the most significant results from this study?

Dr. Stengel tells Universe Today, “For a lunar mineral sample which is both sufficiently radiopure to mitigate radiogenic backgrounds and buried at sufficient depths for shielding from other cosmic ray backgrounds, we show that the sensitivity of paleo-detectors to proton decay could in principle be competitive with next-generation conventional proton decay experiments.”

As noted, proton decay continues to be a hypothetical type of particle decay and was first proposed in 1967 by the Soviet physicist and Nobel Prize laureate, Dr. Andrei Sakharov. As its name implies, proton decay is hypothesized to occur when protons decays into particle smaller than an atom, also called subatomic particles. As noted by this recent study and various previous studies, proton decay has yet to be discovered or observed. However, it is hypothesized to have the potential for better understanding our universe and the origin of life with quantum tunneling being proposed as a process of proton decay. Therefore, what is the significance of searching for proton decay, and what implications could its existence have for science, and specifically the field of particle physics, overall?

Dr. Stengel tells Universe Today, “Proton decay is a generic prediction of particle physics theories beyond the Standard Model (SM). In particular, proton decay could be one of the only low energy predictions of so-called Grand Unified Theories (GUTs), which attempt to combine all of the forces which mediate SM interactions into one force at very high energies. Physicists have been designing and building experiments to look for proton decay for over 50 years.”

Dr. Stengel continues, “The discovery of proton decay, whether in a mineral detector or a more conventional experiment, would have incredible implications for science in general and particle physics in particular. Such a discovery would be the first confirmation of particle physics beyond the SM. Depending on how well the proton decay signal could be characterized, we could learn something about the fundamental theory of nature.”

As noted, the hypothetical concept proposed by this study using pale-detectors to detect proton decay on the Moon would require collecting samples at least 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) beneath the lunar surface. For context, the deepest humans have ever collected samples from beneath the lunar surface was just under 300 centimeters (118 inches) with the drill core samples obtained from the Apollo 17 astronauts.

On Earth, the deepest human-made hole is the Kola Superdeep Borehole in northern Russia and measures approximately 12.3 kilometers (7.6 miles) in true vertical depth, along with requiring several holes to be drilled and several years to achieve. While the study notes the proposed concept using paleo-detectors on the Moon is “clearly futuristic”, what steps are required to take this concept from futuristic to realistic?

Dr. Stengel tells Universe Today, “As we are careful not to stray too far from our respective areas of expertise related to particle physics, we chose not to speculate much at all about the actual logistics of performing such an experiment on the Moon. However, we also thought that this concept was timely as various scientific agencies across different countries are considering a return to the Moon and planning for broad program of experiments.”

Dr. Stengel continues, “As you mention, the mineral samples would need to be extracted from at least about 5 km deep in the lunar crust. Thus, there would need to be a drilling rig delivered to and operated on the Moon which is capable of reaching such depths. While this logistical challenge seems daunting, we point out that e.g. NASA envisions sufficiently large payloads eventually being delivered to the Moon as part of the Artemis program.”

As noted, this study comes as NASA’s Artemis program plans to return astronauts to the lunar surface for the first time in more than 50 years with the goal of landing the first woman and person of color on the lunar surface, as well. Additionally, as scientific interest in paleo-detectors continues to grow, the concept proposed in this study could prove to be scientifically beneficial for not only discovering proton decay, but for us better understanding our place in the universe. Finally, it turns out that only a small sample will be necessary to make this proposed concept worth it.

Dr. Stengel tells Universe Today, “Due to the exposure of paleo-detectors to proton decay over billion-year timescales, only one kilogram of target material is necessary to be competitive with conventional experiments. In combination with the scientific motivation and the recent push towards returning humans to the Moon for scientific endeavors, we think paleo-detectors could represent the final frontier in the search for proton decay.”

How will paleo-detectors help scientists potentially discover proton decay in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!

As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!

The post Do Protons Decay? The Answer Might be on the Moon appeared first on Universe Today.

This essay stems from concerns about two editorials published in The New York Times recently. We felt that they were problematic in that the past is viewed through a blurred prism to produce revisionist history.

The post Why is The New York Times now promoting an anti-science agenda? first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

We have some essays as part of today’s trifecta, so I hope you’re not averse this morning to reading.

First, an article from the BBC about “adventurous” ginger tomcats. Now I’ve heard before about this association in moggies between coat color and adventurousness, but has it been scientifically tested? I don’t think so. Nevertheless, the article is good reading, as it shows cats doing un-catlike stuff.

As with all the headlines, click to read:

As you see, the evidence is scant:

The purring hospital helper. The railway station and supermarket regular. If there’s a cat hanging around a public space craving a stranger’s pat, the chances are it’s a ginger tom.

Owners often find themselves apologising to neighbours for feline acts of trespass or burglary.

Biologist and cat behaviour expert Roger Tabor, from Brightlingsea in Essex, says the “archetypal ‘big old ginger tom’ is the classic cat next door” and their behaviour could be down to the Vikings.

“The scientific consensus has been there are some breed temperament differences, such as lively Burmese or placid Persians, but not differences on colour,” he said.

“However, studies of owners’ perceptions tell a different story, with calico and grey cats being ‘aloof’ and the ginger cat being seen as ‘friendlier and more affectionate’.”

“To be a ginger cat, a female kitten has to inherit two copies of the ginger gene, but males only have to inherit one,” Mr Tabor explains.

“Measurements have also shown that generally male ginger toms are heavier than most cats of other colours. Male ginger cats tend to be both taller and broader than most other moggies – apart from the North American Maine Coon.”

So could their size and apparent fearlessness be the reasons behind this outgoing behaviour?

Who knows? But here are three ginger toms who are working cats. Photo credits in the photo:

Nala, the no-fuss stationmaster

Another ginger cat who seems to seek out human company – and in the busiest of places – is Nala, a cat who greets commuters daily at Stevenage railway station in Hertfordshire.

Named by his owner’s children after the lioness who befriended Simba in Disney classic, The Lion King, Nala is in fact, a tom.

Like Henry, Nala seems more than happy spending his days perched on top of ticket machines, seemingly unfazed as commuters stream past in a hurry.

Be sure to click the link to see more on Nala. Here’s another:

The busy bookworms

Three-legged ginger tom Jasper rose to fame in 2017 after his owner started taking him to work at the University of Cambridge’s Marshall Library of Economics.

Its “tea with Jasper” events proved incredibly popular with students who credited meeting the cat as helping reduce exam stress.

“Meet Jasper” events still take place at the library.

And not to be outdone, the University of East Anglia in Norwich has its own ginger bookworm, Sylvester.

Sylvester is often out and about in the campus grounds and buildings and this clever kitty regularly attends lectures or can be found asleep on the library information desk.

Like many of these sociable types, he also has his own Facebook group where students and staff proudly post photographs of their encounters with him.

. . . and one more:

Ernie, the artful burglar

Most owners have come to embrace their felines’ sense of fun, but one still getting to grips with it is Sydney Reid, owner of ginger puss Ernie, in Godmanchester in Cambridgeshire.

“Ernie is a total menace, we’ve had a pure white, a pure black, a tabby, a tuxedo – and Ernie – and he’s the only one to cause such problems within the neighbourhood – what is it about ginger cats?” she said.

Ms Reid said Ernie had become a bit of a chunky chap after “breaking and entering” other homes to steal food, for which she has apologised.

“We once had a neighbour knock on our door to let us know he’d taken an entire resting roast chicken off her kitchen side and out her kitchen window.”

There’s a dubious theory advanced, and of course it came from Scientific American:

“The perception that ginger toms are friendlier and more confident with people may make them less fearful of wandering around pavements and roads,” cat expert Mr Tabor said.

That outgoing nature could be one of the reasons ginger cats were apparently so popular with Vikings, he said.

“This was proposed by Neil B Todd almost 50 years ago in Scientific American, where he mapped the strong presence of the feline ginger gene on places that had Viking settlement in Europe and the UK.

“He believed the Vikings carried ginger cats from Turkey and around the Black Sea to Scandinavia and their settlements in Britain.

“York, once a Viking stronghold, still has a higher population of ginger cats than London.”

He added: “Vikings may just have liked the distinctive fur, but I would suggest that the perceived friendly, less-fearful nature of the ginger cat could be why it boldly strolled onto their boats.

Now cats almost certainly came to America with Europeans, but the Viking theory, especially for ginger toms, should be taken with many, many grains of salt.  Here’s another one, advancing a Viking-Maine Coon theory with somewhat more credibility, but I’m not sure how much credibility

The generally accepted hypothesis among breeders is the Maine Coon is descended from breeds brought overseas by English sea-farers or 11th-century Norsemen (the Vikings). The connection to the Norsemen is seen in the strong resemblance of the Maine Coon to the Norwegian Forest Cat, another breed that is said to have traveled with the Vikings.

Geigl’s [Eva-Maria Geigl,is an evolutionary geneticist at the Institut Jacques Monod in Paris] is the first large-scale study of ancient feline DNA – sequenced the DNA of 209 ancient feline specimens, which lived between 15,000 and the eighteenth century. The specimens were found in archeological sites in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Geigl released her findings last fall.

The study, reported in Popular Science Magazine and Science Alert, reveals cats likely experienced two waves of world-wide expansion.

When the team looked at mitochondrial DNA – genetic information passed from the mother only – they found wild cats from the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean shared a similar lineage, suggesting they spread through agricultural communities, attracted by the mice, which ate the grains produced by farmer

The second wave of expansion has been attributed to ancient sea-farers, who encouraged their presence aboard ship to keep the rodent population in check. Geigl cites cat remains found in a Viking site in northern Germany.

Now there is evidence that the Norse did come to America, as evidence by the L’Anse aux Meadows site in Newfoundland, dated about 1014, but we don’t know about the cats, and Geigl’s study has apparently not been published.

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From reader Debra, who, having sent the link notes:

“This is a real soap opera but the former feral cat is cared for. I’m glad to see the new D.C. law called the Animal Care and Control Omnibus Amendment Act. The animal has the status of a person. It doesn’t matter who has ownership of the animal but what is the best situation for the animal.”

Click to see the Washington Post article:

. . . . Over the next 2½ years, Kitty Snows got to know her neighbors, and they got to know her. She began to accepthand-fed treats and gentle pats on the head. She crashed college house parties near the George Washington University campus.She slipped into homes and napped on couches. The Foggy Bottom Association sold her likeness on T-shirts, mugs and trucker hats.In December 2022, she won the association’s Appreciation Award for “community service and the joy she brings to many who cross her path.”

And then, this February, Kitty Snows vanished.

Her caretakers batted around theories. A neighbor had recently spotted a red fox, which preys oncats. A black cat would face grim odds whilecrossing nearby K Street or Virginia Avenueon an ink-dark night — did Kitty Snows become too adventurous or insouciant? The city had recently experienced a rash of petnappings, though the scrappy feline did not have the pedigree or street value of, say, a French bulldog.

The neighbors mined social media for information. They posted “Missing Kitty Snows” signs. They set up a phone line for tips.

One citizen shared a possible lead by text message: “I watched the little black cat with the short tail enter into a cat trap and then the trap close.”

. . .Her absence was out of character, so the neighbors assembled an informal search party. While on a walk the early evening of Feb. 13, Denise says she ran into neighbor Tom Curtis, one of Kitty Snows’s many caretakers. She brought up the cat’s disappearance. Tom blithely responded that he had trapped Kitty Snows and, for her own health and safety, relocated her roughly 1,000 feet southwest to Watergate West. A resident was caring for her, 14 floors above the streetshe once ruled. Tom assured Denise that Kitty Snows was thrilled to trade her blue collar for a white one.

Denise was relieved. Kitty Snows was alive! But soon Denise’s head caught up with her heart, and she was struck by a realization.

This man has stolen our cat.

Now they think she’s in the Watergate apartments, home of the late Christopher Hitchens.  A cat matching her description lives there was treated by a vet for a nose infection due to allergies, and the vet said that it’s better that the cat remain indoors. As you’ll see in the story, the people of Foggy Bottom got a lawyer, and now there’s a big fight about who “owns” the cat. (I think it’s better off indoors.) It’s a long article, and I haven’t found it archived, but perhaps the link above will work for you. In the meantime, here’s a local news story about the elusive Kitty Snows:

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This is a beautiful Atlantic article by Tom Nichols, described by Wikipedia as “an American writer, academic specialist on international affairs, and retired professor at the U.S. Naval War College. His work deals with issues involving Russia, nuclear weapons, and national security affairs.”

If you don’t subscribe to The Atlantic (click on screenshot below), you can find the article archived here.

An excerpt:

Almost 15 years ago, I was in bad shape. I was divorced, broke, drinking too much, and living in a dated walk-up next to a noisy bar. (It was only minutes from my young daughter, it had a nice view of the bay here in Newport, and I could afford it.) The local veterinary hospital was a few doors down; they always kept one or two adoptable animals in the window. One day, a gorgeous black cat, with a little white tuxedo patch and big gold-green eyes, showed up in a small cage. I stared at her for a while. She stared back patiently.

You know, of course, what happened. Nichols took the cat in and named it Carla:

I was still deeply depressed, but every night, Carla would come and flake out over my keyboard as I struggled to work. That’s enough of that,she seemed to say. And then we would go into the living room, where I would sit in a chair and Carla would sit on the armrest. (We’ve now both seen almost every episode of Law & Order.) Slowly, she added routine to my life, but mostly, we had lots of hours of doing nothing—the quiet time that can feel sort of desolate if you’re alone, but like healing if you have the right company.

Soon, I started to see daylight. I met a woman named Lynn. I laid off the booze. I got help of various kinds.

Lynn started to come to the apartment more often, but Carla gave her a full examination before bestowing approval: That cat was not going to let some newcomer waltz in and wreck the careful feline therapy she’d been providing. Finally, Carla climbed on the pillows one morning and curled up around Lynn’s head. Okay, she was saying. Lynn can stay.

And so Nichols also adopted a girlfriend.  And then things got even better:

. . . Lynn and I soon realized that this was no ordinary cat. I’ve had smart cats, and some who were lovable but not very bright. Carla was not a prodigy, but she had a unique presence that even strangers on social media could see when I posted clips or pictures. I can attribute this only to an emotional intelligence, the bond that some animals have with people that lets them suss out who’s who and how we might be feeling. If you were sad, or sick, she was there. If the human vibes were happy, you could hear her purr from a room away.

Eventually, Lynn and I bloomed from friendship into love. Slowly, I put my life back in order, and Carla clearly thought that me getting on my feet was mostly her doing. It wasn’t that simple, but I will say this: A man blessed with a concerned doctor, a dedicated counselor, a wise priest, a few good friends, and a great love in his life can overcome much. But a man with all of those and a marvelous cat can really cover a lot of distance.

I finally bought a house, and Lynn and I married. Just as she had done with the apartment, Carla inspected the new digs and said: I approve. Instantly, it was her house.

One night Carla jumped insistently on the bed, and, waking up Lynn, they smelled smoke and discovered there was a fire.  It consumed nearly a quarter of their home, but everybody, including Carla, survived.

. . . The fire marshal later told us that if Carla hadn’t bought us that extra time, the fire—which hadn’t immediately tripped the smoke alarms, because it was caught between the floor and ceiling—would have broken through and engulfed the house (and us). He told us that cats are usually casualties of house fires because they hide out of fear and can’t be found in time. Carla, however, alerted us and then waited for us to come get her.

They had many good years thereafter with Carla, but then, of course, the inevitable happened, for cats don’t live as long as people.

The next day, our vet confirmed that there was little more we could do for Carla without tormenting her. I held her on my shoulder one last time as they gave her the first shot. Lynn and I stroked her head and whispered to her during the second shot, and our tears soaked her fur. And then she was gone.

We haven’t yet gotten used to a house without Carla in it. Like many who’ve lost a pet, we both still think we see her out of the corner of our eye. I still automatically look into my daughter’s room to see if she’s there. We still expect her at dinner, and Lynn still waits for her to come and say: Time for bed, let’s go. Eventually, we’ll welcome new animals into our home, and I’m sure we will love them. But Carla was a little friend unlike any I’d ever had—and I doubt I will ever owe another cat the debt that I owe her.

Here’s a six-minute MSNBC television interview with Nichols about the cat. It pretty much tells the whole story if you want to skip the article, but the article has a lot of other stuff about Carla’s personality and presence:

That corner-of-your eye happened to me, too, after I had to euthanize my beloved but lymphoma stricken white cat, Teddy. I haven’t had another cat since.  Here we are:

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Lagniappe: I give the YouTube notes:

When Jessica Leatherman’s daughter went into first grade this year, she started riding the school bus. However, the girl has a special friend who makes sure she gets to school safely. It’s their family cat Craig.

h/t: Gravelinspector, Debra

Today, wildlife is construed as including geology, in particular, photos from reader Kevin Elskin of a cave formation in Arkansas. Kevin’s notes are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

I was born and raised in Arkansas, and happily so. The Ozark Mountains are a fascinating place. Historically, Osage tribes hunted the area, but they never really settled it. The mountains are hundreds of millions of years old, slowly weathering into oblivion. Maybe their most majestic days are behind them, but they still have secrets to share if you care to go looking.

Today I would like to share some photos of Blanchard Springs Caverns, owned and operated by the United Stated Forest Service. It is located in north central Arkansas, due north of Little Rock and maybe forty miles from Missouri as the crow flies. Basically, the middle of nowhere. It is near Mountain Home, Arkansas, a small town noted for its folk music.

The main tour of Blanchard Springs is the Dripstone Trail. Elevators take you just over 200 feet underground, where you enter a cavern up to six stories tall. It is a live cave, still in the process of creating formations.

The first photo I took tries to capture the enormousness of the cavern. If you look carefully you can see the trails and walking paths through the cavern.

The following photos are of various formations; as much as possible I tried to include walkways to give some evidence of perspective.

Here is the cleverly named ‘Battleship’ formation:

As you reach the end of the tour you come to the soda straw room. I did a poor job of capturing it, but essentially there are tubular stalactites, each hollow with a bit of water clinging to the end.

Lastly, you can take a short drive and see where Blanchard Spring Creek empties from the caves:

So come visit Arkansas. Yeah, you are going to see Confederate license plates and plenty of Trump 2024 signs. But you will also meet some nice, friendly people and see some charming and beautiful sights. And there is nothing wrong with that.

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Is Lemuria a real place, or the fever dream of crackpots, mystics, conspiracy theorists, and Bigfoot hunters?

Below the waters where the Pacific and Indian Oceans lies a lost continent. One of hopes and dreams that housed a race of beings that arrived from foreign planets and from which sprang humanity, religion, civilization, and our modern world. It was called Lemuria and it was all fake.

What began as a theoretical land bridge to explain the mystery of lemurs on Madagascar quickly got hijacked to become the evolutionary home of humankind, the cradle of spirituality, and then the source of cosmological wonders. Abandoned by science as hokum, Lemuria morphed into a land filled with ancient, advanced civilizations, hollowed-out mountains full of gold and crystals, moon-beings descending in baskets, underground evil creatures, and a breast-feeding Bigfoot.

The history of Lemuria is populated with a dizzying array of people from early Darwinists to conspiracy spouting Congressmen, globetrotting madams, Rosicrucians, Hollow-Earthers, sci-fi writers, UFO contactees, sleeping prophets, New Age channelers, a “Mother God”, and a tequila swigging conspiracy theorist. Historian Justin McHenry provides a thoughtful exploration of how pseudo-science hijacked the gentle Victorian-era concept of Lemuria and, in following decades, twisted it into an all-encompassing home for alternative ideas about race, spirituality, science, politics, and the paranormal.

Justin McHenry is a writer, historian, and archivist. His writing has appeared in magazines such as FATE, newspapers, journals, and various online publications like Belt Mag, 100 Days of Appalachia, and he edited the collection of stories, The Garden at Rose Brake. He received his Master’s degree in History from West Virginia University. His new book is Lemuria: A True Story of a Fake Place.

Shermer and McHenry discuss:

• how organisms get to islands from mainlands
• rafting sweepstakes vs. land bridges.
• Alfred Russel Wallace and Island biogeography
• how lemurs get to Madagascar
• Zoologist Philip Sclater, 1864, first to propose a sunken continent beneath the Indian Ocean as a land bridge to account for biogeographical facts
• Ernst Haeckel, The History of Creation: proposed Lemuria as an explanation for the absence of proto-human missing links: monogenists vs. polygenists
• Haeckle to Hitler
• German romance sturm and drung science of hidden forces: Alexander von Humboldt, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
• James Churchward, Mu, lost continent in the Pacific Ocean
• Land of Mu and Atlantis
• Lemuria and human origins
• L. Sprague de Camp, Los Continents: The Atlantis Theme in History, Science, and Literature
• Ignatius Donnelly, Atlantis, and the romance of a lost past
• continental drift and plate tectonics and Lemuria
• Lemuria and Theosophy, anthroposophy and other occult beliefs
• Madame Blavatsky theorized that Australia was a remnant inland region of Lemuria that Aboriginal Australians and Aboriginal Tasmanians were of Lemurian and Lemuro-Atlantean origin
• Hermes Trismegistus and Hermeticism, Rosicrucians
• romancing the past
• Golden ages
• lost races
• pseudohistory, pseudoarchaeology and mythology.

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Mars holds a very special place in our hearts. Chiefly because of all the other planets in the Solar System Mars is probably the place we are going to find some tantalising clues or maybe even evidence of prehistoric life. NASA Perseverance Rover has been trundling around the Jezero Crater looking for evidence that it was once hospitable to life. To that end it has not only been collecting rock samples but air samples too and scientists can’t wait to get their hands on them. 

The Mars Perseverance Rover is part of NASA’s Mars 2020 mission. It launched on 30 July 2020 and landed in the Jezero Crater successfully on 18 February 2021. The site was picked because it’s a dried up river bed and if there is any evidence of ancient primitive life on Mars, it is a likely location. Perseverance is equipped with a host of instruments including a drone named Ingenuity to survey the planet. 

Mars Perseverence rover sent back this image of its parking spot during Mars Solar Conjunction. Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech

One exciting element of the mission is the collection of rock samples as part of the Mars Sample Return Campaign. Twenty four core samples have been collected to date and deposited on the surface ready for collection by a future mission. It’s not just rock samples that have been collected though. Known as ‘headspace’ there is air in the space around the rock samples and it is this that has got scientists excited. 

Not only do the rocks hold secrets about Mars but the atmosphere does too. It’s an atmosphere rich in Carbon Dioxide but is expected to have trace amounts of other gasses  too. Information about the current climate can be gained from the trapped gasses but it’s also possible to learn about the evolution of the atmosphere through analysis of the rocks. There is one particularly important tube that has been filled entirely with gas from the atmosphere. 

Image of the Martian atmosphere and surface obtained by the Viking 1 orbiter in June 1976. (Credit: NASA/Viking 1)

With the sample sat on the surface of Mars potentially for many years, the gas trapped will interact with the rock in the sample tube. It will only be when the tubes are opened up when they arrive back here on the Earth that the interaction will cease. It’s hoped to understand more about the levels of water vapour near the Martian surface. 

It isn’t just the water vapour that is of interest but the levels of trace gas too are of interest. Through analysing the gas samples we can tell if there are gasses like neon, argon and xenon which are non reactive gasses. Because these gasses do not react then there presence in the tube samples may suggest that Mars stated with an atmosphere. We know that it had a much thicker atmosphere in the past but we don’t know whether it has always been there or whether it developed later.  

There are many benefits that will come from analysing the samples even, the prevalence of dust that will help future human exploration. As Justin Simon from NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston said “The gas samples have a lot to offer Mars scientists, even those who don’t study Mars would be interested because it will shed light on how the planet forms and evolves.”

Source : Why Scientists Are Intrigued by Air in NASA’s Mars Sample Tubes

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