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Loneliness was long thought to cause health conditions ranging from diabetes to cardiovascular disease, but new research paints a more nuanced picture

Artificial intelligence has more in common with ants than humans, says Neil Lawrence. Only by taking a more nuanced view of intelligence can we see how machines will truly transform society

Using piezoelectricity, an engineering team developed wearable sensors to examine eye movement to assess brain disorders or damage to the brain.

A new study allays fears that rerouting flights to avoid forming climate-warming contrails could result in inadvertently making climate warming worse.

Researchers have developed a method to model a central theory of quantum gravity in the laboratory. Their goal: to decipher previously unexplained phenomena in the quantum world.

Researchers have developed a method to model a central theory of quantum gravity in the laboratory. Their goal: to decipher previously unexplained phenomena in the quantum world.

Astronomers have used the NASA/ESA James Webb Space Telescope to confirm that supermassive black holes can starve their host galaxies of the fuel they need to form new stars.

CREME is a virtual laboratory that allows scientists to simulate specific decreases in gene activity. It offers a powerful new tool for identifying and understanding important parts of the genome. And it could one day give scientists who don't have access to real laboratories the power to make breakthrough discoveries.

Under the right conditions, liquid crystals condense into astonishing structures, spontaneously generating filaments and flattened discs that can transport material from one place to another, much like complex biological systems. The insight may lead to self-assembling materials, new ways to model cellular activity and more.

New research has solved the mystery of how the Crystal Palace in London, which at the time was the world's largest building, was constructed in only 190 days and completed just in time for the start of the Great Exhibition of 1851. The study has discovered that the Crystal Palace was the first building known to have made use of a standard screw thread -- something that's now taken for granted in modern construction and engineering. Before this, no two nuts and bolts were the same.

The importance of disorder in physics is only matched by the difficulty to study it. For example, the remarkable properties of high-temperature superconductors are greatly affected by variations in the chemical composition of the solid. Techniques that enable measurements of such disorder and its impact on the electronic properties, such as scanning tunnelling microscopy, work only at very low temperatures, and are blind to these physics near the transition temperature. Now, a team of researchers has demonstrated a new way to study disorder in superconductors using terahertz pulses of light.

Researchers have managed to enhance the framework of Brownian reservoir computing by recording and transferring hand gestures to the system which then used skyrmions to detect these individual gestures.

The long-standing mystery of how supermassive black holes grew so huge so quickly could be solved by decaying dark matter

The Moon just brushes the umbral shadow of the Earth during Tuesday night’s partial lunar eclipse.

A shallow partial lunar eclipse is on tap for the night of September 17th/18th. The eclipse is a slight one to be sure, but will be noticeable as the northwestern limb of the Moon just slips past the dark inner umbral shadow of the Earth. The eclipse is just over 8% partial at its maximum, meaning the Full Moon will look a little ‘smushed’ on one side at mid-eclipse.

The path of the Moon through the Earth’s shadow Tuesday night. Credit: F.Espenak/NASA/GSFC. Additional annotations by author. Timing and Visibility

The eclipse will be visible in its entirety around the Atlantic Ocean region, including western Africa and Europe, eastern North America, and all of South America. Eastern Europe and Africa will see the eclipse in progress at moonset towards sunrise, while western North America will see the eclipse already underway at moonrise/sunset. The umbral (partial) phase of the eclipse lasts not quite 63 minutes in duration, and is centered on 2:45 Universal Time (UT) Sept 18th/10:45 PM U.S. East Coast Time (EDT) on the evening of Tuesday, September 17th. The entire penumbral phase of the eclipse starts at 00:41 UT/8:41PM EDT, and runs about 4 hours and six minutes in duration.

A map showing the visibility footprint of Tuesday night’s eclipse. F. Espenak/NASA/GSFC A Complicated Celestial Affair

This is also a complex event, before and after the eclipse. First up, the Moon occults (passes in front of) the planet Saturn for western North America, just over 15 hours prior. Then, the Moon reaches perigee (its closest point to the Earth) just 10 hours after the eclipse. This will likely lead to cries of a ‘Supermoon eclipse’ across ye ‘ole web. Don’t buy into any purported ‘Blood Moon’ hype; the Moon won’t go far enough into the umbral shadow of the Earth to turn red. Finally, the Moon also occults Neptune for North America just over five hours after the eclipse, a challenging event indeed.

The start of the January 31st, 2018 lunar eclipse. Credit: Marion Haligowski.

The September Moon nearest the Equinox (which falls on Sunday, September 22nd, for 2024) is also known as the Harvest Moon. Not only did the illumination from the Full Moon give farmers in the pre-industrial era a few extra hours to get the harvest in, but the angle of the ecliptic is shallow enough in September that the Moon seems to linger from one night to the next, rising only slightly later. I remember growing up picking potatoes in Northern Maine in September, working our way home on foot under the light of the Harvest Moon.

A partial lunar eclipse over London, UK from April 25th, 2013. Credit: Sculptor Lil. Catching This Week’s Partial Lunar Eclipse

Observing and imaging the eclipse is as simple as following the Full Moon Tuesday night at the appointed time. Modern phones zoomed in will produce a clear image, as will a phone camera aimed through the eyepiece of a telescope. You probably won’t notice anything is amiss with the eclipse until about 30 minutes into the penumbral phase. Then, the Moon may seem to have a bit of a tea-colored tint. Towards the partial phase, the ragged umbral shadow of the Earth will just brush the Moon. The curve of the shadow cast by the Earth will become apparent, visual proof that our fair planet is indeed round.

The Partial Lunar Eclipse…As Seen From Space

The spectacle extends out into space as well. Most of the Earthward face of the Moon will experience a partial solar eclipse, except the very northwestern limb, which will see a total solar eclipse. Perhaps one day, human astronauts will stand on the Moon and witness this event.

A time lapse of Tuesday night’s eclipse as seen from the northwest limb of the Moon. Credit: Stellarium. Tales of the Saros

Eclipses (lunar or solar) occur in groups known as saroses, with members spaced 18.04 years (223 synodic months) apart. Several saroses are active at any given time. This is eclipse member 52 of 74 for lunar saros series 118, meaning this cycle is past its prime on its way out. Lunar saros 118 began waaaaay back on March 2nd, 1105. This saros produced its first total lunar eclipse on August 22nd, 1393, and final one on June 22nd, 1880. If you caught the September 7th, 2006 partial lunar eclipse centered over the Indian Ocean region, you caught the last member of this saros cycle. The final member of saros series (a barely perceptible penumbral eclipse) occurs on… (mark your calendars) May 7th, 2403.

This marks the start of the final eclipse season of 2024. This is book-ended by an annular solar eclipse two weeks from now on October 2nd. This event spans Easter Island in the South Pacific, and the southern tip of South America.

The next lunar eclipse is a total lunar eclipse on March 13-14th 2025 favoring the Americas. This ends the current ongoing ‘lunar eclipse drought,’ as the last one occurred on November 8th, 2022.

The partial phase start of a lunar eclipse. Credit: Dave Dickinson

If skies are clear, be sure to give this final lunar eclipse of 2024 a look Tuesday night.

The post Earth’s Shadow Nicks the Moon During This Week’s Partial Lunar Eclipse appeared first on Universe Today.

Up to now, the main source of information about cancellations was the “Campus Deplatforming Database” FIRE (the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression). Going back to 1998, it now lists 1,507 deplatforming attempts on campus, of which 626 were successful (there have been 110 this year alone). They define these attempts this way:

A deplatforming attempt is a form of intolerance motivated by more than just mere disagreement with, or even protest of, some form of expression. It is an attempt to prevent some form of expression from occurring. Deplatforming attempts include efforts to disinvite speakers from campus speeches or commencement ceremonies, to cancel performances of concerts, plays, or the screenings of movies, or to have controversial artwork removed from public display. An attempt to disrupt a speech or performance that is in progress is also considered a deplatforming attempt, whether it succeeds or fails.

Deplatforming attempts do not include criticisms of some form of expression and protests denouncing them that are not motivated by the goal of deplatforming the controversial expression.

Here are a few examples in a screenshot (click to read); go to the page to read more.

When you click on “view” to the right, you get more details about the incidents, including whether the deplatforming attempt came from the Left, Right, somewhere else, or isn’t known.

For example, I didn’t know that Bari Weiss was the subject of an unsuccessful deplatforming attempt at UNC Chapel Hill this year (the subject was Israel). The deplatforming attempt came from the Left, and among the details FIRE notes that

“About 25 minutes into Weiss’ discussion with Frank Bruni, protesters affiliated with Students for Justice in Palestine began waving Palestine flags and shouting at the stage. A university administrator took to the podium and informed the protesters that, as per university policy, they are not allowed to disrupt the event and must leave. Police escorted the protesters out of the event and Weiss and Bruni resumed and completed their discussion.”

SJP never gives up!  At any rate, the source of the deplatforming, Left or Right, gives an interesting take on who’s trying to cancel people. I once did a survey over a few decades, and, as I recall, early on deplatforming attempts seemed to come almost equally from the Left or Right, while in the last seven or eight years ago the majority of them, by far, came from the Left.  I just looked at the first 20 on the list, and found that 13 deplatformings came from the Left and the other 7 from the Right, but of course there are multiple events from a school at the same time. But I’d bet my hat that in the last five years, a sizable majority of deplatforming events came from the Left, which is a weakness of my side. People on the Left, or at least liberals, are not supposed to suppress speech.

The weakness of the FIRE survey compared to the one below is that the former deals only with deplatforming attempts on campus.

There is now a new “cancellation” database (click the screenshot) that has two advantages: it deals with cancellations that don’t just occur on campus, and these are cancellations that, when successful (most of them have been) result not in the ending of a talk or speech, but in substantial damage to a person’s career, including firing, demotion, and so on. Some details are given.

The new “canceled people” list includes about 210 victims, some of whom you will recognize. All the cancellations appear to have occurred this year, though the offenses may have occurred several years before, as with  They come from several Western countries, though mostly from the U.S.

And, as far as I can see, none of the cancellations were justified. In some cases, the courts or other appeals reversed the cancellations.

First, part of what they say about the reason why the database was constructed and how they define cancellation. There’s more at the “about” page.

Purpose

We are building a database of people who have been “canceled”.

Our purpose is to better understand cancel culture itself as a phenomenon. How does it manifest? How is it evolving? How does it affect societal norms around free speech that enable democracy to function and flourish? By consolidating as many well-sourced data points as possible, we hope to give researchers and others the tools to explore and draw their own conclusions.

What does it mean to be canceled?

There has been some controversy over whether or not cancel culture is real. Obviously, we do think it is real – that is the whole reason this database exists!

Part of the problem when discussing cancel culture’s prevalence and existence is that there has been no clear definition of what it means to be canceled.

For the purposes of this database, we will use the following definition:

1. The canceled person has been targeted for behavior that falls within the boundaries of “reasonable expression” (see more on this below). The “offense” may not be recent, and it may not even be their own action.
2. The canceled person has lost their job or position (this includes forced resignations). Their future professional opportunities have been limited. If they are self-employed, they have suffered financial losses from a boycott or sabotage of their company.
3. The canceled person has faced a coordinated effort to silence them. The effort seeks to render their person or their ideas unfit to discuss.
4. The canceled person has faced a coordinated effort to shame them and destroy their reputation. The effort seeks to damage their self-worth and will likely target their personal or professional relationships.

What is not included?

It is perhaps as important to define what should not be considered a “canceled person”:

1. A person who has been subject to harsh criticism or disagreement. Disagreeing with someone’s speech or behavior, even in a cruel way, is not the same as canceling them.
2. A person who has been subject to online harassment but no “real-world” consequences. We recognize that online harassment and bullying can be horrific. Part of what makes cancelation unique is the attempt to bring the person down by moving outside of the online space. Most commonly, this involves contacting their employer or making them unemployable.
3. A person who has said or done something outside of the window of reasonable expression and therefore is predictably getting their comeuppance. This could include many different things: saying a racial slur with the intention to wound, inflicting a sexual fetish on others, denying the Holocaust, etc. Our society does have legitimate reasons to shun a person, and employers have legitimate reasons to fire an employee.
4. A person who has said or done something illegal. This one seems obvious, but for example, threatening a person online may lead to real-world “cancelation” as well as legal action – rightly so!
5. A person who had the attempt made to cancel them that did not succeed. There are many examples of this and we believe they are troubling and worth paying attention to – they likely do have “chilling effects” on free speech. However, they are an example of the system working properly; the mob went after someone and did not succeed.

Here are a few examples that you can find by using the “find” function on the site. There are links so you can verify the cancellations from sources on the Internet:

It’s interesting to peruse the list, but keep in mind that people’s careers have been wrecked by this stuff. Remember this one?

And this one, also involving the New York Times?

Almost all of these involve freedom of speech, though there are cancellations for stuff like refusals to sign oaths and, in the case of NYT editor James Bennet, for simply running an op-ed that didn’t comport with the ideology of the NYT.  His being forced out wasn’t a violation of the First Amendment, as a paper can fire whom it wants, but it was unjustified and a violation of the canons of good journalism.

Anyway, have a look.

I’ll keep posting ’em as long as you keep sending ’em.  Do it!

Today’s photos come from Susan Harrison at UC Davis, who shows the flora and fauna of an “island in the sky”. Her captions are indented and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

A cool — in both senses — island in the sky

During the record heat of summer 2024, the summit of Mt. Ashland in Oregon was an attractive refuge.  When the mercury reached triple digits in downtown Ashland, it was possible to drive one’s electric car only half an hour from the town to the 7,532-foot mountaintop and reach beautiful views, abundant wildflowers, and 30-degree cooler temperatures (by the standard formula of 5.5 degrees Fahrenheit per 1000 feet of elevation).

Rare plants were an additional enticement.  Mt. Ashland has been designated a special botanical area thanks to the numerous unique plants found in the crumbly granite close to the summit.  The reasons for this specialness include being an isolated “island” of subalpine habitat that was evidently never wiped clean by glaciers during the Ice Ages.   Here are two examples.

Mt. Ashland Lupine (Lupinus aridus ashlandensis):

Jaynes Canyon Buckwheat (Eriogonum diclinum), a dioecious plant (the yellower and browner flowers may belong to individuals of different sexes):

Yet another attraction was the lush wildflower meadows just below the summit, where many birds and insects could be seen making use of pollen, nectar and seeds.

One of the flashiest of these was Rufous Hummingbirds (Selasphorus rufus) nectaring on the six- to eight-foot-tall Tower Larkspurs (Delphinium glaucum):

Orange-crowned Warbler (Leiothlypis celata) on Angelica (Angelica arguta):

Sand wasp (Bembix americana) on Bigelow’s Sneezeweed (Helenium bigelovii):

Unstable Longhorned Beetle (Judolia instabilis) on Ranger’s Buttons (Angelica capitellata or Sphenosciadium capitellatum):

Yellow-faced Bumblebee (Bombus vosnesenskii) approaching Sulfur-flowered Buckwheat (Eriogonum umbellatum):

Milbert’s Tortoiseshell (Aglais milberti) on Mountain Coyotemint (Monardella odoratissima):

Another treat was to see a pair of White-headed Woodpeckers (Picoides albolarvatus) casually foraging their way up a massive Shasta Red Fir (Abies procera x magnifica):

Mars has always held a special place in our hearts, likely from hints over the decades of perhaps finding signs of life, albeit fossilised and primitive. It’s been the subject of study from telescopes and space missions alike, most notably ESA’s Mars Express which has been observing the red planet for 20 years. Over the two decades of observation it has studied an amazing variety of atmospheric phenomenon which have now been catalogued in a new ‘Cloud Atlas.’ Many will be familiar to sky watchers on Earth but some are very different. 

The atmosphere of the red planet is thin and mostly composed of carbon dioxide. There are traces of nitrogen and argon but with an atmospheric pressure of just 1% of the Earth’s it’s inhospitable for human life. The rarefied atmosphere provides insufficient insulation to the surface leading to aggressive temperature fluctuations from -125°C on night time side to 20°C during the day. It’s not unusual for dust storms to whip up in the atmosphere sometimes encircling the entire planet. It’s in this atmosphere that a multitude of cloud features have been observed. 

Mars, Credit NASA

Over the last 20 years, Mars Express has been studying the cloud formations in the Martian atmosphere. It was launched in June 2003 to study Mars remotely from an orbit around the red planet. Mars Express was not only studying atmospheric phenomenon but also the surface, subsurface and geological history. With a suite of scientific instruments from high resolution cameras and radar to spectrometers and atmospheric sensors, Mars Express is well equipped for the task. 

Using the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HSRC) on board Mars Express, images of a multitude of clouds have been captured. The clouds are usually the result of microscopic dust particles in the atmosphere around which, water and carbon dioxide crystals form. The dust particles themselves can be left hanging in the atmosphere following unusually strong winds that lift large quantities of dust into the atmosphere. They are occasionally seen as large beige coloured clouds. In the north polar regions it’s possible to see giant spiral dust storms as cyclonic storm systems develop. They are one of the drivers of the global weather systems seen on Mars and studying them is crucial to understanding the dynamics of the atmosphere. 

In January 2024, DLR’s HRSC on board ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft captured the Caralis Chaos region, which has several interesting and sometimes puzzling landscape features – such as a field of small, light-coloured hills to the northeast (bottom-right of the image). The mounds are located in the remains of a depression that was once filled by a lake. Image Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin (CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO)

So called ‘gravity waves’ are a common sight on Mars as they are on Earth. Somewhat resembling rolling hills or the rippling of water, they are usually seen in the mid-latitudes in the colder winter months. A particular type of these gravity waves, known as Lee waves, can build up on the downwind side of mountains and ridges. The presence of the mountain or other large obstacle disturbs the laminar flow of air to generate the effect.

The study has led to a Martian cloud spotters dream, the publication of a fully browsable 20-years of cloud images and data. It was created by the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) in Berlin and is proving invaluable helping researchers to gain a better understanding of the Martian atmosphere. In particular how the different dynamical processes can lead to the clouds seen. The ‘Atlas’ which is available to the public here has been presented at the Europlanet Science Congress in Berlin by Daniela Tirsch form DLR.

Source : Cloud Atlas of Mars Showcases Array of Atmospheric Phenomena

The post Mars has an Amazing Variety of Clouds appeared first on Universe Today.

Last month my flight home from Chicago was canceled because of an intense rainstorm. In CT the storm was intense enough to cause flash flooding, which washed out roads and bridges and shut down traffic in many areas. The epicenter of the rainfall was in Oxford, CT (where my brother happens to live), which qualified as a 1,000 year flood (on average a flood of this intensity would occur once every 1,000 years). The flooding killed two people, with an estimated $300 million of personal property damage, and much more costly damage to infrastructure.

Is this now the new normal? Will we start seeing 1,000 year floods on a regular basis? How much of this is due to global climate change? The answers to these questions are complicated and dynamic, but basically yes, yes, and partly. This is just one more thing we are not ready for that will require some investment and change in behavior.

First, some flooding basics. There are three categories of floods. Fluvial floods (the most common in the US) occur near rivers and lakes, and essentially result from existing bodies of water overflowing their banks due to heavy cumulative or sudden rainfall. There are also pluvial floods which are also due to rainfall, but occur independent of any existing body of water. The CT flood were mainly pluvial. Finally, there are coastal flood related to the ocean. These can be due to extremely high tide, storm surges from intense storms like hurricanes, and tsunamis which are essentially giant waves.

How does global warming contribute to flooding? First, there has been about 6-8 inches of sea level rise in the last 100 years. As water warms in expands, which causes some of the sea level rise. Also, melting glacial ice ends up in the ocean. Sea ice melt does not contribute, because the ice is already displacing the same amount of water as it would occupy when melted. Higher sea levels means higher high tide, resulting in more tidal flooding. Increased temperature also means there is more moisture in the air which leads to heavier rainfall – more fluvial and pluvial flooding and storm surges.

In terms of flooding damage there are other factors at play as well. We have been developing more property in floodplains – in the US we developed 2 million acres of property in floodplains in the last two decades, half of which was in Florida.

In addition there have been two development trends that can worsen flooding. We also put down a lot of concrete and asphalt. When it rains or there is a storm surge, the water has to go somewhere. Flooding results when the water in exceeds the water out. Water out includes rivers carrying water to the sea, but also the land absorbing water. The more land that is covered with concrete, the farther the water has to spread before it gets absorbed. The result is increased flooding.

Further, local communities often build damns and levies in order to protect themselves from flooding. This can be coastally or along rivers. However – this can make flooding worse. It actually extends the floodplain deeper inland or farther from major rivers, and intensifies the flooding when it occurs. Again, the water has to go somewhere. This means that even communities dozens of miles inland may still be in a coastal floodplain, even if they are not aware and don’t have proper protections (including flood insurance). The result is a predictable increase in flood damage. According to FEMA:

“From 1980–2000, the NFIP paid almost $9.4 billion in flood insurance claims. From 2000–2020, that number increased over 660% to $62.2 billion.”

What can we do? We can’t change the laws of physics. Water is heavy, and flowing water can have massive momentum, capable of causing extreme damage. People caught in a flood learn the hard way how powerful water can be, which is why so many people are just “swept away” by flood waters. Also, once flooding occurs, flowing water will likely carry a lot of debris, which just adds to further damage. We also can’t change the physics of the water cycle – water will evaporate and then rain back down, and will have to flow to bodies of water or get absorbed into soil.

What we can do is everything possible to slow and hopefully stop anthropogenic climate change. This is just one more reason we need to transition to a green economy. Increasing flood damage (and the cost of mitigation) needs to be factored into the cost of emitting CO2.

But we already have the effects of existing climate change, and a certain amount is already baked in over the next century regardless of what we do (it will just be degrees of bad depending on how quickly we decarbonize our industries). This means we need to think about flooding mitigation. This is economically and socially tricky. There are existing communities in floodplains, and it would be no simple matter to uproot and move them. There are also a lot of economic incentives why states and communities would want to expand into floodplains. Lakeside and coastal properties are often attractive.

It does seem reasonable, however, to set limits on development in high risk floodplains, and to encourage shifting to lower risk areas. I don’t think we should uproot communities, but arranging incentives and regulations so that trends over time shift away from floodplains is feasible. Also, if a community is devastated by a flood, perhaps we shouldn’t just rebuild in a floodplain. If we have to rebuild anyway, why not somewhere safer. I know this is massively complex and painful, but just rebuilding in a high (and increasing) risk floodplain does not seem rational.

Local regulations can also require building standards that are resistant to flooding, such as putting homes on raised foundations, and putting structures on relatively high land while leaving lowing lying lands for water flow. Communities in floodplains, in other words, need to be engineered with flooding in mind. Have lots of open soil to absorb water, have adequate drainage to accommodate heavy rainfall, and raise up property as high as possible.

Finally, civil engineers need to continue to study the dynamics of floodplains to make sure, at least, we aren’t making the problem worse when each community just tries to protect themselves. We need an integrated plan to manage the entire floodplain.

It’s a difficult problem, and there is no simple solution. But I have been reading about this topic for years, and it seems like we are still having the same problems and wrangling over the same issues. There are efforts on the Federal level to address flooding, but they all seem either reactive or small scale. We may need an aggressive national-level strategy to properly address this issue. Otherwise – get ready for 1,000 year flooding.

The post Flooding is Increasing first appeared on NeuroLogica Blog.

A species of leaf chameleon newly named Brookesia nofy was discovered in a patch of coastal rainforest, a highly threatened habitat in Madagascar

The Florida Department of Health, run by Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo, just released guidance on COVID-19 vaccines based on antivax tropes. Is the federal government next?

The post Dr. Joseph Ladapo’s assault on public health in Florida: Will it be coming to the federal government next year? first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.