News Feeds

A carnation-like nanostructure could someday be used in bandages to promote wound healing. Researchers report that laboratory tests of their nanoflower-coated dressings demonstrate antibiotic, anti-inflammatory and biocompatible properties. They say these results show these tannic acid and copper(II) phosphate sprouted nanoflower bandages are promising candidates for treating infections and inflammatory conditions.

According to the Giant Impact Hypothesis, the Moon formed from a massive impact between a primordial Earth and a Mars-sized object (Theia) roughly 4.5 billion years ago. This is largely based on the study of sample rocks retrieved by the Apollo missions and seismic studies, which revealed that the Earth and Moon are similar in composition and structure. Further studies of the surface have revealed features that suggest the planet was once volcanically active, including lunar maria (dark, flat areas filled with solidified lava).

In the past, researchers suspected that these maria were formed by contractions in the interior that occurred billions of years ago and that the Moon has remained dormant ever since. However, a new study conducted by researchers from the National Air and Space Museum (NASM) and the University of Maryland (UMD) revealed small ridges on the Moon’s far side that are younger than those on the near side. Their findings constitute another line of evidence that the Moon still experiences geological activity billions of years after it formed.

The research was conducted by Cole Nypaver and Thomas R. Watters, a postdoctoral student and Senior Geologist with the NASM’s Center for Earth and Planetary Studies at the Smithsonian Institute. They were joined by Jackie Clark, an Assistant Research Scientist with UMD’s Department of Geology. The paper detailing their findings, “Recent Tectonic Deformation of the Lunar Farside Mare and South Pole–Aitken Basin,” recently appeared in the Planetary Science Journal.

Based on previous research, scientists have determined that the Moon once had a magnetic field. Like Earth’s, this field was powered by a dynamo in the Moon’s interior caused by a liquid outer core (surrounding a solid inner core) that rotated opposite to its axial rotation. However, crystallization began in the Moon’s core about 4 billion years ago, causing this dynamo to disappear between 2.5 and 1 billion years ago. This led to the disappearance of its magnetosphere and volcanic activity, ceasing about 3 billion years ago. As Clark summarized in a recent UMD press release:

“Many scientists believe that most of the Moon’s geological movements happened two and a half, maybe three billion years ago. But we’re seeing that these tectonic landforms have been recently active in the last billion years and may still be active today. These small mare ridges seem to have formed within the last 200 million years or so, which is relatively recent considering the moon’s timescale.”

Using advanced mapping and modeling, Nypang, Watters, and Clark found 266 previously unknown small ridges on the Moon’s far side. These were largely arranged in groups of 10 to 40 ridges that likely formed in narrow areas 3.2 to 3.6 billion years ago where underlying weaknesses in the lunar crust may have existed. Based on a technique known as “crater counting,” the team found that these ridges were notably younger than other features in their surroundings.

“Essentially, the more craters a surface has, the older it is; the surface has more time to accumulate more craters,” said Clark. “After counting the craters around these small ridges and seeing that some of the ridges cut through existing impact craters, we believe these landforms were tectonically active in the last 160 million years.”

New measurements of lunar rocks have demonstrated that the ancient Moon generated a dynamo magnetic field in its liquid metallic core (innermost red shell). Credit: Hernán Cañellas/Benjamin Weiss

The team also noted that the ridges observed on the far side of the Moon were similar in structure to ones found on the near side. This suggests both were created by the same forces, possibly by shallow moonquakes first detected by the Apollo missions. Scientists have since deduced that these are caused by a combination of shifts in the Moon’s orbit and its gradual shrinking – which explains why the Moon still experiences landslides. Understanding the factors that shape the lunar surface is of immense importance to future lunar missions.

As Clark indicated, this presents opportunities for further studies of lunar evolution:

“We hope that future missions to the moon will include tools like ground penetrating radar so researchers can better understand the structures beneath the lunar surface. Knowing that the moon is still geologically dynamic has very real implications for where we’re planning to put our astronauts, equipment and infrastructure on the moon.”

Further Reading: University of Maryland, The Planetary Science Journal

The post Evidence of Recent Geological Activity on the Moon appeared first on Universe Today.

Speaking of FIRE and free speech, I got an email from that organization this morning about how The University of Connecticut has altered the traditional Hippocratic Oath to reflect Social Justice considerations. (It’s far from the only med school that has done this.)  This can be considered compelled speech, which students are supposed to recite even if they disagree with it. You can see the traditional forms of the oath here, and hear the newer one here, starting at 44:12. The students are asked to repeat the oath after the speaker.

The new oath is also transcribed below at the Do No Harm site; I’ve put in a red box the parts that disturbed FIRE:

Here’s the email I got from FIRE:

Incoming medical students typically recite the Hippocratic Oath, a pledge to do no harm to patients. But last August, the University of Connecticut required freshmen medical students to recite an ideologically-charged version of the Hippocratic Oath that reads, in part, 

“I will strive to promote health equity. I will actively support policies that promote social justice and specifically work to dismantle policies that perpetuate inequities, exclusion, discrimination and racism.”

The school violated students’ First Amendment rights against compelled speech by forcing them to affirm contested political viewpoints. The oath effectively emboldens administrators to punish students who, in their opinion, failed to uphold these nebulous commitments. What, exactly, must a medical student do to “support policies that promote social justice”? If a student disagrees with UConn’s definition of “social justice” or chooses not to promote it in the prescribed way, could she be dismissed for violating her oath?

Today, free speech group FIRE called on UConn to make clear that students may refrain from reciting all or part of the oath without any threat of penalty and will not have to affirm any political viewpoints as a condition of their education at the school.

FIRE Program Officer Ross Marchand: “The constant threat of discipline hangs over UConn students. At any time, administrators could decide that a student has broken the vague, partisan oath that she was forced to take. Even an insufficient commitment to ‘social justice’ could land a student in trouble. UConn prioritized politics and ideology above education and the First Amendment, creating a culture of compulsion and fear.”

Thanks! Check out our letter to the school and our blog post.

The blog post notes this:

In August, UConn required the incoming class of 2028 to pledge allegiance not simply to patient care, but to support diversity, equity, and inclusion. The revised oath, which was finalized in 2022, includes a promise to “actively support policies that promote social justice and specifically work to dismantle policies that perpetuate inequities, exclusion, discrimination and racism.”

This practice is a grave affront to students’ free speech rights. In January, FIRE called the medical school to confirm that the oath is mandatory; an admissions staff member told us it was. We are asking them to confirm this in writing.

As a public university, UConn is strictly bound by the First Amendment and cannot compel students to voice beliefs they do not hold. Public institutions have every right to use educational measures to try to address biases they believe stymie the healthcare system. But forcing students to pledge themselves to DEI policies — or any other ideological construct — with which they may disagree is First Amendment malpractice. This is no different than forcing students to pledge their allegiance to a political figure or the American flag.

. . .   and adds that these “Social Justice Oaths” are not uncommon:

UConn isn’t alone in making such changes to the Hippocratic Oath. Other prestigious medical schools, including those at Harvard, Columbia, Washington University, Pitt Med, and the Icahn School of Medicine, have adopted similar oaths in recent years. However, not all schools compel students to recite such oaths. When we raised concerns in 2022 about the University of Minnesota Medical School’s oath, which includes affirming that the school is on indigenous land and a vow to fight “white supremacy,” the university confirmed that students were not obligated to recite it. That’s the very least UConn could do to make clear that it puts medical education — and the law — ahead of politics.

The letter suggests that taking this oath is not optional but mandatory. From FIRE’s letter from Marchand to Dean Bruce Liang of the UConn Medical School:

FIRE called the UConn School of Medicine Admissions Office to clarify whether the oath, including these additions, is mandatory for students participating in the ceremony. A staff member confirmed that this oath is required for all incoming students. We have also emailed the admissions office to confirm the mandatory nature of the oath but have yet to receive a
written response.

. . . While UConn may encourage students to adopt the views contained in the oath, the First Amendment bars the university from requiring them to do so.  The First Amendment protects not only the right to speak but the right to refrain from speaking. As the Supreme Court has notably held, public institutions may not compel individuals to “declare a belief [and] … to utter what is not in [their] mind.”8 Requiring new students to pledge their loyalty to a particular ideology violates students’ expressive rights, is inconsistent with the role of the university as a bastion of free inquiry, and cannot lawfully be enforced at a public institution. UConn can require students to adhere to established medical standards, but this authority cannot be abused to demand allegiance to a prescribed set of political views—even ones that many students may hold.  Specifically, the school may not compel students to pledge to support or promote concepts such as “social justice” and “equity,” notions that have long been the subject of intense political polarization and debate

You’d think that these deans would know something about the prohibition about compelled speech, but of course they cannot conceive that anybody would opopose the social justice-y bits of their new Oath. They clearly need a lesson in the First Amendment!

Finally FIRE asks for a response in two weeks:

FIRE calls on UConn to make clear that students may refrain from reciting all or part of the oath without any threat of penalty and will not have to affirm any political viewpoints as a condition of their education at the school.
We request receipt of a response to this letter no later than the close of business on February 14, 2025

You can go to this page to send a quick fill-in-the-form letter. I did.

The odds of a sizable asteroid striking Earth are small, but they’re never zero. Large asteroids have struck Earth in the past, causing regional devastation. A really large asteroid strike likely contributed to the extinction of the dinosaurs. So we shouldn’t be too surprised that astronomers have discovered an asteroid with a better than 1% chance of striking our world. Those odds are large enough we should keep an eye on them, but not large enough that we should start packing bags and fleeing to the hills.

The rock, named 2024 YR4, is somewhere between 40 – 100 meters wide, which would make it a “city killer” asteroid. If it does strike Earth, it wouldn’t decimate human civilization and cause mass extinctions, but it could destroy a heavily populated area if it struck a city, or trigger a tsunami if it struck the ocean. It would back a punch similar to the 1908 Tunguska event in Northern Siberia.

So what is the overall risk of 2024 YR4? The scale most commonly used for asteroid impact risks is known as the Torino Scale. It combines the overall size and relative speed of an object with its odds of impact to assign a number ranging from 0 to 10, where 0 means there is no risk of impact and 10 means it’s time to call Bruce Willis to save us all from extinction. That said, the highest number any asteroid has had on the scale is 4. This was for the asteroid Apophis soon after its discovery, which has now been downgraded to 0.

Currently, 2024 YR4 has a 3 on the scale, which means it “merits attention by astronomers.” It is currently the only object with a number other than 0 on the Torino Scale, and it means a couple of things come into play. The first is that the International Asteroid Warning Network (IAWN) will work to pin down the orbit of the asteroid. Chaired by NASA, the IAWN coordinates with observatories around the world to make detailed observations of 2024 YR4. It will take time to gather enough data. But what will likely happen is that they will determine there is no risk of collision, and 2024 YR4 will be demoted to 0 on the scale.

The second thing initiated is the Space Mission Planning Advisory Group (SMPAG), chaired by the European Space Agency. They have a scheduled meeting next week when there will be some initial discussions about a possible mission to 2024 YR4 to shift its orbit. If we do find there is a real risk of impact, this group would ramp up quickly. But again, this isn’t likely.

Statistically, asteroids the size of 2024 YR4 strike Earth every couple thousand years or so. This is why astronomers track these objects and are constantly looking for more. So even though the odds of an impact are never zero, with planning and preparation we should be able to ensure that any real risk can be mitigated.

The post An Asteroid Has a 1% Chance of Impacting Earth in 2032 appeared first on Universe Today.

A team of scientists has made the first experimental measurements of laser-induced motions of miniature lightsails in the lab.

A team of scientists has made the first experimental measurements of laser-induced motions of miniature lightsails in the lab.

A study assessed the impact of electric fans on the body core temperature and heart rate of 18 participants aged 65-85 years, who were exposed to a simulated extreme indoor environment of 36 degrees Celsius with 45 percent relative humidity for eight hours. The results showed participants were unaffected by fan use, with all three of the experimental conditions resulting in an average body core temperature of 38.3 C and heart rate of 100 beats per minute.

It's been known for some time that radiation impacts the structural integrity of concrete. However, until now the details of this were unknown. Researchers can finally demonstrate what properties of concrete affect its structural characteristics under different neutron radiation loads. Their findings raise some concerns whilst reducing others; for example, quartz crystals in concrete can heal themselves, potentially allowing some reactors to run for longer than initially thought possible.

Researchers measured very precisely atomic masses of radioactive lanthanum isotopes and found an interesting feature in their nuclear binding energies. The discovery provides essential data for understanding how elements heavier than iron are produced in the Cosmos and triggers new research to elucidate the underlying nuclear structure causing this unexpected change in nuclear binding energies.

Researchers measured very precisely atomic masses of radioactive lanthanum isotopes and found an interesting feature in their nuclear binding energies. The discovery provides essential data for understanding how elements heavier than iron are produced in the Cosmos and triggers new research to elucidate the underlying nuclear structure causing this unexpected change in nuclear binding energies.

Researchers are breaking limits by increasing the temperature multiferroics can operate at, from room temperature up to a blistering 160 degrees Celsius.

To finish up my reportage on the USC conference on Censorship in STEM, I present a video Day 3 for your delectation.  It’s 6½ hours long, but below I’ll give the time marks for three items of interest, one of which is of interest only because it includes ME.

First the whole day; I’ve put the written schedule at the bottom so you can find the other talks.

The first talk is by heterodox black political scientist Wilfred Reilly, speaking about ten taboo topics; it begins at the beginning. I won’t list the taboos, so you’ll have to listen to the talk to see them.

The second talk, involving Julia Schaletzky, Luana Maroja, and me, begins at 4:29:51; its topic is “Censorship, sciences, and the life sciences”.  I can’t bear to listen to myself again. But I advanced the video 5:26:00, where some guy asks me about filling the “god-shaped hole” in humanity, and by eliminating religion the hole is filled by solipsism, some undefined “meta-narrative”. I got as heated as I ever do in a meeting, which is not very heated, but did stand my ground.

But below a talk you must hear. It’s from Greg Lukianoff, President of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). I think it was the best talk of the conference, and was also the last one. Fortunately, you can avoid scrolling around above because the talk is also posted as a standalone video (below). It’s a bit over 52 minutes long, and the topic is “How cancel culture destroys trust in expertise.”  Lukianoff is a passionate and eloquent speaker.

It’s a very good talk packed with information and slides, beginning with what happened to professors during the Red Scare in America the 40s and 50s, and then going on to the increase in cancellation happening today: how many professors get fired, how many deplatforming attempts are happening and how fast they’re increasing, and how schools rate on free speech. (Lukianoff really doesn’t like Harvard or Columbia; see 28:00, at 44:30, and at 51:44, when he says that Columbia should declare itself a “technical school.”)

Lukianoff also gives a number of examples of demonization or cancellation, all of which bear on how speech is chilled (note his comment on the Nature Human Behavior policy), and describes some ongoing FIRE lawsuits to promote free speech.

There are a full twenty minutes of good questions, the first by Jonathan Rauch (“What about the ACLU, the AAUP, and other organizations like yours?”). All of the questions get thorough and thoughtful answers.

 

Finally, here’s the schedule for day 3:

From contact with aliens courtesy of Adrian Tchaikovsky to the childhood writings of Octavia E. Butler, February’s sci-fi offerings are rich and strange

Male dolphins have been observed shooting jets of urine into the air and other dolphins seem to follow the stream, perhaps to pick up social cues

Defenders of Dr. Vinay Prasad fake a concern about tone to intimidate critics and create a safe space for his misinformation.

The post Defenders of Dr. Vinay Prasad’s Vulgar, Vengeful Vitriol Have No Right to Sanctimoniously Scold Anyone About Decorum first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

A muscle that we thought served no purpose beyond enabling some people to wiggle their ears is actually active when we are trying hard to listen

Mars haunts us as a vision of a planet gone wrong. It was once warm and wet, with rivers flowing across its surface and (potentially) simple life residing in its water bodies. Now it’s dry and freezing.

Could Earth suffer this fate? Are there innumerable other worlds throughout the Universe that were habitable for a period of time before becoming uninhabitable?

To answer those questions, we have to answer one of the big questions in space science: What drove the changes on Mars? New research shows that hydrogen played a critical role in keeping ancient Mars warm for periods of time, as the planet’s temperature oscillated between warm and cold.

The research is “Episodic warm climates on early Mars primed by crustal hydration.” It’s published in Nature Geoscience, and the lead author is Danica Adams, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University.

“Early Mars is a lost world, but it can be reconstructed in great detail if we ask the right questions.”

Robin Wordsworth, Harvard University.

There’s ample evidence of flowing surface water on ancient Mars. NASA’s Perseverance rover is exploring Jezero Crater, an ancient paleolake with deep sediment deposits carried there by flowing water. Satellite views show numerous ancient river channels. There’s also clear evidence of ancient lakes.

For a long time, the dominant scientific thought was that Mars was once warm and then became cold. In recent years, more thorough evidence suggests that Mars oscillated between being a warm and a cold planet.

If that’s true, what drove those oscillations?

The first difficulty in explaining early warm periods on Mars is the faint young Sun paradox. Astrophysicists calculate that the young Sun emitted only 70% of the energy it does now. How could Mars have had liquid surface water with so little solar output?

“It’s been such a puzzle that there was liquid water on Mars, because Mars is further from the sun, and also, the sun was fainter early on,” said lead author Danica Adams in a press release.

Evidence suggests that Mars once had enough water for an equivalent global ocean from 100 m to 1,500 m deep during the planet’s late Noachian period. Scientists have found hundreds of lakebeds from the Noachian, some as large as the Caspian Sea. However, the planet is suspected to have been too cold to host this much liquid water without a more efficient heat-trapping atmosphere. CO2 alone couldn’t do it, but researchers think that a more hydrogen-rich atmosphere could.

Lake Eridania, also known as the Eridania Sea, is a massive ancient lakebed on ancient Mars. It covered approximately 1.1 million sq. km. and was as deep as 1000 meters in some parts. Image Credit: By Jim Secosky chose this image NASA – https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/figures/PIA22059_fig1.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=63303137

The problem is that hydrogen doesn’t tend to persist in atmospheres.

“Greenhouse gases such as H2 in a CO2-rich atmosphere could have contributed to warming through collision-induced absorption, but whether sufficient H2 was available to sustain warming remains unclear,” the authors write in their paper. Collision-induced absorption (CIA) is when molecules in a gas collide, and interactions from the collision allow molecules to absorb light. CIA could amplify the atmospheric CO2’s warming effect.

If there was a hydrogen source that allowed the atmosphere to replenish itself, that could explain how Mars oscillated between cold and dry and warm and wet. The researchers used a combined photochemical and climate model to understand how the atmosphere responded to climate variations and reactions between H2O and rock.

“Early Mars is a lost world, but it can be reconstructed in great detail if we ask the right questions,” said study co-author Robin Wordsworth from Harvard. “This study synthesizes atmospheric chemistry and climate for the first time to make some striking new predictions – which are testable once we bring Mars rocks back to Earth.”

The team’s research showed that early Mars had two distinct climate states that persisted for long timescales. The warm climate sustained surface liquid water and lasted between 100,000 and 10 million years. These periods were created and sustained by H2 from crustal hydration with some help from volcanic activity. During crustal hydration, water is lost to the ground, and H2 is released into the atmosphere. The cool climate lasted about 10 million years and featured a CO-dominated atmosphere caused by oxidant sinks in the planet’s surface.

This figure from the paper shows Mars’ H, C, and O chemistry, including ground sinks and escape processes. On the left are the cool and dry epochs triggered by oxygen lost to the crust. On the right are the warm and wet epochs driven by crustal hydration and oxidation that release H2. “In all epochs, CO2 and H2O photolysis (energy from photons represented in the cartoon as hv) drives the photochemistry, and escape of H, C and O is considered,” the authors write. In modern Mars, however, dissociative recombination is how oxygen primarily escapes. Image Credit: Adams et al. 2025.

“We find that H2 <molecular hydrogen> outgassing from crustal hydration and oxidation, supplemented by transient volcanic activity, could have generated sufficient H2 fixes to transiently foster warm, humid climates,” the authors explain.

The team’s models showed that Mars’ climate oscillated like this for about 40 million years during the Noachian and Hesperian periods. Each warm period lasted at least 100,000 years. According to the researchers, these timescales are in agreement with the length of time it took to carve Mars’ river valleys.

The planet’s atmospheric chemistry fluctuated during these periods. As sunlight struck CO2, it was converted to CO. During warm periods, the CO cycled back into CO2, and CO2 and H2 were dominant.

During cold periods, the CO recycling slowed down, CO built up in the atmosphere, and it triggered a more oxygen-reduced state. In this way, the redox state of the atmosphere oscillated dramatically over time.

“We’ve identified time scales for all of these alternations,” Adams said. “And we’ve described all the pieces in the same photochemical model.”

Mars’s modern-day surface supports the researchers’ alternating atmospheric redox hypothesis. The surface shows a “paucity of carbonates,” the researchers explain in their paper. These should form in an atmosphere dominated by CO2 where neutral pH water is present, as long as there is abundant open-system crustal alteration at the planet’s surface. Adams and her co-researchers say their hypothesis can explain the lack of carbonates.

Carbonates were first detected on Mars in 2008, and scientists expected to find large deposits of them. However, those large deposits were never found. If early Mars had abundant water for a long time, there would be abundant carbonates.

Though carbonates are present on Mars, they’re not abundant. If Mars had been wet for a long time, they should be abundant. Image Credit: ESA.

Mars’ surface rocks also contain both oxidized and reduced species of minerals. The authors say that is evidence the surface is far out of equilibrium, which their hypothesis supports. “While both oxidized and reduced species may form under one climate, the deposition rate of different species is sensitive to the climate. For example, warm climates preferentially deposit nitrate while cool climates preferentially deposit nitrite,” the authors write.

In any case, Mars is an extremely interesting puzzle. Without plate tectonics, its surface is largely unchanged from ancient times. Unlike Earth, which recycles its surface and erases evidence, evidence of Mars’ warm, wet periods is easy to see. “It makes a really great case study for how planets can evolve over time,” lead author Adams said.

Much of what scientists hypothesize about Mars can only be confirmed by in-situ measurements. The NASA rovers MSL Curiosity and Perseverance both have onboard labs to study rocks. Perseverance, however, is also caching rock samples for eventual return to Earth. Those samples, if they make it to Earth labs, will be critical in answering our questions about Mars.

“Hence, full interpretation of the redox paradox will require careful comparison of our alternating atmospheric redox hypothesis with chemical and isotopic datasets collected in situ and with igneous and water-altered rocks from the first 1–2 billion years of Mars’s history that comprise the samples presently being collected by the Perseverance rover,” the authors conclude.

This hypothesis raises questions about Mars’s habitability in the past. According to our understanding, oscillations between warm and wet and cold and dry pose a significant barrier to life starting and evolving. But that’s beyond the scope of this paper.

The post How Hydrogen Kept Early Mars Warm appeared first on Universe Today.

The development of vehicle components is a lengthy and therefore very costly process. Researchers have developed a method that can shorten the development phase of the powertrain of battery electric vehicles by several months. A team is combining simulation models of components with evolutionary optimization algorithms. This AI system automatically optimizes the entire powertrain -- from the power electronics to the electric machine through to the transmission -- in line with the manufacturer's technical requirements, taking into account targets such as production costs, efficiency and package space requirements in the vehicle.

The development of vehicle components is a lengthy and therefore very costly process. Researchers have developed a method that can shorten the development phase of the powertrain of battery electric vehicles by several months. A team is combining simulation models of components with evolutionary optimization algorithms. This AI system automatically optimizes the entire powertrain -- from the power electronics to the electric machine through to the transmission -- in line with the manufacturer's technical requirements, taking into account targets such as production costs, efficiency and package space requirements in the vehicle.

Skyrmions are nanometer- to micrometer-sized magnetic whirls that exhibit particle-like properties and can be moved efficiently by electrical currents. These properties make skyrmions an excellent system for new types of data storage or computers. However, for the optimization of such devices, it is usually too computationally expensive to simulate the complicated internal structure of the skyrmions. One possible approach is the efficient simulation of these magnetic spin structures as particles, similar to the simulation of molecules in biophysics. Until now, however, there has been no conversion between simulation time and experimental real time.