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The first “failed star” ever discovered has been a weird outlier since it was found nearly 30 years ago. New observations show that it is unusually massive because it isn’t a single star after all

Researchers have developed a method to control the direction of heat flow in crystals. This miniature device could eventually be used to create advanced thermal-management systems in electronic devices to prevent overheating.

Researchers have developed a new method using the Allen Telescope Array to search for interplanetary radio communication in the TRAPPIST-1 star system.

Researchers have developed a new method using the Allen Telescope Array to search for interplanetary radio communication in the TRAPPIST-1 star system.

An international team of astronomers has figured out that a famous brown dwarf is actually a pair of tight-knit brown dwarfs, weighing about 38 and 34 times the mass of Jupiter, that whip around each other every 12 days.

An international team has successfully demonstrated that 70% of all known meteorite falls originate from just three young asteroid families. These families were produced by three recent collisions that occurred in the main asteroid belt 5.8, 7.5, and about 40 million years ago. The team also revealed the sources of other types of meteorites; with this research, the origin of more than 90% of meteorites has now been identified.

A paper has solved a major hurdle facing researchers working with diamond by creating a novel way of bonding diamonds directly to materials that integrate easily with either quantum or conventional electronics. With this technique, the team directly bonded diamond with materials including silicon, fused silica, sapphire, thermal oxide, and lithium niobate without an intermediary substance to act as 'glue.' Instead of the several-hundred microns thick bulk diamonds typically used to study quantum qubits, the team bonded crystalline membranes as thin as 100 nanometers while still maintaining a spin coherence suitable for advanced quantum applications.

A paper has solved a major hurdle facing researchers working with diamond by creating a novel way of bonding diamonds directly to materials that integrate easily with either quantum or conventional electronics. With this technique, the team directly bonded diamond with materials including silicon, fused silica, sapphire, thermal oxide, and lithium niobate without an intermediary substance to act as 'glue.' Instead of the several-hundred microns thick bulk diamonds typically used to study quantum qubits, the team bonded crystalline membranes as thin as 100 nanometers while still maintaining a spin coherence suitable for advanced quantum applications.

Benny Morris is a reputable Israeli historian who has changed his views over time. Once pretty much anti-Israel, he changed his mind and is now sympathetic to his country about the war, though he still dislikes Netanytahu and settlements in the West Bank. Still, his views on the war have been quite sensible, and in this Quillette article he explains why, despite Israel’s promise not to attack Iran’s nuclear programs or oil and gas fields, Iran should not be complacent. Click the headline to read.

During the latest Iranian barrage of missiles, to which Israel hasn’t yet responded. several of them actually landed, defying Israel’s two anti-missile systems. (Fortunately, nobody was killed.)  In a generous response, the U.S. agreed—and some kind of deal must have been struck—to provide Israel with some Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptor batteries designed to take down incoming ballistic missiles. Along with the batteries came about 100 U.S. soldiers to set up and train the IDF how to use the interceptors.  According to Morris, this “gift” may explain why Israel hasn’t yet retaliated against Iran.  He also posits that the upcoming American elections explain the delay, and that makes sense, though I still dislike Biden trying to dictate Israel’s foreign policy to help keep Democrats in power:

But the upcoming elections themselves may be the major strategic cause of the delay in the Israeli retaliation. The Biden Administration has been loath to be sucked into another Middle Eastern war, given the bloody nose America received in the last two such wars—the “forever” wars in Afghanistan and Iraq—and Washington suspects that Israel is bent on drawing the United States, against its will, into a campaign to demolish the Iranian nuclear project, which Israel believes ultimately threatens its existence.

So what about Iran’s nukes? The U.S. has always said it won’t allow Iran to have a nuclear program, but not it appears to be protecting it. And yet the existence of Iranian nuclear weapons is a clear existential threat to Israel. Morris posits that this will all shake out after the election, whoever is elected, and then Israel can indeed go after the nukes:

Netanyahu certainly favours a Trump victory on 5 November, partly because Trump and the Republicans can be expected to be less critical of Israel’s war-making in Gaza and Lebanon, which has resulted in many civilian Arab casualties, which the left-wing of the Democratic Party regards—or pretends to regard—as unwarranted and inhumane. But Netanyahu also knows that, whoever wins on 5 November, Biden will remain in power and call the shots in American–Israeli relations until 20 January 2025, when he steps down from the presidency. During the interim, 5 November–20 January, Israel will still need an American veto in the UN Security Council, where the country could potentially veto anti-Israeli sanctions, and Israel will still need, perhaps more than ever, continued American munitions supplies,—principally tank and artillery shells and missiles of various types. (The year-long war in Gaza and along the Israel–Lebanon border has sorely depleted IDF stockpiles. Last week, the Israeli Defence Ministry reportedly instituted measures to curtail shell usage in the ongoing ground campaigns against Hamas and Hezbollah.)

Hence, if Israel launches its retaliatory operation against Iran before the US elections, Israel must take American sensibilities into account. Israel may adopt a two-step strategy: hit some non-oil and non-nuclear Iranian sites in the coming days and, after Iran retaliates as it has promised it would, hit the oil and nuclear sites after 5 November. After that date, the US will have a new president-elect, and the fear that Israel’s actions could hurt Kamala Harris’s chances of being elected will no longer pertain. Indeed, both Israel and Biden might view the two and a half months after 5 November as a golden window of opportunity in which to destroy the Iranian nuclear project at last—something that Israel appears to believe it is incapable of doing without major American assistance.

In other words, it is possible that while Israel has been putting up a show of delaying the retaliation against Iran for immediate, pragmatic reasons, in fact it is simply waiting until after 5 November, at which point it can go after whichever targets it believes are crucial to victory and to saving the country from eventual nuclear destruction by Iran, without fear of arousing Biden’s anger. Iran is said to be only a year or two away from producing nuclear bombs and has already accumulated large amounts of enriched uranium needed for nuclear weaponry. The thinking among some Israelis is that following 5 November, Biden  may be more amenable to joining in an Israeli assault on Iran’s critical facilities and nuclear installations or at least might condone such an attack.

In the meantime, Iran has become weaker because of bad decisions, making it more vulnerable to attack and eroding its ability to respond:

. . . . For the past twenty years, Iran has attacked and subverted its enemies through the agile use of catspaws or proxies. It used Hezbollah operatives to strike at Jewish and Israeli targets in Israel and abroad; it used Yemeni Houthi rebels to hit Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates; and it employed Shi’ite militias to subvert Sunni governance and the American presence in Iraq. It probably also had a clandestine hand in arranging for the US defeat in Afghanistan. By using its proxies and by emitting continual bluster about its own prowess, Tehran’s leaders have prevented the victims of its terrorism and subversion from targeting Iran itself. It has always openly declared that its intention and goal is to destroy the Jewish state. But it has avoided supplying Israel with an excuse that would give it international legitimacy in striking at Iran directly. Instead, Iran has continued to defer the ultimate showdown with Israel, waiting for the day when it will have a nuclear arsenal that surpasses or at least equals Israel’s.

Over the years, Iran has subsidised Hezbollah to the tune of many billions of dollars and packed its arsenals with tens of thousands of rockets, some of them accurate and long-range, as a deterrent against a possible Israeli attack on its nuclear facilities—such an Israeli assault would be countered by massive rocketing of Tel Aviv. But since 8 October, and especially during the past month, Hezbollah’s power has been substantially downgraded by Israeli attacks on its leadership and rocket arsenal, and Iran has largely lost this deterrent against Israeli attack. Iran is probably rueing the fact that it—and Hezbollah, probably on its orders—failed to join Hamas’s assault on Israel on 7 October, and regretting having subsequently endorsed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s decision to mount a somewhat symbolic low-level rocketing of northern Israel in a show of solidarity with Hamas. The daily rocketing, together with the threat of a ground assault on Israel’s northern border settlements à la 7 October, certainly siphoned Israeli troops and air power away from Israel’s battle with Hamas. But it also resulted, in the end, in Israel’s savaging of Hezbollah, especially since the end of September.

In other words, Iran was using Hezbollah (as it used Hamas) as a proxy for destroying Israel.

Until last April that is, when it couldn’t help itself, and launched some 400 rockets, cruise missiles, and drones at Israel from Iranian soil in retaliation for the targeted Israeli assassination in Damascus of the IRGC general in charge of operations in Syria and Lebanon. And, on 1 October—perhaps encouraged by Israel’s absurdly weak response to the April attack—Iran did the same thing again, launching some 200 ballistic missiles at IAF and Mossad bases following the Israeli assassinations of yet another IRGC general, and of Hamas’s political head, Ismail Haniyeh, and Nasrallah himself. And now Iran, still bereft of nuclear weapons, and largely bereft of the Hezbollah deterrent, is facing retaliation from Israel and possibly from America.

In this scenario, Israel would indeed be able to bankrupt Iran by destroying its petroleum fields, or make it toothless by destroying its nuclear program.

But there are three problems. First, the U.S. has just told Israel it has to provide more humanitarian aid to northern Gaza (most of which will of course go to Hamas), or face a boycott of weapons from America. Second, Israel won’t be able to destroy Iran’s nuclear program without America’s help: including the use of long-range bombers and huge bunker-buster bombs. Finally, if Harris is elected—and that’s no longer as unlikely as it seemed—I strongly doubt that she’d approve U.S. aid or help for Israel in the two major types of attacks that would damage Iran. Indeed, even Biden may not okay that.  So I’m not sure that Morris’s ruminations will become reality. But what do I know—I’m a scientist, not a historian, politician, or diplomat.

Today’s Jesus and Mo strip, called “pagans”, comes with the words, “That’s ambiguous.”  Indeed, for I don’t even know what to make of this cartoon!

JAMA Internal Medicine just published an article titled: Acupuncture vs Sham Acupuncture for Chronic Sciatica From Herniated Disk, A Randomized Clinical Trial. In an accompanying editorial comment, Jerard Z. Kneifati-Hayek and Mitchell H. Katz write: “This was a methodologically rigorous study; there were multiple experienced acupuncturists, the comparison group used a well thought-out sham control, and patients were followed up for 1 […]

The post Latest Acupuncture Pseudoscience first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

Britain should be too cold for the invasive Aesculapian snake to survive, but it is thriving by exploiting the warmth of attics, wall cavities and compost heaps

We live inside the Milky Way galaxy which is joined as it drifts through space by two satellite galaxies, the Magellanic Clouds. A star cluster in the Large Magellanic Cloud known as R136 has been the subject of a fascinating discovery. A team of astronomers have discovered 55 high-speed stars that have been ejected from the cluster. The discovery was made using the Gaia satellite and it seems up to a third of stars from the cluster have been ejected in the last century. 

R136 is a massive star cluster in the Tarantula Nebula inside the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC.) The LMC is a satellite galaxy of ours at a distance of around 160,000 light years. The cluster is among the most massive known and it contains some of the most massive stars ever observed. The stars are young at just a few million years old having formed out of the gas in the nebula. 

This is a Hubble Space Telescope image of a star-forming region containing massive, young, blue stars in 30 Doradus, the Tarantula Nebula. Located within the Large Magellanic Cloud, this is one of the regions observed by a newly-completed survey named ULLYSES. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, STScI, Francesco Paresce (INAF-IASF Bologna), Robert O’Connell (UVA), SOC-WFC3, ESO

When clusters form, the random movement of gas is transferred to the forming stars. With the movement of stars, crisscrossing the cluster it is not uncommon for stars to be ejected out. This was exactly what the team of astronomers observed using Gaia. The Gaia space observatory was launched back in 2013 by the European Space Agency and has been precisely mapping stellar positions since.

Artist’s impression of the ESA’s Gaia Observatory. Credit: ESA

The team of astronomers led by University of Amsterdam PhD student Mitchel Stoop discovered the ejected stars travelling at speeds above 100,000 km/hr. You may have heard the saying ‘live fast, die young!’ Whether it’s true for humans is an interesting debate but it certainly seems true for stars. The most massive stars in the Universe fuse elements deep in their core at an alarming rate so will reach the end of their lives in just a few million years. Stars like those in R136 are a great example of this and, after being ejected to distances of around 1,000 light years, explode as supernova producing a neutron star or a black hole. 

The measurements showed too that the stars have not been ejected over one particular period of the cluster’s history. The first event seems to have taken place 1.8 million years ago just when the cluster formed. Another event seems to have occurred around 200,000 years ago. Comparing the two events revealed an interesting difference. In the first event during the formation of the cluster, the stars shot off in almost random directions but in the second event, the stars moved in one general direction. 

The co-author of the paper which was published in Nature, Alex de Koter said “We think that the second episode of shooting away stars was due to the interaction of R136 with another nearby cluster (that was only discovered in 2012). The second episode may foretell that the two clusters will mix and merge in the near future.” 

The discovery that a third of the stars have been ejected from their point of origin shows that, through the ejection, they can influence other regions of the galaxy. It is even possible that ejected stars through the history of the evolution of the Universe could have contributed to the reionization of the universe by ultraviolet light. In this era, the universe transitioned from being filled with ionised gas to a more neutral era  with electrons and protons combining to form neutral hydrogen atoms. 

Source : Dozens of massive stars launched from young star cluster R136

The post Giant Cluster is Spitting Out Massive Stars appeared first on Universe Today.

Next-generation phone networks could dramatically outperform current ones thanks to a new technique for transmitting multiple streams of data over a wide range of frequencies

Filters on commercial flights seem to stop peanut particles from circulating around aircraft, making the risk of a serious allergic reaction from inhaling the allergens very low

Filters on commercial flights seem to stop nut particles from circulating around aircraft, making the risk of a serious allergic reaction from inhaling the allergens very low

Engineers have developed a new system for full-body motion capture -- and it doesn't require specialized rooms, expensive equipment, bulky cameras or an array of sensors. Instead, it requires only a smartphone, smartwatch or earbuds.

Engineers have developed a new system for full-body motion capture -- and it doesn't require specialized rooms, expensive equipment, bulky cameras or an array of sensors. Instead, it requires only a smartphone, smartwatch or earbuds.

Experts have announced that the Sun has reached its solar maximum period, which could continue for the next year. Scientists will not be able to determine the exact peak of this solar maximum period for many months because it's only identifiable after they've tracked a consistent decline in solar activity after that peak. However, scientists have identified that the last two years on the Sun have been part of this active phase of the solar cycle, due to the consistently high number of sunspots during this period.

A new analysis leverages machine learning to help answer a thorny question: where should new protected bike lanes be placed to provide maximum benefit? The research team use machine learning and optimization to help inform such decisions. It's a challenge that required new computational approaches.