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A recent study shows that climate change may cause many areas in Canada to experience significant droughts by the end of the century. In response, the researchers have introduced an advanced AI-based method to map drought-prone regions.

A team of scientists was recently able to observe how promethium forms chemical bonds when placed in an aqueous solution.

Bioengineers around the world have been working to create plastic-producing microbes that could replace the petroleum-based plastics industry. Now, researchers have overcome a major hurdle: getting bacteria to produce polymers that contain ring-like structures, which make the plastics more rigid and thermally stable. Because these molecules are usually toxic to microorganisms, the researchers had to construct a novel metabolic pathway that would enable the E. coli bacteria to both produce and tolerate the accumulation of the polymer and the building blocks it is composed of. The resulting polymer is biodegradable and has physical properties that could lend it to biomedical applications such as drug delivery, though more research is needed.

Scientists studying the tracks of particles streaming from six billion collisions of atomic nuclei at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) -- an 'atom smasher' that recreates the conditions of the early universe -- have discovered a new kind of antimatter nucleus, the heaviest ever detected. Composed of four antimatter particles -- an antiproton, two antineutrons, and one antihyperon -- these exotic antinuclei are known as antihyperhydrogen-4.

Scientists studying the tracks of particles streaming from six billion collisions of atomic nuclei at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) -- an 'atom smasher' that recreates the conditions of the early universe -- have discovered a new kind of antimatter nucleus, the heaviest ever detected. Composed of four antimatter particles -- an antiproton, two antineutrons, and one antihyperon -- these exotic antinuclei are known as antihyperhydrogen-4.

Although climate change may bring increased precipitation to many parts of the United States, some areas may face drier conditions and lower streamflow, resulting in decreased hydropower generation.

Physicists have developed a new model that describes how filaments assemble into active foams.

We might be a little late on reporting for this one – the space exploration community is large, and sometimes, it’s hard to keep track of everything happening. But whenever there is a success, it’s worth pointing out. Back in June, two teams successfully completed the latest stage of the Break the Ice Challenge to mine water from the Moon.

The Break, the Ice Challenge is one of NASA’s Centennial Challenges, which aims to tackle technologies useful in later space exploration. The Centennial Challenges have been around in different guises for almost two decades. Still, recently, they have narrowed their focus to three challenges, mainly pertaining to the upcoming Artemis moon missions. However, nearly every year, they have a challenge that pushes the boundaries of known technology closer to the end-use case for a mission.

This year, the competition took place at Alabama A&M’s Agribition Center in Huntsville, near NASA’s Marshall Spaceflight Center. It took place on June 11th and 12th and featured seven teams that had made it to the finals by passing tests in earlier stages.

NASA released a video of the competition at Alabama A&M
Credit – NASA’s Marshall Spaceflight Center YouTube Channel

Break the Ice has been a repeating challenge since 2020; however, it had similar predecessors going back to 2007, when it was known as the Regolith Excavation Challenge. This year’s challenge involved traversing rugged terrain, mining material from lunar regolith simulant, and seemingly dispersing it, as seen in a YouTube video released by NASA.

There must be something about this challenge structure because the team’s lead engineer who won the competition this year, Todd Mendenhall of Terra Engineering, also competed in the 2007 challenge. Almost 20 years later, he and his wife are still working on autonomous lunar excavator technologies and are very successful at it.

Terra Engineering’s rover, Fracture, completed most of the challenges before it, taking home a grand prize of $1 million. Starpath Robotics, a small start-up based near SpaceX’s facility in Hawthorne, California, took second in the competition and $500,000 in award money. Another team from Michigan Technological University completed the group of three that passed enough of the challenges that they were invited to test their rovers in the Thermal Vacuum Chamber at NASA’s Marshall Spaceflight Center.

Terra Engineering’s Fracture Rover completed a 15 day endurance test as part of the challenge, as seen here.
Credit – Terra Engineering YouTube Channel

Testing would be necessary if these rovers ever see adoption into a fully-fledged lunar mission. However, NASA hasn’t been great at pipelining the technologies developed as part of these challenges into actual field-ready hardware. The challenges usually provide a fun engineering task for teams, but further effort to turn it into a real mission concept isn’t forthcoming. Other challenges, ranging from space tether robots to the original regolith challenge participants, have come and gone, with almost none of the technologies they’ve worked on making it through for use in an actual mission.

It’s unclear whether the Break the Ice Challenge participants will suffer the same fate or if the challenge will return again next year. Theoretically, it should be possible to derisk the technology to a point where NASA gets a fully functional autonomous lunar excavator simply by continuing the challenge series for long enough. There hasn’t been an announcement about the next round of competition; however, the impressive displays of engineering from the various teams are viewable on YouTube if you’re interested in seeing how far they’ve come.

Learn More:
NASA – California Teams Win $1.5 Million in NASA’s Break the Ice Lunar Challenge
UT – NASA and HeroX are Looking to Light Up the Moon!
UT – We Could Get Material On The Moon By Shocking It With Lightning
UT – Some Lunar Regolith is Better for Living Off the Land on the Moon

Lead Image:
Valerie and Todd Mendenhall (front) are presented with a $1M check and trophy for winning NASA’s Break the Ice Challenge, supported by executives from Alabama A&M and NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center.
Credit – NASA

The post The NASA Break the Ice Challenge Awards $1.5M to Two Start-Ups appeared first on Universe Today.

Skip this if you don’t care about science education in New Zealand, but plenty of scientists there are worried about it. And it’s a harbinger of what may happen to science education in the U.S. as science courses add requirements to teach indigenous “ways of knowing” and the curriculum itself pushes out traditional material to make way for content that aligns with ideological and political objectives.

Each faculty at the University of Auckland, for instance, has to have one of these mandatory courses tailored to ideological ends.  The one below, for instance, is being created on a trial basis as a requirement for all science majors. I believe I’ve discussed it before, so click on the headline below to see what’s on tap in science education.

Here is the course overview and the course goals (“learning outcomes”):

Course overview:

Contemporary science is deeply entwined with place, knowledge systems and ethics. This course examines these concepts through the lens of sustainability to demonstrate how they shape research agendas, methodologies, and applications of contemporary science. To address the environmental, social, and economic dimensions of sustainability, science must recognise and navigate the complexities of these interrelated concepts.

Explore the role of place-based knowledge, the importance of embracing diverse knowledge systems for science and the ethical responsibilities inherent in contemporary science in Aotearoa New Zealand. This interdisciplinary course will challenge you to think critically, fostering an awareness of the intricate relationships between science and its broader context, including Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

Learning outcomes:

By the end of this course, students will be able to:

1. 1. Demonstrate how place, and an understanding of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, are significant to your field of study
   2. Critically and constructively engage with knowledge systems, practices and positionality
   3. Employ a reciprocal, values-based approach to collaborating
   4. Communicate ideas clearly, effectively and respectfully
   5. Reflexively engage with the question of ethics in academic practice
   6. Demonstrate a critical understanding of sustainability

Note the worshipful discussion of “Te Tiriti o Waitangi”, the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi that is nearly sacred and almost serves as a constitution for New Zealand, though some of its interpretations are questionable and it was not signed by many Māori leaders on the South Island.  It’s not even a document with hard legal status.

The Treaty did assure the Māori that they’d have the same rights as British citizens and would keep control of their lands and properties, and was written to bring New Zealand into being as a British colony. That means that today Europeans are seen as oppressive “colonizers”. The treaty is now used as a rationale to ensure that Māori or those of Māori ancestry are given equity (not just equal opportunity) in admissions, grants, and so on. The Treaty is also the rationale for the current change in curricula, meant to effect “decolonization,” which in my view means changing modern education to one infused with traditional Māori “ways of knowing.”

The course outline and objectives above are ideological in this way, involving not science per se but a postmodern philosophy of science in which reality is shaped by the scientist and the place where he/she came from.

The emphasis on “ethics” doesn’t belong in a mandatory science course, and I think will serve only to confuse students.

Finally there’s this:

“the importance of embracing diverse knowledge systems for science and the ethical responsibilities inherent in contemporary science in Aotearoa New Zealand”

and this:

“This interdisciplinary course will challenge you to think critically, fostering an awareness of the intricate relationships between science and its broader context, including Te Tiriti o Waitangi.”

I’d be delighted if someone would explain to me why the Treaty of Waitangi should be explicitly discussed in a required science course. Note the emphasis on “diverse knowledge systems”.  I can only guess what that means, but it’s pretty clear.

Now here’s a new course that isn’t required for science majors, but still counts as a science course. Click on the headline below for the course description, even more risible than the one above,

Here is the course prescription, the course overview, and the learning outcomes. Remember, this is a course for which students get science credit:

Course Prescription

Mātauranga is central to the future practice of science in Aotearoa New Zealand. Explores foundational understandings of mātauranga Māori and Kaupapa Māori for scientists. Students will meaningfully and respectfully engage with te ao Māori through place-based relational learning and case studies grounded in whanaungatanga. Students will experience Māori ways of being, knowing, and doing. Course Overview This course welcomes all students who wish to engage with mātauranga in relation to scientific place-based knowledge. Engagement with Indigenous knowledge, including mātauranga, is increasingly important to the practice of science in Aotearoa [New Zealand] and beyond. Pūtaiao, meaning science curriculum that includes mātauranga, is well established in primary and secondary education. This course will further develop the learning of pūtaiao [pūtaiao] into tertiary science education and scientific research. Enhancing understandings of mātauranga and Kaupapa Māori [Māori practice] for scientists will develop skills in critical thinking, reflective and relational practice, and the application of Kaupapa Māori in science.

Learning Outcomes:

By the end of this course, students will be able to:

1. 1. Compare articulations of Kaupapa Māori, mātauranga and science.
   2. Recognise strategies that support, protect, and empower mātauranga in science and the relevance to whānau, hapū and iwi.
   3. Critically explain and communicate understandings of the relationship between Kaupapa Māori, mātauranga and science.
   4. Describe the history of Pūtaiao in science education and relate the development of Pūtaiao to the practice of science in Aotearoa.
   5. Work effectively in a team to develop research skills, including the ability to meaningfully and respectfully engage with te ao Māori.

Note that Kaupapa Māori means the practices of the indigenous people and  Mātauranga Māori comprises Māori “ways of knowing”, including some empirical knowledge gained by trial and error (MM isn’t hypothesis-based), as well as a bunch of superstition, ethics, tradition, myths, lore, legend, and religion.

This course appears one designed to demonstrate that indigenous ways of knowing are not only vital to modern science, but nearly coequal to it, something “central to the future practice of science in Aotearoa New Zealand.”

My answer to that last quote is simply “no it isn’t.” In science classes what should be taught is modern science: the general body of knowledge and tools for knowing as practiced throughout the world today.  Indigenous knowledge may be a part of that, but only a very small one, and likely could be omitted without loss.  If traditional lore and knowledge about when to collect eels or berries is to be taught, it should be in anthropology or sociology class, not a class that gives you science credit.

This course shows that the new curriculum in NZ simply has lost sight of the distinction between science and non-science, and is blurring the boundaries between naturalistic modern science, social science, and ideology.

Note in particular this bit from the second course: “Students will meaningfully and respectfully engage with te ao Māori”. (Te ao Māori is the specifically Māori worldview.) What would people make of the phrase “meaningful and respectful engagement” if used in a science course, where students are encouraged to question everything? What this shows is data being replaced by motivated reasoning that aligns with social justice principles.

If you think this is irrelevant to America, think again. What we’re seeing is fast-forward time travel of DEI carried to its logical limits, with the sacralization of everything indigenous.  While I don’t think for a moment that we’ll have Native American science courses pervading American universities, American teaching of science is becoming increasingly infected with principles of social justice. I’ve gone into this issue many times before and won’t repeat my thoughts, but do spare a thought for the poor science teachers in New Zealand who have to spoon this stuff into the mouths of their students, impeding what should be a real education in science.

After their initial training phase, AI algorithms can’t update and learn from new data, meaning tech companies have to keep training new models from scratch

Smashing gold nuclei together at high speeds billions of times has resulted in 16 particles of antihyperhydrogen-4, a very exotic and heavy form of antimatter

Past observations have indicated that the icy moon of Jupiter has a vast subsurface ocean. Launching in October, NASA’s Europa Clipper will go there in search of evidence that it could support life

The fabric of spacetime is roiling with vibrating quantum fields, known as the vacuum energy. It’s right there, everywhere we look. Could we ever get anything out of it?

We can even calculate the strength of this vacuum energy. When we apply the rules of quantum mechanics to determine how much the fields vibrate in isolation, we get…infinity. That’s right, there’s an infinite amount of energy filling every bit of spacetime. That’s because there’s no limit to the amount of vibrations that these fields can have. Small vibrations, medium vibrations, and big vibrations are all happening in every quantum field simultaneously.

Wait, wait…how can the fields have infinite energy but still have more energy to produce particles? To answer this question we can turn to a clever experiment designed by the Dutch physicist Hendrik Casimir.

If you take two metal plates and stick them really, really close together, the quantum fields between those plates must behave in a certain way. The wavelengths of their vibrations must fit perfectly between the plates, just like the vibrations on a guitar string have to fit their wavelengths to the length of the string. In the quantum case, there are still an infinite number of vibrations between the plates, but there are not as many infinite vibrations between the plates as there are outside the plates.

Using some clever bits of mathematics, we can subtract the two kinds of infinities and arrive at a finite number. This means that there really are more quantum vibrations outside the two plates than there are inside the place. This leads to the conclusion that the quantum fields outside the plates push the two plates together, something called the Casimir effect. We can measure this effect and verify that the quantum fields actually do exist.

All this theory and experiment results in a startling conclusion. All the physics of the world, every interaction, every process, and action, takes place on a stage filled with an infinite amount of vacuum energy. As weird as this picture is, it’s the result of decades of investigation into quantum theory.

Right now, we have no way of accessing this energy and doing anything useful with it. That’s because it is the lowest energy state of the universe. To get work done, you have to have differences in energy, you need to pull energy from one place, transform it, and put it somewhere else. We can’t pull from the vacuum energy because there’s nowhere lower for the vacuum energy to go. It’s like trying to get an elevator to go beyond the lowest level in a building – it stops at the ground floor because there are no more floors beneath it.

When it comes to the Casimir effect, we had to put energy into the system to arrange the plates together in the first place. When the plates start moving, we’re simply getting back the energy that we put in, with no net gain of energy production.

There are many ideas in the science fiction universe that propose using vacuum energy to power a starship or other advanced kind of propulsion. While those ideas run counter to established physics, we must admit that we do not fully understand all of physics…especially the vacuum energy. The biggest clue that we’re doing something wrong has to do not with subatomic scales, but with cosmic.

In the late 1990’s astronomers discovered that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. The simplest explanation for this accelerated expansion is the vacuum energy of the universe. But because we can measure the expansion rate, we can use that to estimate the total amount of vacuum energy, and we get around 6 x 10^-10 Jules in every cubic meter of space.

That’s…not infinity. So we have a problem. On one hand, we have a set of subatomic calculations, predictions, and measurements that tell us that there’s an infinite amount of vacuum energy. On the other hand, we have a cosmic measurement that tells us that the amount of vacuum energy is really, really small.

What’s going on? We have no idea. It’s one of the greatest unsolved problems in modern physics. If we want to find a way to exploit the vacuum energy, then first we have to understand what it truly is. Whatever we find there will involve new kinds of physics, and who knows what new physics will unlock for us.

The post Could We Ever Harness Quantum Vacuum Energy? appeared first on Universe Today.

Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS may be one to watch for at dawn late next month.

If predictions and prognostications hold true, a decent comet could grace dawn skies in late September into early October. We’re talking about Comet C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, discovered early last year. Early signs suggest it could be the best comet of 2024… if it survives until perihelion.

The Discovery

The comet was discovered jointly by the Tsuchinshan (Purple Mountain) observatory in China and the ATLAS (Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System) sky survey on January 9th, 2023. Later ‘pre-discovery’ images date back to 2022. The comet was discovered 7.2 Astronomical Units (AU) out in the outer solar system, beyond the orbit of Jupiter. This always a good sign in terms of how the comet will behave on approach.

The orbit of Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS. Credit: NASA/JPL.

Early estimates put the orbital period for the comet at 80,000 years. Later refinements on the orbit now puts it at millions of years, possibly due for ejection post perihelion. This means that C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS is likely a first-time visitor from the Oort Cloud, and should be dynamically new. This another plus and always a good thing in terms of activity.

Following the Comet Through Fall

The path of the comet seems to hang stationary in the constellation Sextans through September, as it is headed towards us as seen from our vantage point in space. The comet is on a high 139º inclination retrograde orbit about the Sun. Perihelion 0.39 AU from the Sun interior to the orbital aphelion distance of Mercury occurs on September 27th, and the closest Earth approach for the comet occurs on October 12th, at 0.472 AU (70.6 million kilometers) distant.

Southern hemisphere observers may get a short look at the comet starting in mid-September. The best show for folks up north begins in the last week of September into the first week of October, when the comet sits about 10 degrees above the eastern horizon in the dawn. The slim waning crescent Moon will pair with the comet on the mornings of September 30th and October 1st.

Looking to the southwest on the morning of October 1st. Credit: Starry Night.

Said Moon is headed towards an annular solar eclipse on October 2nd. Lucky observers along the path crossing the southern tip of South America might just see the comet along with Venus during annular phases, if (a big ‘if’ to be sure) it exceeds expectations and reaches negative magnitudes.

The comet versus the October 2nd annular eclipse. Credit: Starry Night.

We’ll also get a look at Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS courtesy of the joint solar observing SOHO mission, as it transits the LASCO C3 field of view from October 7th to the 10th. From there, the comet will transition to the evening sky in late October, as it fades back down into binocular visibility range and heads back out of the solar system, perhaps to never return again.

The comet versus SOHO’s LASCO C3 imager. Credit: Starry Night. Dazzle, or Fizzle?

It has been a roller coaster ride for the comet in 2024. How bright will Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS be at perihelion? The comet seemed to be under-performing in terms of brightness in early 2024, suggesting a breakup and a ‘fizzle’ could be imminent. As of writing this, the comet is back up on the expected light curve at magnitude +8. Comets often neglect to read predictions, and can fail to measure up to expectations… we all remember ISON in 2013. On the plus side, remember F3 NEOWISE in 2020, which actually exceeded anticipations? One factor will aid the visibility of comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS right around Earth approach: its brightness may be helped a bit by an effect known as forward scattering. And of course, all bets are off in terms of brightness in the event of a well-placed outburst.

“A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) is now sort of on the brightening line to get mostly as bright like predicted, although my own projection shows it peaking more like magnitude +4 to +5 because the trend line is a bit south of the optimum line…” astrophotographer Eliot Herman told Universe Today. “So it will not be (naked eye) visible at brightest, but…it will be a fine telescopic comet (or ‘camera comet’) kind of like P1 Nishimura. That is what I am thinking unless it shatters or splits. I think it is going to fall short of imagination, which is about the norm for comets.”

Here’s a Month-by-Month look at Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS:

September

7-Flips over to the dawn sky

27-Reaches perihelion

28-Crosses into the constellation Leo

The projected and observed (black dots) light curve for Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS. Credit: Seiichi Yoshida’s Weekly Information About Bright Comets. October

1-The waning crescent Moon sits 11º from the comet

2-The Comet is 18º from the Sun during an annular solar eclipse

4-Crosses into the constellation Virgo

7-Crosses into SOHO’s LASCO C3 field of view

8-Crosses the ecliptic plane northward

9-Passes 3º from the Sun

10-Exits SOHO’s LASCO C3 field of view

11-Flips over to the dusk sky

12-Passes closest to the Earth

14-Crosses the celestial equator northward, and makes an edge-on, orbital plane crossing

15-Photo-Op: Passes 1º from +9th magnitude Comet 13 Olbers

15-Crosses into the constellation Serpens Caput

16-Passes just over 1º from the globular cluster Messier 5

19-Crosses into the constellation Ophiuchus

20-Passes near the +3.8 magnitude star Lambda Ophiuchi (Marfik)

29-Passes between the +3rd magnitude stars Cebalrai and Gamma Ophiuchi

November

1- Passes near the +3.9 magnitude star 67 Ophiuchi

10-Passes into the constellation Serpens Cauda

20-Passes very near (occults) the +4.6 magnitude star Alya

25-Passes into the constellation Aquila

26-Crosses the Celestial Equator southward

In December into early 2025, the comet drops back below +10th magnitude.

Comet A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS from July 25th. Image credit: Eliot Herman.

Keep in mind, like deep-sky targets, all of that precious quoted magnitude for a comet is ‘smeared out’ over an apparent surface area. We usually think of the naked eye cutoff for stars under a good dark sky is +6, but a comet generally won’t reach naked eye visibility until about +3 magnitude or so. This is also usually the point at which a given comet becomes bright enough to capture along with foreground objects, always a photogenic sight.

Good luck and clear skies on your quest to see comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, on what is very probably its one-time only visit to the inner solar system.

The post Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS Set to Perform This Fall appeared first on Universe Today.

We’re suffering from a power cut in Hoedspruit, and, as I’ve left the park and am resting here just a day before traveling on, I’ll have to type fast to get this finished before my computer loses its battery power. So here are a few things I saw on my last evening and morning game drives in Manyolete.

Please click on all photos to enlarge them.

First, a shot I’ve wanted to get for a while: a magnificent male Greater Kudu (Tragelaphus strepsiceros) with his spiral horns.

Finally I was able to photograph what I think is one of the most beautiful birds in Africa, the Lilac-breasted roller (Coracias caudatus). It’s widespread through SE Africa, and both males and females have these stunning colors: it’s not sexually dimorphic.

And a male impala with its curved horns:

After nearly 1.5 hours of searching, our guide/driver Dan, following rhino tracks and droppings, made a rare spotting: a large male Southern White Rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum simum). It grazed peacefully as we sat silently in our vehicle nearby.

From Wikipedia:

The southern white rhinoceros is one of largest and heaviest land animals in the world. It has an immense body and large head, a short neck and broad chest. Females weigh around 1,600–1,700 kg (3,530–3,750 lb) and males around 2,000–2,300 kg (4,410–5,070 lb), with specimens of up to 3,600 kilograms (7,940 lb) considered reliable, and larger sizes up to 4,500 kg (9,920 lb) claimed but not verified.

They can weigh FOUR TONS!

Reduced to between 20 and 50 animals in South Africa in the 19th century by big-game hunting, the population has now recovered to about 18,000 individuals, and some are being bred for release into the wild.  Because of poaching to get its horns—used in traditional Chinese medicine—it’s considered “near threatened.” What a crime to kill one of these creatures to get its horns for worthless medicinal purposes!

Notice the birds (oxpeckers) cleaning the beast of parasites like ticks and fleas:

We were excited to get this rare sighting, one of the “Big Five” animals that everyone wants to tick off their mental list.

I wrote Martim for an identification of the oxpeckers, and here’s part of his reply:

Well done both for such a good view of your target lilac-breasted roller and also for seeing all the members of a bird family at the same time. And for the big five of course.

You have the two species making the family Buphagidae on the same rhino. The Yellow-billed Oxpecker (Buphagus africanus), further in the back, and the Red-billed Oxpecker (B. erythrorynchus).

Some info from Birds of the World (Cornell)

“The oxpeckers are lanky brown passerines that feed on ectoparasites and wounds found on large African mammals. Although elephants and some antelope species will not tolerate them, these birds can often be seen foraging on the other large African megafauna, using their long stiffened tails for support as woodpeckers do while climbing trees. All aspects of their lives are entangled with their mobile large-mammal habitats. Oxpeckers spend the entire day on their hosts, feeding, sunbathing, and snoozing. They even defecate off the side of their perch, and sometimes take a drink at the waterhole while still gripping their hosts’ legs. While breeding, which they often perform cooperatively, they even make their nests out of mammal hair and dung.”

Regarding beautiful birds not so difficult to see, you can now set your sights on the African Paradise-Flycatcher (male). It should be around your camp.

Well, of course I had to look up the African Paradise-Flycatcher (Terpsiphone viridis),  and here’s a photo from Wikipedia (this is the male; the species is sexually dimorphic).

Hannah Rooke, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Below are the stumpy two horns of this rhino. This is explained by the rangers having previously anesthetized the animals to remove its horns, making it worthless for poaching. Yes, the procedure deprives the circumcised beast of a weapon and an adaptive feature, but that’s more than compensated for by saving the animal from poaching (rhino horns are the object of most South African poaching). Unfortunately, as you see, the horns grow back, though slowly:

At the “sunupper” stop for coffee, we halted by a “dam”: a large pool of water. A herd of Blue Wildebeest came by, drank together rapidly, and then quickly moved off. I suspect they’re wary because they’re hunted by many predators. As Wikipedia notes, “They are a major prey item for lions, cheetahs, leopards, African wild dogs, hyenas, and Nile crocodiles.”

Rhino droppings. They are black—in contrast to elephant droppings, which are brown.

Dan told us that these are wildebeest tracks:

A female elephant and her baby in a matriarchal herd we came upon. This was fairly close to the lodge (about 2 miles away), so I suspect that this is our swimming pool herd. (Elephants cover a lot of distance.)

And, just at the end of our morning trip, I completed my sighting of all the “Big Five” animals by coming across an African Buffalo (Syncerus caffer).  This is an old male (probably about 20, says Dan), and the horns have grown together. From Wikipedia:

A characteristic feature of the horns of adult male African buffalo (southern and eastern populations) is that the bases come very close together, forming a shield referred to as a “boss”. From the base, the horns diverge downwards, then smoothly curve upwards and outwards and in some cases inwards and or backwards. In large bulls, the distance between the ends of the horns can reach upwards of one metre (the record being 64.5 inches 164 cm). The horns form fully when the animal reaches the age of 5 or 6 years old, but the bosses do not become “hard” until it reaches the age of 8 to 9 years old.

These older males, expelled from their herd (they are social) are called “dagga boys“, and are testy and dangerous.  I heard that a ranger was recently seriously injured but not killed by one of these; the bull had to be shot by another ranger.

Note the oxpeckers, busy cleaning and eating:

You don’t want to mess with these!

Dan pouring coffee at our stop. He’s showing his characteristic humor, and was always laughing. He was a fantastic guide, and much enhanced our trip with his ability to spot animals, his knowledge, and his affability.

Dan has worked as a guide for many years (8 at Manyeleti), and apparently has seven weeks on the job—working 7 days a week from 4 a.m. to about 10 p.m.—and then five weeks off when he can visit his family in a nearby village (he lives in the camp while working).  He told me that he was married and had TWELVE children.

Sadly, I had to leave Manyelete after five days. It’s not cheap to stay at such a place, but I considered the dosh very well spent. Never again, I think, will I get to see a place like this—so dry and barren in winter yet so full of life.

As I waited to be picked up and driven to the gate, the herd of 23 elephants came again to the swimming pool for a drink: the matriarch, a few males, and the rest females or babies. I sat by the water and watched them, fascinated and enchanted as they entwined their trunks for bonding, occasionally bellowed, and filled their bellies with pool water, sometimes squirting it over their bodies. These are highly intelligent social animals and I need to learn more about them.

I could have watched them for hours, but I felt a tap on my back. “I thought I’d find you here”, said Dan, who was carrying my luggage. He knows that I love all of Ceiling Cat’s creatures.

The departure was abrupt, and Rosemary met me at the gate to drive me to my lodgings at Hoedspruit. I’ll be here today, where I’ll go to visit a couple of local villages to help distribute donated food (Rosemary works with them). Tomorrow I’ll begin two one-day trips to the Blyde River Canyon, reputedly one of Africa’s most beautiful sights. Then on to Kruger Park for five days. More pictures will be coming, but there may be a hiatus as I travel about.

********

Jerry’s “Big Ten”:

I think the “Big Five” list, comprising the animals most difficult to kill by spear or gun, is too restrictive, so I’ve expanded it to ten animals. The first five below are the Big Five.

Jerry’s “Big Ten”:

Elephant
Rhino
Leopard
Lion
African buffalo
Giraffe
Cheetah
Kudu
Nyala
and, of course, the African Warthog, of which Ozy is one specimen.

Lagniappe photos (the power was just restored):

The herd of slephants at the pool; I was watching them when Dan gently told me it was time to leave. Note that they come in all sizes (look at the cute baby!) but only two sexes.

A panorama of the swimming pool; note that there are also elephants at the big pond in the distance. Click to enlarge:

The matriarch splashing her body with water to cool off:

The eye of the elephant:

Back in Hoedspruit, which counts as civilization though it’s small.  For dinner I ordered a quarter bunny with mutton (medium spicy) to go. Photo by Rosemary.

Onward and upward!

A big rethink of our planet’s early years adds to growing fossil, chemical and DNA evidence that Earth was only a few hundred million years old when life began

A radio signal detected in 1977, sometimes claimed as evidence for aliens, may have been caused by a laser-like beam of microwave radiation

It’s interesting to follow the scientific exploration of a new clinical entity in real time. It reveals a lot about how medical science works, and how scientists nibble away at complex problems. This is partly why I have been closely following the story of long COVID as it has unfolded over the last few years. I also see patients with long COVID […]

The post More on Long COVID first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

Meanwhile, in Dobrzyn, Hili is demanding. She is a cat, after all.

Hili: Where are you going?
A: To the shop.
Hili: Buy three cans of this new pâté.

Hili: Gdzie idziesz?
Ja: Do sklepu.
Hili: Kup trzy puszki tego nowego pasztetu.

Heat waves, droughts, and fires place growing stress on the West's electric grid. New research suggests that more integrated management of electricity resources across the region could significantly reduce the risk of power outages and accelerate the transition to clean energy.