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A new strain of mpox transmitted mainly by heterosexual sex has emerged in a mining town in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and is now spreading to other towns

Researchers have developed an AI model that can translate text into sign language, but experts in Deaf culture and sign language say the translations range from semi-comprehensible to “really unintelligible”

We may never know what lies beyond the boundaries of the observable universe, but the fabric of the cosmos can tell us whether the universe is infinite or not

There is a subset of people on both Left and Right who are invested in thinking that the world is constantly getting worse. These are the same people who go after Steve Pinker, who has argued that things are getting better on average, even though he notes that there are blips and that he can’t predict whether there may be a hug “worsening” in the future—like a nuclear war or global warming that can’t be overcome. But I’m constantly surprised at how people, in the face of the data, still think the world is on a serious moral and material downslide. Would you rather live in 1880 than now? If so, you might already be dead from a tooth abscess.

In his latest column (click to read), Jesse Singal takes these people to task, especially our old friend Scientific American, which has apparently climbed on the “things are worse” bandwagon, which may now have become one aspect of the woke mindset.  Singal gives some data to counteract these claims, and you can see his article for free by clicking on the headline below (his link to the Sci. Am. article is one he found archived).

An excerpt and some corrections given by Singal:

The other day I came across a Scientific American article headlined “We’ve Hit Peak Denial. Here’s Why We Can’t Turn Away From Reality.”

The article, by a pair of researchers at Stanford University and York University, attempts to argue that we are living in increasingly terrible, violent, chaotic times.

Is this true? It’s a widely held belief, particularly among academics and media, as well as an interesting horseshoe coalition of far-left (capitalism has destroyed everything) and far-right (multiculturalism and the collapse of traditional values have destroyed everything) thinkers and, perhaps more often, “thinkers.” Steven Pinker wrote The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, published in 2011, in part to rebut this sort of thinking, which is endemic in his own circles.

So, the article: it’s bizarre. Let’s unpack it. The framing presents the thesis as an obvious, established fact, and immediately sets out to describe deniers as Part of the Problem and to explain their false beliefs. The subheadline: “We are living through a terrible time in humanity. Here’s why we tend to stick our heads in the sand and why we need to pull them out, fast.”

What is particularly terrible about these times? According to the authors:

If it seems like things are kind of off these days, you’re not alone. Recently, more than 100,000 people liked a post marking the start of the pandemic that said, “[Four] years ago, this week was the last normal week of our lives.”

Objectively speaking, we are living through a dumpster fire of a historical moment. Right now more than one million people are displaced and at risk of starvation in Gaza, as are millions more in Sudan. Wars are on the rise around the globe, and 2023 saw the most civilian casualties in almost 15 years.

These are all terrible events, and every one of the lives represented in these statistics is a real-life human person whose death or injury affected others. But at a zoomed-out level, none of this is remotely unusual in human history, and the authors don’t present any evidence — here or elsewhere in the piece — that things really are worse. “The most civilian casualties in almost 15 years” doesn’t mean much. It’s actually 13 years, according to the headline of the linked-to Guardian article. Let’s take a look at the top of that piece:

Action on Armed Violence (AOAV), a monitoring group, said 33,846 non-combatants had been killed or wounded during 2023, an increase of 62% on last year, and the largest amount it had counted since it began its annual survey in 2010.

Again: Every one of those is a real-life human. But still, the question at hand isn’t “Is it bad when people are killed or maimed in war?,” but “Are we seeing some sort of scary historical rise in the number of people killed or maimed in war?”

No. Not even close.

There follows a lot of data about deaths in war that far exceeded 33,846, like massive killings in Cambodia, Germany, and Iraq (I’d add Syria). Then Singal says this:

That doesn’t mean that the plight of Ukrainian, Gazan, and Sudanese civilians isn’t horrific, or that the progress we’ve made is permanent. Maybe the 2024 figures will be worse. Maybe all-out war will break out between Israel and Lebanon, China will get more aggressive about Taiwan, NATO will get fully pulled into the Ukrainian-Russian war, and all sorts of other shit will hit the fan. It’s entirely possible! Humanity has never enjoyed permanent peace and it would be delusional and hubristic to think we can get there. But the point is, numerically, the only way you can claim that we’re in some particularly dark era, as this Scientific American article does, is by. . . well, not revealing the numbers.

The authors of the Scientific American op-ed, Marianne Cooper and Maxim Voronov, also claim that “the second biggest covid surge occurred this winter”. (The article was published on June 18) Singal gives graphs of both hospitalizations and death rate to show that this isn’t true.

Singal gives a theory, which he says is not his, that we’ve evolved to pay attention to bad news, and to be very anxious, because in our long 6-million-year history before civilization that mindset was adaptive. And that, he says, is why we get so much Chicken-Little-ism now, and why so much denial of a palpably improving world. I’m not sure about that theory as there’s no way to test it, but Pinker has noted that bad news always gets more airplay than good news, and I suppose Singal’s explanation of this is as good as any.

Singal’s peroration includes this:

But overall, it’s remarkable the progress our species has made, however you slice it, at least in terms of people’s ability to live longer lives, have the food they need to eat, and have shelter. We haven’t solved these problems, of course, and in many instances the political dysfunction frustrating our attempts to do so is agonizing, but perspective still matters a great deal. It’s hard to build a mostly stable, mostly prosperous civilization. It really is! That’s why we only just got around to it recently, and why the job is unfinished.

. . . . . Anyway, I wish Scientific American were a better magazine these days. This was an exceptionally weird article. But I’m not going to pretend it’s the end of the world or anything.

I’ve bashed Scientific American enough that I needn’t do it again here. Singal has done the work for me. It was once an excellent popular science magazine, with explanation of new scientific developments written by scientists themselves and no intrusion of ideology. I don’t know if it can ever return to the earlier format.

A technique for attaching a skin made from living human cells to a robotic framework could give robots the ability to emote and communicate better

Whether space and time are part of the universe or they emerge from quantum entanglement is one of the biggest questions in physics. And we are getting close to the truth

Geocentrism, the idea that everything in the universe revolves around Earth, has long been disproven, but this episode of Dead Planets Society is bringing it back with cataclysmic consequences

Amherst College’s Board of Trustees has issued a rather confused statement responding to the call of many Amherst pro-Palestinians to divest from companies supplying military equipment to Israel.  The Board decided not to divest, but seems to reserve the right to do so if there is a lot of agreement in the college community on political or ideological issues.

Moreover, the Board emphasizes that it has in the past taken sides and issued statements on such issues, including “apartheid in South Africa and genocide in Sudan.” The bizarre aspect of their statement—and one that nullifies any pretense of institutional neutrality—is that it appears to condition official statements by the Board on whether or not there is “broad and deep agreement” in the Amherst community.  That, of course, raises the question of how broad and deep the agreement must be before the board decides to take sides.

Clearly, Amherst doesn’t fully embrace the Kalven Principles held by the University of Chicago, in which investments occur absolutely independently of outside pressure from and of the extent of agreement in the University community. Chicago has never responded to pressure of this sort.

You can read the Amherst Board’s response by clicking on the link below:

Early in the report, the Board says that their actions are governed by both the economic welfare of Amherst (which investments are supposed to uphold) and the degree of agreement of the community on a political, moral, or ideological issue.  The latter, of course, violates institutional neutrality (bolding is mine):

In our discussions, two principles have guided the trustees: first, as a fiduciary, the Board has a legal responsibility to act in the best interests of the College for both the short and long term; and second, as an agent of an institution comprised of many individuals with a wide range of backgrounds and opinions, it must consider and respect the perspectives of all members of our community. Accordingly, actions taken by the Board should either directly relate to the preservation and advancement of the College’s educational mission or, in rare cases lacking that connection to our purpose, should reflect a broad and deep agreement among Amherst’s students, faculty, staff, and alumni, and should not otherwise harm the College’s interests.

The Board has taken action on issues where disagreement exists—including, in recent years, legacy admissions, support for undocumented students, and advocacy for increased federal and state financial aid—on questions directly related to the fulfillment of our mission as an educational institution. Very rarely, the Board has also taken action responding to global events unrelated to the College’s day-to-day operation—apartheid in South Africa and genocide in Sudan—but only when there was clear agreement in our community, supported by a consensus of the federal government and international organizations.

I’m sure I’d agree with the Board’s stand on South Africa and Sudan (I was arrested for protesting apartheid), but that’s not the point. The Board should not be taking such stands, for they chill the expression of those who may dissent, stifling the lifeblood of a college: free discussion, untrammeled by fear of offending the higher-ups.

At Chicago, official statements can be made and actions taken,on issues that directly affect the working and mission of the University, including the DACA program supporting undocumented students. It’s the part above in bold that is problematic, allowing the Trustees to take stands on issues with no direct bearing on the College’s mission. And on those issues, including South Africa and Sudan, that the Amherst Board of Trustees did indeed take action. It’s not clear from the document whether that action involved divestment or making official statements supporting one side, but either action violates institutional neutrality.

Apparently, the degree of disagreement about the war in Gaza hasn’t risen to Amherst’s level of agreement (bolding is again mine):

With regard to divestment related to Israel’s campaign in Gaza, perspectives in the Amherst community are both deeply held and extremely polarized, as was demonstrated by opinions shared in the faculty meeting on divestment; in meetings held this spring by the administration and trustees with students, faculty, and alumni; during and after the protest at Reunion; in countless formal and informal discussions and venues throughout the year; in the Amherst Student; and in petitions, open letters, and emails to the Board and the administration.

. . . The Board believes that this state of profound disagreement, both as to the action to be taken and its propriety, is very different from the two previous instances when the College took endowment action reflecting broad and deep agreement both on and beyond our campus in response to events in South Africa and Sudan. While the recent resolutions approved by the AAS Senate and the faculty received majority votes of those present, a substantial minority exists among students and faculty that opposes these resolutions—and many alumni have expressed opposing positions, as well. The Board respects that these resolutions were approved through deliberative processes that resulted in the approval of the majority. It also feels an obligation to listen carefully to and consider the significant minority that opposed them.

This leads one to ask this: “If condemnation of Israel were nearly universal at Amherst, would the board then be justified in disinvesting, or taking other actions?”  They imply “yes,” but, to add to the confusion, later on they emphasize that even unanimity of opinion would be problematic for disinvesting (bolding is mine).

Even if there were universal consensus in support of divestment and shared agreement about which companies “supply military equipment used in the present campaign in Gaza”—as the faculty resolution frames it—it would be unrealistic for us to seek to compel our current outside investment managers to remove these companies from their funds. We would, therefore, need to liquidate holdings at potentially poor valuations and either move our endowment capital to other managers whose current investments do not include these companies or directly manage the capital, which would not align with responsible practices for institutional investment. These actions could have significant immediate and long-term negative impacts on returns and—because the endowment directly supports 56% of the College’s annual operating budget—on financial aid, faculty and staff salaries and benefits, and operations.

This is puzzling. I’m not sure whether the actions taken by Amherst’s Trustees with respect to South Africa and Sudan involved disinvesting, but if it did, then clearly there is no complete bar to doing so.

Which is it, Amherst?  Perhaps, though, the Trustees didn’t disinvest in those cases, but merely issued statements. But as I said, even statements violate institutional neutrality. Who would be the judge of whether agreement on an issue is sufficiently widespread that action could be taken? If one student or professor dissents from an action (and surely there was not 100% agreement on South Africa and Sudan), does that still warrant taking sides?

Clearly not, because taking sides, either through issuing statements or disinvesting, will chill the speech of actual or potential dissenters. This is why institutional neutrality should be near absolute, breached only when an issue affects the working and mission of a college.

So would Amherst disinvest again  on a political issue like Gaza if demands to do so come from the college and nearly everybody agrees? They don’t say, but leave the question unanswered. In other words, they punt (bolding is mine):

Students, faculty, and alumni have also raised important questions about the standards by which the Board makes decisions about the endowment and possible actions related to divestment, the channels through which such actions should be proposed and how they should be evaluated, and the transparency of such decisions. Concurrently, some trustees have raised the question of whether the endowment is ever the correct vehicle for the College to express a position on a matter of morality or politics.

The Board realizes that it must address these important issues and continues to discuss the student-drafted proposal to create a campus committee that would make recommendations on such actions in the future. It has become apparent that members of the Amherst community interpret the role of the endowment in very different ways.

This is kicking the Kalven can down the road.

So no, Amherst has not adopted a policy of institutional neutrality, but simply made any official statements and actions contingent on how much dissent there is in the college community. That’s not a great way to foster free expression.

Today’s photos of Arctic birds come from ecologist Susan Harrison of UC Davis. Her captions are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them:

Arctic Europe

Here are a few birds of the tundra and rocky shores of the high European Arctic, mostly on Norway’s scenic Varanger Peninsula at the very northern end of Europe.   An earlier post from this May 2024 trip focused on the seabirds of the island of Hornoya and nearby fishing town of Vardo.  In a subsequent post I’ll go a little farther south and feature the forest birds of northern Finland.

Willow Ptarmigan (a.k.a. Willow Grouse, Red Grouse; Lagopus lagopus):

Rock Ptarmigan (Lagopus muta) – can you spot both of this pair?

Meadow Pipit (Anthus pratensis):

Parasitic Jaeger (a.k.a. Arctic Skua; Stercorarius parasiticus), given its unpleasant name for its food-stealing habit:

Short-eared Owl (Asio flammeus) – we saw five of these in one morning, suggesting it’s a good vole year:

White-tailed Eagle (Haliaeetus albicilla), quite common in this area, and so large they have been called “flying barn doors:”

White-throated Dipper (Cinclus cinclus), hunting along a river swollen by snowmelt:

Bluethroat (Luscinia svecica) – this is the only picture I could manage of this enchanting high-Arctic bird, found in both the Old and New Worlds:

Dotterel (Eudromias morinellus) – a pink plover!!

Eurasian Golden-Plover (Pluvialis apricaria) – a dazzling sequined plover!!

Long-tailed Ducks (Clangula hyemalis); these two were likely exhausted after a long migratory flight:

Dunlin (Calidris alpina); this flock was completely exhausted and immobile on a rocky beach:

Dunlin closeup:

Common Eider flock (Somateria mollissima), the source of that lovely down:

Common Eider closeup:

Research has found the universe is remarkably similar in structure to the human brain. But does this mean the cosmos has a consciousness of its own?

3D weaving technology, AI-designed fibres and leather made from waste fish scales are among the sustainable fashion innovations on display at an exhibition in London

Skeptoid's Death Valley Adventure is holding 5 tickets for students and active duty military. To apply to get one, visit skeptoid.com/deathvalley

One hundred years ago, we discovered there were other galaxies beyond our own. Now, we might be on the verge of another discovery: that there are other universes

The Chinese lunar spacecraft Chang’e 6 has touched down in Inner Mongolia, bringing back to Earth the first rock samples from the moon's far side

As ice melts beneath Antarctica, warm ocean water can intrude further inland and set off more melting, in what researchers say is an unrecognised tipping point

A roundup of all those things that movies always get wrong and make you mad.

Three weeks after it lifted off from the far side of the moon, China’s Chang’e-6 spacecraft dropped off a capsule containing first-of-its-kind lunar samples for retrieval from the plains of Inner Mongolia.

The gumdrop-shaped sample return capsule floated down to the ground on the end of a parachute, with the descent tracked on live television. After today’s touchdown, at 2:07 p.m. local time (0607 GMT), members of the mission’s recovery team checked the capsule and unfurled a Chinese flag nearby.

Chang’e-6, which was launched in early May, is the first robotic mission to land and lift off again from the moon’s far side — the side that always faces away from Earth. It’s also the first mission to bring dirt and rocks from the far side back to Earth.

“The Chang’e-6 lunar exploration mission achieved complete success,” Zhang Kejian, director of the China National Space Administration, said from mission control. Chinese President Xi Jinping extended congratulations to the mission team, the state-run Xinhua news service reported.

Chang’e-6 followed a flight plan similar to the one used for Chang’e-5, a mission that brought back samples from the moon’s Earth-facing side in 2020. After entering lunar orbit, the spacecraft sent a lander down to the moon’s South Pole-Aitken Basin region.

The lander used an onboard drill and robotic arm to collect and store samples on its ascent stage. It also gathered data about its surroundings with a radon detector, a negative-ion detector and a mini-rover. Data and telemetry were relayed between Chang’e-6 and Earth via China’s Queqiao-2 satellite.

On June 4, Chang’e-6’s ascent stage lifted off for a rendezvous with the orbiting spacecraft. The samples were transferred to a re-entry capsule, and the spacecraft left lunar orbit several days ago for the trip back to Earth. The re-entry capsule was released as the spacecraft sped about 5,000 kilometers (3,100 miles) over the South Atlantic Ocean, CNSA said in a mission update.

After an initial round of processing at the landing site in China’s Inner Mongolia region, the capsule is due to be airlifted to Beijing, where the mission’s precious cargo will be removed for distribution to researchers.

The samples are expected to include volcanic rock and other materials that could shed fresh light on the moon’s origins and compositional differences between the near side and the far side. Scientists may also learn more about resources in the moon’s south polar region. That region is of high interest because it’s thought to harbor deposits of water ice that could be used to support future lunar settlements.

NASA is targeting the south polar region for a series of robotic missions — leading up to a crewed landing during the Artemis 3 mission, which is currently scheduled for 2026. China has its own lunar ambitions, including plans for sending astronauts to the lunar surface by 2030.

The post China’s Chang’e-6 Probe Drops Off Samples From Moon’s Far Side appeared first on Universe Today.

It's important to honestly and explicitly call out bad faith engagement for what it is and recognize how it functions as a common, but powerful rhetorical device.

The post Did I Lie About My Conference Invitation? How Bad Faith Engagement Functions As A Distraction and Silencing Technique. first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

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A.J. Jacobs learned the hard way that donning a tricorne hat and marching around Manhattan with a 1700s musket will earn you a lot of strange looks. In the wake of several controversial rulings by the Supreme Court and the ongoing debate about how the Constitution should be interpreted, Jacobs set out to understand what it means to live by the Constitution.

In The Year of Living Constitutionally, A.J. Jacobs tries to get inside the minds of the Founding Fathers by living as closely as possible to the original meaning of the Constitution. He asserts his right to free speech by writing his opinions on parchment with a quill and handing them out to strangers in Times Square. He consents to quartering a soldier, as is his Third Amendment right. He turns his home into a traditional 1790s household by lighting candles instead of using electricity, boiling mutton, and—because women were not allowed to sign contracts—feebly attempting to take over his wife’s day job, which involves a lot of contract negotiations.

The book blends unforgettable adventures—delivering a handwritten petition to Congress, applying for a Letter of Marque to become a legal pirate for the government, and battling redcoats as part of a Revolutionary War reenactment group—with dozens of interviews from constitutional experts from both sides. Jacobs dives deep into originalism and living constitutionalism, the two rival ways of interpreting the document.

Much like he did with the Bible in The Year of Living Biblically, Jacobs provides a crash course on our Constitution as he experiences the benefits and perils of living like it’s the 1790s. He relishes, for instance, the slow thinking of the era, free from social media alerts. But also discovers the progress we’ve made since 1789 when married women couldn’t own property.

Now more than ever, Americans need to understand the meaning and value of the Constitution. As politicians and Supreme Court Justices wage a high-stakes battle over how literally we should interpret the Constitution, A.J. Jacobs provides an entertaining yet illuminating look into how this storied document fits into our democracy today.

A.J. Jacobs is a journalist, lecturer, and human guinea pig whose books include Drop Dead Healthy, The Year of Living Biblically, and The Puzzler. A contributor to NPR, The New York Times, and Esquire, among other media outlets, Jacobs lives in New York City with his family. His new book is The Year of Living Constitutionally: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Constitution’s Original Meaning.

Shermer and Jacobs discuss:

• what possessed him to spend a year living constitutionally and biblically
• what the Constitution really says and means
• Constitutional originalism
• what’s behind the Supreme Court’s rulings on guns, religion, women’s rights and more
• what happens if you become an ultimate originalist and follow the Constitution using the mindset and tools of the Founders
• why originalism is not the best approach
• what happened when he carried a musket on the streets of NYC
• why firing an 18th century musket takes 15 steps. It would be hard to conduct a mass shooting with a musket.
• how he gave up social media in favor of writing pamphlets with a quill pen
• how he fined his sons thirty-seven and a half cents for every time they cursed, as was the constitutionally-approved law in New York State in 1789
• 18th century view of rights was very different. (They did not see rights as trump cards. Rights had to be balanced against the common good. So free speech was actually much more constricted. Neither conservatives nor progressives would want the 18th century free speech.)
• what the 18th century was really like: it was a racist, sexist, smelly, dangerous time
• Ideas from the 18th century worth preserving:
  • cold takes instead of hot takes
  • election cakes (elections in the 18th century were festive. (This was a new right. They had music, parades, and cake.)
  • responsibilities and virtue. (They balanced the idea of rights with the idea of virtue and the pubic good.)
  • epistemic humility and changing one’s mind
  • news detoxes (They got their news twice a week. That allowed them time to think about it instead of always being in reactive rage mode).
• what the founders got right and wrong
  • They were elitists, and installed counter-majoritarian measures in the Constitution that are still problems today (like the Electoral College).
  • They would be shocked at today’s government, and how the president is far too powerful.
  • The Founders were fearful of monarchy and authoritarianism. They would not be happy with the office of president today.
  • Why the Founders considered three co-presidents because no single person should have that much power.
  • They would be shocked by how powerful SCOTUS is. Most Founders didn’t think it would be the final say on the Constitution.
  • They would be shocked by the Supermajority rule in the Senate. That is not in the Constitution.
• The Constitution
  • Frederick Douglass’ idea that the Constitution is a promissory note. It contains ideals like liberty and equality. We have to make America live up to it. (MLK and Obama echoed this idea)
  • We should interpret the Constitution in a pluralist way, not a single lens. Look at the original meaning, but also how a decision will affect society today, and our descendants. (Or else as a pair of pants with an elastic waist. You want it to have some structure, but also some give. It shouldn’t be a pair of skinny jeans that splits open when you gain a pound.)
• We have to work to save democracy through reform. It won’t save itself.

If you enjoy the podcast, please show your support by making a $5 or $10 monthly donation.

When stars reach the end of their life cycle, they shed their outer layers in a supernova. What is left behind is a neutron star, a stellar remnant that is incredibly dense despite being relatively small and cold. When this happens in binary systems, the resulting neutron stars will eventually spiral inward and collide. When they finally merge, the process triggers the release of gravitational waves and can lead to the formation of a black hole. But what happens as the neutron stars begin merging, right down to the quantum level, is something scientists are eager to learn more about.

When the stars begin to merge, very high temperatures are generated, creating “hot neutrinos” that remain out of equilibrium with the cold cores of the merging stars. Ordinarily, these tiny, massless particles only interact with normal matter via weak nuclear forces and possibly gravity. However, according to new simulations led by Penn State University (PSU) physicists, these neutrinos can weakly interact with normal matter during this time. These findings could lead to new insights into these powerful events.

Pedro Luis Espino, a postdoctoral researcher at Penn State and the University of California, Berkeley, led the research. He was joined by fellow astrophysicists from PSU, the Theoretical Physics Institute at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena, the University of Trent, and the Trento Institute for Fundamental Physics and Applications (INFN-TIFPA). A paper describing their simulations, “Neutrino Trapping and Out-of-Equilibrium Effects in Binary Neutron-Star Merger Remnants,” recently appeared in the journal Physical Reviews Letters.

Artist’s conception of a neutron star merger. This process also creates heavy elements. Credit: Tohoku University

Originally predicted by Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity, gravitational waves (GW) are essentially ripples in spacetime caused by the collapse of stars or the merger of compact objects (such as neutron stars and black holes). Neutron stars are so named because their incredible density fuses protons and electrons together, creating stellar remnants composed almost entirely of neutrons. For years, astronomers have studied GW events to learn more about binary companions and what happens at the moment they merge. Said Pedro Luis Espino, a postdoctoral researcher at Penn State and the University of California, Berkeley, explained in a Penn State press release:

“For the first time in 2017, we observed here on Earth signals of various kinds, including gravitational waves, from a binary neutron star merger. This led to a huge surge of interest in binary neutron star astrophysics. There is no way to reproduce these events in a lab to study them experimentally, so the best window we have into understanding what happens during a binary neutron star merger is through simulations based on math that arises from Einstein’s theory of general relativity.”

While neutron stars are effectively cold, they can become extremely hot during a merger, especially at the interface (the point where the two stars are making contact). In this region, temperatures can reach the trillions of degrees Kelvin, but the stars’ density prevents photons from escaping to dissipate the heat. According to David Radice, an assistant professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the Eberly College of Science at Penn State and one of the team leaders, this heat may be dissipated by neutrinos, which are created during the collision as neutrons are smashed to form protons, electrons, and neutrinos.

“The period where the merging stars are out of equilibrium is only 2 to 3 milliseconds, but like temperature, time is relative here, the orbital period of the two stars before the merge can be as little as one millisecond,” he said. “This brief out-of-equilibrium phase is when the most interesting physics occurs, once the system returns to equilibrium, the physics is better understood.”

To investigate this, the research team created supercomputer simulations that modeled the merger and associated physics of binary neutron stars. Their simulations showed that even neutrinos can be trapped by the heat and density of the merger, that the hot neutrinos are out of equilibrium with the still cool cores, and can interact with the matter of the stars. Moreover, their simulations indicate that the physical conditions present during a merger can affect the resulting GW signals. Said Espino:

“How the neutrinos interact with the matter of the stars and eventually are emitted can impact the oscillations of the merged remnants of the two stars, which in turn can impact what the electromagnetic and gravitation wave signals of the merger look like when they reach us here on Earth. Next-generation gravitation-wave detectors could be designed to look for these kinds of signal differences. In this way, these simulations play a crucial role allowing us to get insight into these extreme events while informing future experiments and observations in a kind of feedback loop.”

This is certainly good news for gravitational wave astronomy and for scientists hoping to use GW events to probe the interiors of neutron stars. Knowing what conditions are present during mergers based on the type of GW signals produced could also provide new insight into supernovae, Gamma-ray Bursts, Fast Radio Bursts, and the nature of Dark Matter.

Further Reading: PSU, Physical Review Letters

The post Simulating the Last Moments Before Neutron Stars Merge appeared first on Universe Today.