News Feeds

Where does the periodic table of chemical elements end and which processes lead to the existence of heavy elements? Researchers report on experiments to come closer to an answer. They gained insight into the structure of atomic nuclei of fermium (element 100) with different numbers of neutrons. Using forefront laser spectroscopy techniques, they traced the evolution of the nuclear charge radius and found a steady increase as neutrons were added to the nuclei. This indicates that localized nuclear shell effects have a reduced influence on the nuclear charge radius in these heavy nuclei

A robot, trained for the first time by watching videos of seasoned surgeons, executed the same surgical procedures as skillfully as the human doctors, say researchers.

A robot, trained for the first time by watching videos of seasoned surgeons, executed the same surgical procedures as skillfully as the human doctors, say researchers.

Engineers have found a way to make stronger and crack-resistant concrete with scrap carpet fibers, rolling out the red carpet for sustainability in the construction sector.

Plastics are inescapable in our daily lives. The vast amounts of plastic garbage heaped in landfills and in the environment, however, are as problematic as the plastics are useful. A research team has now introduced a new method for recycling polystyrene waste. Their efficient electrochemical process uses an inexpensive iron catalyst, produces hydrogen as a byproduct, and can be powered by solar panels.

How well a catalyst works often depends on the surface it is placed on. For years, it has been known that carbon substrates work well with precious metal catalysts, but it could never be properly explained. Now scientists managed to get to the bottom of this phenomenon -- with remarkable results: Metal atoms which are placed directly next to carbon are two hundred times more effective as catalysts.

Researchers have developed a new photocatalyst that could render steam methane reforming entirely emissions-free and extend catalyst lifetimes.

Abigail Shrier is the author of two books that I’ve recommended, the first of which was predictably attacked by progressives:  Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters. Her second book was Bad Therapy: Why the Kids aren’t Growing Up.  You may remember that ACLU lawyer Chase Strangio broadcast that he wanted to get the first book banned (yes, an ACLU lawyer), as he considered it “transphobic”.  And you can find my review of Bad Therapy here.

Now Shrier, who is basically an investigative reporter, has written a long piece for the Free Press about how secondary-school teachers throughout America are secretly propagandizing kids to favor Palestine and hate Israel (and Jews) in the Gaza War. You can read the piece by clicking on the screenshot below, or find it archived here.

The propagandizing is ubiquitous, from California to New Jersey, and is fostered by often-“progressive” teachers unions.  Because it’s illegal to do this (as Shrier notes, “public school teachers have no First Amendment right to express their political views in the classroom”), teachers often do it in secret, even taking kids on field trips to anti-Israel events without broadcasting it. An example:

In August, the second largest teachers union chapter in the country—there are more than 35,000 members of United Teachers Los Angeles—met at the Bonaventure Hotel in L.A. to discuss, among other things, how to turn their K-12 students against Israel. In front of a PowerPoint that read, “How to be a teacher & an organizer. . . and NOT get fired,” history teacher Ron Gochez elaborated on stealth methods for indoctrinating students.

But how to transport busloads of kids to an anti-Israel rally, during the school day, without arousing suspicion?

“A lot of us that have been to those [protest] actions have brought our students. Now I don’t take the students in my personal car,” Gochez told the crowd. Then, referring to the Los Angeles Unified School District, he explained: “I have members of our organization who are not LAUSD employees. They take those students and I just happen to be at the same place and the same time with them.”

Gochez was just getting warmed up. “It’s like tomorrow I go to church and some of my students are at the church. ‘Oh, wow! Hey, how you doing?’ We just happen to be at the same place at the same time, and look! We just happen to be at a pro-Palestine action, same place, same time.”

The crowd burst into approving laughter.

Isn’t that hilarious? But of course, this kind of stuff eventually produces anti-Semitism in school, leading to the taunting and bullying of Jewish students (Shrier gives examples).

Worse than these one-time incidents, however, it he constant infusion of antisemitism in to the school curricula. It particularly infects “ethnic studies” classes, required for students in states like California.There we saw a huge fracas about antisemitic materials in the ethnic studies curriculum, a fracas that’s still going on. Here’s a summary of what Shrier found in her swing across America:

Four years ago, I was among the first journalists to expose the widespread incursion of gender ideology into our schools. Once-fringe beliefs about gender swiftly took over large swaths of society partly thanks to their inclusion in school curricula and lessons.

Today, extensive interviews with parents, teachers, and non-profit organizations that monitor the radicalism and indoctrination in schools convinced me that demonization of Israel in American primary and secondary schools is no passing fad. Nor is it confined to elite private schools serving hyper-progressive families. As one Catholic parent who exposes radicalism in schools nationwide on the Substack Undercover Mother said to me: “They’ve moved on from BLM to gender unicorn to the new thing: anti-Israel activism. Anti-Israel activism is the new gender ideology in the schools.”

Parents who watched in alarm as gender theory swept through schools will recognize the sudden, almost religious conversion to this newest ideology. And very few educators are standing against it.

Much of the anti-Israel vituperation slides into classrooms through a subject called ethnic studies. In 2021, California became the first state to adopt it as a requirement for receiving a high school diploma. Legislatures of more than a dozen states have already followed suit, incorporating ethnic studies into K–12 curricula.

Here’s an image shown to students at Lowell High School as part of their Ethnic Studies class. (From The Free Press)

In principle, these laws require schools to teach the histories and cultures of African Americans, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, Latinos, and Native Americans. In practice, they grant teachers license to incorporate lessons that often divide civilization into “oppressed” and “oppressor.” A primary fixation of ethnic studies is demonizing Israel.

Activist-led organizations readily supply instructional materials. Arab Resource & Organizing Center (AROC), Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA; creators of the Teach Palestine Project), Teaching While Muslim, Jewish Voice for Peace, Unión del Barrio, and the Zinn Education Project regularly furnish distorted histories with eliminationist rhetoric against Israel.

Especially in the year since the Hamas massacre of Israelis on October 7, 2023, the anti-Israel materials have become pervasive. It’s not surprising that they are found in world history and current events lessons. But demonization of Israel is now taught in art, English, math, physics, and social-emotional learning classes.

At the teachers’ meeting described above, they pondered the question of how to teach this stuff “without getting fired”. They’re still doing it because although it’s forbidden to propagandize students in class, it’s up to the schools themselves to find out about it and control it, and they don’t seem much interested. Also, the parents have to KNOW that this stuff is going on and get involved, and parents are reluctant to do that. Further, schools, though required to release instructional material to parents, have fought such releases.  Finally, states can set school curricula, and if those curricula include anti-Israel tropes, as in California, then teachers are free to teach that material.

At any rate, here are a few anecdotes and some material that Shrier got with the help of the Free Press:

A Jewish ninth grader, “Sam,” attends a Bay Area high school where, after October 7 of last year, posters declaring, “Ceasefire Now!” and “Free Palestine” began appearing on the walls. Because Sam’s family considers itself very progressive, Sam was not bothered by the posters.

Then one of Sam’s friends sent him a long diatribe that read in part (spelling from the original), “I would just like to say that u are an ignorant ass white ass privileged boy u are so privileged to not b one of those children being killed rn in Gaza…solidarity and indigenous solidarity is something you could never understand as you have grown up your whole life with no culture and money and you been brainwashed by isreali and western media the world stands with Palestine and frankly it’s embarrassing to be anything different, when mostly all people of color stand with Palestine and you stand with ISREAL, that’s how yk ur in the wrong bud oppressed people stand with oppressed people in solidarity SOMETHING YOU COULDD NEVER UNDERSTAND.” The text concluded: “FREE PALESTINE TILL ITS BACKWARDS BITCH!!!!”

I spoke to Sam’s mother, and her perception was that the message didn’t sound like her son’s friend. The jargon and gist appeared to come from adults. Only the self-righteous fury and the message’s abusive conclusion belonged to the boy.

another:

I also spoke to the mother of “Dana,” a sixth-grade girl at a Bay Area elementary school. In a social studies unit on ancient civilizations last year, the teacher encouraged students to share their “feelings” about “Israel and Palestine.” Students shouted: “Fuck Israel!” and “Israel sucks!” Dana was the only Jewish child in the class.

Please, sir, can I have some more?:

One of Danny’s teachers posted a running tally, in the front of the classroom, of the number of Palestinians allegedly killed by the IDF. She says, “So every day, when my son came into class, it would say how many people Israel has killed today.” (The Free Press has confirmed this with photographic evidence.)

Danny, who is black, said to her, “If there was an image of a noose, we would not hear the end of it. There would be protests, people would be going crazy. But it’s always okay if it’s anything anti-Jewish.”

One more bowl of porridge:

At a Fort Lee, New Jersey, high school, world history teachers confiscated students’ cell phones before giving a lesson that presented Hamas as a “resistance movement” rather than an internationally designated terrorist organization. Teachers also showed a map of Israel that falsely presented Palestinians as the sole indigenous natives of Israel. (The Free Press has obtained a copy of the presentation. Click here to see it.)

Here are two slides from that lesson dealing with Hamas (“a resistance movement”) and October 7 of last year.

I’ll finish with an excerpt that has two more audiovisuals:

Kaplan says, “In math class, they can be studying charts and are told, ‘Look at this pie chart of the number of Palestinians murdered. This slice shows the number of Israelis that were killed.’ ”

That example was actually presented to elementary school students in New Haven Unified School District, California. The chart is labeled “People Killed Since September 29, 2000” divided into Palestinians and Israelis and asks: “What information is this pie graph showing us?” The obvious answer: Far more Palestinians have been killed than Israelis.

What “noticings do you have?” (Can’t these people even write?)

Image obtained by The Free Press.

Another mother sent me an example of an assignment used in a physics class at Cupertino High School, which asked students to consider the “Effect of Israel’s Bombing of Gaza” on climate change. (Arrow is mine)

Image obtained by The Free Press. At schools where anti-Israel propaganda is promulgated, schoolchildren are turning against their Jewish classmates. Dozens of interviews with parents, teachers, and people at nonprofits revealed that discussions of Israel quickly become personal, and American Jews—even children—are the inevitable targets.

All of this guarantees that America will become yet more antisemitic in the future as these kids grow up and assume positions of power—or become teachers themselves.

I’d like to point out one more thing: I am not aware of teachers spreading anti-Palestinian propaganda like this, so it’s not as if Shrier is just singling out “her side” (she’s Jewish) for support. This kind of brainwashing, and nearly all the riots on college campuses the past academic year, are anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian. It’s not hard to understand why when you realize that Jews are now regarded as white “settler colonialists”, and Palestinians as “oppressed people of color without agency:—a trope that has been instilled in both college and secondary-school students for a long time. This trope is spread by DEI organizations.

Most assessments of global warming use 1850-1900 as a baseline, but researchers have now established a new pre-industrial reference by using Antarctic ice cores to estimate the average temperature before 1700

Experiments show that illuminating the underside of a decoy seal reduces attacks by great white sharks, revealing a possible strategy to protect surfers and swimmers

Voyager 2 flew by Uranus in 1986, giving us our only up-close look at the planet – but unusual space weather just before the craft arrived has given us a misleading idea about the planet’s magnetic field

Extreme weather and a growing population is driving a food security crisis. What can we do to break the vicious cycle of carbon emissions, climate change and soaring food costs – or is it already too late?

Seven major datasets used to train audio-generating AI models are three times more likely to use the words "man" or "men" than "woman" or "women", raising fears of bias

Thanks to some generous readers, we now have about four batches of wildlife photos. But we always need more, you know.

I’m delighted today to welcome back ace bird photographer Colin Franks, who contributed a batch of photos that haven’t been published here. Colin’s website is here, his Facebook page is here (lots of new bird photos), and his Instagram page is here.  His text and IDs are indented below:

It’s been a little over three years since my diagnosis of PLS (a form of ALS).  In spite of major changes in my life due to that, and a steady decline of my balance and walking, I continued with my bird photography as long as I could.  Back in July of this year I made my final post on FB and IG, as I could no longer negotiate the terrain required.  It was a very sad time.  About a week ago I discovered and purchased an “All-Terrain” walker, and this has allowed me to once again visit some of my old haunts.  There is still much in the way of gnarlier terrain that I cannot traverse, but at least I can keep on a little while with this great pastime. Here are some older shots not yet shared on WEIT.

American Kestrel (Falco sparverius):

Common Yellowthroat (Geothlypis trichas):

Spotted Towhee (Pipilo maculatus):

Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias):

Barred Owl (Strix varia):

Long-billed Curlew (Numenius americanus):

Anna’s Hummingbird (Calypte anna):

Cedar Waxwing (Bombycilla cedrorum):

Marbled Godwit (Limosa fedoa):

Barn Swallow (Hirundo rustica):

Western Sandpiper (Calidris mauri):

Black-bellied Plover (Pluvialis squatarola):

Osprey (Pandion haliaetus):

Climate change is a huge topic and often debated across the world. We continue to burn fossil fuels and ignore our charge toward human driven climate change but while our behaviour never seems to improve, something else does! For the last few decades we have been pumping chlorofluorocarbons into the atmosphere causing a hole in the ozone layer to form. Thanks largely to worldwide regulation changes and a reduction in the use of these chemicals, the hole it seems is finally starting to get smaller. 

The ozone layer is the protective shield in Earth’s stratosphere. It’s about 15 to 35 kilometres above the Earth and its presence helps to protect us by absorbing harmful ultraviolet radiation. The region is mostly ozone composed of three oxygen molecules and it filters out the UV-B and UV-C radiation which can lead to skin cancer, cataracts and can even damage parents crops. The rest of the atmosphere is composed mostly of nitrogen gas (78%), oxygen (21%) and a few other gasses making up the remaining 1%. 

A view of Earth’s atmosphere from space. Credit: NASA

In the late 20th century scientists found that certain chemicals like the well known chlorofluorocarbons (CFC’s) were slowly destroying the layer. This resulted in seasonal holes appearing in the ozone especially over Antarctica. In 1987, the Montreal Protocol international treaty was signed to curb the global release of CFC’s and other ozone harmful gas. 

Just recently, a team of scientists from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have confirmed that the hole in the ozone layer over the south pole was relatively small compared to previous years. During the month of September to October, when the ozone depletion process is at its peak, it was the 7th smallest hole since 1992. An average season sees an incredible 20 million square kilometres of ozone depletion. The teams data even suggests the layer could fully recover by 2066. 

To collect the data the team uses a number of systems. A number of satellites (Aura, NOAA-20, NOAA-21 and Suomi NPP) are used to collect data from orbit. In addition they use weather balloons which are launched from the South Pole Baseline Atmospheric Observatory to directly measure ozone concentrations. 

Geostationary orbits are where telecommunication satellites and other monitoring satellites operate. This image shows one of the NOAA’s Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites. Image Credit: NOAA.

The measurements are captured as Dobson Units. One Dobson Unit is equivalent to the number of ozone molecules that would be needed to create a layer of pure ozone 0.01 millimetres thick. Of course temperature and pressure would effect this so the measurement is based on a layer at 0 degrees Celsius and 1 atmosphere (the average pressure of atmosphere at surface of Earth.) In 2024, the measurement in October 2024 was 109 Dobson Units in comparison to the lowest ever value of 92 Dobson Units in 2006. 

The Montreal Protocol certainly seems to be making a difference seeing a significant and continuous decline in CFCs. This, along with an infusion of ozone from north of Antarctica have combined to reverse the depletion. 

Source : Ozone Hole Continues Healing in 2024

The post Good News, the Ozone Layer Hole is Continuing to Shrink appeared first on Universe Today.

Reaching net-zero emissions is essential for halting climate change - but even after we achieve this goal, parts of the planet will continue to warm. Delaying net zero will worsen these effects

Last week, Donald Trump defeated Kamala Harris and will return to the White House in January. What does this mean for science-based federal health policy? Hint: Nothing good. Just like the rest of the government, the worst people are likely to be in charge of health and science policy.

The post Donald Trump won. Now what for science-based federal health policy? first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

Here’s Bill Maher’s 7-minute comedy/news bit from Friday’s “Real Time.”  The title of the episode refers, of course, to comedian Tony Hinchcliffe’s statement at a Trump Rally in NYC: “”There’s a lot going on. I don’t know if you know this but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. Yeah, I think it’s called Puerto Rico.”  It was not funny, and did not go down well, though of course nothing hurts Trump.

In this bit Maher is calling attention to the human-caused “death of the ocean”.  He avers that un-polluting the ocean will be much harder than curbing global warming.  And what we see on the surface (there’s one “garbage island” the size of France!) is only the tip of the iceberg:  70% of the garbage, much of it plastic, sinks to the bottom.

Curiously, Maher avoids discussing the election results save to say that Harris was part of the only party that even deals with the environment, yet she never mentioned pollution and even reversed her earlier anti-fracking position. Maher clearly sees oceanic pollution—and environmental pollution in general—as critical but ignored issuea.  Recycling, he says, is a crock, since only 9% of plastic gets recycled.

. . . and here’s his 3½-minute monologue about the election itself:

From January 10-12 (Friday through Sunday), there will be a substantial conference at the University of Southern California on censorship in science, and by that they mean all the sciences: STEMM.  You can see details about the conference at the website below (click on screenshot), and view the preliminary program here.  (There was an sketchier announcement of the conference in August, but now things are in their final stages.)

You can register here; the fee is $200 ($100 for students), and that’s not a bad deal given that the registration includes lunches, coffee breaks, and receptions with drinks and food.  And the participants include, beyond a passel of working scientists, people like Jonathan Rauch, Jesse Singal, FIRE President Greg Lukianoff and, mirabile dictu, Marcia McNutt, President of the National Academy of Science.

And of course there’s this by way of self-promotion (end of the meeting):

Yes, I team up again with my partner in crime Dr. Maroja, on a two-person panel moderated by UC Berkeley molecular biologist Julia Schaletzky.

I hear that space is filling up, so if you want to register, and have the time and ability to go to USC (in LA), I recommend registering ASAP.

One of the most difficult challenges when assembling a telescope is aligning it to optical precision. If you don’t do it correctly, all your images will be fuzzy. This is particularly challenging when you assemble your telescope in space, as the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) demonstrates.

Unlike the Hubble Space Telescope, the JWST doesn’t have a single primary mirror. To fit in the launch rocket, it had to be folded, then assembled after launch. For this reason and others, JWST’s primary reflector is a set of 18 hexagonal mirror segments. Each segment is only 1.3-meters wide, but when aligned properly, they act effectively as a single 6.5-meter mirror. It’s an effective way to build a larger space telescope, but it means the mirror assembly has to be focused in space.

To achieve this, each mirror segment has a set of actuators that can shift the segment along six axes of alignment. They are focused using a wavefront phase technique. Since light behaves as a wave, when two beams of light overlap, the waves create an interference pattern. When the mirrors are aligned properly, the waves of light from each mirror segment also align, creating a sharp focus.

The primary mirrors of Hubble and JWST compared. Credit: Wikipedia user Bobarino

For JWST, its Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) is equipped with a wavefront camera. To align the mirrors, the JWST team points NIRCam at a star, then intentionally moves the mirrors out of alignment. This gives the star a blurred diffraction look. The team then positions the mirrors to focus the star, which brings them into alignment.

This was done to align the mirrors soon after JWST was launched. But due to vibrations and shifts in temperature, the mirror segments slowly drift out of alignment. Not by much, but enough that they need to be realigned occasionally. To keep things proper, the team typically does a wavefront error check every other day. There is also a small camera aimed at the mirror assembly, so the team can take a “selfie” to monitor the condition of the mirrors.

The JWST was designed to maintain a wavefront error of 150 nanometers, but the team has been able to maintain a 65 nanometer error. It’s an astonishingly tight alignment for a space telescope, which allows JWST to capture astounding images of the most distant galaxies in the observable universe.

You can learn more about this technique on the NASA Blog.

The post How Webb Stays in Focus appeared first on Universe Today.