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A research team has bridged a knowledge gap in atomic-scale heat motion. This new understanding holds promise for enhancing materials to advance an emerging technology called solid-state cooling.

A research team has bridged a knowledge gap in atomic-scale heat motion. This new understanding holds promise for enhancing materials to advance an emerging technology called solid-state cooling.

The process that can convert pollution into benign by-products is called selective catalytic reduction, or SCR. Until now, it has been unclear how this reaction actually occurs, and contradictions have long existed between reaction models within the literature. Catalysis researchers used a technology called modulation excitation spectroscopy, or MES, to finally identify the correct pathway.

Researchers have come up with exciting and sophisticated new mapping technology enabling future generations to get involved in creating their own future built landscape. They say that planners are missing a real trick when it comes to encouraging and involving the public to help shape their own towns, cities and counties for the future. They also say that games platforms can be used to plan future cities and also help the public immerse themselves in these future worlds.

Researchers have come up with exciting and sophisticated new mapping technology enabling future generations to get involved in creating their own future built landscape. They say that planners are missing a real trick when it comes to encouraging and involving the public to help shape their own towns, cities and counties for the future. They also say that games platforms can be used to plan future cities and also help the public immerse themselves in these future worlds.

Researchers have developed nanorobots that kill cancer cells in mice. The robot's weapon is hidden in a nanostructure and is exposed only in the tumour microenvironment, sparing healthy cells.

Researchers have developed nanorobots that kill cancer cells in mice. The robot's weapon is hidden in a nanostructure and is exposed only in the tumour microenvironment, sparing healthy cells.

AI model finds the cancer clues at lightning speed. Researchers have developed an AI model that increases the potential for detecting cancer through sugar analyses. The AI model is faster and better at finding abnormalities than the current semi-manual method.

Melanin is a ubiquitous compound in nature, produced by many organisms. However, its potential as a biomass resource to produce value-added chemicals and materials remains relatively unexplored. In a recent study, researchers investigated the chemical decomposition of melanin derived from cuttlefish ink and showcased its application in the synthesis of biopolymer films and particles. Their efforts will hopefully pave the way to the adoption of melanin upcycling.

Wooden sticks found in an Australian cave appear to match the accounts of a 19th-century anthropologist, suggesting the GurnaiKurnai people practised the same ritual at the end of the last glacial period

This I didn’t expect, and it’s a decision by a 6-3 vote, with Jackson, Kagan, and Sotomayor dissenting. Trump is now apparently shielded from prosecution for official acts, but not private ones. That’s going to cause great confusion, but it’s also going to delay his trials, making it easier for him to win November’s election.

From the NYT; click the headlines to read (archived here, but the feed changes):

An excerpt as things unroll in real time:

The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that former President Donald J. Trump is entitled to some level of immunity from prosecution, a decision that will almost surely delay the trial of the case against him on charges of plotting to subvert the 2020 election past the coming election in November. The vote was 6 to 3, dividing along partisan lines.

Mr. Trump contended that he was entitled to absolute immunity from the charges, relying on a broad understanding of the separation of powers and a 1982 Supreme Court precedent that recognized such immunity in civil cases for actions taken by presidents within the “outer perimeter” of their official responsibilities. Lower courts rejected Mr. Trump’s claim, but the Supreme Court’s ruling may delay the case enough that Mr. Trump would be able to make it go away entirely if he prevails in November.

Here’s what to know:

• The ruling: The justices said that Mr. Trump is immune from prosecution for official acts taken during his presidency but that there was a crucial distinction between official and private conduct. The case returns to the lower court, which will decide whether the actions Mr. Trump took were in an official or private capacity.

• The charges: The former president faces three charges of conspiracy and one count of obstructing an official proceeding, all related to his efforts to cling to the presidency after his 2020 loss. He was indicted last August by the special counsel, Jack Smith, in one of two federal criminal cases against him; the other relates to the F.B.I. raid on his private club, Mar-a-Lago, in August 2022 that recovered missing government documents.

• The trial timing: The prospects for a trial in the 2020 election interference case before the election seem increasingly remote. If Mr. Trump prevails at the polls, he could order the Justice Department to drop the charges. The bottom-line effect of the court’s ruling appears to be that the trial judge in Washington, Tanya S. Chutkan, is going to have to hold an evidentiary hearing on many, if not most, of the allegations in the special counsel’s indictment of Mr. Trump. The fact-finding process the court has ordered could take a while not only to conduct, but also to prepare for.

• Lower courts ruled against Trump: Judge Chutkan of the Federal District Court in Washington denied Mr. Trump’s immunity request in December. “Whatever immunities a sitting president may enjoy, the United States has only one chief executive at a time, and that position does not confer a lifelong ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ pass,” she wrote. A unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit agreed in February.

Apparently the January 6 case will go back to an appellate court for further consideration, and that means that a lot of time will pass (way past the election) before this case is decided.

Click to read the ruling as a pdf that you can download:

We are well and truly screwed: the President can commit as many crimes as he wants so long as they are “official acts”, and he has nothing to lose by doing that. And if he gets elected in November, a prospect that seems increasingly likely, he could simply order the Justice Department to drop the whole case against him.

If you’re a lawyer or legal eagle, weigh in below.

Taiwan’s first ever minister of digital affairs has transformed politics, using online platforms and AI to give power to the country’s citizens – with lessons for us all

Robotic companions are a mainstay of sci-fi series everywhere. From R2D2 to Johnny 5, these characters typically have a supporting role in the story and are helpful to their human companions. But what if they were integral to the humans in the story? So much so that they couldn’t live without their robotic compatriots? That’s the idea behind Biobot, which was given a NIAC grant in 2018 – why not use a robotic companion to carry supporting equipment on human extravehicular activities (EVAs) on other planets?

If you watch the footage from the Apollo missions, you can see how awkward it is for the astronauts to bend over to pick things up. Also, these extraordinarily naturally fit and gifted people seem to fall over an awful lot, given how coordinated they are on Earth. That’s probably because a 61 kg pack on their back is helping to keep them alive.

Each moonwalker had to carry a life support system on their suit to maintain conditions inside the suit that allowed them to breathe and not cook to death. This portable life support system (PLSS) weighed almost as much as the astronauts. It dramatically changed their center of gravity from its typical interalized location to somewhere behind their shoulder blades. That limited the astronaut’s mobility and, even with the light lunar gravity, limited the time they could participate in an EVA before becoming exhausted.

Alternatively, in microgravity, EVAs have taken place using umbilical cords and a larger life support system inside the space station or shuttle. This has proven successful, but managing the umbilical cords requires a significant amount of overhead—typically, another astronaut manages it for the person doing the EVA. Given the importance of productively utilizing all of an astronaut’s time, it would be better not to require that helping hand.

Dr. David Akin of the University of Maryland’s Department of Aerospace Engineering considered all that, and his solution is Biobot. The final design is a small rover capable of following an astronaut around on an EVA and attaching to their suit via an umbilical cord that the rover manages. As part of the NIAC grant Dr. Akin received, he and his team looked at potential design trade-offs as well a developed a working prototype of the system.

First, let’s discuss some advantages. Biobot removes the heavy weight from the astronaut’s back, freeing them from carrying it around and moving their center of gravity back to a more familiar place. It can also allow PLSS designers to add components that would otherwise be considered unsuitable for fitting into a backpack itself, such as radiative cooling systems.

Some UMD students testing an early prototype.
Credit – Akin et al.

It can also serve as a platform for holding collected samples or tools necessary for the mission. It can even let the astronaut ride on it in a pinch as a last resort in emergencies. Since it is mobile, the umbilical cord that would typically tie the astronaut to a base station is no longer an issue, and since it is designed to traverse any terrain an astronaut can, it should be capable of keeping up with them.

From some of the pictures in the NIAC final report, it appears the engineers working on the project had fun developing the system. They successfully showed a proof-of-concept of the basic functionality of what they expected the Biobot to do. They also plan to continue developing it, including a test phase at NASA’s “Rockyard” planetary surface simulator. 

However, no additional NASA funding has been forthcoming. Though the paper mentions volunteer student support, it seems the Biobot idea is on hold for now. But someday, astronauts exploring the lunar or Martian surface might have a robotic companion with them that can provide both comic relief and life-giving support.

Learn More:
Akin et al. – BioBot: Investigating an Alternative Paradigm for Planetary EVA
UT – SpaceX Shows Off Its New Extravehicular Activity Suit
UT – Lunar Astronauts Will Need Easy Walking Trails Around the Moon’s South Pole
UT – Astronauts Could Rely on Algae as the Perfect Life Support Partner

Lead Image:
Artist’s depiction of BioBot
Credit – Akin et al.

The post Robotic Rover Could Support Astronauts on Moonwalks appeared first on Universe Today.

More than 1300 square kilometres of cropland worldwide was covered by solar panels in 2018, an area that could be producing 4 quadrillion calories per year

The Matrix star Keanu Reeves’s debut sci-fi novel is out this month, written in collaboration with old hand China Miéville, and we also have new books from Adam Roberts and Aliette de Bodard

Paranormal phenomena tend to wax and wane in the public interest. Typically a generation will become fascinated with a topic, but eventually the novelty will wear thin and interest will fade. But the flame will be kept alive by the hardcore believers. Wait long enough, and interest will come around again. We are seeing this today with UFOs (Unidentified Flying Objects, now technically terms UAPs or Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena).

Not surprisingly the BBC wants to get in on this UFO action, and they are doing that with their Paranormal series, which they are promoting on their news outlet. They clearly are trying to remain respectable, and not completely abandon their journalistic integrity, but they predictably fall for all the usual fallacies that skeptics have explained many times over decades.

They focus on an incident in Wales in 1977 at the Broad Haven elementary school. This is often referred to as the Roswell of Wales. There were reports that day of something strange going on, including a silver humanoid walking around town, and possible UFO sightings. Some of the students thought they saw something in a field near the school’s playground, and many students then went out to take a look. What UFO believers point to as “compelling” evidence that they saw an actual space craft is that the students, under questioning by the school staff, all drew similar images of what they saw – a pretty typical flying saucer. The BBC captions a picture of some of these drawings: “The children reportedly drew near identical images of the UFO, which captured widespread media attention.”

This is where subjectivity comes in to bias reporting. What the BBC calls “near identical images” I would consider vaguely similar images. This is where scientific and critical thinking comes in. Scientists often have to address the question of whether or no similar phenomena have a common origin. Do two species with a similar feature derive that feature from a common ancestor? Are the pyramids of the Americas and the pyramids of Egypt related? The standard method for determining a common origin amount to the details – do the phenomena share details that would defy coincidence? With the pyramids the answer is clearly no – they look superficially similar, but not in details.

Look at the UFO drawings. They are all variations on a common flying saucer theme, but do not match in any significant details. Perhaps most importantly, there are no new details, not already part of UFO lore, that are shared by the drawings. How come they match at all? Because the flying saucer was already part of the culture. We generally underestimate how pervasive culture is, and how much even young children absorb. They drew flying saucers because that’s what UFOs look like.

In other similar cases children have eventually come out (often as adults) and admitted they started the whole thing by making up a sighting, but then the other students joined in. No one has come forward in the Broad Haven case, but that is not surprising. Perhaps no one did make it up, and it started with a genuine sighting of something the child could not identify, and that triggered the rest. Harrier jets were in operation in the area. The military did come in and investigate the site and found no evidence of anything physical. And someone did later come forward to admit they walked around town that day in a silver firefighting suit as a prank, which was likely the trigger of the whole episode.

We may not have a complete and rock solid explanation for exactly what happened that day – but we also have no compelling evidence that there was alien activity there, and there are plenty of mundane explanations that cannot be ruled out, and fit the available evidence quite well.

There is another point worth emphasizing. The BBC reports: “And one aerospace expert tells the BBC that in 2024, thanks to everyone having a phone in their pocket and many people using apps to follow air traffic, we are in ‘a much stronger position to be able to track what’s known and what’s unknown’.”

We are also in a much stronger position to conclude that aliens are not visiting the Earth, at least not grays zipping around in flying saucers and occasionally crashing. Like many such phenomena, time is a great test. In 1967 with the Patterson-Gimlin film of an apparent Bigfoot, one might be forgiven for thinking that it’s possible for a population of large primates to be living in the Pacific Northwest that has so far evaded scientific detection. But here we are, almost 60 years later, and we still do not have a shred of hard evidence for Bigfoot. If Atlantis existed, by now there would be museums full of Atlantean artifacts. If there were a JFK assassination conspiracy, that would likely have been declassified by now. If the moon landings were hoaxed, that lie would have been exposed a long time ago.

And of course, if aliens were buzzing the Earth, the existence of so many smart phones would dramatically increase the chance of someone catching a good photo or video, one that withstands technical examination. But we have nothing – not one solid piece of evidence. We are still living in the same realm of fuzzy evidence – because, as I often say, the ambiguity is the phenomenon. If UFOs were alien, then the evidence should get better over time. If the fuzziness is the phenomenon, then it should remain so, because whenever the evidence is more clear it turns out to be something identifiable and mundane.

This is one explanation for the cycle. I do thing that “the public” gets bored with specific paranormal phenomena because there is nothing there. The excitement is largely around the idea that a revelation is right around the corner. It makes sense – a revelation should be coming soon if something so big were actually happening. You can only string people out for so long, because they move one. They may still think there is something to it, but the emotional connection and excitement fade. There are ghost hunting shows where they never, ever, find a ghost. There are bigfoot hunting shows where they never find a bigfoot. Paranormal shows are entirely about mystery, about the unknown. They are a giant tease, and the audience is made to feel as if the hammer is about to fall. But it never does.

People get bored, and the phenomenon recedes to the shadows where it awaits a new naive generation that can become infatuated with the mystery all over again.

The post BBC Gets Into UFOs first appeared on NeuroLogica Blog.

Despite its growing popularity, there has been little scientific investigation into parents who give babies solid food to feed themselves, known as baby-led weaning

Syntrichia caninervis is found in some of the most extreme places on Earth and can survive conditions that would kill almost any other organism, making it a potential candidate for colonising Mars

Everything old is new once again, as COVID-19 quacks rehash old cancer quack claims that chemotherapy doesn't work in order to sell their preferred cancer quackery.

The post Paul Marik: Disparaging chemotherapy in order to sell cancer quackery first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

Universe Today has had the recent privilege of investigating a multitude of scientific disciplines, including impact craters, planetary surfaces, exoplanets, astrobiology, solar physics, comets, planetary atmospheres, planetary geophysics, cosmochemistry, meteorites, radio astronomy, extremophiles, organic chemistry, black holes, cryovolcanism, planetary protection, dark matter, supernovae, and neutron stars, and how they both individually and collectively contribute to our greater understanding of our place in the universe.

Here, Universe Today discusses the growing field of exomoons with Dr. David Kipping, who is an assistant professor in the Astronomy Department at Columbia University, along with his PhD students, Benjamin Cassese and Daniel Yahalomi, regarding the importance of studying exomoons, the benefits and challenges, potential exomoon candidates, how exomoons can teach us about finding life beyond Earth, and advice for upcoming students who wish to pursue studying exomoons. Therefore, what is the importance of studying exomoons?

Dr. Kipping tells Universe Today, “There’s four reasons to do this: 1) How common are Earth-like worlds? Exomoons may be a significant contributing factor to the cosmic census of habitable bodies; 2) How unique is the Earth-Moon system? The Moon is thought to have played an influential role in the formation and evolution of the Earth, and thus when we detect an Earth-twin we should naturally wonder if it has a Moon twin too.”

Dr. Kipping continues, “3) What are the moon formation channels? In the Solar System, we see at least three pathways, captures (e.g. Triton), impact (e.g. the Moon) and disk formation (e.g. Galilean moons). We would like to understand if there are other methods, and what the details and limitations are of the three methods we know of; 4) When we point HWO [Habitable Worlds Observatory] at an Earth-twin, a Moon-like moon would be unresolvable and thus its light will mix with that of the planet and potentially create false-positive biosignatures. Knowing about moons is vital to our long-term dream of finding life.”

Along with the Earth’s Moon, our solar system consists of more than 200 moons, but only a handful of them are targeted for astrobiology-related research, most notably two of Jupiter’s Galilean moons, Europa and Ganymede, and two of Saturn’s moons, Enceladus and Titan, but all of which have presented significant evidence for possessing interior oceans of liquid water. Along with finding out if the Earth-Moon system is unique, exomoons can teach us if our own solar system is unique given the wide range of moon types, shapes, and sizes, and especially their formation and evolution.

One possible reason for the Earth-Moon uniqueness is due to the tidal forces caused by the two bodies tugging on each other which maintains Earth’s relatively stable axis. As a result, the Earth very slightly wobbles like a spinning top over the course of 26,000 years, meaning its axial tilt only changes by a few degrees during that time, which has allowed our planet to maintain relatively stable climates, enabling life to both survive and thrive. This contrasts to smaller planets like Mars that wobble wildly over the course of hundreds of thousands to millions of years, resulting in large changes in its axial tilt between 15 degrees and 45 degrees, resulting in shifts of its polar caps and drastic climate variations. For context, both Earth’s and Mars’ axial tilts are currently around 25 degrees. But given all the reasons listed by Dr. Kipping, what are some of the benefits and challenges of studying exomoons?

“Some benefits are that finding a moon would automatically tell us more about its host planet,” Cassese tells Universe Today. “For example, we would be able to tell right away that the planet hasn’t gone through any dramatic orbit changes due to scattering with other planets, since that would likely have stripped the moon away. We can also help use the moon’s orbit to measure the mass of the planet, and even of the star, though there are other ways to measure both of those as well.”

“Moons are very difficult to detect and really push the data we receive to their limits,” Yahalomi tells Universe Today. “Therein lies both a challenge and an opportunity. In pursuit of detecting the smallest signals in these datasets, we need to develop new methods and techniques of extremely precise data analysis. I’m working on creating a new analytic framework for studying the gravitational effect that moons have on their host planets. We are working on methods to differentiate between the wobbles caused by moons and neighboring planets in the same stellar system. Without the goal of detecting moons, we would likely not be motivated to develop these statistical techniques, which can then (hopefully) have larger reaching applications.”

As of this writing, NASA has confirmed the existence of 5,678 exoplanets ranging from terrestrial (rocky) worlds to gas giants much larger than Jupiter. in contrast, there have been zero exomoons confirmed to exist anywhere in the cosmos, quite possibly due to the difficulty to detect them, as noted by Yahalomi. Of the 5,678 confirmed exoplanets, 4,193 have been confirmed using the transit method which detects extremely small dips (approximately 1 percent) in starlight when the exoplanet passes in front of, or transits, its parent star.

These dips in starlight are so small that astronomers require several transits to confirm its existence. Therefore, trying to detect exomoons, which could be much smaller than the exoplanet they orbit, is even more difficult. While there are currently no confirmed exomoons, what are some interesting exomoon candidates, including exomoon candidates that these researchers have studied?

“The two candidates we have announced are Kepler-1625 b-i and Kepler 1708 b-I,” Dr. Kipping tells Universe Today. “They both orbit gas giants at relatively wide separations from their star, and both are surprisingly large, 1625b-i is about a Neptune and 1708b-i is a mini-Neptune. In other ways they are quite different, 1708b orbits in a tight Europa-like orbit, seemingly coplanar with the planetary orbit. In contrast, 1625b-i appears inclined and at a much wider orbit, looking more like a captured moon. For 1625b-i, we have a mass thanks to transit timing variations of the primary planet and that lands in agreement with our radius measurement obtained from the dip of the moon in front of the star. For 1708b-i, we only have the dip (just two transits), however the false positive rate is well measured here to be ~1%, giving us dome confidence in the signal.”

As noted, of the more than 200 moons in our solar system, only a handful are currently targets for astrobiology and the search for life beyond Earth. These include two of Jupiter’s moons, Europa and Ganymede, and two of Saturn’s moons, Enceladus and Titan. All four have presented evidence for possessing interior oceans of liquid water, with Titan being the only one with liquid bodies on its surface, although comprised of liquid methane and ethane as opposed to liquid water.

Europa has been previously explored by NASA’s Galileo spacecraft while obtaining incredible images of the moon’s small surface. However, the agency’s Europa Clipper spacecraft, which launches this October, will conduct the most in-depth investigation into Europa’s habitability potential when it arrives in 2030. It will conduct 50 flybys of the small moon, sending back the high-resolutions images of its surface while using its suite of powerful instruments to determine if its interior liquid water ocean can harbor life, as we know it as we don’t know it.

Ganymede has also been studied by NASA’s Galileo spacecraft but the European Space Agency’s JUICE (Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer) spacecraft, which is currently en route to Jupiter with a planned arrival of 2031, hopes to also conduct the most in-depth investigation pertaining to Ganymede’s habitability potential, as well. For Saturn’s moon, Enceladus and Titan, both have been mapped and studied in-depth by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft over the course of its 13-year mission studying Saturn and its many moons.

During this time, Cassini both observed and flew through geysers emanating from Enceladus’ south polar region, indicating a liquid water ocean beneath its icy crust, along with landing a probe on Titan’s surface, revealing rounded boulders possibly formed from flowing liquid methane or ethane. Additionally, evidence has suggested that Titan possesses an interior liquid ocean comprised of water, as opposed to methane and ethane on its surface. Given the habitability potential for these moons, what can exomoons teach us about finding life beyond Earth?

“There are at least two ways moons can affect life elsewhere in the galaxy,” Cassese tells Universe Today. “First, moons can influence and stabilize their host planets [see above]. The other is that moons themselves could be great places for life. Some of the largest liquid water reserves in our solar system exist on moons like Europa, and it’s possible that other moons have similar ingredients that we think are essential for life. If moons are anywhere as near common as planets, the potentially habitable real estate of the galaxy would be much larger than we currently appreciate.”

Yahalomi tells Universe Today, “From what we currently know about planet formation and from our solar system where there are hundreds of moons, there really should be exomoons around many of the exoplanets that we have found. Therefore, if we find that there aren’t exomoons, that would reveal that there is something unique in our solar system and something missing in our understanding of planet formation. As we only know about life on Earth, currently, understanding the larger context of planetary demographics and thus better understanding how common or unique our Solar System truly is, could aid in our understanding of the likeliness of life beyond Earth.”

Like the field of exoplanets, studying exomoons involves a myriad of scientific backgrounds and disciplines to decipher copious amounts of data, including astrophysics, computer science, planetary geology, planetary atmospheres, data science, just to name a few. Additionally, powerful instruments like the aforementioned Habitable Worlds Observatory are required to detect exomoons given their infinitesimally small sizes within the data. It is through this constant collaboration between scientists and use of key instruments that will enable scientists to someday confirm the existence of the first exomoon within the cosmos. Therefore, what advice can the researchers off to upcoming students who wish to pursue studying exomoons?

“It’s a fascinating and rapidly growing area,” Dr. Kipping tells Universe Today. “We are finally in the era where we can detect moons akin to those in the Solar System using JWST. Further, there’s rapidly growing interest in discovering very non-Solar System like moons, such as moons around free-floating planets either using JWST of young systems in Orion (google JUMBOs for example) or using the upcoming Roman telescope with microlensing techniques. We are about to breach the detection threshold in a convincing way.”

How will exomoons help us better understand our place in the universe in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!

As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!

The post Exomoons: Why study them? What can they teach us about finding life beyond Earth? appeared first on Universe Today.