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Archaeology is the study of human prehistory, so it seems incongruous to use its methods to study how humans behave in space. But that’s what astronauts aboard the International Space Station are doing.

When the ISS was designed, it was built around specific tasks and needs. Living areas like latrines, exercise spaces, and food preparation and eating spaces are designed to make the space station an effective and agreeable place to work and live. But it’s impossible to get these things right in any kind of facility. The people who end up working and living on the ISS find their own ways to use the spaces, which might not align with the intended purpose.

In an effort to understand how astronauts really use the spaces on the ISS, astronauts adapted methods used in archaeology. A team led by Justin Walsh of Chapman University in California had astronauts on the ISS take daily photos to see how different areas on the station are really used. They published their results in research titled “Archaeology in space: The Sampling Quadrangle Assemblages Research Experiment (SQuARE) on the International Space Station. Report 1: Squares 03 and 05” in the journal PLOS One.

SQuARE is part of the International Space Station Archaeological Project (ISSAP.)

“ISSAP aims to fill a gap in social science investigation into the human experience of long-duration spaceflight. As the largest, most intensively inhabited space station to date, with over 270 visitors from 23 countries during more than 23 years of continuous habitation, the International Space Station (ISS) is the ideal example of a new kind of spacefaring community—”a micro-society in a mini-world,” the authors explain.

“Our primary goal is to identify how humans adapt to life in a new environment for which our species has not evolved, one characterized by isolation, confinement, and especially microgravity,” the researchers write. The microgravity is especially interesting. Its benefits are the ability to work and move in 360 degrees and to do experiments that are impossible on Earth. The downside is that anything unrestrained simply floats away.

According to the authors, this is the first time archaeological fieldwork has been used in space. SQuARE had four goals:

• To develop a new understanding of how humans adapt to life in an environmental context for which we are not evolutionarily adapted, using evidence from the observation of material culture;
• To identify disjunctions between planned and actual usage of facilities on a space station;
• To develop and test techniques that enable archaeological research at a distance; and
• To demonstrate the relevance of social science methods and perspectives for improving life in space.

SQuARE adapted a method archaeologists use to study archaeological sites called the shovel test pit. Shovel test pits are shallow pits excavated in a grid overlain a site to see what artifacts might be underground. They’re used in the first phase of an archaeological study and help scientists determine where to dig deeper in subsequent phases.

Obviously, nobody’s digging actual holes into the space station. Instead of holes, the ISS crew took pictures of six locations on the ISS every day for 60 days—between January and March 2022—to determine how they were being used. These images go beyond interviewing astronauts to see how they adapt to such an unusual working/living situation. The human mind being what it is, interviews can leave out details that might seem irrelevant but are actually revealing.

The research article in PLOS One concerns two of the six areas: the latrine/exercise equipment area and the maintenance area.

This cutaway image of the International Space Station’s US Orbital Segment shows the locations of Square 03 (at upper center, in yellow) and 05 (at lower right, in orange). Square 03 is the maintenance area, and Square 05 is the latrine/exercise area. Image Credit: Walsh et al. 2024.

“Using the photographs and an innovative web tool, we identified 5,438 instances of items, labelling them by type and function,” the authors explain in their research article. The ‘artifacts’ in the images included Post-It notes, writing tools, and an augmented reality headset. The research also includes astronaut activity reports which allowed for chronological cross-referencing.

This image shows Square 03 in the starboard Maintenance Work Area of the International Space Station. An open crew berth is on the right. The researchers developed an image analysis platform to process the images and identify artifacts. Image Credit: Walsh et al. 2024.

The results show that an area near the latrine/exercise space without a designated purpose was used to store toiletries, resealable bags, and a seldom-used computer. The maintenance area was repurposed. No maintenance was done there, and the space was mostly used for storage.

This image shows Square 05, the latrine/exercise area. The Advanced Resistive Exercise Device is at the far upper right on the overhead wall. The Treadmill with Vibration Isolation Stabilization System is outside of the image on the left. The Waste and Hygiene Compartment is directly behind the photographer. Image Credit: Walsh et al. 2024.

“One of the project goals is understanding cultural adaptations to the microgravity environment,” the authors explain in their research. They were especially interested in what they call ‘gravity surrogates,’ simple items used to keep things in their place. On Earth, we can just set a pen down on our desk, and it stays there until we need it again. But in microgravity, astronauts have to adapt.

The image of Square 05 shows an example of how astronauts adapt to their surroundings in unforeseen ways. The blue bar is a metal handrail used to help astronauts move around the ISS, but as NASA acknowledges, “they also serve as convenient locations for temporary mounting, affixing, or restraint of loose equipment and as attachment points for equipment.” The blue bar is just one of many examples of things with other uses serving as restraints in microgravity.

This figure from the research shows the number and type of artifacts in square 03. Restraints are the most plentiful objects. Image Credit: Walsh et al. 2024.

SQuARE shows how spaces get used in unintended ways. Square 03 was intended for maintenance work but is used differently. “But much of the time, there was nobody working here—a fact that is not captured by historic photos of the area precisely because nothing is happening,” the authors explain.

Instead it’s used as a pegboard, like one mounted on a wall in a home. It’s a convenient place to store all types of items, some of which aren’t even used in the space because there are so many attachment points.

The authors say that their work provides “insights into material culture,” and that their results can be used in future spacecraft design. They can also help them study the rest of the squares more effectively.

“The experiment is the first archaeology ever to happen off of the planet Earth. By applying a very traditional method for sampling a site to a completely new kind of archaeological context, we show how the ISS crew uses different areas of the space station in ways that diverge from designs and mission plans. Architects and planners of future space stations can learn valuable lessons from this work,” the researchers conclude.

The post Archaeological Methods Reveal How Astronauts Work on the International Space Station appeared first on Universe Today.

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As the Washington Post and other sources report, the U.S. has charged six Hamas officials with criminal counts of terrorism connected with the October 7 attack on Israel:

U.S. officials unsealed charges Tuesday against senior Hamas leaders, accusing them of conspiring to provide material support to a terrorist organization, conspiring to murder Americans and conspiring to use weapons of mass destruction.

The criminal complaint against Hamas leader Yehiya Sinwar and others was made public as U.S. diplomats are preparing to present Israel and Hamas with a final hostage-release and cease-fire proposal, potentially as soon as this week.

Bizarrely, at least three of these officials are dead.  Another, Yahya Sinwar, the military head of Hamas, is scuttling around the tunnels of Gaza and is, at present, beyond reach. But at least one person, the political head of Hamas, and who lives in Doha, Qatar, is within the reach of U.S. courts. Here’s the list of those indicted, taken from the Times of Israel.Notes are mine except for those in quotes.

Yahya Sinwar, the military head of Hamas. Scuttling around the tunnels under Gaza. Sinwar served 22 years in an Israeli prison for terrorism until he was released in a prisoner swap and went on to plan the October 7 massacre (remember that when you start approving of such swaps to get the hostages back). One of the ironic things about Sinwar is that Israeli doctors saved his life by removing a malignant brain tumor when he was in prison, and he not only didn’t give up his hatred of Israel and Jews, but the nephew of the main doctor who saved him was killed in the October 7 massacre.

Ismail Haniyeh, former political head of Hamas who lived in Qatar but was assassinated (almost surely by Israel) by a bomb planted in his room during a visit to Tehran last July.

Marwan Issa, “the once-deputy leader of Hamas’s armed wing in Gaza, who was killed by Israel in March.”

Khaled Mashaal, “a Haniyeh deputy based in Doha and a former [political] leader of the group.”  Now that Haniyeh is dead, Sinwar has taken over political and military control of Hamas, but Mashaal is playing a very important role in the group, not to mention all the money that Hamas has in the hands of its members in Qatar.  Mashaal recently called for a return of Palestinians to conducting suicide attacks on Israelis.

Muhammad Deif, the longtime Hamas military wing chief, who Israel killed in July.  Wikipedia says it’s not sure he’s dead, though was crippled after several assassination attempts, but the IDF says it’s sure he’s dead, and on matters like this I trust the IDF more than Wikipedia.

Ali Baraka, “the Beirut-based head of Hamas’s external relations.”

Now I don’t know what the point of indicting three dead people is; if anything, it’s a purely symbolic gesture. The most likely explanation is that the indictment was issued in February and was just unsealed, and the three dead thugs were still alive in February.

But anybody indicted who is still alive and resides in Qatar can be subject to extradition, and that means Mashaal. The U.S. should ask for his extradition immediately, though given who’s in charge of America now, I doubt this will happen.

Which brings us to the Gaza “peace plan”. The U.S. is saying that it’s about to float a “take-it-or-leave-it” peace deal for Gaza, and although the details are hazy, it seems to involve a time-limited  ceasefire in hopes of a permanent one, a swap of some of the living and dead hostages (not all at once) for a pile of live Palestinians imprisoned in Israel, and nothing about the surrender of Hamas.

This is a plan that will fail, and it’s also short-sighted.  It will leave Hamas in power and will not end anti-Israel terrorism. If you want a good explication of its problems, read Bret Stephens’s column in the NYT yesterday, “A hostage deal is a poison pill for Israel” (link is archived).

Like me, Stephens is no fan of Netanyahu, but he thinks that the PM is right in his strategy about the war (read the column).  Stephens has always been the most sensible NYT op-ed writer about the war: far more cogent than, for example, Tom “I Know Nothing” Friedman. Stephens’s column, which once again I recommend, ends this way:

There are bright people who say that what Israel ought to do now is cut a deal, recover its hostages, take a breather and start preparing for the next war, probably in Lebanon. Israelis should remember that wars will be worse, and come more often, to those who fail to win them.

Here’s my own recommendations for ending the war. They may not work, but they seem sensible, and most of them are based on Malgorzata’s ideas:

a.) Call for the extradition of Mashaal now.

b.) Qatar should arrest all Hamas members finding refuge in that country and freeze their bank accounts (there are billions of dollars there, most of the money in the hands of Hamas). That money should be used to rebuild Gaza.

c.) The first two points should be done under a U.S. threat: do these things or face the removal of the U.S. military presence in Qatar (its base is shared with the RAF, so the UK would have to agree as well). We don’t need the base that badly (we have other bases in other Middle East nations), but Qatar desperately needs it, for without it, oil-rich Qatar will be taken over by countries like the UAE, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia.(Qatar has almost no military of its own.) This would be a threat with real teeth. And the U.S. should be ready to follow through with it, as with all meaningful threats.

d.) Instead of confecting unworkable and, frankly, stupid peace plans, the U.S. should simply call for the unconditional surrender of Hamas and the instantaneous release of all the hostages.  Hamas will not surrender, of course, but anybody who values their life (and yes, there’s a rub there) must realize that Israel under Netanyahu has vowed to destroy the military capabilities of Hamas—and will do so. The Biden Administration (and Harris, should she win) should be giving nothing to terrorists like Hamas.

The moral right in this conflict lies with Israel, not with Hamas, and the U.S. should be calling for the terrorists to give up, end the war, and release the hostages. Remember again that the “take-it-or-leave-it” deal will not work and gives plenty of stuff to Hamas.

Needless to say, the U.S. should not be cutting aid to Israel, even though some European countries are.  Such cuts are again ludicrous and short-sighted given Israel’s care to kill as few Gazan civilians as possible combined with Hamas’s desire to get as many non-combatant Gazan civilians killed as possible to excite the world’s opprobrium against Israel. Right now, Europe, and to some extent the U.S., is doing pretty much what Hamas wants.

e.) What about the day after?  A two-state solution is not in the offing right now; that much is clear and amounts to rewarding Hamas for the October 7 attack. I suspect that a military occupation of Gaza will have to occur for some time, as happened in Germany and Japan after World War II.  At the same time, Israel and its allies should be grooming reasonable and peaceful Palestinians to take over running Gaza. (I’m not discussing the West Bank here.)

Yes, yes, I know all the weaknesses of this plan: Hamas won’t give up, the U.S. won’t threaten to dismantle a military base, no credible Palestinians who don’t want to destroy Israel will be found, etc. etc. If you want to pick at the plan, at least do something constructive and propose a better one, and one that doesn’t lead to Israel losing the war and facing many more October-7-like episodes.

But one thing is certain, something Bret Stephens encapsulates in his last sentence: all the “cease fire” proposals floating around now are guaranteed to leave Hamas in power, and thus to keep a constant threat of terrorism against Israel. And that means that peace will never be attained.

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This post documents what we saw on our last day in Kruger, the day we had to leave and repair back to Hoedspruit.

First, you might like to see our accommodations at the Satara Rest Camp, which were lovely and inexpensive. Below is my own personal hut with a high thatched roof (thatching is quite a skill, and roofs have to be re-thatched every decade or two.

A view from the inside. I had two beds, a nice bathroom, and a fridge outside with a latch to keep the baboons out. Not to mention air-conditioning, which I didn’t need as it wasn’t hot.

My two beds:

And a view of the thatched roof seen while lying on one of the beds. As you can see from the first picture, the roof was high.

We were near the remains of the buffalo killed by lions, so we dropped by again. One of the lions was still around. Have a look: this is a male with its normal “tawny” color:

And when our guide Isaac told us there were white lions in the park (leucistic ones, not albinos), nothing would do for me except to see them. Given that there are only a few, the chances of that were small. However, Isaac had read on his “Kruger guides” restricted chat group that a white lion had been spotted about a mile north of Satara. So he went looking for it. Given his skills as a spotter, if it was anywhere near the roadside, he’d find it.

And he did!

Here’s one; note that it’s not pure white, but a light yellow, and clearly distinct in color from “regular” lions.  There’s one famous white lion in Kruger called “Casper” (undoubtedly after the ghost), but I’m not sure if this is Casper. It is, however, a male:

One would think that the whiteness might confer an adaptive disadvantage on these animals, either driving away regular lions who don’t like their color, or making these white ones visible to prey. But they don’t seem disabled. As Wikipedia notes:

White lions are not albinos. Their white color is called leucism, and is caused by an allele that is found at the same locus as the allele that causes albinism. It is thought, but not proven, that the allele is inherited in an autosomal recessive fashion.  They vary from blonde to near-white. This coloration does not appear to pose a disadvantage to their survival. White lions were considered to have been technically extinct in the wild between 1992 and 2004, when the Global White Lion Protection Trust achieved the first successful reintroduction of white lions to their natural habitat. These prides have continued to hunt and breed successfully in the wild, whilst other occurrences of white lion births have been reported in the greater Kruger region since then.

There’s more information:

In light of the recent decision by South Africa’s Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) at CITES 2016, to continue to allow the hunting of captive bred lions (“canned hunting”), and the trade in lion bones from captive bred lions, the Global White Lion Protection Trust (WLT) asserts that the survival of lions in the Greater Kruger Park Region is likely to come under threat, and the white lion is the ideal capstone animal to help better protect all lions in the Greater Kruger Park Region.

I like to think this is Casper. But even if it isn’t, it was a great joy for me to see this animal thriving in the wild. Kudos to Isaac for not only making an effort to find it for me, but also to succeed in that effort!

And a “normal” tawny lion for comparison again. Note the dark mane and distinct brown color.

By this time the remains of the buffalo had been picked clean by both nearby lions and, of course, by vultures, seen below on the bones.  I’m not sure whether the spotted hyenas ever got a crack at this carcass:

A rare sight and one of my collection of “animals crossing the road.”  Lion crossing!  The cars, of course, are lined up to see the sight, which attests to how comfortable these lions are with humans—at least when they’re in cans.

The lion who crossed the road then found a comfortable perch on the other side, explaining “why did the lion cross the road?”:

Eventually we stopped at the Olifants Rest Camp to have breakfast. With a lovely view overlooking the Olifants River (a tributary of the Limpopo River), it has bungalows and would be a delightful place to stay, especially in the rainy summer season when the river must attract lots of wildlife. But if you want to stay there, reserve a year in advance.

It was blowing hard that day, and cold as well, but this brave dude was out there re-thatching a roof with no apparent protection from falling off:

And I got the breakfast I had dreamed of: one that had fried eggs and pap: the African equivalent of grits and eggs.  It was topped with a spicy tomato-y sauce generously larded with crispy fried cubes of pork. It was one of the best breakfasts I’ve ever had, and filled me up so much I couldn’t eat for the rest of the day:

On my way to the facilities, I took a selfie in the mirror:

This view of a thunder of hippos (yes, that’s one proper collective noun for a group of them) was probably taken from the Olipants rest camp, but I can’t remember.

We later came upon a dazzle of zebras (again, a proper collective noun).  I waited patiently with my camera focused on these three until I managed to get a shot of them all looking in my direction. What gorgeous animals!

A Red -crested korhaan (Lophotis ruficrista). I remembered this as a “Jewish bird” by thinking that its real name was the Red-crested Cohen.” It has a lovely pattern as described in Wikipedia:

The red-crested korhaan grows up to 50 cm (1.6 ft) in length with a maximal weight of 680 g (1.5 lb).  The feathering of the wings folded on the back is marked by V-formed patterns of a light cream color with some white at the sides. Breast feathers are black. Legs are pale yellow and feet gray.

Click the picture to enlarge it:

A herd of impala, this one apparently heavy on males (females don’t have horns):

. . . and a male impala crossing the road, probably to rejoin his herd.

You’ll know this species by now if you’ve been following my narrative. Look at the butt for confirmation:

This elephant has had a long drink of water from a cement pool, and the warthog was waiting patiently nearby for its turn to drink. But we waited and waited, and the elephant wasn’t sated. (They can take in 100 liters of water at one time.) So we left, hoping the warthog got a drink.

A journey of giraffe. That’s what you call a group of giraffes that is moving, but a group of stationary giraffes is called “a tower of giraffe”. These are appropriate terms.

And at least we reach the end of our journey in Kruger at the Orpen Gate. There are actually two exits, and at one of them you’re obliged to show your receipts showing you’ve actually paid the conservation fee for each day you’ve stayed.  When I took a photo after the first gate, the gatekeeper woman posted for me:

How sad to leave!

And the second gate, when we once again left the bush and entered “civilization”:

Will I go back again? I’d love to see the park when it’s green in summer, though it also rains then. But, as Stevie Nicks said, “I’m getting older, too.”  Who knows?

If you ever visit Kruger, you should definitely engage Isaac as your guide

Many thanks to Isaac, our guide/driver/spotter, shown below getting a coffee at the exit. Thanks too to Rosemary, who did a pile of work to organize this trip and my visit to Manyelete.

Oh, and I almost forgot.  Ozy went missing for a few days, and I didn’t get to see him after I returned from Kruger and before I came back to Cape Town. I was worried: after all, he’s a Senior Pig.

But he’s back again, reportedly in good nick. Here he is sleeping off his latest foraging bout (photos by Rosemary).

If you didn’t see the white lion in the last “spot the” picture, here’s your chance to find an easier cat. (And no wisecracks about how “the leopard is already spotted”)!

Here’s a picture taken from one of the “hides” in Kruger where you can spot wildlife from inside a shed with a viewing slit. Can you spot the leopard? I bet you can.

This, by the way, is the only leopard we saw in Kruger, though I got awesome views of one in Manyelete (see photos from that trip).

I got this tweet from Luana, who noted Chicago’s steep fall from grace in FIRE’s free-speech rankings for 2025. (“The College Pulse” also collaborated in the rankings.)

FIRE’s 2025 Campus Free Speech Rankings are out.

Harvard is once again the worst school on the list.

Columbia and New York University join it in the “abysmal” category.

Penn and Barnard are among the four “very poor” schools. pic.twitter.com/fJ5yenYiF7

— Steve McGuire (@sfmcguire79) September 5, 2024

Click the screenshot to see all 251 rated schools.

Here are the top ten. Note that the University of Chicago, once #1 for a long time and always in the top five, is no longer at the top. In fact, the top school, the University of Virginia, simply gets a “good” rating and a so-so score of 73.4 out of a hundred.

Where, oh where, is my school?  It’s a dismal #43, and rated only “slightly above average.”

The low score appears to reflect a big difference in the campus’s willingness to tolerate liberal vs. conservative speakers, and a high score in the degree of self-censorship that students practice.

This is very sad, for we can no longer even say we’re in the top ten, and Chicago’s reputation for being a bastion of “free speech” has taken a severe hit.

As for the bottom ten, well, Harvard is the worst, but now both NYU and Columbia have joined it with the rare “abysmal” rating:

All I can say is “oy vey!”, and that the administration is going to have to do some fast-stepping, for they used to tout our high ratings and now will have to confect some reasons why the rating system isn’t very good.

The Universe often puts on a good show for us down here on Earth but one of the best spectacles must be a meteor shower. We see them when particles, usually the remains of comets, fall through our atmosphere and cause the atmosphere to glow. We see them as a fast moving streak of light but a new paper has suggested that the meteor showers we see can explain the sizes of the particles that originally formed the comet from where they came. 

Comets are mostly composed of ice but with a little rock mixed in for good measure. They’ve often been called dirty snowballs to describe this mix of ice and rock. They travel around the Sun in elongated, elliptical orbits which bring them close to the Sun. The intense heat from the Sun causes the ice to instantly turn into a gas in a process known as sublimation which releases the trapped dust. The pressure from the Sun known as the solar wind presses against the gas and dust released from a comet to produce the tail which always points away from the Sun. 

A recent animation of Comet 12P. Image credit: Michael Jaeger.

As the comet travels around the Solar System, it deposits debris along its orbit almost like a trail of celestial breadcrumbs. The debris at this stage is known as meteoroids but, if the Earth travels through it then they create the stunning meteors that we see streak across the sky. The Earth passes through the debris field from a number of comets on a regular, annual basis and this gives rise to the regular meteor showers we see such as he Perseids or Leonids. 

A Geminid meteor outburst from 2020. Image credit and copyright: Jeff Sullivan

A team of 45 researchers have been studying meteor showers and have discovered something rather curious. They have found that not all comets crumble in the same way as they approach the Sun. The team studied 47 young meteor showers by using special low light video cameras all over the world. The cameras measured the path of the meteors enabling the team to work out how high up they were when they first light up and how they then slowed down in the atmosphere. They were also able to measure the composition enabling them to deduce the size of the particles.

In a paper published in the journal Icarus, the team theorised that a comet will simply crumble into the size of the ‘pebbles’ they are made of. This does seem to make complete sense given that the comets form as chunks of dust, rock and ice. More ice will slowly form as the comet orbits out in the dark cold reaches of the Solar System but as it heats on its journey inwards, it will just fall apart again as the ice sublimates. 

The results of the paper showed that longer period comets, such as those originating in the Oort Cloud generally crumble into sizes of particulates indicative of slow and gentle accretion conditions.  The resultant meteoroids have a lower density and tend to only brighten deeper into the Earth’s atmosphere. Comets from the Jupiter-family on the other hand crumble up into smaller, denser meteoroids with 8% more solid material on average.

There are a few meteor showers that originate from asteroids and these too have been studied. The team found that they tend to produce meteor showers with smaller particles that have evidence of aggressive fragmentation during their formation. The team acknowledge there will be exceptions to their findings but it their study has helped to build a more fuller picture of the early stages of the evolution of the Solar System and to the nature of comets that grant us the beauty of meteor showers.

Source : Meteor showers shed light on where comets formed in the early solar system

The post Explaining Different Kinds of Meteor Showers. It’s the Way the Comet Crumbles appeared first on Universe Today.

Google has built a quantum computer that makes fewer errors as it is scaled up, and this may pave the way for machines that could solve useful real-world problems for the first time