News Feeds

Today’s Jesus and Mo strip, called “crazier,” is going to get the artist in trouble!

If gravity is a truly quantum entity, something as simple as measuring the strength of an object’s gravitational field should change its quantum state

We still have a few batches of photos from readers, but I’m rationing them out. PLEASE send your good wildlife photos.  The death of this section would be a blow to me.

Today’s photos come from Rik Gern of Austin, Texas, showing various bits of plants. The captions are Rik’s, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

Here is a collection of  nuts and seed pods found while taking walks around the neighborhood. I have a habit of picking them up, marveling at them, sticking them in my pocket, and then making little displays or shelf decorations with them when I get home. That was starting to get out of hand, so I decided it was time take some pictures of them before cleaning house and returning them to nature.

This exotic item is a Magnolia seed pod (Magnolia grandiflora). It looks very large in these close-up photos, but in reality the body is a little over two inches long and about an inch and a half wide. The stem is one inch long.

This picture makes it look like some sort of strange sleeping mammal:

Here is a cluster that includes the seed pod from a Red Yucca (Hesperaloe parviflora), along with acorns from Post Oak (Quercus stellata) and Burr Oak (Quercus macrocarpa) trees:

Viewed up close, the Red Yucca seed pod almost looks like pale green skin with veins under the surface.

The Pecans (Carya illinoinensis) are the most at home in this collection since the background consists of Pecan bark and leaves. Pecans are very common around here and are fun to harvest in the fall.

This strange looking object is called a gum drop and is a seed pod for the American Sweetgum tree (Liquidambar styraciflua). The seeds are long gone and all that remains is the woody pod. People like to use these as decorations or tree ornaments, and it is not uncommon to see them spray painted or dipped in glitter.

If you squint your eyes it’s easy to see faces in them, so I enhanced the effect by playing with saturation, contrast, and a few other variables to make this grouping look like a spooky wooden caterpillar.

Speaking of faces, here’s a ghostly looking old Black Walnut shell (Juglans nigra) lying among some gum drops, giving the collection an appropriately autumnal feel:

Well, I missed a day, but the other two Nobel Prizes in science—Chemistry and Physics—were awarded.

The Chemistry Prize, well deserved since I know about the work, went to three people: David Baker (University of Washington), Demis Hassabis (“a British computer scientist and artificial intelligence researcher”), and John M. Jumper (“an American senior research scientist at DeepMind Technologies”) for both designing proteins and predicting their three-dimensional structure simply from the sequence of amino acids—an endeavor that had largely defied previous attempts. Now you can feed the AA sequence into a computer and, lo, get the structure. And the 3D structure is immensely important in understanding protein function and figuring out how to modify proteins (and hence DNA) to act in different ways. From the Nobel Press release:

They cracked the code for proteins’ amazing structures

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2024 is about pro­teins, life’s ingenious chemical tools. David Baker has succeeded with the almost impossible feat of building entirely new kinds of proteins. Demis Hassabis and John Jumper have developed an AI model to solve a 50-year-old problem: predicting proteins’ complex structures. These discoveries hold enormous potential.

The diversity of life testifies to proteins’ amazing capacity as chemical tools. They control and drive all the chemi­cal reactions that together are the basis of life. Proteins also function as hormones, signal substances, antibodies and the building blocks of different tissues.

“One of the discoveries being recognised this year concerns the construction of spectacular proteins. The other is about fulfilling a 50-year-old dream: predicting protein structures from their amino acid sequences. Both of these discoveries open up vast possibilities,” says Heiner Linke, Chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry.

Proteins generally consist of 20 different amino acids, which can be described as life’s building blocks. In 2003, David Baker succeeded in using these blocks to design a new protein that was unlike any other protein. Since then, his research group has produced one imaginative protein creation after another, including proteins that can be used as pharmaceuticals, vaccines, nanomaterials and tiny sensors.

The second discovery concerns the prediction of protein structures. In proteins, amino acids are linked together in long strings that fold up to make a three-dimensional structure, which is decisive for the protein’s function. Since the 1970s, researchers had tried to predict protein structures from amino acid sequences, but this was notoriously difficult. However, four years ago, there was a stunning breakthrough.

In 2020, Demis Hassabis and John Jumper presented an AI model called AlphaFold2. With its help, they have been able to predict the structure of virtually all the 200 million proteins that researchers have identified. Since their breakthrough, AlphaFold2 has been used by more than two million people from 190 countries. Among a myriad of scientific applications, researchers can now better understand antibiotic resistance and create images of enzymes that can decompose plastic.

Life could not exist without proteins. That we can now predict protein structures and design our own proteins confers the greatest benefit to humankind.

Reader Simon found two tweets from the AlaphFold program showing how the protein structures come out when the amino acid sequence is fed in:

Let’s take a closer look at this protein structure determined using AlphaFold2. This protein structure is part of a huge molecular structure in the human body. More than a thousand proteins form a pore through the membrane surrounding the cell nucleus.

Animation: ©Terezia… pic.twitter.com/840RqbJrJD

— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 9, 2024

And a petulant tweet by Oded Rechavi (I think it’s an unfair comparison):

Could ChatGPT win a Nobel in literature and economics?
(and in the future AGI might win the Peace Nobel)

— Oded Rechavi (@OdedRechavi) October 9, 2024

And this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics went to John Hopfield (emeritus professor at Princeton) and Geoffrey Hinton (emeritus professor at Toronto) who together developed models for neural networks of the kind used in the recent set of papers on decoding the fly brain.  From the press release:

They trained artificial neural networks using physics

This year’s two Nobel Laureates in Physics have used tools from physics to develop methods that are the foundation of today’s powerful machine learning. John Hopfield created an associative memory that can store and reconstruct images and other types of patterns in data. Geoffrey Hinton invented a method that can autonomously find properties in data, and so perform tasks such as identifying specific elements in pictures.

When we talk about artificial intelligence, we often mean machine learning using artificial neural networks. This technology was originally inspired by the structure of the brain. In an artificial neural network, the brain’s neurons are represented by nodes that have different values. These nodes influence each other through con­nections that can be likened to synapses and which can be made stronger or weaker. The network is trained, for example by developing stronger connections between nodes with simultaneously high values. This year’s laureates have conducted important work with artificial neural networks from the 1980s onward.

John Hopfield invented a network that uses a method for saving and recreating patterns. We can imagine the nodes as pixels. The Hopfield network utilises physics that describes a material’s characteristics due to its atomic spin – a property that makes each atom a tiny magnet. The network as a whole is described in a manner equivalent to the energy in the spin system found in physics, and is trained by finding values for the connections between the nodes so that the saved images have low energy. When the Hopfield network is fed a distorted or incomplete image, it methodically works through the nodes and updates their values so the network’s energy falls. The network thus works stepwise to find the saved image that is most like the imperfect one it was fed with.

Geoffrey Hinton used the Hopfield network as the foundation for a new network that uses a different method: the Boltzmann machine. This can learn to recognise characteristic elements in a given type of data. Hinton used tools from statistical physics, the science of systems built from many similar components. The machine is trained by feeding it examples that are very likely to arise when the machine is run. The Boltzmann machine can be used to classify images or create new examples of the type of pattern on which it was trained. Hinton has built upon this work, helping initiate the current explosive development of machine learning.

“The laureates’ work has already been of the greatest benefit. In physics we use artificial neural networks in a vast range of areas, such as developing new materials with specific properties,” says Ellen Moons, Chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics.

Both prizes show the power of AI, but it isn’t AI that decided to tackle both the chemistry and physics problems; rather, it was AI that was a tool used to solve important scientific questions.

And we have a (sort-of) winner. Though nobody guessed the Physics winners, reader Luke correctly guessed two of the three Chemistry winners (he gave only two names, Jumper and Hasabis, but I’ll let the absence of a third winner slide), and so wins an autographed book.  I ask Luke to get in touch with me to obtain his prize.

As comets travel along their orbit they dump material along the way. A stream of debris known as the Taurid swarm has been keeping astronomers attention. It’s thought the debris is the remains of comet Encke which has also been fuelling the Taurid meteor shower. The swarm is believed to be composed of mostly harmless, tiny objects but there has been concern that there may be some larger, kilometre size chunks. Thankfully, new observations reveal there are of the order of 9-14 of these 1km rocks. 

Planets, minor planets, asteroids and of course comets are the occupants of our Solar System. The comets are small objects composed largely of ice and dust or rocky material. A wonderful and accurate description of these icy wanderers is dirty snowballs. Imagine picking up a handful of snow and ice on a wintry day, you are likely to get bits of soil and stone mixed in with the snow and it’s this that earns them this name. They originate from the remote parts of the Solar System, notably the Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud. As they approach the Sun, the warmth causes the ice to sublimate to a gas creating the gaseous coma and long tail. As the come travels along its orbit, the sublimation of ice releases dust and debris along the path. 

Comet image from Hubble

One such comet is known as Comet Encke, a short period comet with an orbital period of 3.3 years. It was first detected in 1786 by Pierre Mechain and its orbit calculated by Johnann Franz Encke in the late 19th Century. Whilst most comets originate from the Kuiper Belt or Oort Cloud, Encke seems to have found its way closer to the Sun making frequent predictable visits. Like all comets, Encke deposits debris along the way and this leads to the Taurid meteor shower which is visible in late October/early November. 

Comet Encke imaged from NASA’s Mercury MESSENGER spacecraft. Credit: NASA

A team of astronomers using the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) telescope explored swathes of sky to investigate the stream of debris which is thought to have drifted from the main Taurid stream. Thought to be the remains of Comet Encke, this drifting swarm has been long puzzled astronomers and raised concerns of potential rocks heading to Earth. That is, until now. 

The study follows from previous efforts to analyse the swarm and had identified a significant number of kilometre-class rocks. Objects of this size would pose a significant threat to Earth. Back in 2013 we were reminded of such dangers by the Chelyabinsk asteroid that exploded over Russia and injured over 1,600 people. 

This image of a vapor trail was captured about 125 miles (200 kilometers) from the Chelyabinsk meteor event, about one minute after the house-sized asteroid entered Earth’s atmosphere. Credits: Alex Alishevskikh

The team announced their findings at the American Astronomical Society Division for Planetary Sciences annual meeting. They confirmed that contrary to the expectations, there are only a handful of the asteroids maybe up to 14 which are of kilometre size. Assistant research scientists Quanzhi Ye explained ‘Judging from our findings, the parent object that originally created the swarm was probably closer to 10 kilometres in diameter rather than a massive 100 kilometre object. We still need to be vigilant about asteroid impacts but we can probably sleep better now knowing these results.’

Studying features like the Taurid swarm enable us to learn more about smaller objects in the Solar System and how they break apart over time. The study will also help future asteroid detection and defence planning exercises for when real threats are identified. As for the Taurid swarm, follow up observations will be completed in future years when the swarm passes close by Earth again. 

Source : New study eases concerns over possible “doomsday” asteroid swarm

The post Good News. Comet Encke Only Threw a Handful of Giant Space Rocks in our Direction appeared first on Universe Today.

The 2024 Nobel prize in physiology or medicine goes to two researchers, Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun, for their work on microRNA. They began their research in the same lab in the late 1980s as postdoctoral fellow, and then continued to collaborate after they each started their own labs. Their research involves a key question about multicellular life. Every cell in the […]

The post microRNA – 2024 Nobel in Physiology or Medicine first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

NASA has sent a whole host of spacecraft across the Solar System and even beyond. They range from crewed ships to orbit and to the Moon to robotic explorers. Among them are a range of mission classes from Flagships to Discovery Class programs. Now a new category has been announced: Probe Explorers. This new category will fill the gap between Flagship and smaller missions. Among them are two proposed missions; the Advanced X-ray Imaging Satellite and the Probe Far-Infrared Mission for Astrophysics. 

NASA’s new Probe Explorers program aims to cultivate creative ideas to explore the Universe. The category is one of the largest astrophysics program from the American space agency. Nicola Fox, NASA’s associate administrator of Science Mission Directorate said of the category ‘..it has taken creativity to new heights,’ adding ‘selected concepts could enable ground breaking science responsive to the top astrophysics priorities of the decade, develop key technologies for future flagship missions, and offer opportunities for the entire community.’

The two projects that have been proposed are now due for additional scrutiny. They will each received $5million to undertake a 12 month concept study. After this period, a detailed evaluation will be undertaken to select one of the proposals in 2026 to launch in 2032. The chosen mission will become the first of NASA’s Probe Explorer program.

The Advanced X-ray Imaging Satellite is planned to be a large, flat field-of-view giving a high level of spatial resolution. It’s perfectly suited to the study of supermassive black holes and how galaxies evolve. It’s principle investigator Christopher Reynolds from the University of Maryland is keen to see it build on the results of previous X-ray observatories in understanding the power sources of a number of violent events across the Universe. 

This image shows Hercules A, a galaxy in the Hercules constellation. The X-ray observations show superheated gas, and the radio observations show jets of particles streaming away from the AGN at the center of the galaxy. The jets are almost 1 million light-years long. Image Credits: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; visual: NASA/STScI; radio: NSF/NRAO/VLA.

The other mission in with a chance of the 2032 launch is the Probe Far-Infrared Mission for Astrophysics. The observatory would be a 1.8 metre telescope designed to study the far-infrared radiation that is permeating space. The James Webb Space Telescope has an infrared capability but this new proposal will help to cover the electromagnetic spectrum which is between the JWST and radio telescopes.  Managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, it will attempt to answer questions about the origins of planets, of supermassive black holes, stars and cosmic dust. 

Annotated image of Digel Cloud 2S captured by Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) and MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument), with compass arrows, a scale bar, colour key, and graphic overlays for reference. The north and east compass arrows show the orientation of the image on the sky. Note that the relationship between north and east on the sky (as seen from below) is flipped relative to direction arrows on a map of the ground (as seen from above). The scale bar is labelled in light-years and arcseconds. One light-year is equal to about 9.46 trillion kilometres. One arcsecond is equal to 1/3600 of one degree of arc (the full Moon has an angular diameter of about 0.5 degrees). The actual size of an object that covers one arcsecond on the sky depends on its distance from the telescope. This image shows invisible near- and mid-infrared wavelengths of light that have been translated into visible-light colours. The colour key shows which NIRCam and MIRI filters were used when collecting the light. The colour of each filter name is the visible light colour used to represent the infrared light that passes through that filter. In the main cluster are five white arrows, which highlight the paths of five protostar jets.

The Explorers Program launched in 1958 and the Probe Explorer is just a small part is this the oldest NASA program still running today. Its main objective is to provide low cost access to space with frequent launches. Missions are science led and must be relevant to NASA’s Science Mission Directorate’s astrophysics and heliophysics program. There has been significant success from the Explorers Program in the decades since its inception from the discovery of the Earth’s radiation belts to the launch of more than 90 science led missions.

Source : NASA Establishes New Class of Astrophysics Missions, Selects Studies

The post NASA Announces a New Class of Space Missions: Probe Explorers appeared first on Universe Today.

David Baker, Demis Hassabis and John Jumper have been awarded the 2024 Nobel prize in chemistry for research on predicting protein structures and designing new proteins

Hurricanes have kept forecasters guessing this year, but with the arrival of intense storms like Helene and Milton it is clear that warming ocean waters are having an effect on the weather

More than 600 types of viruses that infect bacteria have been found living on toothbrushes and showerheads – and many of them have never been seen before

A new article shares findings from an extensive literature analysis of AI's current trajectory in health care.

Researchers show that for the first time they have achieved atomic-scale observations of grain rotation in polycrystalline materials. Using state-of-the-art microscopy tools, the scientists were able to heat samples of platinum nanocrystalline thin films and observe the mechanism driving grain rotation in unprecedented detail.

Researchers show that for the first time they have achieved atomic-scale observations of grain rotation in polycrystalline materials. Using state-of-the-art microscopy tools, the scientists were able to heat samples of platinum nanocrystalline thin films and observe the mechanism driving grain rotation in unprecedented detail.

A research team describes how they engineered an efficient new enzyme that can produce a synthetic genetic material called threose nucleic acid. The ability to synthesize artificial chains of TNA, which is inherently more stable than DNA, advances the discovery of potentially more powerful, precise therapeutic options to treat cancer and autoimmune, metabolic and infectious diseases.

Engineers have worked out how to give robots complex instructions without electricity, which could free up more space in the robotic 'brain' for them to 'think'. Mimicking how some parts of the human body work, researchers have transmitted a series of commands to devices with a new kind of compact circuit, using variations in pressure from a fluid inside it.

Engineers have worked out how to give robots complex instructions without electricity, which could free up more space in the robotic 'brain' for them to 'think'. Mimicking how some parts of the human body work, researchers have transmitted a series of commands to devices with a new kind of compact circuit, using variations in pressure from a fluid inside it.

An army of tadpoles and a stretching lynx are just some of the incredible photos winning accolades at the annual competition

A long time ago, the Milky Way Galaxy was busy being a prodigious star-formation engine. In those times, it turned out dozens or hundreds of stars per year. These days, it’s rather more quiescent, cranking out only a few per year. Astronomers want to understand the Milky Way’s star-birth history, so they focus on some of the more recent star litters to study. One of them is Westerlund 1, a young so-called “super star cluster” that looks compact and contains a diverse array of older stars. It was part of a burst of star creation around 4 to 5 million years ago.

Several observatories have looked at Westerlund 1, including the James Webb Space Telescope. Its observation is part of a project called the Extended Westerlund 1 and 2 Open Clusters survey (EWOCS) using the near-infrared camera on the telescope. Why use NIRCam to look at bright stars in an open cluster? It’s because Westerlund 1 is challenging to observe. It lies (from our point of view) behind an obscuring cloud of gas and dust that absorbs or scatters most of the visible light coming from the cluster. Infrared light gets right through, however, so that made it easier to study and characterize the stars in this cluster. It’s also observable in X-rays, allowing astronomers to pinpoint energetic sources in the cluster.

The Webb view reveals the full range of stars in Westerlund 1, making it easier to spot the various stellar types. In addition, the NIRCam image shows patches of reddish gas in and around the cluster.

A view of Westerlund 1 from the VLT Survey Telescope (VST) at ESO’s Paranal Observatory. One of its stars (called W26) is a red supergiant seems to be surrounded by clouds of hydrogen gas. It’s the first ionized nebula to be seen around a red supergiant star. Courtesy European Southern Observatory. About Westerlund 1

This collection of stars may be the most massive known cluster of its kind in the Milky Way Galaxy. Astronomers estimate it contains up to 100,000 times the mass of the Sun. Its population consists almost entirely of red supergiants, yellow hypergiants, and at least one luminous blue variable, in addition to other types of giants. There’s also an X-ray pulsar in the cluster and a magnetar that formed from a supernova explosion. The whole collection occupies a region less than six light-years across.

Westerlund 1 in visible and x-ray light. Arrows point to a magnetar discovered in this super star cluster. Courtesy NASA/CXC/UCLA/M.Muno et al

Westerlund 1 probably formed about 4 to 5 million years ago in one massive burst of star formation. Its age makes it an infant in stellar “years” and many of its massive, giant-type stars have short lifetimes. Compared to the Sun’s projected 10-billion-year lifetime, just one of those supergiant stars will live only about 20 million years at the most. Then, it will explode as a supernova, scattering its remains across space.

Astronomers estimated the age of Westerlund 1 based on a comparison of older, more evolved stars to well-understood models of stellar evolution. Those models suggest typical ages of stars of varying masses. This cluster pushes the boundaries of the models, with its red and yellow supergiants, as well as Wolf-Rayet stars (highly evolved and massive). The red supergiants, for example, don’t typically get to that stage for a least 4 million years. Wolf-Rayet stars, which are extremely bright and hot, don’t live very long. Due to their brief lifetimes, these weird old stars are also quite rare.

Living with this Cluster

Westerlund 1 provides important clues about the origin and evolution of young, massive stars in clusters. The different populations there tell a story about this cluster’s formation and effect on its nearby neighborhood. First, the diverse mix of stars gives clues to its “initial mass function”. That describes the distribution of stellar masses in a cluster—that is, how many stars of different masses formed from the original star-birth crèche.

What’s equally interesting is what this cluster’s stars will do in the future. Since there are so many massive stars and so few supernovae remnants there, it’s only a matter of time before the stellar fireworks begin. Over 40 million years, more than 1,500 supernovae will occur, making Westerlund 1 a brilliant spectacle for study.

In the long term, Westerlund 1 will likely evolve from an open cluster into a spherically shaped conglomeration of stars called a globular cluster. For now, this cluster presents an extreme environment in which stars and planets (if there are any) can form. Plus, it’s rare. Only a few like it still exist in our galaxy, offering clues to that earlier era in Milky Way history when most of its stars formed. That’s why it’s considered a “laboratory” where astronomers can study the evolution of high-mass stars.

For More Information

The Exotic Stellar Population of Westerlund 1
Westerlund under the Ligh tof GAIA EDR3: Distance, Isolation, Extent, and a Hidden Population

The post The Open Star Cluster Westerlund 1, Seen by Webb appeared first on Universe Today.

Researchers introduces the first toroidal, light-driven micro-robot that can move autonomously in viscous liquids, such as mucus. This innovation marks a major step forward in developing micro-robots capable of navigating complex environments, with promising applications in fields such as medicine and environmental monitoring.

Researchers introduces the first toroidal, light-driven micro-robot that can move autonomously in viscous liquids, such as mucus. This innovation marks a major step forward in developing micro-robots capable of navigating complex environments, with promising applications in fields such as medicine and environmental monitoring.