News Feeds

It's time to expect the unexpected, says Natalie Cabrol, one of the world's top astrobiologists and author of an authoritative book on the hunt for life's origins – and ET

A rapid rise in global sea temperatures is causing havoc across the world. It is a compelling reminder that the impacts of climate change will arrive in sudden, catastrophic bursts

Researchers have developed a smart fabric that can convert body heat and solar energy into electricity, potentially enabling continuous operation with no need for an external power source. Different sensors monitoring temperature, stress, and more can be integrated into the material.

Researchers have developed a smart fabric that can convert body heat and solar energy into electricity, potentially enabling continuous operation with no need for an external power source. Different sensors monitoring temperature, stress, and more can be integrated into the material.

A new, air-powered computer sets off alarms when certain medical devices fail. The invention is a more reliable and lower-cost way to help prevent blood clots and strokes -- all without electronic sensors.

More efficient and longer-lasting fuel cells are essential for fuel cell-powered heavy-duty hydrogen vehicles to be an alternative to combustion fuelled counterparts. Researchers have developed an innovative method to study and understand how parts of fuel cells degrade over time. This is an important step towards the improved performance of fuel cells and them becoming commercially successful.

Noble gases have a reputation for being unreactive, inert elements, but more than 60 years ago Neil Bartlett demonstrated the first way to bond xenon. He created XePtF6, an orange-yellow solid. Because it's difficult to grow sufficiently large crystals that contain noble gases, some of their structures -- and therefore functions -- remain elusive. Now, researchers have successfully examined tiny crystallites of noble gas compounds. They report structures of multiple xenon compounds.

Between July and November of 2022, NASA's Perseverance rover collected seven samples of sediment from an ancient alluvial fan in Jezero crater. While onboard analysis gave researchers some information about their origins, only detailed analysis on Earth can retrieve evidence of when water flowed on Mars and whether life arose there. Geophysicists had hoped to get these samples back by 2033, but NASA's sample return mission may be delayed beyond that date.

Using nighttime lightdata from NASA, remote sensing, official outage records and census information, a study reveals notable differences in power-restoration rates between urbanized and rural areas and between disadvantaged and more affluent communities after Hurricane Michael in Florida's Panhandle. Block groups with higher proportions of minorities, multi-family housing units, rural locations, and households receiving public assistance experienced slower restoration of power compared to urban and more affluent neighborhoods.

Research revealed how the use of ChatGPT to cheat on general chemistry multiple-choice exams can be detected through specific statistical methods.

Scientists report that rock samples from Mars' Jezero Crater contain minerals that are typically formed in water. While the presence of organic matter is inconclusive, the rocks could be scientists' best chance at finding remnants of ancient Martian life.

Researchers simulated social norms with a supercomputer. Their findings contribute to a deeper understanding of the evolution of social norms and their role in fostering cooperative behavior.

A new implantable sensor could reverse opioid overdoses. The device rapidly releases naloxone when an overdose is detected.

Researchers discover that while artificial intelligence (AI) tools can make accurate diagnoses from textbook-like descriptions of genetic diseases, the tools are significantly less accurate when analyzing summaries written by patients about their own health. These findings demonstrate the need to improve these AI tools before they can be applied in health care settings to help make diagnoses and answer patient questions.

For decades, the oceans have absorbed much of the excess heat caused by greenhouse gases. The latest observations suggest they are reaching their limits, so how worried should we be?

The nearest source of the altar stone at the centre of Stonehenge has finally been identified – and it is at least 750 kilometres away in north-east Scotland

The South American lungfish has a whopping 180 gigabases of DNA in each cell, compared with 6 gigabases in human cells

Yesterday morning, with anxiety-provoking storms threatening, I managed to get an early flight from Capetown up to Hoedspruit, a small (pop. 3,157) town in NE South Africa that is the gateway to many natural wonders, not least among them Kruger National Park, one of the world’s finest game reserves, and the Blyde River Canyon. I’ll be visiting both of them.

My e-friend Rosemary, who kindly helped me make these arrangements independently, lives in Hoedspruit, where she helps run a conservation organization called Global March for Elephants and Rhinos.

Here’s Hoedspruit on a Wikipedia map:

Below: the location of Kruger National Park. Kruger is also surrounded by private game reserves that have no fences, so the wildlife roam free throughout the region. I’ll be staying a few days at one of the private reserves, which is spiffy and takes you for two long game drives per day.  (This is what’s known to visitors as a “safari camp.”) After that I visit Blyde, and after that I’ll be visiting Kruger with a driver and Rosemary, traipsing around the park for four days looking for wildlife.

Kruger is in red:

Htonl, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

But there’s plenty of wildlife to see in the fenced community in Hoedspruit where I’m staying for two nights before heading to the private reserve. Foremost among them is OZY, my beloved common warthog (Phacochoerus africanus)—there’s nothing common about him!—whom I’ve been assisting from afar.  And here he is. He’s big, dominant, and loves to roll around in the dirt and mud. There are many other warthogs of both sexes and all sizes here, but Ozy is the King of them All:

Ozy: “Gaze on my warts, ye mighty, and despair.”

Here I am communing with my beloved pig. Short video by Rosemary Alles:

Another pig grooming a juvenile:

Two ways of looking at a southern red-billed hornbill (Tockus rufirostris):

After a quick look at the pigs, it was time for lunch. There’s a good Indian restaurant in town, and of course I got a mutton bunny chow (spelled “chao” there). This was a spiffy one, very spicy and delicious. If I lived in this country, I’d seek out the best bunny chow, just as I seek out the best BBQ in the US. I wonder if there’s a Guide to the Bunny Chows of South Africa  (I doubt it).

This is the perfect street food, though messy. It originated in the largely Indian city of Durban, South Africa, as a way for workers to have a quick, filling lunch that could be carried to the job (the top was usually plugged with the inside of the bread that had been scooped out). From Wikipedia:

Bunny chows are popular amongst Indians and other ethnic groups in the Durban area. Bunny chows are commonly filled with curries made using traditional recipes from Durban: mutton or lamb curry, chicken curry, trotters and beans curry, and beans curry. Other varieties found across the country using less traditional Durban-Indian food include chips with curry gravy, fried sausage, cheese, eggs and polony. These are all popular fillings; the original bunny chow was vegetarian.

This was an excellent specimen (note the scooped-out bread to the left.) You can barely make out the quarter loaf of white bread which holds the curry.

Rosemary had a fish curry with naan.

On the way back to my room, I came across one of the most beautiful and friendly antelopes I’ve seen: a nyala (Tragelaphus angasii). This is a young male; females don’t have horns. They’re herbivores and live in social groups, though older males (see below) tend to be solitary.  I love the white patches on thee face. This one came right up to me:

Somehow it came across a piece of bread, which it’s chewing below:

A close-up of its beautiful face. Look at those eyes!

A female with nice stripes:

A Crested Francolin (Ortygornis sephaena). It’s a ground-dwelling bird that’s considered a delicacy.

A group of helmeted guineafowl, (Numida meleagris), widespread in sub-Saharan Africa. They have lovely crested turquoise-and-red heads and spotted feathers:

Here’s a better photo from Wikipedia:

Bob, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

A gorgeous female nyala that came right up to me. I fell in love with these antelopes. Look at her eyelashes!

And a big old male, clearly dominant to the others.  They are very sexually dimorphic, not only with horns, but a blackish coat:

The antlers are wicked sharp, and the male threatens by lowering his head and pointing the horns at another bothersome individual. This one had a standoff with Ozy, who did a threat display, but Ozy fled when this male lowered his head.

Me communing with my distant relative, the nyala bull above (photo by Rosemary):

We also saw a pair of shy duiker and, on a night drive through the area, and two groups of majestic impala. And these are just within a fenced residential area that serves itself as a wilelife reserve. It’s not part of Kruger, just a small patch of forest in which people live.

More from today: a drive around the wildlife estate and stuff we saw while communing with Ozy.

Two baby warthogs, brothers, sleep together in the yard:

Ozy, King of All Hogs. We found him by himself this afternoon and thus were able to feed him a large amount of grass pellets without interference from other hogs. Note that he, like all warthogs, dines while resting on his front knees:

Ozy sleeping (two photos). He enjoys his naps in the shade:

My first impala (Aepyceros melampus):  a young male at one of the waterholes (the estate keeps several of these ponds in good condition):

. . . and my first zebra, a Burchell’s zebra (Equus quagga burchellii):

Another antelope new to me: a female waterbuck (Kobus ellipsiprymnus). She was also drinking at the water hole.

Rear view. Waterbucks are identifiable by the white ring around their butt, reminiscent of a toilet seat (thus making the name easy to remember):

A giraffe zebra footprint near the waterhole (see comments.)

The estate puts out large amounts of hay and other greenery for the animals, as it has been a dry year and forage is scarce. Here some warthogs chowing down:

And finally, resting while observing Ozy an hour ago, we heard a crunching in the bushes and Rosemary excitedly pointed out that there was a giraffe in the back yard, about twenty meters away.  It was HUGE, towering above the treetops.  I crept out to photograph it but it was easily spooked, so here’s a photo. I’ll get more in the game parks:

There is much more wildlife to come. . .when I go to the Manyalete Game Reserve tomorrow.

Lab-reared German cockroaches are susceptible to consumer insecticide sprays, allowing manufacturers to pass US regulatory tests, but insects taken from real-world infestations are able to shrug off the products

The Hyde Park Herald reports that the University of Chicago, which previously withheld diplomas from eleven students for participating in our encampment, has given them back. This means that although the students were warned that being in the encampment was illegal, they, along with all the encampers, suffered no penalty for breaking University rules. The encampment was the fifth violation of University regulations by protestors that went unpunished. 

This seems to be the general trend in most universities. Now that the tumultuous year has ended, universities are experiencing a wave of forgiveness—a wave that will come back to haunt them this fall.  As far as I can see, no students were disciplined by the city of Chicago or by the University despite multiple and clear violations of both the law and University regulations. (This includes the Ciry of Chicago dropping trespassing charges against 24 students and two faculty who were arrested for violating University regulations for sit-ins in University buildings.}

In April I recounted the sad story of how remiss Chicago has been in punishing pro-Palestinian protestors who violated University regulations. As far as I know, the only puniahment levied the entire year, as described above, is a simple warning to the Students for Justice in Palestine that they had better desist from illegally disrupting and deplatforming opponents:

Official Warning – An official warning indicates the organization has violated University policies or regulations and will be placed on file. If the organization engages in any additional misconduct, the appropriate disciplinary body will be informed of this official warning, the related circumstances, and must consider the warning in determining further sanctions.

No that’s really going to deter illegal protests, isn’t it? As noted below, the protestors are proclaiming they’ll return this fall resuming their disruptions. Why wouldn’t they, when they know there’s no penalty for doing so?

Click below to read the Hyde Park Herald’s account of the restoration of diplomas:

An excerpt:

The last of the disciplinary cases against 10 University of Chicago students for their involvement in the pro-Palestine campus encampment was dismissed this week, student activists announced Monday.

Among those facing disciplinary cases were four graduating seniors and a graduate student, whose diplomas were withheld pending U. of C. investigations into potentially “disruptive conduct” at the encampment, which was erected on the Main Quadrangle in early May to protest the institution’s investments in weapons manufacturers arming Israel in its war on Gaza. Most of these cases – including those for another six undergraduate students – were dismissed last month, and the final one, the case of the graduate student, was dismissed and the degree conferred on August 12.

Youseff Hasweh, one of the four graduating seniors, said Monday that this final dismissal after months of pressure from students, alumni and faculty “tells UChicago that we’re never going to back down.”

“Students are even more fired up to join the movement and to let UChicago know that this wasn’t okay, that everything they’ve done this past year,” he said.

In addition to tearing down the encampment, U. of C. police officers arrested more than two dozen students and two faculty members during a November sit-in demanding divestment in the Israel-Hamas war and that the U. of C. cut ties with Israel altogether. U. of C. officers also arrested one person during a commencement walkout this June.

As I said, the City dropped all charges against the two dozen students and two faculty members.  I don’t know why this happened, but surely some punishment should be meted out by the University (as did Vanderbilt–see link above) for illegal sit ins, even if it’s only a note on the student’s transcript.

University regulations that aren’t enforced are regulations that are toothless and can be violated with impunity. I predict that the whole brouhaha will begin again this fall, as there’s simply no way the conflict between Israel and Hamas will be resolved by then. I’ll add this: those calling for a cease-fire in Gaza, including candidate Kamala Harris, realize that, by leaving Hamas in power, such a move will ensure that Israel will be forever subject to Palestinian terrorism—until the Jewish state is destroyed by an Iranian nuke.

As for my University, the paper says this:

Administrators for the U. of C. could not be reached for comment regarding the alleged photos as of press time.

That, of course, means they have no comment.

Get ready for fall—it will be a bumpy ride.