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Physicists have developed a computer program incorporating machine learning that could help identify blobs of plasma in outer space known as plasmoids. In a novel twist, the program has been trained using simulated data.

Physicists have developed a computer program incorporating machine learning that could help identify blobs of plasma in outer space known as plasmoids. In a novel twist, the program has been trained using simulated data.

Combining single-wall carbon nanotubes and poly(styrene-b-butadiene-b-styrene) nanosheets, researchers developed a novel bioelectrode material for wearable devices. This innovative material is stretchable, permeable to humidity, and conforms closely to the skin, making it ideal for prolonged use. This development addresses critical limitations of current bioelectrode materials, promising more comfortable and effective wearables for healthcare and fitness applications.

Combining single-wall carbon nanotubes and poly(styrene-b-butadiene-b-styrene) nanosheets, researchers developed a novel bioelectrode material for wearable devices. This innovative material is stretchable, permeable to humidity, and conforms closely to the skin, making it ideal for prolonged use. This development addresses critical limitations of current bioelectrode materials, promising more comfortable and effective wearables for healthcare and fitness applications.

The more we discover about the natural world, the more we find that nature is the greatest engineer. Past research implied that liquids can only be transported in fixed direction on species with specific liquid communication properties and cannot switch the transport direction. Recently, researchers have shown that an African plant controls water movement in a previously unknown way -- and this could inspire breakthroughs in a range of technologies in fluid dynamics and nature-inspired materials, including applications that require multistep and repeated reactions, such as microassays, medical diagnosis and solar desalination etc.

The more we discover about the natural world, the more we find that nature is the greatest engineer. Past research implied that liquids can only be transported in fixed direction on species with specific liquid communication properties and cannot switch the transport direction. Recently, researchers have shown that an African plant controls water movement in a previously unknown way -- and this could inspire breakthroughs in a range of technologies in fluid dynamics and nature-inspired materials, including applications that require multistep and repeated reactions, such as microassays, medical diagnosis and solar desalination etc.

In the decade since their discovery, the family of two-dimensional materials called MXenes has shown a great deal of promise for applications ranging from water desalination and energy storage to electromagnetic shielding and telecommunications, among others. While researchers have long speculated about the genesis of their versatility, a recent study has provided the first clear look at the surface chemical structure foundational to MXenes' capabilities.

Combining genomic data and human travel patterns over a 14-year period in South Africa reveals key insights into the spread, evolution and resistance patterns of a major bacterium behind pneumonia and meningitis globally.

Google's Sycamore quantum computer was the first to demonstrate quantum supremacy – solving calculations that would be unfeasible on a classical computer – but now ordinary machines have pulled ahead again

A fossil found in the Namib desert has been described as a 2.5-metre long predator that resembled a giant salamander

A new radiometric dating technique reveals that cave paintings on Sulawesi, Indonesia, are even older than previously thought, pushing back the earliest evidence of storytelling

Thousands of bones found in a Tibetan cave have been analysed to learn how mysterious ancient humans known as Denisovans lived

It may soon be possible to vaccinate ourselves against the diseases of old age, keeping our body and brain healthier for longer

Because the UK Parliament was dissolved on May 30, every seat in the House of Commons is now vacant, but they’ll be filled in a general election tomorrow.  And the head of the party that gets the most seats will become Prime Minister.  Matthew gives us the following information in response to my questions:

The PM is, by default, the leader of the largest party. Although they are, of course, named by the head of state – the monarch. On Friday there will be what is known as the ‘kissing of hands’, which involves the leader of the largest party meeting the monarch and being made PM. In the case of no clear majority (as in 2010 – a ‘hung’ parliament), the parties negotiate between themselves, and effectively nominate a PM (in that case, Cameron), who is then approved by the monarch.

The Tories are going to be voted out, it seems to be a question of quite how crushing is their defeat. Labour will be the government on Friday morning.

The new PM will be Sir Keir Starmer, who got his knighthood as a formality for being the Director of Public Prosecutions (a kind of national DA) in the noughties.

Like most Americans, I’m woefully ignorant of politics outside the U.S., for our news is quite parochial.  But it’s widely known that Labour had its issues with antisemitism, issues that I hope have now been resolved (Since Labour seems to be the UK equivalent of the Democratic Party, I suppose I’d vote for that party were I a Brit).  But according to two articles below—curiously, one in the conservative Times of London and the other in the left-wing Guardian—Labour is said has a new set of issues, especially for women: issues involving gender activism. According to J. K. Rowling, writing in the Times, Labour has fallen prey to that activism, while the Guardian reports that “many [women] are frustrated at failures to tackle inequality, the climate and Labour’s struggle to define a woman.”

I’ll just report on the “struggle to define a woman,” which, of course, is something I’ve followed regularly on this site, and which I’ve talked about in public.

The issue appears to be that Labour not only won’t define women as biological adult females, but wants to include trans women in that mix as well, adhering to the mantra “trans women are women.” The consequences include not only confusing people about biology, but, more important, giving trans women some privileges that entail equating them with biological women in every sense.  And that’s what Rowling (and I) object to. Let me quote Rowling from the Times piece on what she believes, and what I adhere to as well:

For left-leaning women like us, this isn’t, and never has been, about trans people enjoying the rights of every other citizen, and being free to present and identify however they wish.

This is about the right of women and girls to assert their boundaries. It’s about freedom of speech and observable truth. It’s about waiting, with dwindling hope, for the left to wake up to the fact that its lazy embrace of a quasi-religious ideology is having calamitous consequences.

To clarify, trans women (and trans people) should indeed enjoy the rights (well, nearly all of them) of every citizen, with just a few exceptions, and can “present and identify however they wish,” Simple morality and civility dictate that.

The rights I don’t think that transwomen (the topic of both articles) should possess include competing in sports against biological women, being put in jail with biological women, and being able to act as rape counselors or staff in women’s shelters.  That’s not a huge list of “non-rights” (there may be a few I haven’t thought of), but people like Rowling raise these issues because they are not fair to biological women. (I’ve discussed this at length, and won’t do so here.)

But my view on the few “nonrights” for trans women has predictably earned me opprobrium from gender activists, and I regularly get emails of denunciations calling me a “transphobe”, a TERF (Trans-Exclusive Radical Feminist), and, in the latest one, simply “offensive”.  Well, too bad for that.  It’s free speech, Jake, and I can ignore it. Again, there are only few issues on which biological women’s rights trump transwomen’s rights.

I found Rowling’s piece because it’s in her latest pinned tweet:

With apologies to Strike fans waiting for book 8, I spent much of today writing this.https://t.co/j6rGaM8XZI

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 21, 2024

And you can read her Times piece by clicking below (I’ve given the archived link, which is also here.

Rowling is struggling because she’s always been a Labour voter, but now finds Labour imbued with gender activism, to the point where their politicians can’t or won’t define “woman,” and also consider transwomen completely equivalent to biological women in every respect, including the issues above.

What prompted Rowling’s piece was a book launch she recently attended. The book is called The Women Who Wouldn’t Wheest, with the last word being Scottish argot for “shut up”. In other words, it’s a series of chapters by “uppity” women, described by Amazon like this:

Through a collection of over thirty essays and photographs, some of the women involved tell the story of the five-year campaign to protect women’s sex-based rights. Author J.K. Rowling explains why she used her global reach to stand up for women. Leading SNP MP Joanna Cherry writes of how she risked her political career for her beliefs. Survivors of male violence who MSPs refused to meet are given the voice they were denied at Holyrood. Ash Regan MSP recounts what it was like to become the first government minister to resign on a question of principle since the SNP came to power in 2007. Former prison governor Rhona Hotchkiss charts how changes in prison policy in Scotland led to the controversy over Isla Bryson. I’ll concentrate on Rowling’s feelings about Labour, which began wavering when Keir Starmer (the next PM) criticized Labour MP Rossie Duffield for saying that only women have a cervix. Apparently Starmer walked that back a bit, but recently averred that the statement that “only women have a cervix” was something “that shouldn’t be said”, and “wasn’t right.” That got Rowling’s hackles up, and she rattles off a series of similar views from other Labour Party members:

Unfortunately, by 2021, Starmer’s answer had to be seen in the context of a Labour Party that not merely saw the rights of women as disposable, but struggled to say what a woman was at all.

Take Anneliese Dodds, the shadow secretary for women and equalities, who, when asked what a woman is, said, it “depends on what the context is”. Take Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary: “I’m not going to get into rabbit holes on this”; Stella Creasy, Labour candidate for Walthamstow: “Do I think some women were born with penises? Yes … But they are now women and I respect that”; Emily Thornberry, the shadow attorney-general: “Women who are trans deserve to be recognised, and yes — therefore some of them will have penises. Frankly, I’m not looking up their skirts, I don’t care.” Dawn Butler, the former MP for Brent Central, actually announced on TV that “a child is born without sex at the beginning” (I choose to believe she meant the lesser of two insanities here: a sex, not that children really are delivered by stork.)

Some of this is almost funny, but loses its humour when real-world consequences of gender ideology arise. When asked whether violent sex offenders who transition should be rehoused in women’s prisons, Lisa Nandy, the shadow secretary for international development, said: “I think trans women are women, I think trans men are men, so I think they should be in the prison of their choosing.”

Rebecca Long-Bailey, the candidate for Salford, said female victims of male violence shouldn’t use their trauma “as an argument to discriminate against trans people” and vowed to change laws to stop women’s refuges excluding men who identify as women.

David Lammy, the shadow foreign secretary, called women like me “dinosaurs hoarding rights”. Lammy, too, has form on the vexed question of cervixes: “A cervix, I understand, is something you can have following various procedures and hormone treatments.” It’s very hard not to suspect that some of these men don’t know what a cervix is, but consider it too unimportant to Google.

Apparently, Duffield has received a bunch of hate for her views, but that’s free speech; what’s worse is that she’s gotten death threats so serious that she’s hired personal security and has been advised not to campaign in public.  According to Rowling, Tony Blair said things almost identical to what Duffield maintains, but never got into trouble for them. Times have changed.

Yes, Rowling is a one-issue candidates about this, but remember that this is an issue she takes seriously, and, importantly, has the clout that renders her not only publicly respectable to many, but also makes her immune to cancellation. Her voice for the rights of biological women has been the loudest and most important. As to how she’ll vote tomorrow, she says this:

An independent candidate is standing in my constituency who’s campaigning to clarify the Equality Act.

Perhaps that’s where my X will have to go on July 4. As long as Labour remains dismissive and often offensive towards women fighting to retain the rights their foremothers thought were won for all time, I’ll struggle to support them. The women who wouldn’t wheesht didn’t leave Labour. Labour abandoned them.

And from the Guardian (click to read; it’s free):

A few quotes:

Many of the women who responded to an online callout or spoke to the Guardian expressed frustration with politics that had failed to address poverty, inequality, healthcare for women and children in particular, the climate and Brexit, and voiced acute fears for their and their families’ future: mothers of children with SEN (special educational needs) or mental health issues, mothers unable to afford childcare, or with adult children unable to buy homes, unpaid carers, women feeling exploited in low-paid jobs with no prospects of progression, and women with disabilities fearing harsher welfare conditions in future.

Scores also said they were concerned about rising extremism and political polarisation, misogyny, violence against women and girls, antisemitism and Islamophobia.

From an anonymous “Sharon”:

“However, the final straw for me is the issue of women’s rights,” she added.

Sharon was one of hundreds of women who shared that sex-based rights for women and girls was a main political concern of theirs this election.

Women from across the country, dozens of them economically disadvantaged or with disabilities, said they would abandon Labour, the Lib Dems or the Greens over this issue and vote either Conservative, Reform or spoil their ballot – particularly women from marginal areas Labour is hoping to gain, such as Lincoln, Darlington, Derbyshire, Warrington North and Truro and Falmouth.

Various said they felt “politically homeless” because of this issue, with Starmer having repeatedly referred to ​​the debate over trans rights as “divisive and toxic” culture wars.

“This ain’t a culture war,” said Kerri Clarke, a 46-year-old stay-at-home mother from Hertfordshire. “I’ll be voting Conservative for the first time in my life, as the child of Labour activists.”

Clarke worries that the current Labour party is “utterly uninterested in women, our rights to safety and dignity”.

“This is about supporting our sisters in prisons and women’s shelters,” said Anne, 61, from Burnley, Labour’s “most winnable seat”.

Having always voted Labour, Anne said she might abstain for the first time unless she heard something positive from Labour on the protection of women’s and girls’ “safety and opportunities” this week.

Tracy, from Kent, in her 40s and usually a Labour voter, is likely to spoil her ballot. “I want to vote Labour but I can’t bear to support a party that so struggles to define the word woman.

“There are some contexts where biological sex matters, and women’s rights have been affected in recent years by a failure of law and policy to recognise this. Starmer wants this to go away, but it’s not going to go away.”

There are lots of other issues discussed, and some remind me of problems that centrist Democrats have with the newly progressive Biden, , including immigration, the women’s issues described above, and failure to hear the concerns of the middle class.  And, like the “progressive” Democrats, Labour has embraced “woke” political positions that could drive voters into the hands of the right wing. This is distressing for Left centrists like me, but we don’t have a party acceptable enough to get our “X”. (I suppose mine will go for Biden—if he winds up being the candidate.)

I had hoped, at least that Labour had abandoned its patina of antisemitism, but that still seems to be a concern for many.

Getting to Proxima Centauri b will take a lot of new technologies, but there are increasingly exciting reasons to do so. Both public and private efforts have started seriously looking at ways to make it happen, but so far, there has been one significant roadblock to the journey – propulsion. To solve that problem, Christopher Limbach, now a professor at the University of Michigan, received a grant from NASA’s Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) to work on a novel type of beamed propulsion that utilizes both a particle beam and a laser to overcome that technology’s biggest weakness.

Let’s first look at why conventional propulsion systems wouldn’t work to get a craft to Proxima b. Conventional rockets are out of the question, as their fuel is too heavy and burns up too quickly to get a probe anywhere near the speed it would need to reach Proxima b. Conventional solar sails also fail because once they are far enough away from the Sun, only a minimum push is applied to them.

Other non-conventional solutions could work, such as nuclear propulsion or ion drives. However, they fall victim to the tyranny of the rocket equation – since they have to carry their fuel, they have to carry more mass to go faster, thereby eliminating much of that benefit.

Fraser explains Breakthrough Starshot, a mission that could potentially utilize the PROCSIMA system.

That leaves beamed propulsion—essentially creating a giant beam in space that continues to push on a spacecraft with a collector on it, which can continue to push the entirety of the time the spacecraft is on its way to its destination. Typically, there are two types of beams used in these systems—particle beams and light beams. However, each has a weakness—diffraction.

Both light and particle beams tend to spread out over long distances, making them much less effective at focusing on a single small object that might be light years away. Even lasers, if allowed to point far away, eventually scatter into unusable light. However, there is a way around this.

Recently, optics research has developed a way of combining particle and laser beams that all but eliminates diffraction and beam spreading when both are used simultaneously. This would allow a beamed propulsion system to continue concentrating its beam on exactly the right place without slowly losing its pushing force as the probe gets further away. Dr. Limbach used this underlying technology to develop what he calls PROCSIMA, a novel propulsion method that used a coherent combined particle and laser beamed propulsion system.

Depiction of the diffraction issues with particle a photon beams, and how a “self-guided” combined beam keeps providing pushing power even to probes that are far away.
Credit – Limbach & Hara

Calculations by Dr. Limbach and his collaborator, Dr. Ken Hara, now a professor at Stanford, show that making a coherent beam that can effectively last to Proxima b while only diffracting out to about 10m is possible, at least in theory. According to their calculations, a 5g probe like the one that the Breakthrough Initiatives project is working on could be pushed up to 10% of the speed of light, allowing it to reach Proxima b in 43 years. 

Alternatively, they also calculated that a much larger probe of around 1kg could reach the system in around 57 years. That would allow for a much more exciting payload, even if the probe would zoom through the Proxima Centauri system at a significant fraction of the speed of light.

There is still some work to be done, including developing things like cold atom particle sources and improving the functionality of the beam systems. However, so far, the project hasn’t been supported by another NIAC grant, though Dr. Limbach’s lab at UM continues to work on similar ideas, such as a nanoNewton propulsion system. Development continues on a star shot method to eventually get a probe to another star, and it seems like, for better or worse, beamed propulsion is the way we will get there.

Learn More:
Limbach & Hara – PROCSIMA: Diffractionless Beamed Propulsion for Breakthrough Interstellar Missions
UT – Starshot … Not? Get a Reality Check on the Search for Alien Civilizations
UT – Photonic Crystals Could Be Exactly What Breakthrough Starshot is Looking For
UT – Tiny Swarming Spacecraft Could Establish Communications with Proxima Centauri

Lead Image:
Artist’s depiction of the PROCSIMA propulsion system concept.
Credit – Christopher Limbach

The post A Concentrated Beam of Particles and Photons Could Push Us to Proxima Centauri appeared first on Universe Today.

The egg hatch rate of one shark species may plummet by up to 90 per cent by the end of the century, suggesting that other egg-laying sharks are at risk

In today’s Jesus and Mo strip, called “adults”, the boys ask the barmaid to use their Divine Pronouns. She refuses, and, surprisingly, they give in easily. Or, as the artist wrote, “They took that well.” I guess they were thirsty.

Today we have a large batch of photos from neuroscientist Mayaan Levy, who documented her travels to the isle of Skye. Her captions are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

“Over the sea to Skye”

Skye makes you believe in Faeries. You may find yourself gazing at the clouds and storms come and go at the whim of the Cailleach. You might avoid stepping into the swamps by Loch Coruisk worrying the Kelpie will snatch you. The Isle takes you back in time to when folks believed in magic, and for the duration of your stay, you’re allowed to give in, throw any logic or contemporary science to the bitter island wind, and indulge in this quaint fantasy.

We visited in late May 2023. I’ve been a low-key Scotophile for a while before, drawing on Hume, Robert Louie Stevenson, Braveheart, the Hogwarts express, and more recently Outlander (which is my guilty pleasure. Guilty as charged). After Skye, my Scotophilia worsened and is now considered incurable.

Skye (“The Island of the Clouds”, was connected to the Scottish mainland only in 1995 with the construction of the bridge. The only way on or off before, was by sea. The photos are from our north-bound hike on the Skye trail, spanning 80 miles, plus a Loch Coruisk circuit, totaling at about 100 miles. We took 6 days, but I wish we have had double, or even triple that time.

The ocean meets the mountains and the clouds. Taken right before Torrin.

Skye has way more sheep than people. A fun pastime while hiking was to try to guess by how much, and upon getting signal we have discovered that both of us grossly underestimated. The answer is 10-fold more sheep than people! In the 21st century! Some sheep are marked in different colors (for different owners), and they graze / sit on / sleep on the tall and steep cliffs. Throughout the Island you can see old stone walls the crofters have erected ages ago.

Elgol is famous today due to its role in politics back in the 18th century, and this role was just to be a clandestine location, in the middle of nowhere and difficult to approach. The site in question is Bonnie Prince Charlie’s cave, where he hid from British government forces after the defeat of the Jacobite army in Culloden (1745).

Elgol Beach – it took scaling some class 3 sea cliffs to get here:

Beadlet Anemones (Actinia equina) – if I wasn’t in Neuroscience I would be a Marine Biologist. These creatures have 192 tentacles (so cool!), and they are sort of immortal (please weigh in on this) or at least have extremely long lives:

Elgol beach is rich in fossils. I have no clue what left this impression fossil:

One of my favorite areas was hidden Loch Coruisk and the Black Cuillin – a semi-circle of pitch black, ominous mountains. Multiple legends and myths surround the Cuillin, and I’m afraid I can’t do them justice. If you’re interested, some can be found here.

A view southwest of Loch Coruisk and the sea:

The peaks of the Black Cuillin tower in the distance over Sligachan 19th century bridge:

Our next stop was Portree (probably from “Port of the king” port + re as in many Latin languages), the capital of Skye, where there are more people than sheep but fewer residents than tourists. We were hungry, and luckily Portree is the place to get authentic fish and chips. Now, by fish I don’t mean small mackerels in newspaper, I mean a foot long, deep fried haddock. Chips are similar to what Americans call fries, except the Scottish ones tend to be very soggy as opposed to crispy. To each their own (ugh).

Is it a phone booth? Is it a library? (on the outskirts of Portree):

Portree harbor:

Fish farming just north of Portree. Perhaps this was home to our lunch not so long ago:

From Portree we hit the woods. There aren’t many trees on Skye, and it’s not clear to me exactly why. The island is at the mercy of the elements, with strong winds even in the summer which naturally will strip the land. But it may also be the case that humans deforested the isle to raise livestock.

I told you Faeries live here:

Small emperor moth (Saturnia pavonia) – common throughout Europe but is actually the only one from this family to inhabit the British Isles:

Now we start climbing for an epic stretch starting at the Storr, walking on the cliff edges of the Trotternish ridge. The ridge, including the Old man of Storr, was created when lava erupted from beneath, causing the softer rock to slide down about 60 million years ago. Skye’s geological origins are partially volcanic; Land that was to become the British Isles was once upon a time landlocked in pretty much the middle of Pangea. When the super-continent split and multiple fault lines were created, heat generated beneath led to a series of mini volcanic eruptions. Indeed, these events were part of a period of increased volcanic activity all over Earth, which some hypothesize might have been the true cause of the K-Pg extinction (aka the Deccan Traps theory). Disclaimer: not my field, and I have no skin in this game, but the so called “Dinosaur wars” have been fascinating from a history and sociology of Science perspective.

I can’t go to Skye and not have a photo of this landmark: Ladies and Gentlemen, the Old man of Storr. On the right side of the photo is the Storr itself – the tallest formation on the ridge. On the left side of the photo you can see that there are several steps or levels of cliffs until the final drop to the ocean:

The north-most point of the Trotternish ridge, looking south:

Volcanic sea cliffs:

Setting up camp for the final night on Skye. We’ll be back:

Identical wording placing limits on the export of quantum computers has appeared in regulations across the globe. There doesn't seem to be any scientific reason for the controls, and all can be traced to secret international discussions

What is a science-based medicine approach to potential public health risks? We write a lot about such risks here, trying to put them into perspective and cut through the hype and sensational headlines. We all have more than enough to worry about without adding unnecessarily to this burden. At the same time, humans have transformed our environment with industry, potentially introducing new […]

The post Microplastics and Global Health first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.