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An electrooxidation process efficiently converts glycerol, a byproduct of biodiesel production, into high-value three-carbon compounds.

Around 4 billion years ago, an asteroid hit the Jupiter moon Ganymede. Now, a researcher realized that the Solar System's biggest moon's axis has shifted as a result of the impact, which confirmed that the asteroid was around 20 times larger than the one that ended the age of the dinosaurs on Earth, and caused one of the biggest impacts with clear traces in the Solar System.

A sweat-powered wearable has the potential to make continuous, personalized health monitoring as effortless as wearing a Band-Aid. Engineers have developed an electronic finger wrap that monitors vital chemical levels -- such as glucose, vitamins, and even drugs -- present in the same fingertip sweat from which it derives its energy.

A sweat-powered wearable has the potential to make continuous, personalized health monitoring as effortless as wearing a Band-Aid. Engineers have developed an electronic finger wrap that monitors vital chemical levels -- such as glucose, vitamins, and even drugs -- present in the same fingertip sweat from which it derives its energy.

An oil-free super-lubricant created from potato proteins could pave the way for sustainable engineering and biomedical applications, thanks to new research.

A model developed by evolutionary mathematicians shows that as conditions for cooperation improve between two species, mutually beneficial behavior can unexpectedly become unbalanced. Cooperative behavior pools in one species, the other consumes the spoils.

Over billions of years, the universe's stars and galaxies shined their light into space, leaving behind an imperceptibly faint night light known as the cosmic optical background. NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has traveled to the edge of Earth's solar system and captured the most accurate measurement of this glow to date.

New research shows consumers use 'happier' words to search for products when they are in a good mood. Researchers have connected those positive search terms with an increased likelihood of clicking on search engine ads.

Heart failure during pregnancy is a dangerous and often under-detected condition because common symptoms -- shortness of breath, extreme fatigue and trouble breathing while lying down -- are easily mistaken for typical pregnancy discomforts. A new study showed an artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled digital stethoscope helped doctors identify twice as many cases of heart failure compared to a control group that received usual obstetric care and screening.

Additive manufacturing, precision robotics and architected design markedly increase crack resistance in concrete.

Despite what we've been led to believe, the timing of evening screen use, rather than the activity itself, negatively impacts youth sleep, a new study has found.

In the coming years, AI is poised to transform the writing of scientific manuscripts, assist in reviewing them, and help editors select the most impactful papers.

The more centrally connected someone is within their social media network, the more likely that new words they use will become adopted into mainstream language, according to a new study.

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/sciencesalon/mss464_Will_Gervais_2024_09_03.mp3 Download MP3

In his new book Disbelief: The Origins of Atheism in a Religious Species, Will Gervais, PhD., a global leader in the psychological study of atheism, shows that the ubiquity of religious belief and the peculiarities of atheism are connected pieces in the puzzle of human nature. Does God exist? This straightforward question has spawned endless debate, ranging from apologists’ supposed proofs of God’s existence to New Atheist manifestos declaring belief in God a harmful delusion.

It’s undeniable that religion is a core tenet of human nature. It is also true that our overwhelmingly religious species is also as atheistic as it’s ever been. Yet, no scientific understanding of religion is complete without accounting for those who actively do not believe. In this refreshing and revelatory book, Gervais argues that religion is not an evolutionary puzzle so much as two evolutionary puzzles that can only be solved together. First is the Puzzle of Faith: the puzzle of how Homo sapiens – and Homo sapiens alone – came to be a religious species. Second is the Puzzle of Atheism: how disbelief in gods can exist within our uniquely religious species. The result is a radically cohesive theory of both faith and atheism, showing how we became a uniquely religious species, and why many are now abandoning their belief.

Through a firsthand account of breakthroughs in the scientific study of atheism, including key findings from cognitive science, cultural evolution, and evolutionary psychology, Disbelief forces a rethinking of the prevailing theories of religion and reminds both believers and atheists of the shared psychologies that set them on their distinct religious trajectories. In casual prose and with compelling examples, Gervais explains how we became religious, why we’re leaving faith behind, and how we can get along with others across the religious divides we’ve culturally evolved.

Will Gervais, PhD, is a cultural evolutionary psychologist and has been a global leader in the scientific study of atheism for over a decade. Dr. Gervais’s research has been featured in media such as The New York Times, the Washington Post, National Public Radio, Der Speigel, Psychology Today, Vox, and Scientific American. His interdisciplinary work, lying at the intersection of cultural evolution, evolutionary psychology, and cognitive science, has garnered international scientific recognition. He was named a Rising Star by the Association for Psychological Science and is the recipient of the Margaret Gorman Early Career Award from the American Psychological Association and the SAGE Young Scholar Award from the Foundation for Personality and Social Psychology.

Gervais and Shermer discuss:

• What is religion?
• Theism, Atheism, Agnosticism, Deism, Pantheism, etc. defined
• How many atheists and agnostics and religious skeptics are there really?
• Atheism and morality, trust, politics, etc.
• Why are atheists so unpopular?
• Metaphysical atheism vs. epistemological atheism (or agnosticism)
• Popular nonanswers for religion and belief in God(s) (the Puzzle of Faith)
• Role(s) of religion in history and society today
• Is religion and belief in God(s) adaptive or a byproduct?
• What cognitive features of the brain are engaged in faith, religion, & belief in God?
• Patternicity, Agenticity, Sensed presence effect, essentialism, dualism, theory of mind, teleology
• Big Gods vs. animism, polytheism, supernaturalism
• Folk physics (pre-Newtonian) and biology (creationism)
• Why some religions are so much more successful than others
• Group selection vs. cultural selection
• Is religion good for society?
• Is religion good for personal health and happiness?
• When we colonize Mars will far future humans on other planets believe in God?
• Does religion need to be replaced with something?
• Enlightenment Humanism, Secular Humanism, and other alternatives.

If you enjoy the podcast, please show your support by making a $5 or $10 monthly donation.

As a harbinger of the day after tomorrow’s post, here’s a “spot the” photo.  Our guide Isaac saw a leucistic (white mutant) lion while driving down the road, and this is what he saw. I tell you, the guy’s good.

Can you spot the leucistic lion in this photo? I’d say it’s “medium hard”. I won’t give a reveal, but please don’t tell in the comments where the animal is. You can say “I have found it,” or “that wasn’t too hard,” or other such stuff.

Click on the photo if you want to enlarge it.

September offers a number of fascinating lunar occultation events worldwide.

Chances are, there’s one near you this month. The Moon is certainly busy in September, as its passage covers up (occults) multiple celestial objects worldwide. If skies are clear, you may just get a chance to see one of these events listed below, as the Moon blocks out a star, planet or star cluster.

You may well have seen images from last month’s lunar occultation of Saturn from observers across the United Kingdom and western Europe. The Moon occults Saturn 10 times in 2024—once for every lunation pass. The slowest moving of the naked eye planets, Saturn makes a good repeated target for the Moon. The rings are headed towards edge-on in 2025, making for an appealing view as it peeks out from behind the lunar limb.

Why Occultations

Occultations occur in cycles, as the Moon journeys on its monthly trek five degrees above and below the ecliptic plane. In the current epoch, the Moon can occult four +1st magnitude stars: Aldebaran, Regulus, and (as is ongoing in 2024) Antares and Spica. The Moon moves its own diameter (30’ or half a degree) once every hour, and the dark limb leads the way when it’s waxing, and trails when it’s waning. Dark limb ingresses can be especially dramatic.

The Moon is also riding high in the sky in 2024, as we head towards a bi-decadal Major Lunar Standstill next year in 2025.

An Occultation, Transit… or Eclipse?

Like eclipses, successive occultations in a cycle move westward by about 120 degrees of longitude. Lots of observational astronomy is no more than watching one thing pass in front of another, and seeing what happens: occultations, transits and eclipses are similar ways to express the what is essentially the same thing. Double star companions, profiles of asteroids, and diameters of tiny stellar sources have revealed themselves during occultations.

Occultations in September

All exciting stuff, to be sure. Here’s our rundown on what’s in store for lunar occultations in September worldwide:

First up, the 5% illuminated waxing crescent Moon occults Venus on September 5th, centered on 10:16 Universal Time (UT). Perhaps, only a few penguins and a few windswept remote research stations in Antarctica will witness to this daytime event. The rest of us will be treated to a very close pairing of the two at dusk.

Looking westward at dusk on September 5th. Credit: Stellarium.

Next, the 10% illuminated, waxing crescent occults the +1st magnitude star Spica (Alpha Virginis) for central Africa on the evening of September 6th centered on 17:04 UT. Fun fact: located 250 light-years distant, Spica is a close candidate (along with Betelgeuse) for a nearby galactic supernova.

The visibility footprint for the Spica occultation on September 6th. Credit: Occult 4.1.

Four days later on September 10th, the 43% illuminated, waxing crescent Moon occults the +1st magnitude star Antares (Alpha Scorpii) for western Australia centered on 13:09 UT. We caught a similar event back in 2009.

Seeking Saturn

Just past mid-month on September 17th, the 99.2% illuminated, waxing gibbous Moon occults Saturn for western North America, centered on 10:22 UT in the early morning hours. Northeastern Australia and the nearby Pacific island region sees the event transpire in the evening. This is just nine days after Saturn will reach opposition for 2024 on the 8th. The occultation occurs 16 hours prior to Full Moon and the partial lunar eclipse on the 17th-18th. This eclipse favors the Americas, Africa and Europe. Saturn spans 19” during the event, and will take about 40 seconds to disappear and reappear from behind the Moon.

The visibility footprint for the September 17th occultation footprint. Credit Occult 4.1.

Just five hours after the eclipse on the 18th, the Moon occults Neptune, also for North America. A tough catch, as faint +8th magnitude Neptune only spans 2.4”, but a challenge none the less. Neptune reaches opposition just 3 days later for 2024 on September 21st.

Finally, the 75% illuminated, waning gibbous Moon occults the well-known open star cluster Messier 45 (also known as the Seven Sisters or the Pleiades) for North America on September 22nd. The Moon visits the cluster once every lunation for the remainder of this current decade.

The International Occultation Timing Association (IOTA) maintains pages for stellar and planetary lunar occultations in 2024. These include ingress/egress times for select sites.

Observing Occultations

Observing an occultation of a bright star or planet by the Moon is as easy as watching at the appointed time. Binoculars or a small telescope will certainly improve the view. Imaging or recording can, however, be a tricky affair—especially if the dazzling Moon is near Full.

“Here in London we were lucky enough to catch an occultation of Mars by the Moon a few years ago, so I was excited to see that there would be a reasonably favorable occultation of Saturn visible towards the end of August this year,” astrophotographer Roger Hutchinson told Universe Today. “Imaging events like this where the main subjects have such a huge difference in brightness requires the capture of multiple shots at different exposures, these then being composited to record the event more or less as the eye sees it. Transits, occultations and eclipses bring home the constant motion of our solar system and are always amazing events to witness and capture. Can’t wait ‘til the next one!”

Ingress for this month’s occultation of Saturn by the Moon… be sure to keep an eye out for nearby Titan! Credit: Occult 4.1

Don’t miss one of these spectacular celestial events, coming to a sky near you.

The post Catch a Fall Feast of Lunar Occultations in September appeared first on Universe Today.

The government of New Zealand continues to throw away money by funding ludicrous projects involved indigenous “ways of knowing” (in this case Mātauranga Māori, or “MM”).

One government initiative, while admitting that MM differs in some ways from modern science, not only maintains that MM remains a “knowledge base”, but insists that the practice must remain under Māori control. Science, however, is not under the control of any ethnic group, so this is an attempt to not only sacralize indigenous knowledge, but to prevent others from investigating its claims:

Mātauranga Māori is a knowledge base in its own right. It is Māori knowledge, including values and culture. It is different from modern science. Mātauranga Māori belongs to iwi and should remain under Māori control. Mātauranga Maori is taonga (a treasure) and as such should be protected.

Here’s an example of money thrown down the drain to the end given above. It was, as always, sent to me by a NZ scientist who wishes to remain anonymous, for even sending me stuff like this could endanger someone’s job. Click on the site to see one of the projects underwritten by Kiwi taxpayers:

One of the projects involves trying to stem the death of kauri trees (Agathis australis), the iconic tree of New Zealand.  Kauri deforestation, due to logging by Europeans and also burning buy Māori, is now exacerbated by “Kauri dieback,” the death of trees after infection by a funguslike organism. This has resulted in the closure of forests (the infection may be spread by humans carrying soil on their feet), but so far nothing has really been effective in curing the disease or stopping its spread.

But a new government-funded project based on Māori traditions involves trying to stop the disease by, yes, playing whale songs to the trees and dousing them with whale oil.  Here’s an excerpt from the project description at the link above (bolding is mine):

“Led by the Pawarenga community, Dr. Valance Smith and his team collaborated with kaitiaki and leaders from Pawarenga to delve into the realm of ‘ihirangaranga’—vibrations and frequencies—as healing sounds, to construct a sonic tapestry of rejuvenation and well-being.

Nestled amidst the Te Auwarawara forest, the soundscape is a layered composition, intricately woven with sonic samples of healthy kauri within its untouched habitat, the whale song of its cetacean kin the tohora, inlayed with the healing sounds of taonga puoro, takutaku, and karakia, representing profound layers of ancient wisdom and knowledge, deeply ingrained in the very fabric of the soundscape.”

In addition, the soundscape of ailing kauri trees has been captured and examined to gather vital baseline data, enabling continuous monitoring and tracking of their healing progress.

This project was supported by an array of mātauranga Māori tools, including pūrākau (oral narratives), maramataka (lunar calendar), and ngā kaupeka (phases of summer and winter) unique to the Pawarenga region. These invaluable resources serve as both treatment modalities and management tools, empowering the community to foster the well-being and vitality of their kauri.

Do I need to add anything to that save to say that there is no underlying “wisdom” or scientific data suggesting that sounds played to ailing trees could cure them, much less the sounds of whale songs. And yes, the project was funded by the National Science Challenges, a government initiative.

Here’s a video of the project with these YouTube notes:

Oranga is a suite of kaupapa Māori projects that aim to restore the collective health of trees, forests and people. The team will do this by connecting to, and resourcing, Māori communities and their environmental knowledge holders to explore solutions embedded in mātauranga Māori (Māori knowledge).

Click ‘play’ to view what they’ve been up to in the first three years of the programme.

This programme is funded by Ngā Rākau Taketake, which is administered by New Zealand’s Biological Heritage National Science Challenge | Ngā Koiora Tuku Iho.

Note that the video begins with the statement that there are “forms of knowledge” other than science, and that indigenous knowledge gets no respect because the “colonization process” has “tried to remove our knowledge” and outlawed it.  In my view, this is pure, ludicrous science-dissing.

The whale nonsense begins at about 2:50 with the claim that “the whale once traversed the face of the earth” (yes, on land, too!) and that there is a “sibling relationship” between whales and kauri trees.

This is what happens when “traditional wisdom” is used instead of modern science (which, by the way, discovered the organism causing the tree infection).

Well, who knows—the tattooed Måori man might be right: whale oil and whale bone might cure the trees, as he claimed it has. But I’m not betting on it.  How about a double-blind control test rather than legends and anecdotes?

They fight invaders, clear debris and tend neural connections, but sometimes microglia go rogue. Preventing this malfunction may offer new treatments for brain conditions including Alzheimer's

The brain's microglia fight invaders, clear debris and tend neural connections, but sometimes they go rogue. Preventing this malfunction may offer new treatments for Alzheimer's

I’m delighted to tell you that Quanta Magazine has published an essay I have written on the *real* story of how the Higgs field gives mass to particles — avoiding those famous false analogies. There’s a musical connection, too. I hope you enjoy it! https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-the-higgs-field-actually-gives-mass-to-elementary-particles-20240903/

If you are curious to learn more about the main points of the essay, feel free to ask me questions about it in the comments below or at Quanta Magazine. (I also go into more detail about these subjects in my book.)