Science

A team of astronomers has found that Venus has never been habitable, despite decades of speculation that our closest planetary neighbor was once much more like Earth than it is today.

Where do you see patterns in chaos? It has now been demonstrated in the incredibly tiny quantum realm. Researchers detail an experiment that confirms a theory first put forth 40 years ago stating that electrons confined in quantum space would move along common paths rather than producing a chaotic jumble of trajectories.

Researchers developed a fully integrated photonic processor that can perform all the key computations of a deep neural network on a photonic chip, using light. This advance could improve the speed and energy-efficiency of running intensive deep learning models for demanding applications like lidar, astronomical research, and navigation.

Researchers developed a fully integrated photonic processor that can perform all the key computations of a deep neural network on a photonic chip, using light. This advance could improve the speed and energy-efficiency of running intensive deep learning models for demanding applications like lidar, astronomical research, and navigation.

Users of the healthcare app Alan whose queries were answered by a medical AI reported high satisfaction levels, but one exchange included "potentially dangerous inaccuracies"

Researchers have created the smallest walking robot yet. Its mission: to be tiny enough to interact with waves of visible light and still move independently, so that it can maneuver to specific locations -- in a tissue sample, for instance -- to take images and measure forces at the scale of some of the body's smallest structures.

Researchers have created the smallest walking robot yet. Its mission: to be tiny enough to interact with waves of visible light and still move independently, so that it can maneuver to specific locations -- in a tissue sample, for instance -- to take images and measure forces at the scale of some of the body's smallest structures.

Even some fields that seem fully settled will occasionally have breakthrough ideas that have reverberated impacts on the rest of the fields of science and technology. Mechanics is one of those relatively settled fields – it is primarily understood at the macroscopic level, and relatively few new breakthroughs have occurred in it recently. Until a few years ago, when a group of Harvard engineers developed what they called a totimorphic structure, and a recent paper by researchers at ESA’s Advanced Concepts Team dives into detail about how they can be utilized to create megastructures, such as telescope mirrors and human habitats in space.

First, it’s worth understanding what a totimorphic structure is. It is a series of triangular structures with a beam, a lever, and two elastic bands acting as springs. Given the proper configuration, the elastic bands can hold the lever at a set position in what mechanics researchers call “neutral” – i.e., without any external force being applied.

One important aspect is that the lever can be held at any position, essentially making it an analog positioning system that doesn’t have any set points where it must necessarily rest. Another important aspect is that two or more can be combined in an hourglass-looking shape, allowing the structure to take on literally any form in either 2D or 3D space and be stable in that form.

There are plenty of novel ideas for huge telescopes, as Fraser discusses

That second part is the critical feature that the researchers at ESA were interested in. Such a flexible structure would be useful in several applications, including building domed habitats or creating a telescope with an adjustable focal length that doesn’t rely on complex actuators. So, they developed a method for simulating these structures and applying them to those two use cases.

Since these modular units are physical structures, they must still abide by some rules. The three rules of these structures are that the beam and lever both have fixed lengths and that the lever must be connected on one of its ends to the midpoint of the beam. It would be interesting to see how these structures could use different types of materials for the lever or beam that would potentially allow them to change, but that’s still on the to-do list for researchers somewhere.

With those requirements in mind, the researchers set up a series of Python scripts that solve optimization problems associated with both configurable structures. The optimized features are different for either the habitat or the mirror. Still, both use the fact that the totimorphic structure is “analog,”—meaning it can continuously and stably move from one state to another without having to “jump” between them.

Video describing the mechanics of totimorphic materials.
Credit – Rajamanickam Antonimuthu YouTube Channel

The results were promising, though they show that physically realizing this system would be difficult. They also point out that an AI would be well-placed to understand the properties of the structures created by combining loads of these modular units, similar to how it is possible for AI to fold proteins in innumerable ways without ever physically experiencing them.

A lot of work will still be done with this novel technology, though putting these systems to the test in an actual experimental environment is probably pretty close. If the ESA or another team can build a functional variable focal point mirror out of this new structure, that would be a breakthrough worthy of celebration.

Example of an hourglass-shaped “unit cell” and the positions it can be put into.
Credit – Dold et al.

Learn More:
Dold et al. – Continuous Design and Reprogramming of Totimorphic Structures for Space Applications
UT – What’s the Best Material for a Lunar Tower?
UT – Using Smart Materials To Deploy A Dark Age Explorer
UT – NASA is Testing out new Composite Materials for Building Lightweight Solar Sail Supports

Lead Image:
Depiction of the two use cases in the current study – habitat domes and variable focal length mirrors.
Credit – Dold et al.

The post A New Reconfigurable Structure Could Be Used to Make Space Habitats appeared first on Universe Today.

Plate tectonics seems to be crucial for life on Earth, but we’ve never confirmed that it happens on other worlds - that may be about to change

In our search for exoplanets, we’ve found that many of them fall into certain types or categories, such as Hot Jupiters, Super-Earths, and Ice Giants. While we don’t have any examples of the first two in our solar system, we do have two Ice Giants: Uranus and Neptune. They are mid-size gas planets formed in the cold outer regions of the solar system. Because of this, they are rich in water and other volatile compounds, and they are very different from large gas giants such as Jupiter. We still have a great deal to learn about these worlds, but what we’ve discovered so far has been surprising, such as the nature of their magnetic fields.

When the Voyager 2 spacecraft flew past Uranus and Neptune in the 1980s, it found that neither world had a strong dipolar magnetic field like Earth’s. Instead, each had a weaker and more chaotic magnetic field, similar to that of Mars. This was surprising given what we understand about planet formation.

Models for the interior structures of the ice-giant planets Uranus and Neptune. Credit: Burkhard Militzer, UC Berkeley

In a planet’s youth, the interior becomes very hot due to gravitational compression. This would allow heavier material such as iron to sink to the core, while lighter material such as water would move toward the surface. For Earth, this created a nickel-iron core with a crust of silicates, water, and organics. The tremendous heat in the core would also allow for a convective region, where hot core material rises a bit before cooling and sinking, creating a circular flow of dense material. In Earth, this convective iron region generates our planet’s strong magnetic field. Since Uranus and Neptune likely have an Earth-sized metallic core, we would expect them to have a similar convection region generating a similar magnetic field. But that isn’t what we observe.

After the Voyager 2 discovery, it was thought that perhaps some mechanism prevented a convection region from forming. Perhaps the layers within a gas giant don’t mix, similar to the separation of oil and water. But the details remained unknown. Since we can’t create the tremendously high-density, high-pressure conditions of a gas giant’s core in the lab, we had no way to test various models. We also haven’t sent another probe to either planet, so we have no way to gather new data in situ.

Simulated phase transitions for ice giant interiors. Credit: Burkhard Militzer, UC Berkeley

One approach that could work to solve the mystery would be to use computer simulations. However, simulating the interactions of hundreds of molecules to calculate their bulk properties is extremely intensive. Too complex for computer systems of a decade ago. But a new study has simulated the bulk properties of more than 500 molecules, which is enough to calculate how an ice giant’s layers form.

The simulations show how water, methane, and ammonia in the middle region of Uranus and Neptune separate into two unmixable layers. This primarily occurs because hydrogen is squeezed out of the deep interior, which limits how mixing can occur. Without a convection zone in these layers, the planets cannot form a strong dipolar magnetic field. Uranus likely has a rocky core about the size of Mercury, while Neptune likely has a rocky core about the size of Mars.

Future lab experiments could confirm some of these bulk properties, and there is a proposed mission to Uranus that would gather data to confirm or disprove this model.

Reference: Militzer, Burkhard. “Phase separation of planetary ices explains nondipolar magnetic fields of Uranus and Neptune.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 121.49 (2024): e2403981121.

The post What's Inside Uranus and Neptune? A New Way to Find Out appeared first on Universe Today.

EEG recordings used in neurology could be made simpler by replacing the usual electrodes, wires and gels with a tattoo printed onto the scalp

As I’ve mentioned several times, Matthew Cobb has written what will likely prove the definitive biography of Francis Crick (1916-2004), co-discoverer of the structure of DNA and a general polymath. While writing it, Matthew came across some Crick material showing that biologists and historians have misunderstood Crick’s “Central Dogma” of molecular biology.

Matthew has corrected the record in the piece below from the Asimov Press. Click the headline, as it’s free to read:

You may have learned this dogma as “DNA makes RNA makes protein,” along with the caveat that it’s a one-way path. But Matthew shows that this was not Crick’s contention. I’ve indented Mathew’s words below:

The Central Dogma is a linchpin for understanding how cells work, and yet it is one of the most widely misunderstood concepts in molecular biology.

Many students are taught that the Central Dogma is simply “DNA → RNA → protein.” This version was first put forward in Jim Watson’s pioneering 1965 textbook, The Molecular Biology of the Gene, as a way of summarizing how protein synthesis takes place. However, Watson’s explanation, which he adapted from his colleague, Francis Crick, is profoundly misleading.

In 1956, Crick was working on a lecture that would bring together what was then known about the “flow of information” between DNA, RNA, and protein in cells. Crick formalized his ideas in what he called the Central Dogma, and his original conception of information flow within cells was both richer and more complex than Watson’s reductive and erroneous presentation.

Crick was aware of at least four kinds of information transfers, all of which had been observed in biochemical studies by researchers at that time. These were: DNA → DNA (DNA replication), DNA → RNA (called transcription), RNA → protein (called translation) and RNA → RNA (a mechanism by which some viruses copy themselves). To summarize his thinking, Crick sketched out these information flows in a little figure that was never published.

Crick’s figure is below. Note that the dogma is simply the first sentence typed in the diagram, implying that information from either DNA or RNA, translated into a protein, cannot get back into the DNA or RNA code again. Thus changes in protein structure cannot go back and change the genetic code (see the bottom part of the diagram).

As you see, the DNA—>RNA—>protein “dogma” is an extreme oversimplification of Crick’s views. And he meant the word “dogma” to mean not an inviolable rule of nature, but a hypothesis. Nevertheless, Crick was widely criticized for using the word “dogma”.

But getting back to the diagram:

The direct synthesis of proteins using only DNA might be possible, Crick thought, because the sequence of bases in DNA ultimately determines the order of amino acids in a protein chain. If this were true, however, it would mean that RNA was not always involved in protein synthesis, even though every study at that time suggested it was. Crick therefore concluded that this kind of information flow was highly unlikely, though not impossible.

Crick also theorized that RNA → DNA was chemically possible, simply because it was the reverse of transcription and both types of molecules were chemically similar to each other. Still, Crick could not imagine any biological function for this so-called “reverse transcription,” so he portrayed this information flow as a dotted line in his diagram.

We now know, though that the enzyme “reverse transcriptase” is used by some RNA viruses to make DNA to insert into their hosts’ genomes.

Here’s what Crick said he meant by the “Central Dogma,” and, in fact, this schema has not yet been violated in nature:

In other words, in Crick’s schema, information within the cell only flows from nucleic acids to proteins, and never the other way around. Crick’s “Central Dogma” could therefore be described in a single line: “Once information has got into a protein it can’t get out again.” This negative statement — that some transfers of information seem to be impossible — was the essential part of Crick’s idea.

Crick’s hypothesis also carried an unstated evolutionary implication; namely, that whatever might happen to an organism’s proteins during its lifetime, those changes cannot alter its DNA sequence. In other words, organisms cannot use proteins to transmit characteristics they have acquired during their lifetime to their offspring.

In other words, there can be no Lamarckian inheritance, in which environmental change affecting an organism’s proteins cannot become ingrained into the organism’s genome and thus become permanently heritable.

Matthew discusses several suggested modifications of Crick’s version of the Central Dogma. Prions, misfolded proteins that cause several known diseases, were thought by some to have replicated themselves by somehow changing the DNA that codes for them, but it’s now known that prions are either produced by mutations in the DNA, or can transmit their pathological shape by directly interacting with other proteins. Prion proteins do not change the DNA sequence.

Some readers here might also be thinking that “epigenetic inheritance”, in which DNA is modified by chemical tags affixed to its bases, might refute the central dogma, as those modifications are mediated by enzymes, which of course are proteins. But as Matthew notes, those modifications are temporary, while the DNA sequence of nucleotides (sans modifications) is forever:

In other cases, researchers have pointed to epigenetics as a possible exception to Crick’s Central Dogma, arguing that changes in gene expression are transmitted across the generations and thus provide an additional, non-nucleic source of information. But still, epigenetics does not violate Crick’s Central Dogma.

During an organism’s life, environmental conditions cause certain genes to get switched on or off. This often occurs through a process known as methylation, in which the cell adds a methyl group to a cytosine base in a DNA sequence. As a result, the cell no longer transcribes the gene.

These effects occur most frequently in somatic cells — the cells that make up the body of the organism. If epigenetic marks occur in sex cells, they are wiped clean prior to egg and sperm formation. Then, once the sperm and eggs have fully formed, methylation patterns are re-established in each type of cell, meaning that the acquired genetic regulation is reset to baseline in the offspring.

Sometimes, these regulatory effects are transmitted to the next generation through the activity of small RNA molecules, which can interact with messenger RNAs or proteins to control gene expression. This occurs frequently in plants but is much rarer in animals, which have separate lineages for their somatic and reproductive cells. A widely-studied exception to this is the nematode C. elegans, where RNAs and other molecules can alter inheritance patterns.

No matter how striking, though, none of these examples violate Crick’s Central Dogma; the genetic information remains intact and the epigenetic tags are always temporary, disappearing after at most a few generations.

That should squelch the brouhaha over epigenetics as a form of Lamarckian evolutionary change, as some have suggested that epigenetic (environmental) modifications of the DNA could be permanent, ergo the environment itself can cause permanent heritable change. (That is Lamarckian inheriance.) But we know of no epigenetic modifications that last more than a couple of generations, so don’t believe the hype about “permanently inherited trauma” or other such nonsense.

And there’s this, which again is not a violation of Crick’s “Dogma”:

. . . enzymes can modify proteins in the cell after they have been synthesized, so not every amino acid in a protein is specified in the genome. DNA does not contain all the information in a cell, but Crick’s original hypothesis remains true: “Once information has got into a protein it can’t get out again.”

Now Matthew does suggest a rather complicated way that the Dogma could be violated, but it’s not known to occur, though perhaps humans might use genetic engineering to effect it. But you can read about it in his piece.

It’s remarkable that Crick’s supposition that information in a protein can’t get back to the DNA or RNA code—made only three years after the structure of DNA was published—has stood up without exception for nearly seventy years. This is a testament to Crick’s smarts and prescience.

And if you remember anything about the Central Dogma, just remember this:

“Once information has got into a protein it can’t get out again.”

The last two years have seen unprecedented falls in the levels of sea ice around Antarctica, which serves as a protective wall for the continent's huge ice sheets. Researchers are now racing to understand the global impact of what could happen next

I didn’t bring any wildlife photos with me, but Greg Mayer volunteered the following contribution.

by Greg Mayer

While we’re likely to get to enjoy even more photos of Hili, Szaron, and Kulka while Jerry’s in Poland, there might be more need for wildlife photos, so I prevailed upon my correspondent in Miami, Christopher Hudspeth, to send some photos of crocodiles from “The 305“.

American Crocodile, Palmetto Bay, Florida, November 27, 2024.

Christopher easily spotted four at a brackish lagoon in Palmetto Bay, Florida, right next to Biscayne Bay. They were all adults, but not maximum-sized: in South Florida, crocodiles are known to get up to about 16 feet in length.

American Crocodile, Palmetto Bay, Florida, November 27, 2024, with human for scale.

Everyone is familiar with the American Alligator (Alligator mississippiensis), the broad-headed, black-when-full-grown denizen of swamps and marshes throughout the American South. As its name (derived from the Spanish el lagarto = ‘the lizard’) indicates, it’s been known since the Spanish discovery of Florida in the 16th century. That there’s a second native crocodilian in Florida was not made known till the 19th century. The American Crocodile (Crocodylus acutus), unlike the alligator, is restricted to coastal areas of southernmost Florida. The crocodile’s preference for salt and brackish water keeps the two species of crocodilians largely ecologically segregated by habitat.

Two American Crocodiles, Palmetto Bay, Florida, November 29, 2024. The crocodiles liked this pile of debris, being seen hanging out on it on the 27th and 29th.

Hunted for their skins, by the late 1970s the American Crocodile was endangered in Florida, with the range much restricted, the population down to the low hundreds, and only 20 breeding females. State and Federal protection has led to the population bouncing back, with there now being a few thousand adults and over 100 nests per year. They have also returned to vacated parts of their range, such as Coral Gables and Palmetto Bay along northern Biscayne Bay, areas which are quite developed.

Palmetto Bay, Florida, Google Earth.

In the above Google Earth view, note the man-made lagoon in the center, next to office buildings, at the edge of an extensive conurbation– this is where Christopher found the crocs!

American Crocodile, Palmetto Bay, Florida, November 27, 2024, with human for scale.

In 1971, Wilfred Neill published a photo of a croc on the beach at Key West taken in 1935, describing it as a “sight that can no longer be seen”; but the crocs are back there, too: another Florida correspondent sent me a photo of a croc on the beach there taken last December.

Crocodile at NAS Key West, December 4, 2023.

Behler, J.L. 1978. Feasibility of the Establishment of a Captive-Breeding Population of the
American Crocodile. Everglades National Park South Florid Research Center, Homestead, FL. pdf

Moler, P.E. 2019. American Crocodile. pp. 308-312 in K.L. Krysko, K.M. Enge, and P.E.Moler, Amphibians and Reptiles of Florida. University of Florida Press, Gainesville. publisher

Neill, W.T. 1971. Last of the Ruling Reptiles: Alligators, Crocodiles and Their Kin. Columbia University Press, New York. Abebooks

It won't be long before we're treated to the spectacle of Senators grilling antivax nominees like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (HHS) and Dr. Dave Weldon (CDC). We exist to serve, which is why I'm suggesting some questions for Senators to ask all of Trump's health picks.

The post Suggested questions for Donald Trump’s health nominees during confirmation hearings first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

You know what it’s like. You get a new telescope and need to know where to point it! The bigger the telescope, the more potential targets and the harder the decision! To date, we have found over 5,000 confirmed exoplanets (5,288 to be exact) with thousands more candidates. With missions like Gaia identifying thousands of nearby stars like our Sun where Earth-like planets could be lurking, its time to hunt them down. A new paper takes on the goiath task of trying to filter down all the millions of candidates into about 1,000 main sequence stars or binaries worth exploring. From these, they have identified 100 most promising targets and from them, the 10 best planetary systems.

Exoplanets are planets that orbit stars outside our Solar System. The first confirmed discovery of an exoplanet occurred in 1992 and since then, thousands more have been identified. They come in a wide variety of sizes, compositions, and orbital properties, ranging from small, rocky Earth-like planets to massive gas giants many times larger than Jupiter. The exoplanets are often found in the habitable zone of their stars, where conditions might allow liquid water to exist, making them potential candidates for hosting life. They are detected using various different methods, including the transit method, where a planet passes in front of its star and causes a slight dip in brightness, and the radial velocity method, which measures the gravitational wobble a planet induces on its star. 

This artist’s impression shows a Jupiter-like exoplanet that is on its way to becoming a hot Jupiter — a large, Jupiter-like exoplanet that orbits very close to its star. Courtesy: NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/J. da Silva

There have been a number of telescopes that have turned their gaze on exoplanets and a number of different missions on the slate to explore their properties. One such project is the LIFE mission (the Large Interferometer for Exoplanets.) It will consist of four collector spacecraft separated by hundreds of metres and is designed to search for life outside the Solar System. The high resolution images it will produce will allow for direct imaging of exoplanets and more detailed analysis of their atmosphere. Of all its mission objectives its key task objective is to search for biosignatures, looking for molecules like oxygen, methane and carbon dioxide. All of these elements might indicate the presence of life. 

Graphic depiction of A Lunar Long-Baseline Optical Imaging Interferometer: Artemis-enabled Stellar Imager (AeSI). Credit: Kenneth Carpenter

The real challenge, greater even than assessing an exoplanets suitability for hosting life is where to begin looking in the first place. A paper authored by Franziska Menti from the Institute for Particle Physics and Astrophysics in Zurich and team has tackled just that problem. The LIFE mission teams have developed exoplanet target catalogs but it contains a large number of candidates. The intention was for it to facilitate the creation of further more refined target lists based upon specific criteria. The paper from Menti articulate this process. 

The catalog contains is compatible with the Virtual Observatory standards so is easily accessible to anyone with existing tools and contains stars, exoplanets, and protoplanetary disks. Anybody that has a need for a highly customised target list for exoplanetary research (such as the LIFE mission themselves or other projects like NASA’s World’s Habitable Worlds Observatory) can extract the necessary data themselves. The whole database (which contains data on as many as 104 stellar systems within 30 parsecs of the Sun)is available online at the German Astrophysical Virtual Observatory

Source : Database of Candidate Targets for the LIFE Mission

The post Just Built a Giant, Next Generation Planet Hunting Space Telescope? Here’s Where to Point It appeared first on Universe Today.

Space exploration is a dangerous business, especially when squishy living organisms, such as humans, are involved. NASA has always prided itself on how seriously it takes the safety of its astronauts, so as it gears up for the next big push in crewed space exploration, the Artemis program, it is looking for solutions to potentially catastrophic situations that might arise. One such catastrophe would be if one of the Artemis astronauts was incapacitated and couldn’t return to the lander. The only person who could potentially be able to save them would be their fellow astronaut, but carrying a fully suited human back to their base of operations would be a challenge for an astronaut similarly kitted out in their own bulky suit. So, NASA decided to address it as precisely that – a challenge – and ask for input from the general public, offering up to $20,000 for the best solution to the problem.

The challenge, “South Pole Safety: Designing the NASA Lunar Rescue System,” was announced on November 14th and accepts entries until January 23rd, 2025. It awards $45,000 to at least three winners, including $20,000 to the first-place winner. So, what does the challenge actually involve?

The work product is a design document for a system capable of moving fully suited astronauts at least two kilometers up a 20-degree slope without being attached to a rover. Oh, and it has to be able to operate in the harsh conditions of the lunar south pole. 

Fraser discusses what makes the lunar south pole so interesting.

Typically, a fully suited human wearing the new Axiom Extravehicular Mobility Suit, the new spacesuit explicitly designed for the Artemis missions, will weigh around 343 kg (755 lbs). However, lunar gravity is only about 1/6th that of Earth’s, so it will feel more like they weigh 57 kg (125 lbs). That’s still a lot to carry but much more manageable.

However, it’s probably infeasible for the other astronaut to fireman carry their unconscious comrade over that distance, especially since they are wearing their own spacesuit. So it’s up to technology to do the job. To do so, it will have to evade the pitfalls (in some cases literally) of the lunar south pole.

One hazard is the extreme temperatures—they can range from 54 C in full daylight to -203 C at night. Any materials used in the (especially electronics) would, therefore, need to be able to withstand such wild temperature swings. 

Dealing with lunar regolith for this challenge will be difficult, as Dr. Kevin Cannon discusses how annoying it can be.

Other hazards include razor-sharp lunar regolith, which is expected to cause havoc on most moving mechanical systems on the Moon. Navigating around craters and giant boulders while hopefully dodging micrometeoroid impacts adds to the complex nature of the rescue environment.

A panel of experts, including some NASA engineers, will judge this competition. Their scorecards will include categories like the overall mass of the solution, its ease of use, and how much it impacts the suit design, if any—luckily, treating the fallen astronaut while on the move back to safety is outside the scope of this challenge.

Suppose you’re interested in participating, potentially earning you or your team tens of thousands of dollars. In that case, NASA is accepting submissions through the HeroX portal (commonly used for public challenges) through January 25th. Maybe someday you’ll get to see your creation on the surface of the Moon—even if it will hopefully never be used.

Learn More:
NASA – South Pole Safety: Designing the NASA Lunar Rescue System
HeroX – South Pole Safety
UT – Lunar Astronauts Will Need Easy Walking Trails Around the Moon’s South Pole
UT – NASA, SpaceX Illustrate Key Moments of Artemis Lunar Lander Mission

Lead Image:
Logo of the South Pole Safety Challenge
Credit – NASA / HeroX

The post NASA Is Seeking Ideas for Rescuing an Astronaut from the Moon appeared first on Universe Today.

The Conversation, which seems a reputable and often interesting site,  now has some dire results of a survey of non-Māori New Zealand scientists. The new survey shows that many (but thank goodness not all) of these have been captured by the drive to sacralize the indigenous Māori “ways of knowing, or Mātauranga Māori (MM).

MM does contain some empirical knowledge, mostly of the practical sort like how to catch fish or when to harvest berries, but also includes religion, morality, the supernatural (the ubiquitous vitalism called mauri), guides to behavior, legends and word of mouth, and other non-scientific concepts that many see as “ways of knowing.”

Have a gander at this article (click to read). Note the “gender divide” mentioned in the headline, and guess how it shakes out:

Some indented excerpts (the article summarizes a research paper you can read or download here; I have not read it but assume the authors’ summary is correct. I could find no indication that the paper has been published or even accepted (I may have overlooked that), but if it is only submitted for publication and not peer-reviewed and accepted, it’s not really kosher to discuss preliminary results in a place like The Conversation.

While the New Zealand government plans to review 28 pieces of legislation with a view to changing or repealing references to the Treaty of Waitangi, the science sector is embracing engagement with Māori and leading the way in linking science and Indigenous knowledge at a national scale.

We surveyed 316 researchers from research organisations across New Zealand on their engagement with Māori and their attitudes towards mātauranga Māori (Indigenous knowledge system). We found the majority agree engagement is important and mātauranga Māori is relevant to their research.

Our preliminary findings show most of the surveyed researchers engaged with Māori to some degree in the past and expect to keep doing so in the future. A majority agreed mātauranga Māori should be valued on par with Western science.

. . . We examined the responses of the 295 non-Māori scientists in our survey and found 56% agreed mātauranga Māori should be valued on par with Western science. Only 25% disagreed. Moreover, 83% agreed scientists had a duty to consult with Māori if the research had impacts on them.

What? Valued on par with Western science? That is the result of the researchers having been ideologically captured by the widespread drive to make MM coequal with modern science. (An alternative hypothesis, which should not be ignored, is that many of these non-Māori scientists are hiding their real feelings, knowing that they could get fired or exorcised if they don’t go along with the ideological program.)

That said, of course if a project has impacts on Māori, they should certainly be consulted. That is only fair. But consultation does not mean that researchers must do what the Māori say, especially if it involves nonscientific things like incorporating the supernatural, as with the story of the kauri trees and the whales (see below)

If you study MM and know anything about modern science— mistakenly called “Western science” by MM advocates—you’ll know that this belief in coequality is simply fatuous.

More:

. . .New Zealand has been at the forefront of developing a nationwide approach through the 2007 Vision Mātauranga policy. This science-mātauranga connection has given New Zealand a global lead in how to meaningfully and practically mobilise science and Indigenous knowledge at a national scale.

In contrast, the US only recently developed its national Indigenous science policy.

The merging of Indigenous and Western knowledge is particularly important in the high-tech innovation field. Here, New Zealand’s approach is starting to have real impacts, including supporting innovations and capabilities that would not have happened otherwise.

Through years of engagement with the research and innovation sector, Māori are increasingly expecting the sector to work differently. This means both engaging beyond the laboratory and being open to the possibility that science and mātauranga Māori together can create bold innovation. Examples include supporting Māori businesses to create research and development opportunities in high-value nutrition, or using mātauranga to halt the decline of green-lipped mussels in the Eastern Bay of Plenty.

If you look at the “bold innovation” link, you will find a dearth of examples in which MM has actually enhanced the acquisition of scientific knowledge; rather, it’s largely a program for incorporating Māori researchers into projects actually driven by modern science. But would you expect anything else given that the empirical aspects of MM are all practical, aimed at helping people survive off the land? Given that, the “merging” of the two “ways of knowing”, much less promulgating the idea they are coequal, is a foolish endeavor.

The green-lipped mussel project, involving an important source of food, comes up again and again in these studies, and involves the use of traditional fiber materials to facilitate the settling of mussel spats. And it did indeed increase the number of spats.

But I see this project mentioned over and over again as an example of the fruitful combining of MM and modern science. If their merging is so successful, why do we find the same example used repeatedly?

And why is there no mention of ludicrous examples of merging, such as the useless attempt to revive the dieback of kauri trees by smearing their trunks with whale oil and whale bones, and playing whale songs to the trees (see here and here). The MM basis for this “science” is a Māori legend that the kauri trees and whales were created as brothers, but the whale-trees went roaming into the ocean, and the kauri dieback, really caused by soil-borne oomycetes (thanks modern science for that), is said by MM to reflect the trees’ longing to be with their whale brothers. Such is the kind of research that is also taken seriously by advocates of merging MM and modern science.

One more thing: the gender difference. I guessed, based on the greater empathy of women as well as their greater religiosity, would involve female researchers being be more sympathetic to incorporating indigenous ways of knowing into science. I was right:

However, there was a significant gender difference: 75% of women compared to 44% of men agreed mātauranga Māori should be valued on par with science. Only 8% of women disagreed with that statement compared to 34% of men.

That is a substantial difference!

The study reached two conclusions. The second was the observed difference between male and female non-Māori researchers in their desire to value MM as coequal with science. The authors say this needs more work, but I think it can already be explained by the difference between the sexes in empathy, “people” orientation, and religiosity.

The first conclusion was this:

First, it seems that exposing researchers to engagement with Māori communities may create a more open attitude to mātauranga Māori. A key aspect of the past few years has been to broaden the science sector’s engagement with various communities, including Māori.

The Vision Mātauranga policy has been explicit about this in the innovation sector and research and development areas. It appears likely this approach has, at least for some non-Māori researchers, created an openness to consider mātauranga Māori as an equivalent, although different, knowledge framework.

Again, I am not dismissing MM as without any value. What I am seriously questioning is the idea that MM is “an equivalent, although different, knowledge framework.” I don’t even know what that means, since I don’t see MM as even coming close to the methods of modern science in acquiring knowledge, or “justified true belief.” MM lacks nearly all the tools of modern science, like hypothesis testing, pervasive doubt and questioning, replication, peer review, the use of statistics, and so on. How can it possibly be coequal with modern science?

But the burgeoning drive to sacralize indigenous “knowledge” shows that wokeness, of which this drive is one example, is not on the way out.  By all means incorporate indigenous knowledge into science if it is shown to be empircally true. But to do that the indigenous knowledge has to be verified using modern science. Otherwise it remains in the hinterlands of Aunt Jobiska’s Theorem: “a fact that the whole world knows.”

Life goes on apace in this tiny town, with all of us working. Andrzej and Malgorzata are busy putting Listy together (supervised by Hili), and I am writing a piece for an online site, but more about that later.  It is too cold to go outside except for trips to buy groceries.

Here are a few photos from yesterday.

Andrzej at work. Note Editor-in-Chief Hili behind him in the chair:

Baby Kulka at work at her bowl (her real name is Kulka, but I always append “Baby” since I saw her first as a kitten):

Julia, the new baby (6 months old) from upstairs. Her father Mariusz is holding her:

Working on “my” couch with Szaron:

The cherry cheesecake baked by Malgorzata is half gone after one day (I have two pieces a day: one for breakfast and the other for third breakfast):

And me again with Szaron, working from the supine position. Szaron is the world’s most affectionate cat.

I got a short haircut before i traveled, but I can’t keep it from sticking up

Andrzej giving Hili a rare treat of cream. Part I: The Look. Treat impending!

Part II: Hili sniffs the cream:

Part III:  Hili laps up the cream. Szaron, rear, doesn’t get any:

And there’s now a stock of my favorite beer, Zubr (“Bison”) for dinner. Note the omnipresent Szaron:

And that’s a working day in Dobrzyn.

The moons of Mars are garnering increased attention, not only because they could provide a view of the solar system’s past but also because they could provide invaluable staging areas for any future human settlement on Mars itself. However, missions specifically designed to visit Phobos, the bigger of the two moons, have met with varying stages of failure. So why not make an inexpensive mission to do so – one that could launch multiple copies of itself if necessary? That’s the idea behind a CubeSat-based mission to Phobos, known as Perseus, which was initially described back in 2020.

Phobos is interesting for several reasons, but so far, we’ve only gotten relatively grainy pictures of this small moon, whose total diameter is the size of a medium-sized city. Most of those pictures have come from Mars orbiters, such as MRO, who occasionally turn their instruments on the other bodies in the system. Several planned missions to visit directly, such as Phobos 1 and 2 and, more recently, Phobos Grunt, have failed in space, limiting our understanding of this potentially helpful moon to secondary scraps from larger missions.

Enter a new mission concept—Perseus (which, surprisingly, appears to not be an acronym for anything) is designed as a 27U CubeSat that inherits several commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) systems used in other interplanetary CubeSat missions, including its own propulsion system and remote sensing kit. Depending on the funding the mission receives, it could branch into one of two different potential interaction styles with Phobos.

MMX is another mission to collect actual samples from Phobos, though its launch has been delayed until 2026 at the earliest.

First, the mission design preferred by the mission designers, who mainly come from the University of Arizona and Arizona State University, would involve capturing Perseus in a co-orbit with Mars and Phobos. This would allow the CubeSat to pass by the moon every day, with about a 6-minute encounter time. This would allow Perseus to capture multiple images of multiple sides of Phobos, some of which have never been seen before from such a short vantage point.

The other mission concept would put Perseus on a hyperbolic trajectory past Phobos itself. In this concept, Perseus would only get a single 2-minute flyby with the moon but could get much closer, and therefore higher resolution, images of a specific area it chose to fly by. It would then be flung into the solar system, eventually running out of fuel. Saving the cost of the larger fuel load for the orbital mission concept is the main reason for designing the less scientifically exciting flyby option.

With the orbital mission concept, Perseus could collect visible light images of the surface of Phobos down to 5m per pixel and thermal images of 25 m per one pixel, as its scientific payload would consist of visible light and thermal imagers. That is about 6 times better in visible light than the 30 m / pixel, which is the best information we have from an image from HiRISE on the Mar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Fraser makes the case for sending humans to the Martian moons first.

That level of resolution could further explore some features of Phobos, such as the “grooves” that dominate its surface. Additionally, Perseus could scout potential landing sites for future human missions to prepare for a visit to the Red Planet.

However, the real benefit of Perseus is that it is relatively cheap. While relatively large by CubeSat standards at 54 kg and a 27U configuration, many components’ flight heritage means it would be relatively cheap to assemble and test. However, the mission has not been granted any funding so far, and a brief literature search doesn’t show any additional work on the project in the last several years. But, it fits well with the trend towards smaller, less risky, and less expensive missions. Maybe someday, a similar one will get the green light, and we can finally start collecting some detailed light from one of the most important moons in the solar system.

Learn More:
Nallapu et al. – Trajectory design of perseus: A cubesat mission concept to Phobos
UT – What Could We Learn From a Mission to Phobos?
UT – How Mars’ Moon Phobos Captures Our Imaginations
UT – Did An Ancient Icy Impactor Create the Martian Moons?

Lead Image:
Engineering Model of the Perseus Spacecraft.
Credit – Nallapu et al.

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