Science

Minister of National Defence David McGuinty announced on Monday, March 16th, that the Canadian government is committing $200 million to develop Canada's first commercial spaceport in Nova Scotia, which will be run by Maritime Launch Services.

Pulsars are rapidly rotating neutron stars. The Crab Pulsar, an often studied supernova remnant, is known for its unusual radio emission patterns. New researchs says it's because of a "tug-of-war" between magnetism and gravity. Gravity acts as a focusing lens and plasma in the magnetosphere acts as a defocusing lens.

A team of astronomers were fortunate when their original comet target couldn't be observed with the Hubble. They quickly pivoted to a different target, and caught Comet K1 in the process of breaking apart. This gave them an excellent opportunity to learn more about the doomed object.

Tweaking our skin's microbiome via a probiotic cream could prevent frostbite and hypothermia in extreme environments

Banksy is a pseudonym for a street artist who became a famous and high-priced “establishment’ artist, all the while remaining completely unknown—until now. (Actually, the Daily Mail had correctly guessed his identity in 2008).  Banksy started drawing graffiti in Bristol, England, and then began using stencils, which were quicker to put up—making him less likely to get caught.  But he did get caught in 2000 for vandalizing a billboard in New York, and for that he had to disclose his real name. A spiffy piece of detective work published in Reuters two days ago, shows that the Mail was correct, and that Banksy is in fact a 50-53-year old white man named Robin Gunningham. He remains a multimillionaire.

His most famous work can be seen here: “Girl with Balloon,” showing a girl trying to catch the string of a heart-shaped balloon. It’s been sold in several versions, including one on paper that was deliberately shredded by a machine inside its frame while it was being auctioned off at Sotheby’s.  Here’s the event, and the video—showing the preparation—was clearly made by Banksy. It was another of his pranks, but one that was viewed (and priced as) Banksy art itself.

And the explanation (note what the shredded artwork went for!):

On 5 October 2018, a 2006 framed copy of the artwork was auctioned at Sotheby’s selling for £1,042,000 – a record high for the artist. Moments after the closing bid, the artwork began to self-destruct by means of a hidden mechanical paper shredder that Banksy had built into the frame bottom. Only the lower half shredded. Banksy released an image of the shredding on Instagram with the words “Going, going gone..”. Sotheby’s said, “We have not experienced this situation in the past where a painting spontaneously shredded”,  leading some market watchers to speculate the remains of the painting will be worth even more. Banksy released a video of the shredding and how the shredder was installed into the frame in case the picture ever went up for auction.

The woman who won the bidding at the auction decided to go through with the purchase. The partially shredded work has been given a new title, Love Is in the Bin, and was authenticated by Banksy’s authentication body Pest Control. Sotheby’s released a statement that called it “the first artwork in history to have been created live during an auction.” Love Is in the Bin was itself sold at Sotheby’s for £18 million in October 2021.

Note that the price shot up after the drawing was shredded! It is considered an “art intervention“!

Bansky is both political (and pro-Palestinian) as well as mischievous. And filthy rich. If you’re into art, or want to see how the mystery of his identity was solved for good, click on the Reuter’s screenshot below or see the article archived for free here. There’s also a short take at Entertainment Weekly.

It’s a long but fascinating investigation, and if you’ve been following Banksy over the years, you’ll want to read it. But I’ve taken excerpts from condensed summary from EW:

One of the art world’s biggest modern mysteries may have just been solved.

A new report claims to have once-and-for-all unmasked the elusive graffiti artist Banksy, who has been operating under complete anonymity since the early 1990s.

The investigation, published Friday by Reuters, combs through and eventually sets aside some of the buzzier theories as to the “Girl with Balloon” artist’s true identity. Is he the Massive Attack frontman Robert Del Naja? Or the street artist Thierry Guetta, also known as Mr. Brainwash, who was the subject of the Oscar-nominated documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop, which Banksy directed and — completely disguised, of course — also featured in?

After nearly three decades of speculation, journalists Simon Gardner, James Pearson, and Blake Morrison claim “beyond dispute” that Banksy is a man named Robin Gunningham.

. . . The final identification started with a clue from Banksy Captured, a 2019 memoir from Steve Lazarides, who managed the artist from the late 1990s through 2008. The year that book was published, Lazarides posted a photo from 2000 of an “aborted Banksy work” to his Instagram — a defaced Marc Jacobs billboard in New York City that was left incomplete after authorities allegedly arrested the artist.

. . .Police documents and a court file relating to the arrest that Reuters unearthed repeatedly make reference to Gunningham — who signed his own name at the bottom of a written confession.

Though police sought to charge Gunningham with a felony, he was released and the charges were reduced to a misdemeanor after posting $1,500 bail, temporarily turning over his passport, and completing five days of community service.

. . .This isn’t the first time Gunningham has been suspected as the real hand behind the mysterious graffiti artist. The Daily Mail pointed the finger at Gunningham in 2008, the same year he legally changed his name to David Jones. But suspicions persisted around figures like Del Naja, Guetta, and British politician Billy Gannon.

Banksy started out as a guerrilla artist whose quickly rendered, stencil-like illustrations with an often highly political charge garnered him instant notoriety. He has made work in innocuous corners of major metropolitan cities like London and New York City, but has also become known for provocative illustrations left in conflict zones like Ukraine and the Palestinian West Bank.

And, from the Reuters exposé, here’s how he was caught and identified:

In September 2000, Banksy was shifting from painting freehand to using stencils, a method suited for repetition and speed. But when he climbed up on [Gallerist Ivy] Brown’s roof to have at the billboard, he painted freehand.

The half-finished image resembled a billboard Banksy saw in Steven Spielberg’s “Jaws.” In his 2023 “Cut & Run” exhibition in Glasgow, the artist said the movie scene inspired him to get into graffiti. In “Jaws,” someone doctored a tourism billboard depicting a woman on an inflatable raft in the sea. The vandal added a shark fin and gave the woman bulging eyes and a speech bubble: “HELP!!! SHARK.”  [JAC: The Reuters site has a photo of the doctored billboard.]

In a painting spree, Lazarides wrote, Banksy “doctored the Marc Jacobs Men billboard so that the model had goofy teeth” and drew a “giant speech bubble” that was strangely empty.

That’s because New York police caught Banksy before he could finish.

. . . . . at 4:20 a.m. on September 18, 2000, authorities found a man defacing a billboard on the roof of 675 Hudson Street. Because damages exceeded $1,500, police sought to charge him with a felony. Among the documents is the man’s handwritten confession.

Within hours of his arrest, documents show, the man was assigned a public defender. That afternoon, he was released after agreeing to temporarily turn over his passport.

The court file shows he would later post $1,500 bail in exchange for his passport. The felony charges were reduced to a misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct. He paid a fine and fees totaling $310, and by early 2001, he completed his sentence of five days of community service, the records show. On the bail form, he gave his address as 160 E. 25th Street in New York, the location of one of Manhattan’s most eccentric hotels.

. . . When Banksy was busted in 2000, he wasn’t on the New York Police Department’s radar, said Steve Mona, the now-retired lieutenant who ran the 75-member vandal squad back then. The police had no idea they had nabbed “Banksy” because the artist had only recently begun employing the style and pseudonym that would make him famous.

Given Banksy’s celebrity, the name of the culprit now takes on significance. It wasn’t Del Naja who defaced the billboard atop 675 Hudson Street. The man who confessed was Robin Gunningham.

In addition to his signature, Gunningham is repeatedly named in court and police documents related to the arrest.

The Reuters piece photos of his signed confession, with “Robin Gunningham” appearing at the bottom, barely legible. The rest of the excerpts are from Reuters:

The Mail on Sunday had been right in 2008 in making the case that Gunningham was Banksy. In hindsight, Gunningham’s effort to hide his identity began falling apart with his September 2000 arrest in New York. Records of the bust existed and they contained his real name. The books by former manager Lazarides wouldn’t be published until 2019. But the photos and the details Lazarides included about the arrest enabled us to pinpoint where Banksy was apprehended and the ad he defaced.

There’s one more bit of evidence that is telling.  In 2022, Bansky did seven famous murals in Ukraine (you can see them here) but there was no record that a “Robin Gunningham” ever entered Ukraine (remember, he had a passport).  Reuters reveals that Bansky had since adopted the name of “David Jones.”  This was verified by several documents, but Reuters isn’t making them public  out of the desire to preserve some of Gunningham’s information, including his address. (The documents are, however, apparently available publicly.)

At any rate, Bansky did enter Ukraine at the same time as his painting partner, Robert Del Naja, and the crucial evidence was found:

On October 28, 2022, the day Duley and Del Naja entered Ukraine, a “David Jones” also crossed the border at the same location, according to a source familiar with immigration procedures. The source also told us the date of birth listed on Jones’ passport. It was the same as Robin Gunningham’s birthday.

According to the source, records also indicate Jones left Ukraine on November 2, 2022, the same day Del Naja departed.

I don’t know what will happen now: will Gunningham still use the name “Bansky,” turn out art under his birth name, Robin Gunningham, or use his changed name, David Jones? My guess is that whatever name he uses, he’ll still make art, and perhaps mysteriously, but now that he’s known, perhaps the work won’t be worth as much as it was when Banksy was a ghost.

Here’s an Instagram Post purporting to show two photos of Gunningham. You can see more at this Google Search page.

In 1959, the Luna 2 probe from the Soviet Union became the very first human-made object to reach our closest celestial neighbor. In the decades since, we have been leaving footprints - both literally and figuratively - all over the Moon. Today, there are over 100 metric tons of human-made material resting on the Moon’s surface - everything from advanced cameras and sensors to literal human waste. But that’s nothing compared to what’s to come. NASA predicts the next decade will see over 100 new lunar missions, equaling or exceeding all the missions previously flown. Which brings up a pressing question about all the stuff that’s already there - how do we protect that history? A new paper by Teasel Muir-Harmony, the Curator of the Space History Department of the Smithsonian and Todd Mosher, a Scholar in Residence at University of Colorado, Boulder, reports on a Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Summit on Outer Space Heritage that dives into the legal, scientific, and engineering hurdles of preserving these historic sites.

It was an amazing sight witnessed by many during the April 2024 total solar eclipse. For a few precious moments, it seemed like a celestial dimmer switch was thrown, as the Moon eclipsed the Sun. It was one of the very few times you could actually see prominences and the pearly white corona of the Sun in person, without the aid of special equipment. Now, a recent study out of the University of Hawai’i has linked high resolution images taken during totality with observations from missions orbiting the Sun, in an effort to chronicle the evolution of space weather.

The European Space Agency’s (ESA’s) Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) probe is on its (very long) way to Jupiter, and will finally arrive at the King of Planets in 2031. Its primary mission is to focus on the “big three” icy moons - Ganymede, Europa, and Callisto. But while JUICE is busy mapping Ganymede’s magnetic field, it will also be keeping a sharp eye on the other 94 moons in the Jupiter system. A recent paper published in Space Science Reviews by Tilmann Denk of DLR, Germany’s space research association, and his co-authors showcases just how much “bonus science” JUICE is expected to squeeze out of these other targets.

A new subatomic particle known as the Ξcc⁺ has been discovered at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider. This heavy proton-like particle contains two charm quarks and was detected using the upgraded LHCb experiment. Scientists observed it through its decay into lighter particles in high-energy collisions. The finding confirms predictions and settles a decades-long question about its existence.

Gerd Faltings shocked mathematicians around the world for his 1983 proof of the Mordell conjecture, which brought together seemingly disparate mathematical fields

When you fold a flexible material such as a pancake or a tortilla, its behaviour depends on a competition between gravity and elasticity

We are constantly told to watch out for the health risks of eating ultra-processed food, but should you be worried every time you sit down for a meal? Sam Wong takes a look at the evidence

Lower starting doses with cautious titration reduce toxicity without sacrificing effectiveness

The post ‘Start low, go slow’: The smart, safe approach to drug dosage in the elderly first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

A strange lack of stellar orbits around the core of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) mystified astronomers for decades. Not only that, but the SMC has a strange, irregular shape, and sports a tidal. Now, a team of observers led by graduate student Himansch Rathore at the University of Arizona, has tracked down the reason why the stars don't orbit. It's because the SMC crashed directly through its neighbor, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), in the distant past. That huge collision disrupted stellar motions and [sent them on wildly different trajectories](https://www.universetoday.com/articles/something-is-tearing-the-small-magellanic-cloud-apart). It also disturbed the clouds of gas within the SMC and created a tail of gas stretching out across space.

A study led by the University of Oxford has identified a new type of planet beyond our Solar System – one that stores large amounts of sulphur deep within a permanent ocean of magma. The magma ocean has lasted 5 billion years so far, while Earth's magma ocean likely lasted only tens of millions of years.

With the first images from the spacecraft now in hand, the team behind NASA’s Star-Planet Activity Research CubeSat (SPARCS) is ready to begin charting the energetic lives of the galaxy’s most common stars to help answer one of humanity’s most profound questions: Which distant worlds beyond our solar system might be habitable?

The Perseverance rover has found tiny crystals that seem to be rubies or sapphires inside pebbles on Mars, where they have never been seen before

The neurodegenerative condition chronic traumatic encephalopathy appears to be driven by damage to the blood-brain barrier due to repetitive head injuries, like those that occur in boxing. This suggests that drugs that strengthen this barrier could prevent or slow the condition

Tar made from birch tree bark is commonly found at Neanderthal sites, and experiments show that it kills some bacteria that cause skin infections

It is scarily fascinating to read about the US military's journey into AI warfare in this deeply-researched book. But what happens next, asks Matthew Sparkes