Science

By editing the polymers of discarded plastics, chemists have found a way to generate new macromolecules with more valuable properties than those of the starting material. Upcycling may help remedy the roughly 450 million tons of plastic discarded worldwide annually, of which only 9% gets recycled; the rest is incinerated or winds up in landfills, oceans or elsewhere.

A flying robot the size of a postage stamp can hover for up to 15 minutes without breaking, and it can perform acrobatic manoeuvres

Global average precipitation in 2024 may have broken the previous record set in 1998, as rising temperatures boosted the amount of moisture in the atmosphere

There will be news tomorrow as Israel finalizes its ceasefire deal with Hamas. In the meantime, let’s hear a story about how orcas can imitate human speech.  Apparently this horrifies some people, but I think it’s cool.

The story comes from an entertainment newsite, vt.com, and here’s an excerpt: (it’s from 2018 but I bet you didn’t know this):

Killer whales, the largest dolphin species and apex predators, possess remarkable intelligence, including the ability to mimic human speech.

This discovery was made by a team of researchers from Germany, Spain, the UK, and Chile, who conducted a study into the vocal capabilities of orcas and published their findings in the journal, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, in 2018.

“We wanted to see how flexible a killer whale can be in copying sounds,” Josep Call, professor in evolutionary origins of mind at the University of St Andrews and study co-author, told The Guardian.

“We thought what would be really convincing is to present them with something that is not in their repertoire – and in this case ‘hello’ [is] not what a killer whale would say,” he added.

The team trained Wikie, a 14-year-old female orca living in an aquarium in France, to copy three sounds made by her three-year-old calf, and then tested her ability to imitate five unfamiliar orca sounds.

Wikie was then exposed to three orca sounds and six human sounds, including the words “hello,” “Amy,” “ah ha,” “one, two,” and “bye-bye”.

The team was amazed to discover that the orca was able to quickly replicate the sounds, successfully mimicking two on the very first attempt.

Here’s Wikie in a news story. It’s pretty amazing.  Orcas live in pods that are matrilineal, and each pod has its own repertoire of sounds culturally inherited over many generations, and coming from mom.

More:

Recordings of Wikie’s attempts to mimic human speech have been released on social media, with some listeners finding them “terrifying”.

One user said: “This is as terrifying as it is hilarious,” while another quipped: “Ok, that second hello was a little demonic. Was that really an orca, or the Devil speaking through a ghost box LOL The funniest and scariest thing EVER!”

“Now I’m scared,” a third wrote, and a fourth added: “OK that’s the creepiest f’ing thing I’ve ever heard.”

However, others were amazed at the orca’s ability. “That’s genuinely amazing,” one person said. “These giants are much smarter than we think….amazing,” a second chimed in.

“Certainly a momentous occasion discovering another mammal that can enunciate human language. This could be significant given the high level of intelligence orcas have?” someone else shared.

Some of the “scary” noises.  They’re not as good as parrots or crows, but they’re discernible.  The abilities to imitate are probably evolved as a cohesion mechanism for pods, but what their pod-specific noises are learned. In that way it’s just like human language.

Here’s the Proceedings of the Royal Society article (click for free access). I’ve put the abstract below along with what was known about vocal imitation in orcas and in other species as well.

Abstract

Vocal imitation is a hallmark of human spoken language, which, along with other advanced cognitive skills, has fuelled the evolution of human culture. Comparative evidence has revealed that although the ability to copy sounds from conspecifics is mostly uniquely human among primates, a few distantly related taxa of birds and mammals have also independently evolved this capacity. Remarkably, field observations of killer whales have documented the existence of group-differentiated vocal dialects that are often referred to as traditions or cultures and are hypothesized to be acquired non-genetically. Here we use a do-as-I-do paradigm to study the abilities of a killer whale to imitate novel sounds uttered by conspecific (vocal imitative learning) and human models (vocal mimicry). We found that the subject made recognizable copies of all familiar and novel conspecific and human sounds tested and did so relatively quickly (most during the first 10 trials and three in the first attempt). Our results lend support to the hypothesis that the vocal variants observed in natural populations of this species can be socially learned by imitation. The capacity for vocal imitation shown in this study may scaffold the natural vocal traditions of killer whales in the wild.

And what was known anecdotally:

Elucidating the precise mechanism of social learning involved is difficult, however, particularly for acoustic communication in wild populations. Although killer whales are capable of learning novel motor actions from conspecifics through imitation , the experimental evidence for vocal production learning is still scarce in this species. There are reports of killer whales in the field and in captive settings suggesting that they can copy novel calls from conspecifics, and even from heterospecifics such as bottlenose dolphins or sea lions. One Icelandic female was found to match novel calls from a Northern Resident female with whom she had been housed together for several years. Two juvenile killer whales, separated from their natal pods, were observed to mimic the barks of sea lions in a field study . Crance et al. [and Musser et al.  took advantage of two unplanned cross-socializing experimental situations to show that two juvenile males learned novel calls from an unrelated but socially close adult male, and three individuals learned novel whistles from a dolphin, respectively.

However, as suggestive as these reports are, the lack of experimental controls curtails the interpretation about the underlying acquisition mechanisms. Experimental data are needed to ascertain whether vocal learning is a plausible mechanism underlying the complexity of vocal traditions in wild killer whales. However, to the best of our knowledge, not even anecdotal reports exist about killer whales spontaneously mimicking human speech similar to those reported in some birds (e.g. parrots, mynahs) and mammals (elephants, seals, belugas ).

Elephants can miic human speech? Here’s one elephant in Korea who can:

A novel bio-inspired camera capable of ultra-high-speed imaging with high sensitivity was developed by mimicking the visual structure of insect eyes.

Astrophysicists have imaged a large number of exocomet belts around nearby stars, and the tiny pebbles within them. The crystal-clear images show light being emitted from these millimeter-sized pebbles within the belts that orbit 74 nearby stars of a wide variety of ages -- from those that are just emerging from birth to those in more mature systems like our own Solar System.

In life sciences, confocal fluorescence microscopy (CFM) is widely regarded for producing high-resolution cellular images. However, it requires fluorescent staining, which poses risks of photobleaching and phototoxicity, potentially damaging the cells under study. Conversely, mid-infrared photoacoustic microscopy (MIR-PAM) allows for label-free imaging, preserving cell integrity. Yet, its reliance on longer wavelengths limits spatial resolution, making it difficult to visualize fine cellular structures with precision.

DwarfLab’s new Dwarf 3 smartscope packs a powerful punch in a small unit.

Dwarf Lab’s Dwarf 3 smartscope.

In the past decade, amateur astronomy has witnessed nothing short of a revolution, as smartscopes have come to the fore. In half a century of skywatching, we’ve used just about every iteration of GoTo system available, starting with the now almost prehistoric ‘push-and-point’ AstroMaster units of the 90s. Strange to think, these were the hot new thing for telescopes in the 90s… though you still often had to perform a visual spiral search to actually find the target.

We recently had a chance to put Dwarf Lab’s new Dwarf 3 smartscope through its paces, and were impressed with what we’ve seen thus far. The small telescope even has personality: my wife said it actually looked like Johnny 5 from the 80s movie Short Circuit on start up (!)

We’ve also had the chance to use Unistellar and Vaonis units in the past, and were curious to see how the tiny Dwarf 3 would compare.

Smartscope Revolution

The specifications for the small unit are impressive:

The Dwarf 3 has two ‘eyes’: a 35mm (telephoto) and a 3.4mm wide-angle lens. The focal lengths for the two are 150mm (telephoto) and 6.7mm for the wide-angle (an effective equivalent of 737mm/45mm for the two).

The optics feature Sony IMX 678 Stravis 2 sensors, a CMOS chip with an effective 8.4x megapixel array, an upgrade from the IMX 415 used in the Dwarf 2.

Modern GoTo systems really put me out of a job…and that’s probably a good thing. I learned how to find things the ‘old way’ by starhopping and peering at a star chart under a red light. Dwarf 3 and other smartscopes use a method known as ‘plate-solving,’ looking at sections of the sky on startup and comparing them to a database versus the GPS position. The Dwarf Lab app features a digital planetarium view, to give even a novice user a common sense feel for the sky.

Dwarf 3 was spot on with pointing, and even maps out local obstructions on startup as no-go zones. Startup was quick, and the app is intuitive to use.

Using Dwarf 3 The Andromeda galaxy and satellite galaxies, as seen in the Dwarf Lab app.

You can use the planetarium sky feature with its grid overlay to manually aim the telescope at a given point in Right Ascension and Declination, handy for, say, if a new bright comet appears in the sky. Newer comets such as G3 ATLAS were in the updated database.

I’d rate the compactness of the unit and ease of use and portability for travel as a big plus. The unit only weighs 1.3 kilograms (2.8 pounds), and attaches to a standard camera tripod. Though the unit needs a stable, level site to operate, it never protested, balked or failed to deliver even when moderate vibrations were present.

Visible (VIS), Astro, and Dual band filters are built in to the optics, and the unit comes with a magnetic snap in place solar filter.

Solar viewing with the Dwarf Labs app.

The battery life for the telescope is advertised as 4-6 hours, and the unit has a generous 10000 mAh built-in battery. The Dwarf 3 also has an internal storage capacity of 128Gb (gigabytes). I used the telescope in sub-freezing January temperatures for about an hour during the Mars occultation, without a problem.

The unit will also output and support JPEG, PNG, TIFF and FITS files, though of course, larger FITS files will also take up more storage room.

The scope hooks to your phone via wifi/bluetooth, and even features an NFC ‘smart-touch’ connection capability. Though you need a wireless connection to control the telescope from your tablet or phone, the unit will work in the field as a standalone unit. That is, without a network connection.

Putting the Dwarf 3 Through Its Paces

On startup and initialization the scope gives two views: one wide and one telephoto, about 2.93x 1.65 degrees across. The Pleiades filled up the view nicely. The wide view works great as a finderscope for manually slewing to targets. The manual slew rate is variable as well.

The Pleiades (M45) with the Dwarf 3 telescope; the system easily captured some of the dusty reflection nebulae surrounding the young stars.

The telescope can be used in both terrestrial and astronomical applications. I could even envision the unit installed in a mini-‘bird house’ style observatory on a balcony or rooftop, allowing the user to sit inside and remotely observe the sky. These days, it’s rare that a new piece of tech inspires out-of-the-box thinking as to what might be possible, but the Dwarf 3 does just that.

Of course, with such a wide view, the Dwarf 3 really shines in deep-sky astrophotography. This is true even from brightly lit downtown areas, a real plus.

The Orion Nebula… imaged with the Dwarf 3 under the bright downtown lights of Bristol, Tennessee.

A sunglasses-looking filter magnetically snaps in place over both lenses for solar viewing. Like a standard rich-field refractor, the Dwarf 3 also delivers decent lunar views, but planets will appear as small dots.

Using a camera control app with Real Time Streaming Protocol capability will allow users to live stream the Dwarf 3 and record and broadcast live views. This would be handy for streaming eclipses or occultations live.

Dwarf 3: Deep-Sky Downtown Astronomy

What we like: The Dwarf 3 is very portable, and packs a lot in a small package. As I get older, I take a dim view of lugging gear outside, cobbling things together and contorting to view and tend to troubleshooting things in the dark, all for maybe an hour’s use. The Dwarf 3 is light and easy to deploy, allowing me to spend more precious time actually observing. Smartscopes also work great at public star parties, as I can simply narrate the wonders of what we’re seeing, while the GoTo system does all of the grunt work.

The Moon occults the Pleiades (a composite of two images).

What we don’t like: You have to remember to download the images before shutting down the unit… this a tiny step to remember for sure, in an otherwise outstanding product.

How does Dwarf 3 stack up against other smart telescopes out there? Well, the biggest difference is the price: at $499, it’s a fraction of the cost of most competitors out there. Increasingly, the argument that ‘yeah, but you could buy a (insert the name of a telescope/camera) for that price’ doesn’t hold up. Of course, it’s hard to beat the physics of optics in terms of resolution with smaller units. Increasingly, smaller units get around this by simply staring at faint light sources for longer, and letting deep sky images stack and build up.

Bottom line: The Dwarf 3 is definitely worth the price, either as a quick travel-scope for the seasoned observer, or a beginner scope to show users the wonders of the cosmos.

The post Review: Dwarf Lab’s New Dwarf 3 Smartscope appeared first on Universe Today.

Now that the US Supreme Court has decided that a law banning TikTok is constitutional, the platform is set to shut down in the US on 19 January – but Trump could still save it

ELIZA is famous as a rudimentary artificial intelligence and the first ever chatbot, but versions found online today are actually knock-offs because the original computer code was lost – until now

Blue Origin and SpaceX both launched rockets on 16 January, but while Jeff Bezos' company saw a launch success with New Glenn, Elon Musk's Starship exploded. What does this mean for the future of the space industry?

The animals' teeth are constantly being worn down due to their tough diet. But rather than losing calcium this way, they could be recycling it to help grow their teeth back up to size

The wildfires raging around Los Angeles have made plenty of headlines lately, though they are slowly starting to get under control. NASA was a part of that effort, tracking the fire’s evolution via the Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer-3 (AVIRIS-3) as they raged through southern California. As they were doing so, they likely realized that these fires posed an extreme risk to one vital part of NASA itself – the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

JPL is one of NASA’s most prolific centers, nestled in the hills around Pasadena, California. Employees there are responsible for missions as wide-ranging as Psyche, which will soon visit the “Queen of the asteroid belt,” and Ingenuity, the helicopter that performed the first-ever powered flight on another planet.

Despite having their eyes set on the heavens, JPL’s engineers, technicians, and administrators still have to deal with earthly matters occasionally. It receives around $2.4 billion annually in funding from NASA, representing around 10% of the agency’s budget. However, over the past years, the center has laid off almost 1,000 employees out of the approximately 6,000 that work there. Those layoffs were mainly due to budgetary constraints and difficulties with some missions they were planning, such as the struggling Mars Sample Return mission.

New report on the efforts to save JPL.
Credit – KCAL News YouTube Channel

But the LA fires, particularly one that started in nearby Eaton Canyon, brought home a much more immediate concern—a threat to the center’s physical survival. The Eaton Canyon fire, which started on the morning of January 7th in the nearby town of Altadena, expanded to over 10,000 in little more than a day.

As firefighters scrambled to contain the blaze, it began to burn developed areas, such as the northern side of Altadena itself. On January 11th, NASA sent a B200 aircraft over the area with AVIRIS-3 to capture an image of the first, which you can see in the headline of this article. If you look closely, on the left-hand side of the image, you can see three letters—JPL.

Using a very unscientific measuring technique based on the kilometer scaling provided in the picture, it looks like the first got within one single km of one of the world’s foremost propulsion research labs. Admittedly, there seemed to be a physical barrier labeled as the “Hahamongna watershed” between JPL and the fire, but given the drought that the LA region has been suffering through lately, it is dubious how effective that barrier might have been.

Wildfires cause very personal tragedies, as discussed in this story about JPL employees.
Credit – KCAL News YouTube Channel

Luckily, as of this reporting, the Eaton fire has largely been contained and is no longer expanding. So it seems that JPL has been spared, at least in this round of southern California’s seemingly never-ending cycle of fires. However, almost 5,000 structures were destroyed in nearby towns – some of them undoubtedly belonging to JPL employees. 

While the center itself might have been spared, its employees will undoubtedly be dealing with the fallout of these fires for some time to come. NASA has started a Disaster Response Coordination System, where the agency uses its Earth-monitoring know-how to support other agencies dealing with disasters on the ground. This time, though, some of its best engineers and support staff might have to deal with their own personal tragedies before being able to help the agency that employs them.

Learn More:
NASA – Eaton Fire Leaves California Landscape Charred
UT – NASA’s JPL Lays Off Another 325 People
UT – NASA’s JPL Lays Off Hundreds of Workers
UT – NASA is Keeping an Eye on InSight from Space

Lead Image:
Map of the fires showing it proximity to JPL and downtown Pasadena.
Credit – NASA

The post The Los Angeles Fires Got Extremely Close to NASA’s JPL Facility appeared first on Universe Today.

It was a long flight (4 hours) from Burbank to Chicago, though the trip was made easier by the tiny size of the Burbank Airport, aka Bob Hope airport. It’s infinitely better than LAX and security scanning with PreCheck took about two minutes.  Still, My back was on fire the whole time from my flooding-induced back pull, and on top of that I was sporadically nauseous and thought, for the first time in my life, I would have to use the convenient vomit bag in the seat back. But I am tough and controlled it all. The nausea is now gone but my back—well, if you’ve pulled your back you’ll know how it feels. And there is no cure but time.

I see I am kvetching, but I had a great time in LA despite the nearby fires (I saw no sign of them save a slight haze in the air and a whiff of wood smoke). The weather was sunny and warm, the conference talks were good, and I enjoyed catching up with three pairs of friends after the meeting. Now it is back to the same ol’/same ol’, but in the next week or so I should have three novel things to announce.

In the meantime, Hili dialogues and their usual contents will begin tomorrow, and don’t forget to send any wildlife photos you’d like to contribute.

Trained pianists who hit a plateau improved their finger speed after a half-hour training session with a device that moves their fingers for them

Researchers saw a chain of atoms in a quantum simulator go from being magnetic to not magnetic at all, the first time such a change has ever been seen in one spatial dimension

Meanwhile, in Dobrzyn, Hili is pondering a complex question:

A: What are you thinking about?
Hili: I wonder whether in a sleepless night it’s better to count virtual sheep or virtual mice.

Ja: Nad czym myślisz?
Hili: Zastanawiam się, czy w bezsenną noc lepiej liczyć wirtualne owce, czy wirtualne myszy?
Best

The author of the latest read for the New Scientist Book Club on the science that lies behind his novel Alien Clay, set on a prison planet where the biology is very different to that on Earth

In the opening to Adrian Tchaikovsky's science fiction novel Alien Clay, the latest read for the New Scientist Book Club, our hero wakes from years of space travel to a terrifying new reality

This is what it looks like when doctors treat the pandemic as an intellectual parlor game.

The post Dr. Jay Bhattacharya Was Nice to Someone During a Debate. That Doesn’t Erase the Consequences of His Misinformation. first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.