Science

Astronomers have been battling threats to their clear skies on all fronts lately. One of the most notable battles, which we have reported on repeatedly, is the one against Starlink and other mega-constellations of satellites, which, while they offer high-speed internet in the most far-flung places, also disrupt observations by sensitive telescopes due to their reflectivity and fast movement speed. They also pose a global problem, whereas a more down-to-earth issue is cropping up at one very special observatory. A vast industrial plant threatens the European Southern Observatory’s Paranal telescope planned only a few kilometers from the site.

The ESO recently released a statement calling on the government of Chile, where Paranal is located, to consider moving the project elsewhere. Currently, AES Andes, a subsidiary of AES Corporation, an American power utility, recently submitted a proposal for the environmental review of a 3000-hectare industrial area that includes hydrogen and ammonium factories, electricity-generating machinery, and, importantly, a lot of lights.

Lights are part and parcel of any large industrial project, but they pose a particular threat to Paranal. In a recent study, it was found to be the observational site with the least amount of light pollution. Any significant increase to that baseline over only about .1% of the generic background level could have a massive negative impact on the capabilities of the telescope located there.

Levels of light pollution at observatories around the world.
Credit – ESO, modified from Falchi et al

That telescope has been an essential part of the astronomical community and contributed to research such as the Nobel Prize-winning 2020 studies into the Sgr A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy. It also represents billions of dollars of investment from the European Southern Observatory member states.

When thinking about natural resources, a clear sky might not come to someone’s mind, but it certainly is for Chile. In addition to Paranal, two other Chilean observatories are in the top three least light-polluted major astronomical observatories – Armazones and Tokyo Atacama. It also has four more in the top 15, making it one of the best contributors in the world to this type of astronomy.

That contribution is planned to grow with the ESO’s ongoing development of the Extremely Large Telescope not far from the Paranal site. While the light pollution from the planned industrial facility might not reach as far as what will be the biggest telescope of its kind in the world, any precedent by the Chilean government to approve projects that would undercut investment by ESO and other astronomical bodies would be detrimental to the long-term outlook of observations in the country.

The night sky over Paranal.
Credit – ESO YouTube Channel

Since the AES Andes proposal is still in the environmental impact assessment phase, it’s still early enough to provide feedback for a potential alternative. ESO’s letter shows support for the project in concept but suggests moving it to a different location so as not to negatively affect the telescope. Whether or not that is feasible and whether or not the Chilean government will support it at all remains to be seen. But this threat to one of the world’s great observatories shouldn’t be ignored.

Learn More:
ESO – World’s darkest and clearest skies at risk from industrial megaproject
UT – The ESO Releases the Most Detailed Infrared Map of our Galaxy Ever Made
UT – Existing Telescopes Could Directly Observe ‘ExoEarths…’ with a Few Tweaks
UT – The Paranal and the Shadow of the Earth

Lead Image:
Touching the Arc of Space – taken at the Paranal Observatory.
Credit – ESO / P. Horálek

The post A New Industrial Megaproject Threatens the View of the World’s Best Observatories appeared first on Universe Today.

A research team found a key indicator for the chemical activity of acoustic microbubbles and a correlation between the temperature of a liquid and that of the microbubbles generated.

Alloying, the art of blending metals with other elements, has long been a cornerstone of materials science and metallurgy, creating materials with tailored properties. In contrast, dealloying has been known primarily as a corrosive process that degrades materials over time by selectively removing elements, weakening their structure. Now, researchers have turned these two seemingly counteracting processes into an innovative harmonic synthesis concept.

Researchers have created a dataset of the whole atmosphere, enabling new research to be conducted on previously difficult-to-study regions. Using a new data-assimilation system called JAGUAR-DAS, which combines numerical modeling with observational data, the team created a nearly 20-yearlong set of data spanning multiple levels of the atmosphere from ground level up to the lower edges of space. Being able to study the interactions of these layers vertically and around the globe could improve climate modeling and seasonal weather forecasting. There is also potential for interdisciplinary research between atmospheric scientists and space scientists, to investigate the interplay between space and our atmosphere and how it affects us on Earth.

Researchers have developed a new process that uses microwave flow reaction and recyclable solid catalysts to efficiently hydrolyze polysaccharides into simple sugars. The developed device utilizes a continuous-flow hydrolysis process, where cellobiose is passed through a sulfonated carbon catalyst that is heated using microwaves, resulting in the efficient conversion of cellobiose to glucose.

Researchers have demonstrated that the direction of the spin-polarized current can be restricted to only one direction in a single-atom layer of a thallium-lead alloys when irradiated at room temperature. The discovery defies conventions: single-atom layers have been thought to be almost completely transparent, in other words, negligibly absorbing or interacting with light. The one-directional flow of the current observed in this study makes possible functionality beyond ordinary diodes, paving the way for more environmentally friendly data storage, ultra-fine two-dimensional spintronic devices, in the future.

Researchers have demonstrated that the direction of the spin-polarized current can be restricted to only one direction in a single-atom layer of a thallium-lead alloys when irradiated at room temperature. The discovery defies conventions: single-atom layers have been thought to be almost completely transparent, in other words, negligibly absorbing or interacting with light. The one-directional flow of the current observed in this study makes possible functionality beyond ordinary diodes, paving the way for more environmentally friendly data storage, ultra-fine two-dimensional spintronic devices, in the future.

Cordierite, the material behind heat-resistant pizza stones, has been shown to resist changes in size despite significant temperature fluctuations. The reasons for this have been largely unexplained until now. New findings have profound implications for the design and development of advanced materials.

Comet C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) should be visible from the southern hemisphere, and possibly also the northern hemisphere, over the next few days

As the article by Matt Taibbi below notes, Mark Zuckerberg is moving his Meta platform–notably Facebook and Instagram–away from censorship and more towards free speech (click the link to read):

The video in this post has vanished from YouTube, but I found it on Facebook and put it below.  Do watch it.

Taibbi quotes a bit of it:

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, in a video promising a shift toward free speech:

The US has the strongest constitutional protections for free expression in the world. Europe has an ever increasing number of laws institutionalizing censorship, and making it difficult to build anything innovative there. Latin American countries have secret courts that can order companies to quietly take things down. China has censored our apps from even working in the country. The only way that we can push back on this global trend is with the support of the US government, and that’s why it’s been so difficult over the past four years, when even the US government has pushed for censorship by going after us and other American companies.

The NYT adds a bit more:

Eight years later, Mr. Zuckerberg is no longer apologizing. On Tuesday, he announced that Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads, was ending its fact-checking program and getting back to its roots around free expression. The fact-checking system had led to “too much censorship,” he said.

. . . Eight years later, Mr. Zuckerberg is no longer apologizing. On Tuesday, he announced that Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads, was ending its fact-checking program and getting back to its roots around free expression. The fact-checking system had led to “too much censorship,” he said.

Now there is still an opportunity for counterspeech; fact-checkers will be replaced with “Community Notes,” similar to those used on X. There will be a policy to reduce “mistakes”, tackling “illegal and high severity violations” that are reported by others. People, rather than filters, will look for these violations and remove the ones deemed “not free speech.”

As I’ve said before, I would prefer large social-media platforms like Facebook and Twitter (now X) to adhere as strongly as possible to the First Amendment of the Constitution. That Amendment, of course, has carve-outs: truly prohibited speech. This includes defamation, harassment, false advertising, child pornography, obscenity, and speech liable to incite predictable and lawless violence.

So long as Facebook and X adhere to this policy, I think it’s a step in the right direction. The “Community Notes” will allow the counter-speech that advocates of free speech see as essential to promote the clash of ideas that, according to John Stuart Mill, will promote the emergence of truth. So I think this is a good step, regardless of what you think of Zuckerberg (or Elon Musk, who is running X this way).

I will be at meetings all day today, so I ask readers to discuss this new policy of Zuckerberg (and Musk).  Yes, I know people say that Musk and Zuckerberg are pandering to Trump,  and perhaps that is one motivation, but I do not want readers to concentrate on the people involved, but on the speech policy itself.

Please discuss below.  Do you think places like Facebook and X should prohibit speech that is actually allowed by the First Amendment? If so, which speech?

Or you can discuss Trump’s sentencing as a felon:

After months of delay, President-elect Donald J. Trump on Friday became the first American president to be criminally sentenced.

He avoided jail or any other substantive punishment, but the proceeding carried symbolic importance: It formalized Mr. Trump’s status as a felon, making him the first to carry that dubious designation into the presidency.

“Never before has this court been presented with such a unique and remarkable set of circumstances,” said the judge overseeing the case, Juan M. Merchan. “This has been truly an extraordinary case.”

The judge then imposed a so-called unconditional discharge of Mr. Trump’s sentence, a rare and lenient alternative to jail or probation. Explaining the leniency, Justice Merchan acknowledged Mr. Trump’s inauguration 10 days hence.

“Donald Trump the ordinary citizen, Donald Trump the criminal defendant” would not be entitled to the protections of the presidency, Justice Merchan asserted, explaining that only the office shields him from the verdict’s gravity.

The judge then wished Mr. Trump “godspeed” and departed the bench.

A more detailed understanding of the natural anti-insect protections of tomato plants can lead to better pest-management strategies

Insulin-producing cells injected into a man with type 1 diabetes have survived for a month so far without the need for immune suppression

When it comes to the weak nuclear force and why it is weak, there’s a strange story which floats around. It starts with a true but somewhat misleading statement:

• The weak nuclear force (which is weak because its effects only extend over a short range) has its short range because the particles which mediate the force, the W and Z bosons, have mass [specifically, they have “rest mass”.] This is in contrast to electromagnetic forces which can reach out over great distances; that’s because photons, the particles of light which mediate that force, have no rest mass.

This is misleading because fields mediate forces, not particles; it’s the W and Z fields that are the mediators for the weak nuclear force, just as the electromagnetic field is the mediator for the electromagnetic force. (When people speak of forces as due to exchange of “virtual particles” — which aren’t particles — they’re using fancy math language for a simple idea from first-year undergraduate physics.)

Then things get worse, because it is stated that

• The connection between the W and Z bosons’ rest mass and the short range of the weak nuclear force is that
  • the force is created by the exchange of virtual W and Z bosons, and
  • due to the quantum uncertainty principle, these virtual particles with mass can’t live as long and/or travel as far as virtual photons can, shortening their range.

This is completely off-base. In fact, quantum physics plays no role in why the weak nuclear force is weak and short-range. (It plays a big role in why the strong nuclear force is strong and short-range, but that’s a tale for another day.)

I’ve explained the real story in a new webpage that I’ve added to my site; it has a non-technical explanation, and then some first-year college math for those who want to see it. It’s gotten some preliminary comments that have helped me improve it, but I’m sure it could be even better, and I’d be happy to get your comments, suggestions, questions and critiques if you have any.

[P.S. — if you try but are unable to leave a comment on that page, please leave one here and tell me what went wrong; and if you try but are unable to leave a comment here too for some reason, please send me a message to let me know.]

The herbicide glyphosate is helping farmers adopt more environmentally friendly practices, and resistant weeds will make this transition more difficult, experts say

Meanwhile, in Dobrzyn, Hili is optimistic, I suppose:

Szaron: We live in times when books are more important for cats than for humans.
Hili: Not for all of them, dear Szaron, not for all.

Szaron: Dożyliśmy czasów, w których książki są ważniejsze dla kotów niż dla ludzi.
Hili: Nie dla wszystkich, drogi Szaronie, nie dla wszystkich.

The microscope cost less than £50 to build using an open-source design and a common 3D printer

The classic Italian cacio e pepe pasta is notoriously tricky to get right, but physicists have come up with a trick to achieve a perfectly smooth cheese sauce

Defenders of the GBD won't tell you what it actually said. I will.

The post Defenders of the Great Barrington Declaration Neither Know Nor Care What it Proposed. The Deliberate Erasure of the We Want Them Infected Movement Has Succeeded. first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

A series of more than 100 small earthquakes in Surrey in 2018 and 2019 might have been triggered by oil extraction from a nearby well, suggests a new study.

Electron transport in bilayer graphene exhibits a pronounced dependence on edge states and a nonlocal transport mechanism, according to a recent study.