Science

Sticks found in a cave that date back 12,000 years and other archaeological evidence show how humans have long viewed the future in a similar way to us, says Annalee Newitz

Feedback has found a contender for the 2025 Reverse Nominative Determinism gong: the scientific journal Intelligence

We need to stop ignoring young people's firsthand experience with artificial intelligence. They are already at the sharp end of its development, says Mhairi Aitken

In the centenary of naturalist Gerald Durrell’s birth, a new memoir adds rich new layers to what we know about the man

Done right, with real-world evidence to back up the claims and persuade doctors to adopt it, artificial intelligence has the power to enhance clinical outcomes

Well, I’m not sure that most American comedians working now are Jews, but surely they are still way overrepresented compared to the proportion of Jews in America, which is only 2.4%.

In fact, the first two comedians I thought of still working were Jerry Seinfeld and Sarah Silverman, both of course of the Hebrew persuasion.  But think of the great comedians of the past 50 years, and then of their religion.  As one site reports, “In 1978, 80 percent of American standup comedians were Jewish.”  But it’s not just the standups!

Here are are just a few well-known Jewish comedians (I’m leaving out ones that few people know, like Fanny Brice).

Groucho Marx
Mel Brooks
Rodney Dangerfield
Mort Sahl
Don Rickles
Henny Youngman
Jerry Seinfeld
George Burns
Lenny Bruce
Joan Rivers
Jackie Mason
Gilda Radner
Milton Berle
Curly, Moe, and Shemp Howard of The Three Stooges
Carl Reiner
Bill Maher
Jerry Lewis

I won’t go on; there are too many!  In fact, Wikipedia has three full pages of Jewish comedians, listed alphabetically (start here and continue by clicking at the bottom of each page).

There must be reasons for this inequity in comedy, and I’m also sure that many people have discussed this. But I don’t know of the speculations, so I asked three Jewish friends (one of them is ME) to give their theories.

1.) Malgorzata, my surrogate Polish mother:

Malgorzata lightheartedly suggested that the tendency of Jews to offer humor is the result of natural selection: since Jews have experienced dark times and pogroms throughout much of their history, those Jews who could laugh at themselves and the world were less likely to be depressed and to kill themselves, or more likely to tolerate intolerable situations. If there is genetic variation for humor, those with more “humor” genes would survive and reproduce. Other groups haven’t had such a history, ergo Jews tend to be comedians. (I am paraphrasing what she told me.) natural selection for people who could laugh and have a sense of humor because they would commit suicide.

2.) Me (PCC[E]):

I have a variant based on the impression of many Jews that the whole world of non-Jews hates them, something that is not far from the truth.  Jews, then, suffer from a lack of love from others.  To compensate for this, they become comedians, for what better way is there to get love and approbation than to have an audience laugh at your jokes? And they are not laughing at you, but laughing with you. That is s a form of love. This is a cultural explanation for the surfeit of Jewish comedians.

3.) Steve Pinker.  I asked him for his explanation, and this is his response (quoted with permission). Part of his theory jibes with Malgorzata’s, but he is looking for an explanation that itself is funny:

This has been a puzzle that others have (humorlessly) considered, including Ruth Wisse (former Harvard colleague and fellow Montrealer, grew up with my mother), and Howard Jacobson (British novelist, unlike most Brits proud of being Jewish). Something about humor being a subversive tactic, or a coping mechanism of the powerless and oppressed. The analyses were neither convincing nor funny.

But they may be consistent with the fact that many African Americans have been great comedians – Moms Mabley, Pigmeat Markham, Nipsey Russell, Flip Wilson, Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle, and the greatest of all, Bill Cosby. (“Noah!”)

Of course this is a lighthearted post, but there is a real phenomenon to be explained, and I invite readers to offer their own theory, which is theirs.

When was the last time you looked up into the night sky and saw the Milky Way? If you happen to live in one of the truly remote areas of the world, your answer might be “last night.” If you live in one of the generally “rural” areas of your country, you might remember how you used to see the Milky Way regularly, but the rise of LEDs, particularly the blue/white ones, has gradually erased the Milky Way from your nights. For the large majority of humans on our small world, the answer is “never.”

Light pollution has gradually stolen the night from us. Once powerful observatories such as Griffith Observatory have been blinded by our nocturnal illuminations, and modern telescopes must be built in the most remote areas of the world where light pollution is still manageable. Although we don’t notice it in the same way, the same is true for radio telescopes. Our days are filled with radio light, from mobile phones and Wi-Fi to the tire pressure sensors of a modern call. They all shine as bright in radio as an LED flashlight in the visible. But in recent years, both optical and radio telescopes have seen growing light pollution from another source: constellation satellites.

Companies such as Starlink have launched so many satellites that even in the most remote areas of the world, you can regularly see them near the horizon, particularly during dusk and dawn. For optical telescopes, the trails they create can be mitigated to a degree by making them less reflective. For radio telescopes, however, they pose a more serious and complex challenge.

Since Starlink and other constellations are communication satellites, they actively beam radio signals to Earth. Imagine if satellites had powerful floodlights shining over your house all the time, and you get the problem for radio observatories. One way to limit radio light pollution is to create forbidden zones where satellites don’t operate. For example, Starlink satellites go quiet over key regions of the National Radio Quiet Zone, as well as other large observatories across the world. But while this reduces the amount of light pollution, it doesn’t eliminate it.

An image of the NGC 5353/4 galaxy group made with a telescope at Lowell Observatory in Arizona, USA on the night of Saturday 25 May 2019. The diagonal lines running across the image are satellite trails of reflected light from more than 25 Starlink satellites as they passed through the telescope’s field of view. Credit: Victoria Girgis/Lowell Observatory

As a recent study points out, radio signals from Starlink satellites aren’t narrowly focused. Even when they go quiet over an observatory, they are active in areas near the observatories, and stray radio light can contaminate observations. As satellite constellations become more common, this stray radio light will gradually wash out the radio sky, in much the same way that LED lights from neighboring towns diminish your view of the Milky Way.

The situation has gotten serious enough that the IAU Centre for the Protection of the Dark, Quiet Sky from Satellite Constellation Interference (CPS) has called for specific steps to be taken to save the night sky. They urge the international community to implement regulations so that ground-based astronomy can remain viable in the future.

It’s clear that satellite constellations such as Starlink are a benefit to many people in the world. For some regions, it is the only way to have a connection to the internet. In the same way, inexpensive night lighting has allowed us to have safer, more comfortable lives. But it is worth being mindful of what we can lose. Our view of the heavens has deep roots in human culture, and it is worth preserving. Balancing our history with our future is something we can all strive to do better.

Reference: Dark, I. A. U., et al. “Call to Protect the Dark and Quiet Sky from Harmful Interference by Satellite Constellations.” arXiv preprint arXiv:2412.08244 (2024).

The post Astronomers are Losing the Night Sky (and Radio Sky) to Satellite Megaconstellations appeared first on Universe Today.

A team of scientists claims that the risk of common conditions like heart disease could be slashed by editing people's genomes at the embryo stage - but other biologists strongly disagree

Every fundamental particle in the universe fits into one of two groups called fermions and bosons, but now it seems there could be other particles out there that break this simple classification and were once thought to be impossible

Two species of marine molluscs dating back about 430 million years have been named Punk and Emo for their outlandish spiky appearance

A common sleep medication prevents mice from effectively clearing away waste and toxins from their brain during sleep

For decades, we studied only a tiny number of Antarctica's emperor penguins. Now robots and satellites are revealing surprising secrets about how they live

Today’s Jesus and Mo strip, called “cheers,” isn’t particularly religious, but surely expresses the feelings of many people. (I for one will make no resolutions!) I don’t think the “booze is always bad for you” issue is yet settled, anyway.

Ecologist Susan Harrison of UC Davis has return with a fresh batch of photos. Susan’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge her photos by clicking on them.

Miscellaneous birds of late 2024

The only theme of this post is “birds I saw in late 2024 and haven’t used in a WEIT post yet.”  The first ones are from Shoreline Park in Mountain View, California.  Less than a mile from the Googleplex, 5 miles from Stanford University and 10 miles from Apple’s campus, this park lies on a stretch of southern San Francisco Bay that hosts many thousands of overwintering waterfowl and shorebirds.   Every year I get to enjoy its sights the day after Thanksgiving, when my siblings and their families gather for a meal and a birdwatching stroll.

American White Pelicans, Pelecanus erythrorhynchos, foraging along the shore in their majestically unhurried style:

Greater Yellowlegs, Tringa melanoleuca, staring into a very small abyss:

Snowy Egret, Egretta thula, looking like a movie star annoyed by paparazzi:

American Coot, Fulica americana, flaunting oversized webbed feet:

The next ones are from the vicinity of Davis, California.

Vermilion Flycatcher, Pyrocephalus rubinus, an immature male that excited the local birders since it’s a rare species in northern California:

Green Heron, Butorides virescens, casting a long shadow in an irrigation ditch:

Common Goldeneyes, Bucephala clangula, a group of females accompanied by one male lurking just out of sight:

Barrow’s Goldeneyes, Bucephala islandica, a more northerly species than the Common Goldeneye, distinguished by the female’s oranger beak and the male’s facial upside-down comma:

Osprey, Pandion haliaetus, watching for fish while also eyeing the humans watching it:

These two pictures are from Ashland, Oregon.

Oak Titmouse, Baeolophus inornatus, resembling Zippy the Pinhead:

Red-shouldered Hawk, Buteo lineatus, showing off a tessellated backside:

And the last is from Bodega Bay, California.

Belted Kingfisher, Megaceryle alcyon, my nearest thing to success at photographing this bold yet notoriously camera-averse bird:

In 1964 the US Surgeon General released its first report on the health risks of smoking and tobacco use. This turned out to be a landmark move, paving the way for the following decades of progressively more restrictive regulation of public tobacco use and marketing. In 1964 smoking was at its peak in the US, when 42% of Americans smoked. Today the […]

The post Surgeon General Alcohol Warning first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

Of all the unanswered questions in modern science, perhaps the most talked about is whether we are alone in the Universe. A new paper looks at another way we might be able to detect advanced civilisations and at its centre is the need for energy! The more advanced a civilisation becomes, the greater their need for energy and one of the most efficient ways, according to current theories, is to harness the energy from an actively feeding black hole. The paper suggests a civilisation feeding matter into a black hole could harvest energy from it, more excitingly perhaps, the process could be detectable within 17,000 light years! 

The search for intelligent life beyond Earth has been of fascination to scientists, philosophers and even inspired artists over the centuries. With hundreds of millions of stars in our Galaxy and billions of other galaxies across the cosmos, it seems the odds are in our favour of finding some other civilisations out there. 

Planets everywhere. So where are all the aliens? Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser

The discovery of thousands of exoplanets in recent decades adds to the excitement so, researchers have directed radio telescopes and space probes on the search for aliens. Projects like SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence has been scanning the sky looking for unusual patterns or messages that could reveal an advanced civilisation but despite the effort, there is a distinct lack of success, yet.

A different approach is to search for advanced civilisations based upon their energy signatures. It’s an innovative idea that seeks to identify civilisations based upon artificial patterns in the electromagnetic spectrum. We have certainly seen how human energy demand has increased as we have become more advanced and so theoretically any more advanced civilisations would need to harness energy on a scale far in excess of what we currently use. It may be that civilisations use giant megastructures like Dyson spheres to harness energy from stars and it’s the output from these or their impact on the light from a star that may be detectable.

Artist’s impression of a Dyson Sphere, an proposed alien megastructure that is the target of SETI surveys. Finding one of these qualifies in a “first contact” scenario. Credit: Breakthrough Listen / Danielle Futselaar

In a paper authored by Shant Baghram and published in the Astrophysical Journal, the team begin by categorising civilisations on the Kardashev Scale. It categorises advanced civilisations by measuring their technological advancement based upon the amount of energy they are capable of harnessing and using. They also propose an alternate scale based upon the Kardashev scale and the distance a civilisation is able to explore space, suggesting more advanced can explore further from host planet. 

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). Credit: C. Padilla, NRAO/AUI/NSF

As a paper based purely on a theoretical model, they take the advanced civilisation’s category and explore the idea that they may use Dyson sphere’s around primordial black holes as an energy source. The team also propose observational techniques that may be employed to detect such structures using infrared and sub-millimetre signatures. They do assert however that telescopes like ALMA (the Atacama Large Millimetre/Sub-millimetre Array) is well placed to make observations and even to detect signatures and maybe even megastructures at distances of approximately 5.4 kiloparsecs (178 light years.)

Source : In Search of Extraterrestrial Artificial Intelligence Through Dyson Sphere–like Structures around Primordial Black Holes

The post We Could Search for Aliens Harvesting Energy from their Pet Black Hole appeared first on Universe Today.

Jeff Bezos’s space company is about to launch New Glenn, a reusable rocket intended to rival SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy, for the first time

Adding just a little medical misinformation to an AI model’s training data increases the chances that chatbots will spew harmful false content about vaccines and other topics

On July 14th, 2015, the New Horizons probe made history by accomplishing the first flyby of Pluto and its largest satellite, Charon. The stunning images this mission took of these icy worlds have helped scientists address some of the key questions about Pluto and its massive moon, which have been shrouded in mystery for decades (owing to their great distance from Earth). One of the biggest mysteries that scientists have contemplated since Charon was first discovered in 1978 is how it came together with Pluto in the first place.

For decades, astronomers suspected that Pluto and Charon formed through a process similar to Earth and the Moon. This theory, known as the Giant Impact Hypothesis, states that roughly 4.5 billion years ago, primordial Earth was struck by a Mars-sized body named Theia. In a new study, a team of researchers from the University of Arizona challenged this assumption and offered an alternate theory known as “kiss and capture.” Their findings could help scientists better understand how planetary bodies in the outer Solar System form and evolve.

The study was led by Adeene Denton, a NASA postdoctoral fellow at the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory and the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI). She was joined by Erik Asphaug, a Planetary Science Professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration (SESE) and the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory (LPL) at the University of Arizona; Robert Melikyan, an LPL Graduate Student, and Alexandre Emsenhuber, a Postdoctoral Researcher from the Space Research and Planetary Science (SRPS) at the University of Bern. The paper that describes their findings, “Capture of an Ancient Charon around Pluto,” was published in the journal Nature Geoscience. 

Previously, scientists believed that Pluto and Charon formed from a massive collision, similar to the Giant Impact Hypothesis. According to this theory, a Mars-sized planet named Theia collided with a primordial Earth roughly 4.5 billion years ago. This impact turned both bodies into molten debris that eventually coalesced to form the Earth and Moon, eventually settling into the Earth-Moon system. According to the team’s study, this theory does not fit when it comes to Pluto and Charon because it fails to take into account the structural strength of cold, icy worlds.

Using the University of Arizona’s high-performance computing cluster, the team conducted advanced impact simulations. This showed that when Pluto and a proto-Charon collided, they became temporarily stuck together and formed a single snowman-shaped object – not unlike Arrokoth, the first Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) that New Horizons surveyed on December 31st, 2018. Over time, they separated to become the binary system we observe there today. Said Denton in a U of A News story:

“Pluto and Charon are different – they’re smaller, colder and made primarily of rock and ice. When we accounted for the actual strength of these materials, we discovered something completely unexpected. Most planetary collision scenarios are classified as ‘hit and run’ or ‘graze and merge.’ What we’ve discovered is something entirely different – a ‘kiss and capture’ scenario where the bodies collide, stick together briefly, and then separate while remaining gravitationally bound.”

Their results also suggest that Pluto and Charon remained largely intact during their collision and retained much of their original composition. This challenges previous models that suggest that colliding bodies will exchange material during the impact. This is based on studies of the Apollo moonrocks, which indicated that the Earth and Moon are similar in composition, a finding that led scientists to conclude that the Earth-Moon system formed together. What’s more, their research offers a potential explanation for how Pluto may have developed an internal ocean.

View from the surface of Pluto, showing its large moon Charon in the distance. Credit: New York Times

The collision process, they state, combined with the tidal friction caused by the separation of Pluto and Charon, would have caused considerable internal heating for both bodies. This could have provided the necessary mechanism for creating a subsurface ocean, contrary to a previous theory where scientists have argued that Pluto formed during the very early Solar System when there were far more radioactive elements. However, scientists have expressed doubts about this theory because of the timing constraints it imposes.

Denton and her colleagues are now planning follow-up studies to explore several related questions about this system of icy bodies. This includes how tidal forces influenced Pluto and Charon’s early evolution when they were much closer together, how this formation scenario aligns with Pluto’s current geological features, and whether similar processes could explain the formation of other binary systems. Said Denton:

“We’re particularly interested in understanding how this initial configuration affects Pluto’s geological evolution. The heat from the impact and subsequent tidal forces could have played a crucial role in shaping the features we see on Pluto’s surface today.”

Further Reading: University of Arizona, Nature

The post Here's How Pluto and Charon Became a Bizarre Double Planet appeared first on Universe Today.

How old is the Moon? Astronaut-gathered samples from the lunar surface put its age at about 4.35 billion years. However, other evidence suggests it’s much older, around 4.53 billion years old. A team of scientists published a recent paper that suggests the Moon’s surface age was “reset” in a melting event.

The generally accepted theory about the Moon’s formation goes like this: about 4.5 billion years ago and about 200 million years after the solar system began to form, something happened. A single Mars-sized object named Theia (or possibly a series of objects) collided with or was somehow captured by infant Earth. That tumultuous crash sent a lot of molten rock and debris into space. Eventually, most of it coalesced to form the infant Moon, which settled into orbit around Earth. Debris from the inner solar system bombarded the pair for millions of years thereafter.

Fast-forward to the present day, where we can study rocks collected from the lunar surface during the Apollo missions. Scientists analyzed those samples and found them to be about 4.35 billion years old. That suggests the Moon is NOT 4.53 billion years old. Which is true? It turns out there’s strong evidence for an older Moon. It exists in some zircon minerals on the lunar surface. They’re at least 4.51 billion years old. thermal models and simulations also suggest a lunar age somewhere between 4.43 and 4.53 billion years. So, why are lunar surface rocks almost 200 million years younger?

Dating the Moon

As it turns out, both numbers could be true. The Moon could have formed very early, but it experienced something that changed its geological clock. According to UC Santa Cruz professor Francis Nimmo and a team of researchers, the Moon likely did form 4.51 million years ago in that catastrophic collision with baby Earth. But, 180 million years later, it may have experienced a “remelting”. That reset the ages of lunar rocks to around 4.35 billion years. That’s why the surface samples collected by the Apollo astronauts show a younger age.

Sample collection on the lunar surface. Apollo 16 astronaut Charles M. Duke Jr. is shown collecting samples with the Lunar Roving Vehicle in the left background. Image: NASA

“We predict that there shouldn’t be any lunar rocks that are older than 4.35 billion years because they should have experienced the same resetting,” said Nimmo. “Because this heating event was global, you shouldn’t find rocks anywhere on the Moon that are significantly older than that.”

Nimmo and his colleagues suggest that a global remelt of lunar rocks could account for the existence of younger surface rocks. The Apollo rocks suggest something happened, and the return of rocks from China’s Chang’e 6 mission could offer more evidence for that theory. For their paper, the authors used modeling to show that the Moon may have experienced sufficient tidal heating to cause this remelting approximately 4.35 billion years ago, which could “reset” the apparent formation age of these lunar samples.

Chang’e-6 lander on the lunar surface, as seen by a mini-rover nearby. (Credit: CLEP / CNSA) Modeling a Lunar Surface Reset

What could cause a global melting strong enough to reset the age of the Moon’s rocks? Nimmo suggest that the Moon experienced tidal heating due to the evolution of its orbit around Earth. This happened because the Moon was closer to Earth, and the orbit was pretty unstable during certain epochs. Thanks to the immense tidal pull from Earth, the Moon could have been heated, which led to the alteration of its geology and the “age reset” of its rocks.

It turns out that the Moon isn’t the only place in the solar system where this could happen. The volcanic moon Io in orbit around Jupiter experiences the same type of tidal attraction as it orbits. That helps explain Io’s extensive volcanic activity and surface “paving” by the frequent eruptions from its volcanic features. It also explains why we don’t see widespread craters on Io.

If the same thing happened to the infant Moon after its original formation, cooldown, and subsequent bombardment, we wouldn’t see any of its original craters. They’d have been covered by subsequent eruption and melting when the Moon’s orbit was stabilizing.

Why is the Lunar Surface Age Important?

The formation and evolution of the solar system and its many different bodies is still a hot area of study. Among other things, scientists want to understand the timing of events that shaped solar system objects. For that, they need a better understanding of the geology of each object. More data leads to better models of every aspect of solar system formation—from the first “push” in the protosolar nebula to such events as collisions, tidal heating, orbital dynamics, and surface evolution of different worlds. That’s where planetary science missions come in handy. They provide “in situ” data about each world (or object, in the case of asteroids, moons, comets, and rings), and they fill in gaps in the history of each place.

“As more data becomes available—particularly from ongoing and future lunar missions—the understanding of the Moon’s past will continue to evolve,” Nimmo said. “We hope that our findings will spark further discussion and exploration, ultimately leading to a clearer picture of the Moon’s place in the broader history of our solar system.”

For More Information

A “Remelting” of Lunar Surface Adds a Wrinkle to Mystery of Moon’s True Age
Tidally Driven Remelting Around 4.35 billion Years Ago Indicates the Moon is Old
Moon Formation

The post The Lunar Surface Remelted, Obscuring an Easy Answer to its True Age appeared first on Universe Today.