News Feeds

Scientists have recently identified electrons and positrons with the highest energies ever recorded on Earth. They provide evidence of cosmic processes emitting colossal amounts of energy, the origins of which are as yet unknown.

Scientists have recently identified electrons and positrons with the highest energies ever recorded on Earth. They provide evidence of cosmic processes emitting colossal amounts of energy, the origins of which are as yet unknown.

Europa, one of the four Galilean satellites of Jupiter is one of the most intriguing locations in the Solar System to search for life. However, its subsurface oceans are buried beneath thick layers of ice making exploration difficult. To explore its oceans, scientists have suggested using small swimming robots capable of penetrating the icy shell. Recently, NASA engineers tested prototypes designed to operate as a swarm, enabling them to explore the mysterious sub-ice oceans on Europa and other icy worlds in the Solar System.

Along with the other three Galilean satellites orbing Jupiter, Europa was discovered just over 400 years ago by Galileo. It is the smallest of the four measuring just 3,120 km across. It orbits Jupiter at a distance of 671,000 km in an almost circular orbit. In comparison to our own Moon, Europa is a little smaller but that is where the similarities end. Europa is made of a silicate rock and has a thick water ice crust below which is thought to be a liquid water ocean and it is this which has captured the interest of scientists. 

The Galilean moons of Jupiter: Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

The deep oceans of Europa may well harbour forms of aquatic life. Consider the deepest parts of the oceans of Earth where whole eco-systems thrive off thermal vents. At these depths, no light from the Sun penetrates so the organisms and creatures living at these depths take all their energy from the heat escaping from inside the planet.  It is this which tantalisingly suggests that maybe such life could have evolved in the oceans of Europa too.

A black smoker hydrothermal vent discovered in the Atlantic Ocean in 1979. It’s fueled from deep beneath the surface by magma that superheats the water. The plume carries minerals and other materials out to the sea. Courtesy USGS.

The exploration of Europa is already underway with NASA’s Europa Clipper expected to arrive in 2030. It will explore Europa with a powerful set of scientific instruments over a total of 49 flybys. Each pass will see the instruments search for signs that the ocean under the thick icy crust could sustain life. This will just be a flyby mission with Europa being probed from high above its surface. NASA are already shaping up their next mission to include even more complex robots that could survey the depths of the sub-surface oceans of Europa.

Artist’s concept of a Europa Clipper mission. Credit: NASA/JPL

This is where NASA’s new mission called SWIM ‘Sensing With Independent Micro-swimmers’ comes in. The concept at least, is simple…a swarm of self-propelled robots that can swim around in the underground oceans having been deployed by the ice piercing cryobot. Once underway, the swimming robots, which are about the size of a mobile phone, would hunt for chemical and temperature signals that might indicate life.

The swimming robots are not just on the drawing board. Engineers have already used 3D printers to create prototypes that have already been tested in a 23 metre pool. The devices which are propelled along by two propellers, with flaps for steering were able to stay on course. These prototypes however were a little larger than those destined to make it into space measuring about three times larger. 

The results of the test were very promising but much more work is needed before they are ready for launch. Meanwhile the robots are likely to be trialled here on Earth to support oceanographic research before being sent on their way to Europa. 

Source : NASA Ocean World Explorers Have to Swim Before They Can Fly

The post Testing the Robots that Might Explore Europa appeared first on Universe Today.

Agustín Fuentes is a biological anthropologist at Princeton University, and has appeared in these pages more than a couple of times, for he is also somewhat of a “progressive activist” who, for example, has indicted Darwin for being a racist and espoused the view that sex is non-binary (see video below).   In the latest issue of Science, he justifies his activism, asserting that scientists should be political and ideological activists because this helps us fight what he sees as an encroaching attack on science that will accompany the Trump administration.

But Fuentes’s short letter is deeply confusing, for it conflates the idea of scientists being activists with science itself being activist. I’ll give some quotes to show that conflation, and then give my disagreement with the ideas that science should be activist, as well some reservations with the notion that it’s generally good for scientists to be activists. Click below to read the letter, ironically classified under “expert voices”:

First Fuentes implies that his promotion of activism in science and among scientists in this piece came explicitly because of the threat he sees posed by the Trump administration:

Science, both teaching and doing, is under attack. The recent US presidential election of a person and platform with anti-science bias exemplifies this.

That itself is a problem, as it’s not going to win over half of America (see below).

But to some extent I agree with this, for it certainly looks as scientific truth will be endangered by Trump and, especially, his appointments in the area of public health and science.

Certainly scientists who see their field as endangered are entitled to speak out as individuals against stuff like climate-change denial, vaccine denialism, and opposition to GMOs and nuclear energy.  When politicians or other scientists present misleading data to support a political  position, it is scientists who know the data to correct the record. After all, that is one of the great benefits of science: it is self-correcting.

But of course correcting the record, for example giving data showing that nuclear energy can replace fossil fuels, is not the same things as saying okay, we have to replace fossil fuels with nuclear energy now.  For fixing problems often requires expertise beyond the ambit of scientists: things like political savvy, economic and practical considerations, and so on. Ergo, accepting a scientific argument is not always identical to saying that we must go ahead and fix society according to the “winning” scientific assertion, for in the long run such fixes may be more harmful than helpful. (Note: I am not saying we should keep using fossil fuels as much as we do: this is just an example!)

But I digress. I want to show how Fuentes conflates the activism of scientists as individuals with the activism of science as an institution, something he does throughout the letter (bolding is mine):

Whether science is political, and if it should be, is an age-old debate. Some assert that scientific institutions and scientists themselves should seek to remain apolitical, or at least present a face of political neutrality. Others argue that such isolation is both impossible and unnecessary, that scientists are and should be in the political fray.

Notice that he conflates scientists with scientific institutions, the latter including scientific organizations, journals, and granting institutions.

Here’s more:

The Editor-in-Chief of Science recently wrote that although science has always been political, it “thrives when its advocates are shrewd politicians but suffers when its opponents are better at politics.” Given the current political reality and the expansion of attacks on science, it is time for scientists to be more effective, forceful, and vociferous as their own political advocates.

Who is supposed to be political here—science itself or scientists?  It’s clear that he means scientists, but also throws “science” into the mix as he does in the last sentence of the excerpt below. It’s also clear that the activism he wants from scientists is progressive left-wing activism, presumably of the kind that Fuentes himself has promoted in his previous articles. I don’t think he’s calling for right-wing scientists to be activists!

There are many taking vocal stances asserting key scientific findings and practices in the face of attacks by anti-science forces. Most scientists are familiar with the prominent cases of Anthony Fauci or Peter Hotez in public health, and of Michael Mann in climate science. But for every one of the high-profile examples, there are other, less publicly known attacks on scientists and science educators working in public spheres, social media, and the classroom. These attacks are often especially intense when the scientists are also women, BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color), queer, or from other marginalized groups. The increasingly anti-science political ecosystem creates a dire need for science to be proactive, not only reactive.

More conflation:

If one’s job, salary, research support, etc. are at risk, it is not surprising that one may not want to “stick their neck out.” And such threats will grow in the US under the incoming administration. There also remains some prominent fear of the term “political” in the scientific community, as if being political represents a bad thing or something that diminishes the value of science or the scientist.

Finally, here’s Fuentes’s final pronouncement that science itself should become a vehicle for promoting a social mission, almost certainly the “progressive mission of the left”:

As the social scientists Fernando Tormos-Aponte, Scott Frickel, and John Parker discovered in a survey just after the 2020 US elections, for many scientists “political advocacy is no longer anathema to scientific research, but should be embraced as a central aspect of science’s social mission.” This is even more true here at the end of 2024.

Once again this conflates what scientists should do with how we conceive of the “social mission of science”, that is, we should change our view of science to make activism a part of it.

Fuentes doesn’t seem to realize, as we know from statistics about the public’s view of science and of universities, that there is indeed a danger to scientists and to science itself from scientists taking stands in particular venues, like journals or professional societies. We know that when Nature endorsed Joe Biden for President in 2020, it not only did not convince more people to vote for him, but reduced the credibility of the journal, and of science itself, in the eyes of readers. When Scientific American became activist, publishing article after article taking “progressive” stands, including two misguided pieces by Fuentes himself, it lost credibility in the eyes of many and, in the end, the editor-in-chief left the journal, probably because she had no choice.  What was the cause of the final rupture between the magazine and the editor? Her attacks on Bluesky against supporters of Trump.

Finally, we know that public trust in science among both Democrats and Republicans has declined significantly in the last decade, and there’s been an even steeper drop in public confidence in colleges and universities.

Now of course you’ve surely said to yourself, “But there is no impersonal ‘science’ that takes stands. It must be the scientists themselves who do.” And of course that’s correct.  But what I am trying say is that there are ways and ways of scientists being activists, and some of them are useful but others are not. My points are below:

a.) Scientists should use their recognized expertise to correct false arguments that affect society. For example, if vaccines are effective and we have data on their efficacy, and we also have data that they don’t cause autism, we should say so.  But arguments are more effective when the scientists making them are experts in the area, which leads to the next point:

b.) Scientists should shy away from making scientific arguments outside their sphere of expertise. A prime example of this is evolutionary biologist Bret Weinstein, who has severely hurt his own reputation by making statements about covid vaccines and touting the efficacy of ivermectin as both a treatment for and preventive of Covid.  Weinstein did not know what he was talking about, and had no good data to back up his claims. He was dead wrong, but of course people used his statements to justify using horse de-wormer for their virus infection. Such statements may well harm or even kill people.

c.) Scientists should not make arguments that they say are scientific if they are imbued with ideology. This only serves to turn off a public who may know better. Luana and I deal with six of these arguments in the paper by me and Luana Maroja in Skeptical Inquirer, including rejection of the sex binary, claims that there are no evolved differences between males and females, and the idea that indigenous knowledge should be considered coequal with modern science. Ideology based arguments in these areas are misleading and injurious to the public understanding of science.

d.) “Science” itself should not be seen as incorporating activism as a necessary component.  Sure, scientists can use their knowledge to cure diseases like Covid, or create vaccines to fight polio. If you see that as “activism”, well, it’s not a form of activism that is very injurious, since nobody wants those diseases around. However, there will still be opposition to vaccination, and part of that, for covid, was due to scientists themselves either not being straightforward with data (not good) or changing their recommendations based on changing understanding of the virus and its transmission (a normal party of science).

Here are some forms of activism that can be seen as part of science itself and should be avoided:

1.) Scientific journals, magazines, or societies making ideological statements (viz. Lancet, the Society for the Study of Evolution. etc. saying that sex is a spectrum)

2.) Scientific organizations using ideology to dispense scientific funding, for example using criteria other than merit to advance “equity”.

3.) Scientists claiming the authority of science when advancing what is are biased and ideological views (see my paper with Luana).

4.) Scientists hiring other scientists or accepting graduate students based on criteria other than merit (ee #2).

In general, science gets eroded when its practitioners elevate criteria other than merit, including ethnicity, gender, or Marxist beliefs in human malleability.

Now all of these, in my view, have the potential to damage science itself, as well as to damage universities, in which science education plays a large part.  When people see the criteria above violated, they become more anti-science and more anti-university. They are less willing to support science or to give their kids (or themselves) higher education.

It is largely the ideological neutrality of “science itself”, as ideally instantiated in science departments, science journals, granting agencies, and science societies and organizations, that has kept the reputation of science unsullied.  But now it is getting sullied, and sullied from both the right and left. One of the reasons for this is the very activism that Fuentes wants so badly.

As I said, scientists have an important role to play in improving society, but that role should, as far as possible, be limited to ensuring that the data fed into societal arguments be as accurate as possible. When scientists go beyond that, infusing their data with ideology, the potential for harm to their brand is very real.  This doesn’t mean that scientists shouldn’t have free speech, for of course they should and they do.  What it means is that unless they speak carefully, and avoid a partisan bias, they risk the reputation of the very fields they love.

In the five-minute video below we see Fuentes being an ideologue while at the same time arguing that science shouldn’t “become ideology”.  He mischaracterizes atheism as saying ‘I know for sure there is no god,”  argues that evolutionary biology is imbued with racism and sexism, and maintains that the sex binary “is not the best way to characterize humans.” Yes, humans are messy and vary in their gender, but the sex binary, as I’ve argued, applies as much to humans as it does to any other animal. There are exactly two sexes, and there are no more than two sexes. Yes, Dr. Fuentes, the world is “complex and messy”, but I don’t buy your claim that the sex binary itself somehow misrepresents or distorts our knowledge of variation in human behavior or culture. After all, the sex binary is just a definition, and one that has the advantage of holding universally in all animals and vascular plants. It has nothing to say about culture or variation in behavior.

From the YouTube notes:

This interview is an episode from ‪@The-Well‬, our publication about ideas that inspire a life well-lived, created with the ‪@JohnTempletonFoundation‬.

Templeton! Wouldn’t you know it?

h/t: Anna and Luana, my partners in crime

When Albert Einstein introduced his theory of general relativity in 1915, it changed the way we viewed the Universe. His gravitational model showed how Newtonian gravity, which had dominated astronomy and physics for more than three centuries, was merely an approximation of a more subtle and elegant model. Einstein showed us that gravity is not a mere force but is rather the foundation of cosmic structure. Gravity, Einstein said, defined the structure of space and time itself.

But in the past century, we have learned far more about the cosmos than even Einstein could have imagined. Some of our observations, such as gravitational lensing clearly confirm general relativity, but others seem to poke holes in the model. The rotational motion of galaxies doesn’t match the predictions of gravity alone, leading astronomers to introduce dark matter. The expansion of the Universe is not steady but is accelerating, pointing to the presence of dark energy. For some astronomers, this points to the need for a new model. Something that can account for the motions of stars and galaxies without the need for those dark materials that remain undetected in the lab. The most popular alternatives focus on theories of modified gravity.

The standard model of cosmology is known as the LCDM model. The L, for lambda, is the symbol used in general relativity to represent the rate of cosmic expansion and represents dark energy, while CDM stands for cold dark matter. This model describes an expanding Universe that began as a hot, dense state about 13.78 billion years ago. It is a Universe made up of about 5% regular matter, 25% dark matter, and 70% dark energy. It is currently the model best supported by observational evidence. Modified gravity models have a big hill to climb. To topple LCDM they have to account for everything it predicts as well as eliminate the need for dark matter and energy.

Observations confirm the validity of general relativity and the standard model of cosmology. Credit: The DESI Collaboration.

This year, that hill has become much steeper. In a series of publications released by the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) collaboration, the standard cosmological model has been confirmed to be in complete agreement with Einstein’s model. The DESI survey mapped nearly six million galaxies across 11 billion years of cosmic time, allowing astronomers to see not just how galaxies cluster but how that clustering changes over time. It is the largest 3D map of the Universe made thus far.

The LCDM model makes very stringent predictions of cosmic structure. If dark energy were a kind of repulsive force rather than an inherent property of spacetime, clustering would evolve differently than observed. If dark matter was an illusion of modified gravitational forces, the scale of galactic clustering would be different. This latest survey shows in explicit detail that modified gravity models don’t hold up. The results strongly constrain which modified gravity models are possible and rule out many of the models currently proposed. Based on these new results, the standard cosmological model of Einsteinian gravity, dark matter, and dark energy is the one that best fits the observed Universe.

There are still mysteries that still need to be solved, most significantly the issue of the Hubble tension problem. Perhaps a novel modified gravity model will solve this mystery and finally topple Einstein, but for now, the wild-haired genius remains king of the hill.

Reference: Adame, A. G., et al. “DESI 2024 II: Sample Definitions, Characteristics, and Two-point Clustering Statistics.” arXiv preprint arXiv:2411.12020 (2024).

Reference: Adame, A. G., et al. “DESI 2024 V: Full-Shape Galaxy Clustering from Galaxies and Quasars.” arXiv preprint arXiv:2411.12021 (2024).

Reference: Adame, A. G., et al. “DESI 2024 VII: Cosmological Constraints from the Full-Shape Modeling of Clustering Measurements.” arXiv preprint arXiv:2411.12022 (2024).

The post Einstein Predicted How Gravity Should Work at the Largest Scales. And He Was Right appeared first on Universe Today.

Most dogs aren't bred to feel at ease in our homes, but scientists studying puppy cognition have found ways you can help yours adapt

Projects to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by making the oceans less acidic are popping up all over the world – New Scientist visited one in New York City’s East river

One of the best bright star lunar occultations for 2024 occurs this week, as the Moon covers Spica.

Have you ever seen the Moon blot out a star? If the weather cooperates, early morning viewers across eastern North America have a chance to see a rare spectacle, as the crescent Moon occults (covers) the bright star Spica.

When to Watch

The event is centered on the early morning hours of Wednesday, November 27th at 12:16 Universal Time (UT)/7:16 AM EST/6:16 AM CST. The International Occultation Timing Association (IOTA) has a list of ingress/egress times for select sites in the occultation footprint. The IOTA also has a more technical discussion of the event here. The Moon is a -13% illuminated, waning crescent (just four days from New) during the event, meaning that Spica will ingress on the daytime lit side, and egress along the nighttime dark limb of the Moon.

The occultation visibility footprint for Wednesday morning’s event. The solid lines denote where the event is visible under dark skies, blue is twilight, and broken lines means the event occurs under daytime skies. Credit: Occult 4.2. The ‘Wow Factor’

It’s a strange celestial scene: like during a total solar eclipse, you’re standing in the shadow of the Moon… but in this case, it’s ‘cast’ by +1st magnitude Spica… from 250 light-years away. Also known as Alpha Virginis as the brightest star in the constellation Virgo, Spica also holds the distinction of a contender for a nearby galactic supernova event in the far future.

Cloud cover percentage prospects for Wednesday morning. Credit: NOAA/NWS.

Occultations are interesting and important to astronomers, as they give us a chance to analyze both objects involved. In the case of the star, we might notice the teeny angular diameter as it winks out, perhaps briefly revealing a faint secondary companion. In the case of Spica, its apparent size is 0.906 milliarcseconds, and is a spectroscopic binary with a close companion star in a close four day orbit.

Going to the Grazeline

An occultation can also help to map out the jagged limb or profile of the Moon. This works as the star blinks in and out of view. Imagine the star playing peek-a-boo with mountain peaks, shining down lunar valleys. The southern grazeline to see such a spectacle Wednesday morning crosses Texas, New Mexico and Arizona and is not to be missed.

The grazeline limit across the southwestern U.S. Credit: IOTA The ‘Spica Cycle’

Spica is one of the four bright stars that lies along the path of the Moon in the current epoch. The other three are Aldebaran, Regulus and Antares. Like eclipses, these occur in cycles. The Moon covers the star once per every 29.5 day synodic lunation. This continues until the track of the Moon carries it slowly away. In 2024 into 2025, the Moon is also occulting Antares as well. Also, like eclipses, the track for occultations moves 120 degrees west in longitude from one event to the next.

Observing and Imaging

Spica is bright enough to track near the Moon right up into the bright dawn, just before sunrise. The event also lends itself well to video capture. You’ll be able to easily see Spica disappear and reappear using binoculars… or even with just the unaided eye. The star will be much more prominent along the dark nighttime limb of the Moon.

Faint, but there… Spica near the daytime Moon. Credit: Dave Dickinson.

In a slow-moving Universe, occultations give us a chance to see change occurring in a split second. Don’t miss ‘The Great American Occultation,’ as Spica disappears behind the Moon Wednesday morning, and the celestial drama of the sky above us continues.

The post Watch the Crescent Moon Occult Spica for North America Early Wednesday Morning appeared first on Universe Today.

Every year, NASA releases a detailed simulation of the Moon that shows how it will change through the year. They produce a couple of versions that show how it appears from the northern and southern hemisphere and others that highlight different features. Not only does it show the phases through the year but it also shows the change in size as its completes its orbit. The change in apparent size of the Moon is a result of its elliptical orbit so that it can appear up to 30% brighter. 

The Moon is Earth’s only permanent natural satellite. It has captivated humans for thousands of as it orbits at an average distance of 384,400 kilometres. It plays a key role in shaping our tides through its gravitational pull. The lunar surface is a desolate, rocky world with colossal mountains, and plains known as maria.  It has no atmosphere and so experiences extreme temperature shifts, from intense solar heating in the day to freezing cold at night. Over the centuries, it has inspired countless myths and driven exploration that has culminated in the Apollo missions and soon Artemis. 

Global map of the Moon, as seen from the Clementine mission, showing the lunar near- and farside. If we’re going back to the Moon, we’ll need a Lunar GPS. Credit: NASA.

One of the most well known aspects of the Moon are the lunar phases. The phases of the Moon represent its motion around the Earth and its changing appearance when viewed from Earth. The cycle lasts about 29.5 days and is known as a lunar month. It begins with a new moon when the Moon lies approximately between Earth and the Sun and appears nearly invisible as we look at the night time hemisphere. 

The bright sunlit crescent contrasts with the darker lighting of twice-reflected light supplied by sunlight reflecting off our own planet. Credit: Bob King

As the cycle continues the crescent appears, getting larger and larger marking the waxing crescent phase. Eventually it leads to a first quarter phase when half of the Moon appears illuminated. It increases through the waxing gibbous phase before reaching full moon. The cycle then reverses through the waning phases to new moon again. 

The phases appear nicely in the video from NASA but what is also apparent is the gentle rocking of the Moon. Known as libration, it means we get to see slightly more than 50% of the lunar surface, 59% over time. The phenomenon occurs due to the axial tilt of the Moon and its elliptical orbit. It can be categorised as three different types; longitudinal (caused by changes in Moon’s orbital speed,) latitudinal (caused by tilt in the Moon’s axis) and diurnal (caused by Earth’s rotation and a slight shift in position of observer.)

The video simulation produced by NASA has been created from images taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO.) It has been in orbit since the summer of 2009 and has produced images of unprecedented quality. Using advanced instruments, it has mapped the surface in high detail, revealing detailed topography, temperature, and geological maps. It has identified landing sites, especially near the poles, where water ice may exist, and has captured images of some of the Apollo landing sites.

Artist’s rendering of Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) in orbit. Credit: ASU/LROC

The animation shows the phases, and libration at hourly intervals until the end of 2025. One month is compressed down into about 24 seconds to give a comprehensive view of the year ahead.

Source : NASA Moon Animation

The post NASA Releases its Moon Phases Animation for 2025 appeared first on Universe Today.

Before the decade is out, as part of the Artemis Program, NASA plans to send astronauts to the Moon for the first time since the Apollo Era. To realize this goal, they have contracted with commercial space industries to develop all the necessary components. This includes the Space Launch System (SLS) and the Orion spacecraft that will take the Artemis astronauts to the Moon. There’s also the Lunar Gateway and the Artemis Base Camp, the infrastructure that will facilitate regular missions to the Moon after 2028.

In between, NASA has also partnered with companies to develop the Human Landing Systems (HLS) that will transport the Artemis astronauts to the lunar surface and back. This includes the Starship HLS SpaceX is currently developing for NASA, which will rendezvous with the Orion spacecraft in lunar orbit and allow the Artemis III astronauts to land on the Moon (which will take place no sooner than September 2026). In a series of newly-updated images, SpaceX has provided artistic renders of what key moments in this mission will look like.

Artist’s rendering of the Starship tanker transferring propellant to a Starship depot in orbit. Credit: SpaceX

The renderings include a Starship tanker docking with a Starship propellant depot in Low-Earth Orbit (LEO), shown above. These elements are crucial to SpaceX’s long-term plans to send payload and crews to the Moon and Mars, which require that the Starship refuel in orbit so that it can make a trans-lunar injection (TLO) or trans-Mars injection (TMI). For the Artemis missions, this will allow the Starship HLS to reach lunar orbit, where it will rendezvous with the Orion spacecraft. Once there, the Orion will dock with the Starship HLS (shown below), and two Artemis crew members will transfer to the HLS.

The Orion spacecraft docking with the Starship HLS in lunar orbit. Credit: SpaceX

At this juncture, the two astronauts will take the Starship HLS to land near the Moon’s southern polar region (shown below). Similar to how the Starship has conducted many landings here on Earth, this will consist of the spacecraft firing two of its Raptor engines to make a powered descent (shown below). Once the spacecraft safely lands on the Moon (shown at top), the two astronauts will descend to the surface using the spacecraft’s elevator (shown at bottom) and spend approximately a week exploring the South Pole-Aitken Basin, collecting samples, performing science experiments, and observing the Moon’s environment.

Artist’s rendering of the Starship HLS making a braking burn to land on the Moon. Credit: SpaceX

This mission will help pave the way towards creating a lunar settlement in the area, taking advantage of the abundant water ice observed in permanently shadowed regions (PSRs) – i.e., the many craters that dot the Moon’s south pole. While these surface operations take place, the other Artemis crew will await them in orbit. The Starship HLS and its two crewmembers will then launch into lunar orbit and rendezvous with the Orion spacecraft one last time. After returning to the Orion, the entire crew will return home, leaving the Starship HLS in orbit.

Two Artemis III astronauts using the Starship HLS elevator to descend to the surface. Credit: SpaceX

In preparation for the Artemis III mission, SpaceX will perform an uncrewed landing demonstration mission on the Moon. NASA is also working with SpaceX to further develop the HLS to meet the extended requirements for the Artemis IV mission, which is scheduled to launch no sooner than September 2028. This mission will see a crew rendezvous with the Artemis Gateway, which will be launched ahead of time, then land on the lunar surface and conduct extensive science operations. This will include field geology experiments, deploying instruments, and collecting more samples.

Further Reading: NASA

The post NASA, SpaceX Illustrate Key Moments of Artemis Lunar Lander Mission appeared first on Universe Today.

Gene editing in the womb could be more effective than the same treatment after birth, as it is easier to deliver the necessary genetic machinery to fetal cells

A reluctant deal finalised at the COP29 climate summit isn't generous enough to encourage nations to submit more ambitious climate plans, delegates warn

Enigmatic phenomena called fast radio bursts might be caused by interstellar objects colliding with highly magnetised neutron stars

President-Elect Donald Trump has now announced most of picks to lead critical federal health agencies. These picks predictably prioritize grift, quackery, and antivax ideology.

The post Antivaxxers, grifters, and quacks: RFK Jr.’s MAHA takes over federal health agencies first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

The Arecibo Message, transmitted on November 16th, 1974, from the Arecibo Observatory, was humanity’s first true attempt at Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence (METI). The message was a simple pictorial signal in binary code composed by famed astronomer and SETI researcher Frank Drake (inventor of the Drake Equation) with the assistance of Sagan and other prominent astronomers. The message was and was aimed toward Messier 13 (NGC 6205 or “The Great Hercules Cluster”), a globular star cluster located about 25,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Hercules.

In 2018, in preparation for the 45th anniversary of the historic broadcast, the Arecibo Message Global Challenge was launched. Student teams were tasked with designing a new message that could be sent to space, and by August 2020, the Boriken Voyagers team was recognized as the winner of the competition. Unfortunately, the Observatory collapsed on December 1st, 2020, and the message was never sent. To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Arecibo Message, the Boriken Voyagers have shared “The Last Arecibo Message.”

The Boriken Voyagers team consists of eight students from the University of Arecibo Mayagüez Campus (RUM) and the Planetary Habitability Laboratory (PHL) at the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo. Boriken is the name for Puerto Rico in the language of the Indigenous Taino/Arawakan people. The group is led by Kelby D. Palencia-Torres, a student at RUM and PHL who specializes in the study of the gas and dust surrounding galactic disks – aka. the Circumgalactic Medium.

The Original Message

The Arecibo Message was organized by Drake in the early 1970s as the first campaign to compose a message destined for space. The effort relied on Arecibo’s megawatt transmitter attached to its 305-meter (1000-foot) antenna to send a 20-gigawatt omnidirectional broadcast. The M13 cluster was selected because of the number of stars (about 300,000) and the cluster’s age (11.65 billion years). This made it seem a likely place to host an extraterrestrial civilization. The message was not intended as an invitation to talk nearly as much as a demonstration of human technological capabilities and scientific knowledge.

The message was transmitted on November 16th, 1974, at a frequency of 2380 MHz and an effective bandwidth of 10 Hz. The message was transmitted at a frequency-shifting rate of 10 bits per second and lasted less than three minutes. It consisted of a 1679-binary digit picture (210 bytes) – the product of two prime numbers – arranged rectangularly into 73 lines of 23 characters per line (also prime numbers). The use of prime numbers was deliberate since mathematics is considered the only “universal language” and easier for an alien civilization to decode.

They conveyed a series of scientific, geographical, biological, and astronomical information in different colors. These included:

• A counting scheme of 1 to 10 (white)
• The atomic numbers for hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and phosphorus, which make up DNA (purple)
• The chemical formula of the four purines and pyrimidine bases that make up DNA (green)
• An image of the DNA double helix and an estimate of the number of nucleotides (blue and white, respectively)
• A stick figure of a human being (red), our average dimensions (blue/white), and the human population of Earth (white)
• A depiction of the Solar System, indicating that the message is coming from the third planet (yellow)
• A schematic of the Arecibo Observatory and its dimensions (purple/white and blue)

Fifty years after the Arecibo Message was sent, its legacy lives on. Universe Today recently caught up with the Boriken Voyagers to learn more about the original message and their updated version. The team members included Kelby D. Palencia-Torres, Cesar F. Quinones-Martinez, Javier A. Garcia Sepulveda, Luis R. Rivera Gabriel, Lizmarie Mateo Roubert, German Vazquez Perez, and Abel Mendez.

Q: Why does the Arecibo Message endure 50 years later?

Germán Vázquez Pérez: “Even 50 years later, and despite the loss of the Arecibo Observatory, the Arecibo Message continues its journey through the vastness of space, waiting to be intercepted by potential civilizations. It’s a bittersweet feeling. The message remains an example of what humanity can achieve, but we no longer possess the same capability to receive a potential reply or transmit another message with such power and significance. At least for the moment.”

Kelby Palencia-Torres: “The significance of the Message is that it represents humanity, and it is the first intentional message of our existence in the cosmos. The message compels curiosity, and it’s our first step to answering the old question if we are alone in the universe.”

Lizmarie Mateo Roubert: “The Arecibo Message can represent the hope people working in the scientific community have in answering questions about the Universe and all the efforts they have put in throughout the years.”

Cesar Quinones-Martinez: “The Arecibo Message has fascinated many throughout the decades, bringing a lot of debate as to whether or not we should actively contact other extraterrestrial civilizations. Arecibo and the Arecibo Message for Puerto Rico represent a collective curiosity in space exploration, as for many students on the island, visiting Arecibo becomes a key motivator to beginning their STEAM journey. It represents a bold step into the unknown, where our curiosity takes us to make new discoveries. “

Q: How has the field of SETI/METI changed since?

Cesar Quinones-Martinez: “The SETI and METI initiatives both have seen improvements to their capabilities as technology improves. Bigger, more sensitive detectors bring us closer to receiving any artificial signal, while better transmitters could allow for future messages that can better retain their information while passing through gas clouds or other mediums. While the Arecibo Message was designed to showcase Arecibo’s capabilities, current METI projects are more rigorous with what they want to communicate. We do not know the intentions of the recipient of our message, and measures must be taken to be direct with what we say.”

Kelby Palencia-Torres: “With METI, we are more cautious with the content included in the messages. Some sci-fi series like the ‘3 Body Problem’ play a negative role in how METI is perceived outside the scientific community.”

Q: What was it like to compete in the Arecibo Message Global Challenge?

Kelby Palencia-Torres: “The New Arecibo Message Global Challenge was an intriguing and daring competition. To partake and enlist in the challenge, one had to solve a riddle. After this first stage of the challenge, we had to solve a puzzle where the situation was similar to that of the movie Contact. We had to decode a message and identify the location of said message. Once proven to solve the puzzle, we passed to the last stage, where we had to develop the New Arecibo Message. As part of the challenge of the message, we had to consider the energy used to produce the signal and transmit it, choose a location visible to the Arecibo Telescope, and the hardest part … fully create the content of the message itself.”

Lizmarie Mateo Roubert: “At the time, this was truly the most difficult part of the challenge we had encountered so far. Back in 2018, most of us were just beginning our undergraduate degrees and some of the information we needed to keep in mind whenever we were to develop a message in a way that could be encoded eventually proved to be a bit of a struggle. With the help of other professionals in the field and professors on our university campus, we were then able to fully understand how to properly develop this message and the different conditions and capabilities we had to keep in mind so the message could be successfully sent and deciphered.”

Luis Rivera: ‘It proved to be a space for great professional and personal growth for me. The difficulty behind solving the problems and creating something new that t underscored the need for teamwork in all aspects of science, and helped me grow closer to people I call my friends today.’ 

Cesar Quinones-Martinez: ‘The Arecibo global Competition consisted of 3 stages to highlight important stages of making the message: interpretation, decoding a received message, and finally writing our New Arecibo Message. The first stage showed how clever message design can contain a lot of information about the subject material. Imagine a pixelated image of a human sent at a certain frequency. How do you figure out the human’s average height? The key is the frequency, which corresponds to a specific wavelength so that by counting the pixels, you can approximately obtain the height.

“However, is that all the information you can extract from the image? Knowing the size of the pixels, you can figure out the ratio of the head to the arms, legs, and abdomen, communicating more about humans without added complexity. The second stage gave us a scenario with a received message that we needed to decode. The team regularly pitched different ideas on what aspects of the signal were important to decode, which was useful to the design of the new Arecibo Message in the final stage. The competition was a great exercise in thinking outside the box and looking at different perspectives, showing the nuance of communicating efficiently when the turnaround time can be centuries.’

Aerial view of the damage to the Arecibo Observatory following the collapse of the telescope platform on December 1st, 2020. Photo courtesy of Deborah Martorell. The Last Arecibo Message

Lizmarie Mateo Roubert: “The content of the Last Arecibo Message contains information about humanity’s knowledge of mathematics, science, and astronomy. The first two sections include the numbers from 1 to 10 and the arithmetic symbols including the equal sign. We included mathematical and physical constants such as pi, the Euler constant, the speed of light, the Planck constant, and the Stefan-Boltzmann constant. Adding these constants in our message helps us with a variety of assumptions regarding the recipient’s understanding of the universe..” 

Germán Vázquez: “We also wanted to share astronomical aspects of our galaxy, solar system, and earth-moon system to pinpoint our location in the universe. The image of the Milky Way Galaxy is presented (up to scale) with the distance from the Galactic center to our solar system.

“The Arecibo Message, sent in 1974, served as a direct inspiration for the next section of our message, our Solar System. However, we wanted to enhance some aspects to make it more descriptive and accurate. We included our Moon and Saturn’s rings, enhanced the sizes of the gas giants, and excluded Pluto, which is now considered a dwarf planet.

“The Earth-Moon system was also implemented in our message, considering the impact our natural satellite has had in shaping humanity, influencing our calendars, producing ocean tides, and understanding celestial mechanics. Lastly, our depiction of a human being, the average height, and the population in 2020 were also included, alluding to the original message.”

Kelby Palencia-Torres: “The purpose of the message is to continue the legacy of the Arecibo Observatory and the Original message by Frank Drake. Our message sums up humanity’s curiosity and wanting to explore the universe together.”

Q: “What significance could this have for the ongoing debate concerning METI?“

Kelby Palencia-Torres: “The message we constructed for the Arecibo Message Global Challenge was to commemorate and demonstrate the importance the original had. Currently, our message does not have plans to be transmitted. But it showcases the innate curiosity and feelings we have to see if we are alone. Our message will go to the list of messages built with METI purposes and show the interest in taking the first step in communicating with other intelligence.

“One of the assumptions we use in our paper can also back up METI since other civilizations with similar capabilities to our civilization will face the same constraints as SETI. Whoever listens will need resources, energy, and telescope time to look for techno signatures in their sky. Assuming that other civilizations have a greater technological feat than us, it would mean giving access to resources and a really big and sensitive radio telescope to a being from this advanced civilization to search for techno signatures, and it all would be reduced to be lucky enough to be looking at the right moment and time to receive a one time signal that is not continuous such like the original Arecibo message or the wow signal.”

Further Reading: arXiv

The post The Last Arecibo Message Celebrates the Observatory and One of its Greatest Accomplishments appeared first on Universe Today.

Despite 90 years of research, the nature and influence of Dark Matter continue to elude astronomers and cosmologists. First proposed in the 1960s to explain the rotational curves of galaxies, this invisible mass does not interact with normal matter (except through gravity) and accounts for 85% of the total mass in the Universe. It is also a vital component in the most widely accepted cosmological model of the Universe, the Lambda Cold Dark Matter (LCDM) model. However, according to new research, the hunt for DM could be over as soon as a nearby star goes supernova.

Currently, the axion is considered the most likely candidate for DM, a hypothetical low-mass particle proposed in the 1970s to resolve problems in quantum theory. There has also been considerable research into how astronomers could detect axions by observing neutron stars and objects with powerful magnetic fields. In a recent study supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, a team of astrophysicists at the University of California Berkeley argued that axions could be discovered within seconds of detecting gamma rays from a nearby supernova explosion.

The study was conducted by researchers at the Berkeley Center for Theoretical Physics (BCTP) and a member of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s (LBNL) Theoretical Physics Group. The paper that describes their findings was published on November 19th in the journal Physical Review Letters. As they argue, axions would be produced in copious quantities during the first 10 seconds after a massive star undergoes core collapse and becomes a neutron star. These axions would then escape and be transformed into high-energy gamma rays in the star’s intense magnetic field.

For decades, the search for Dark Matter focused on MAssive Compact Halo Objects (MACHOs). When they failed to materialize, physicists began to consider Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) as the most likely candidate but also failed to find anything tangible. This led to axions becoming the most widely accepted candidate, an elementary particle that fits within the Standard Model of Particle Physics and resolves several unresolved questions in Quantum Mechanics – including a Theory of Everything (ToE).

The strongest candidate for axions is the quantum chromodynamics (QCD) axion, which theoretically interacts with all matter, though weakly. As previous research has shown, axions will occasionally turn into photons in the presence of a strong magnetic field that can be detected. However, such detections would be very challenging since it would require that the supernova be nearby (within the Milky Way or one of its satellite galaxies). In addition, observable supernovae are rare, occurring once every few decades.

The last time astronomers observed this phenomenon was in 1987 when a Type II supernova (SN1987A) appeared suddenly in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), roughly 168,000 light-years from Earth. At the time, NASA’s Solar Maximum Mission (SMM) was observing the LMC but wasn’t sensitive enough to detect the predicted intensity of gamma rays. Benjamin Safdi, a UC Berkeley associate professor of physics and senior author of a paper, explained in a recent UC Berkeley News statement:

“If we were to see a supernova, like supernova 1987A, with a modern gamma-ray telescope, we would be able to detect or rule out this QCD axion, this most interesting axion, across much of its parameter space — essentially the entire parameter space that cannot be probed in the laboratory, and much of the parameter space that can be probed in the laboratory, too. And it would all happen within 10 seconds.”

Illustration of NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope at work. Credit: NASA GSFC

Through a series of supercomputer simulations that used SN1987A to constrain higher mass axions, Safdi and his colleagues determined that Type II supernovae simultaneously produce bursts of gamma rays and neutrinos. They further noted that the gamma rays produced would depend on the axions’ mass and only last 10 seconds after the neutron star forms. After that, the production rate would drop dramatically. This means a gamma-ray space telescope must be pointed toward the supernova at precisely the right time.

The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope is currently the only observatory capable of detecting cosmic gamma-ray sources. Based on its field of view, scientists estimate that Fermi would have about a one-in-ten chance of spotting a supernova. To that end, the team proposes that we create a next-generation gamma-ray telescope known as the GALactic AXion Instrument for Supernova (GALAXIS). Said Safdi:

“This has really led us to thinking about neutron stars as optimal targets for searching for axions as axion laboratories. Neutron stars have a lot of things going for them. They are extremely hot objects. They also host very strong magnetic fields. The strongest magnetic fields in our universe are found around neutron stars, such as magnetars, which have magnetic fields tens of billions of times stronger than anything we can build in the laboratory. That helps convert these axions into observable signals.”

As they note, a single detection of gamma rays would pinpoint the mass of an axion over a huge range of theoretical masses and allow for laboratory experiments to refocus their efforts on confirming this mass. Even a lack of detection would mean that scientists could eliminate a large range of potential masses for the axion, which would narrow the search for Dark Matter considerably. In the meantime, Safdi and his colleagues hope the Fermi telescope will catch a lucky break.

“The best-case scenario for axions is Fermi catches a supernova,” he added. “It’s just that the chance of that is small. But if Fermi saw it, we’d be able to measure its mass. We’d be able to measure its interaction strength. We’d be able to determine everything we need to know about the axion and incredibly confident in the signal because there’s no ordinary matter which could create such an event.”

Further Reading: UC Berkeley News, Physical Review Letters

The post A Nearby Supernova Could Finally Reveal Mark Matter appeared first on Universe Today.

I presume that the International Journal of Surgery Case Reports is a real, peer-reviewed journal rather than a complete fake, as this paper is listed in PubMed Central and the journal in the University of Chicago online journals. You can see the paper by clicking on the weird title below, or download the pdf here; if the paper disappears just ask me for it.

I suspect that this was written by AI given the quote below, which sounds stilted, but perhaps the authors, from France and Germany respectively, may just write English that way. Either way, you be the judge.

It is not an April fool joke as it was published in September, and although the introduction (below) mentions that the Saturnians, who came from Earth, introduced both the terrestrial systems of private and public healthcare, my notion that this paper would really contrast them here and take a position was dispelled.

The references and authors’ locations

The first part of the three-page letter:

We practice Neurosurgery on SATURN in a country called « ILLUSIONLAND ». 60 million homo sapiens sapiens who live in this country migrated 30 years ago from the Earth. According to anatomical data, there is no difference between terrestrial and Saturnian homo sapiens sapiens. Modern medical and surgical technology has also been imported from Earth. The Saturnians of earthling descent of the earth-lings have roughly kept the same way of life, society, habits, etc. they inherited from their earthly ancestors.

In our country, ILLUSIONLAND we have two health systems. Private independent doctors and government-employed doctors who practice in hospitals. We present two clinical cases of the practice of Neurosurgery on SATURN. The main difference between the cases on Saturn with clinical cases on Earth is that on Sa-turn, both doctors’ and patients’ clinical cases are simultaneously presented.

1.1. Saturnian clinical case 1 1.1.1. First part

Doctor D.P. 52 terrestrial-year-old male (Saturnian 1 year 10 months old), obtained his doctoral degree of specialization at the age of 29 and was recognized as the second for its promotion in Medical School. As a young neurosurgeon, he is as active as when he was a resident and passed his fellowship. He operates every day, visits many patients during the day, and stays late at the hospital. He always offers to cover his colleagues’ on-call shifts if they have difficulties. He holds three master’s degrees and a Ph.D. He writes medical papers. He attends different congresses and seminars. As an example, he takes the Saturnian rocket to participate in the annual conference of the world Saturnian Federation of Neurosurgeons which takes place in “Utopia” the country located 200,000 km from his workplace. He is curious and wants to know everything about everything in his profession, especially about new surgical techniques. He asks his hierarchy about their experiences. He wants to participate in all the surgeries. In general, he stays in the hospital until 10 p.m. To have time to read an article or two, he quickly grabs a sandwich for lunch instead of going to the canteen. At home, even in bed, he thinks of cases he has seen during the day (Saturnian day which lasts only 10 h 30). When his secretary or a colleague from the emergency room calls him for a patient, he says: “Add them to my patient’s list. I’ll see them” so the consultation which officially lasts 4 h lasted 6 h sometimes 7 h. His colleagues know that they can count on him to take a night’s call or take care of an additional patient because he does this with joy.

Today, 23 years after (10 Saturnian months) Professor D.P. realizes that he is married and has two children, but he knows nothing about them. He does not even remember any details of his marriage. He just remembers that reading medical papers on his own was the best moment of his rare holidays with his wife. Today, he realized progressively that surgery makes him more tired, physically, both mentally. Today, unlike 20 years ago, when there is a new addition to the consultation list, he grumbles and answers the secretary with this leitmotif: “Is it really urgent? Is it a matter of neurosurgery? or as usual the guy has boo-boos and he comes to piss us off!”

Any explanations from readers?

Addendum by Greg Mayer

The paper has already drawn attention on PubPeer. The following query was posted:

Could the authors and the journal explain the rationale behind the publication of this ‘case study’?

The authors replied, beginning with

This paper possesses a symbolic nature.

and went on from there, including the statement that “science” encompasses “human sciences”, which are not restricted to

the study of molecules, statistical figures, false negatives, false positives, clinical trials, biological aspects, or specific p-values such as 0.003, as well as percentages, meta-analyses, or observations made under a microscope.

Another commenter, tongue firmly in cheek, applauds that

At least informed consent was obtained from all participants. No violations of research ethics on Saturn.

The authors, in a second reply, say their paper focuses on situations that are “fictitious.” You can’t make this stuff up, folks!

I think the paper is neither a fake (intended to get the authors publication credit for nonsense), nor a hoax (seeing what nonsense can get published), nor a parody (making fun of someone else’s nonsense by mimicking it). Rather, it is akin to science fiction, using an imaginary situation to explore real world situations. A case report journal, though, is certainly an odd place for such fiction!

This new course, to be offered next spring at MIT, was first singled out on The Babbling Beaver site, which calls attention to “fake news” at the university that usually turns out, as in this case, to be real news.  The Beaver said this about the course.

Feminist theory, disability justice, critical race theory, queer theory, anti-colonial thought, and trans liberation movements provide the foundation for a new approach to medical education now being taught at MIT.

A proselytizing professor dispatched from Harvard is on a mission to spread wokeism to all corners of STEM. Unable to penetrate MIT’s School of Science or Engineering, the Gender, Culture, Women, and Sexuality program hosted by MIT’s School of Humanities, Arts and Socialist Scientism let him in.

Now students can learn how Marxist, psychoanalytic, and anarchist frameworks can inform debates in bioethics, public health, and environmental justice.

Why is racism so prevalent in hospitals and other health care settings? What unique challenges do trans and gender-diverse youth face in seeking medical care as a result of recent transphobic laws and policies? How are community organizers advocating for the end of medical neglect, abuse, and torture in prisons and migrant detention facilities? This largely discussion-based course will explore these questions and many others.

Special attention is paid to the structuring force of anti-Blackness in various clinical and research settings, the development and racialization of transgender medicine, and what it means to view state violence as an issue in public health and the medical humanities.

The Beaver apologizes for his inability to make this funny rather than alarming, and confesses to copy-pasting most of the above directly from the course description.

Yep, the course description can be seen by clicking on the screenshot below:

I’ve put in the course description all aspects of “progressivism” that have colonized this course:

SPRING 2025, Thursdays, 5:00-8:00PM; MEETS AT MIT

Why is racism so prevalent in hospitals and other health care settings? What unique challenges do trans and gender-diverse youth face in seeking medical care as a result of recent transphobic laws and policies? How are community organizers advocating for the end of medical neglect, abuse, and torture in prisons and migrant detention facilities? In this largely discussion-based course we explore these questions and many others. Social approaches to medicine and public health challenge and expand contemporary debates in the medical humanities by centering issues of gender, race, and sexuality.  This class provides an overview of the theoretical landscape and social movements that ground recent developments in the field. In particular, the course engages feminist theory, disability justice movements, critical race theory, queer theory, anti-colonial thought, and trans liberation movements. The seminar will also explore how debates around race, gender, and medicine are conceptualized in Latin America and Africa. This includes an overview of racism and religion in Brazilian gynecological spaces, as well as how legal theorists from Kenya and Uganda critique pertinent public health issues like vaccine nationalism and the coloniality of gender.  Special attention is paid to the structuring force of anti-Blackness in various clinical and research settings, the development and racialization of transgender medicine, and what it means to view state violence as an issue in public health and the medical humanities.

You already know from the description that the course is designed to inculcate students with “progressive” viewpoints rather than let them think for themselves.  Descriptions like “transphobic laws and policies”, “critical race theory”, “vaccine nationalism”, and so on are all issues that should be debated, not presented as realities. One would think that such a piece of propaganda would be limited to the humanities and social sciences, and indeed, it’s offered in the “Gender, Culture, Women, and Sexuality” program hosted by MIT’s School of Humanities, Arts and Socialist Sciences.  But have no doubts: there are courses like this in science departments and medical schools as well. While some of the social issues mentioned above do need fixing, the purpose of college is supposed to be education, not fixing social problems identified by a particular ideology.

And the professor’s description includes this (my bolding):

Roberto Sirvent, JD, PhD is a political theorist who studies race, law, and social movements. He also works at the intersection of ethics, philosophy of religion, and science and technology studies (STS). Roberto’s research considers how Marxist, psychoanalytic, and anarchist frameworks can inform debates in bioethics, public health, and environmental justice. Central to his scholarly interests are the ways that colonialism, imperialism, and US militarism fuel various health injustices and ecological crises around the globe. Roberto is especially interested in helping bioethics professionals find creative ways to engage the theoretical work of disability justice advocates, queer and trans liberation movements, Black Studies scholars, mutual aid networks, and anti-colonial revolutionary struggles.

Roberto’s current research examines the prevalence of medical neglect, abuse, and torture in prisons and migrant detention centers. He is also working on a community resource guide exploring the intersection of education policy, critical pedagogy, and students’ mental health, as well as a study that draws on theories of libidinal economy and the “psychopolitics of race” to address recent controversies in sports and bioethics. Some of Roberto’s most recent scholarship invites students of comics and graphic medicine to consider how narratives of slave revolts and prison rebellions contribute to Black liberation struggles for health justice. His work in clinical ethics explores how anti-Black racism functions in Latinx and Latin American communities and the impact it has on everyday clinical encounters between patients, doctors, and other medical professionals.

“Latinx”: a term that virtually no Latinos use or want to use.

I could write more about this course and what its offering connotes about modern America, but there are so many of these these things that I don’t want to wear out my precious neurons thinking about them. Just be aware that the kids who take this stuff are going to leave MIT spreading their brainwashed mindset through the greater society.

h/t: Anna

At the CSICon meetings in Las Vegas this November, I gave a half-hour talk on the two aspects of evolutionary biology that have been most deeply misrepresented by ideologues: sex and race. “Progressives” maintain that sex is not binary but a spectrum, and also that “race and ethnicity are social constructs, without scientific or biological meaning” (that last bit is a quote from the Journal of the American Medical Association‘s guidelines for reporting race and ethnicity in medical and science journals).  Below is the title slide of my talk, much of which was based on my paper with Luana Maroja on the ideological subversion of biology, but I talked only about the two most controversial claims in evolutionary biology that have been attacked by ideologues (the paper discusses six claims):

On the day before my talk, Steven Novella, a neurologist at Yale and editor of  Science-Based Medicine, gave a talk about “When Skeptics Disagree,” but, as he said in a later post on his Neurologica blog,

I spent most of the talk, however, discussing the issue of biological sex in humans, which I perceive as the currently most controversial topic within skepticism. My goal was to explore where it is we actually disagree.

He strongly attacked the notion of a sex binary, saying that sex is multidimensional and that in the end, is “biological” in the sense that some people’s brains are wired up in such a way that their self-image doesn’t comport with either their natal sex or with the “gender role” typical of their natal sex.  In other words, he sees sex in humans (he said nothing about other animals or plants) as something that’s complex, but largely comes down to how an individual feels about their sex. Presumably if you’re born a male with typical male primary and secondary sex traits, but think you’re a woman, then you are a woman. (This of course plays into the gender-activist notion that “a transwoman is a woman” and “a transman is a man”.)

The audience ate it up, giving Novella a standing ovation. [UPDATE:  A reader says that she was in the back of the room during CSICON and while there were some who gave Novella’s talk a standing ovation, it was a relatively small group of conferees who did so. Most people stayed seated and offered polite applause as they would for any speaker. I would note that I was seated in front and people around me were standing up, but I didn’t survey the room.]

That is when I realized that, in fact, many skeptics at the conference, as well as Novella himself, have gotten it wrong, and have surrendered to the misguided gender-activist notions that, I think, make their bearers feel empathic towards those with gender dysphoria. But the gametic definition of sex wasn’t constructed to placate emotions (after all, it was devised about 100 years ago based on observation), and a scientific definition adopted because it’s universal, has great utility, aids in our understanding of nature (sexual selection, to give one example), and is maximally parsimonious. The gamete-based biological definition has no bearing on the treatment of or moral and legal rights of non-binary of transsexual people.  To think otherwise is to engage in what I call the “reverse naturalistic fallacy”—that nature must conform to what we consider ideologically and morally proper. Increasingly, people are trying to force biological reality into the Procrustean bed of their ideology.

I realized that I had to revise my bit on sex for the next day’s talk, and so I did, adding some bits to refute Novella’s “multidimensional/brain-centered” view of sex. I then wrote a post on this site about it, and Novella responded on his own blog (both are linked in the second paragraph below the headline).  At that point I didn’t want to engage any further, and ignored a few emails saying that I must respond to Novella. But both of our talks with eventually be posted on YouTube, and you can read our takes (mine is short) at the links below.

However, reader Jon Guy decided to write his own take on our conflicting talks, and put it on his own website: The Curious Case of Science. You can read it by clicking on the headline below, and I direct you towards his response, which was too long to publish on this site.  If you’re interested in the definition of biological sex, by all means read it:

Two quotes that I’ve indented:

This year, I attended the annual CSICon conference, hosted by the wonderful skeptical organization Center for Inquiry. Among the star-filled lineup of amazing speakers were Professor Jerry Coyne and Dr Steven Novella, who both gave talks about the science of biological sex.

Following CSICon, both Novella and Coyne wrote blogposts about the others’ talk, and I decided to make a short Facebook post giving my own brief opinion about the matter. It didn’t take long before Dr Novella appeared on my post to argue the issue, and what followed was a cascade of scientific blunders, logical fallacies, and a critical thinking deficit that one wouldn’t normally expect to see from such an esteemed member of the skeptical community.

Why the “binary” position is derived: it’s ideology, Jake!:

. . . . Another interesting (and telling) component here is the number of biologists who are silent on the topic. That alone rings my skeptical alarm bells. Why would biologists be afraid to say sex is NOT binary in the current social climate? Well, obviously they wouldn’t be on account of the current culture wars on sex and gender. So why aren’t there more of them? Why aren’t ALL of them saying that? Can we assume it’s because they’re too scared of being canceled or labeled a transphobe, like teachers, academics, clinicians, social workers, civil servants, managers in organizations, many journalists, people in the arts, media, and publishing companies are? Even philosophers are afraid to publicly take the binary position, despite that that’s what they believe. It seems pretty obvious to me that if sex weren’t binary, we’d have a consensus statement saying as much. Instead, we have to search the primary literature to see how biologists actually define biological sex, which is something we saw Dr Novella avoided like the plague.

Guy’s post is a long one, but written clearly, and is devoted to sorting out the differences between my talk and Novella’s as well as examining scientific claims about the binary nature of sex. There are a few places where I would have written it a bit differently from Guy, but overall it corresponds not only with what I said, but also with biological reality. You can define sex any way you want, but the gamete-based definition, like the biological species definition, is the one most universal and most useful. And it happens to lead to the sex binary in all species of animals and vascular plants.

Today we have a surprise from biologist John Avise: butterfly photos. And he reminds us of how many times his photos have appeared here (they’ve all been of birds):

You’ve posted a total of more than 3500 of my avian photographs across 231 Sundays!  I thought it might be time to start sending some other wildlife that I’ve photographed, so this week let’s start a long series on butterflies of North America.

Butterflies in North America, Part 1 

Longtime readers of WEIT might rightly suspect that I photograph only birds.  But that is far from correct.  In truth, almost any wildlife is fair game for my camera.  This week I exemplify this point by beginning a many-part series on butterflies that I have photographed over the years in North America (mostly in Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Colorado, or California).  In general, I find butterflies to be much easier to photograph than birds, because they often sit still nearby.  Typically, I use the same 300 mm telephoto lens that I use for birds, except that the butterflies are much closer to me so the focal distance becomes critical.  I’m six feet tall, and butterflies perched near my feet happen to be at a perfect distance for close-up photos with that lens.

Acmon Blue (Icaricia acmon), male topwing:

Acmon Blue, male underwing:

Acmon Blue, female topwing:

Acmon Blue, female underwing:

American Copper (Lycaena phlaeas), topwing:

American Copper, underwing:

American Lady (Vanessa virginiensis), topwing:

American Lady, underwing:

Anise Swallowtail (Papilio zelicaon), topwing:

Anise Swallowtail, underwing:

Aphrodite Fritillary (Speyeria aphrodite), topwing:

Aphrodite Fritillary, underwing: