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Tonight (January 13th) offers a wonderful opportunity for all of us who love the night sky, and also for science teachers. For those living within the shaded region of Fig. 1, the planet Mars will disappear behind the Moon, somewhere between 9 and 10 pm Eastern (6 and 7 pm Pacific), before reappearing an hour later. Most easily enjoyed with binoculars. (And, umm, without clouds, which will be my own limitation, I believe…)

For everyone else, look up anyway! Mars and the Moon will appear very close together, a lovely pair.

Figure 1: the region of Earth’s surface where Mars will be seen to disappear behind the Moon. Elsewhere Mars and the Moon will appear very close together, itself a beautiful sight. Image from in-the-sky.org.

Why is this Cool?

“Occultations”, in which a planet or star disappears behind our Moon, are always cool. Normally, even though we know that the planets and the Moon move across the sky, we don’t get to actually see the motion. But here we can really watch the Moon close in on Mars — a way to visually experience the Moon’s motion around the Earth. You can see this minute by minute with the naked eye until Mars gets so close that the Moon’s brightness overwhelms it. Binoculars will allow you to see much more. With a small telescope, where you’ll see Mars as a small red disk, you can actually watch it gradually disappear as the Moon crosses in front of it. This takes less than a minute.

A particularly cool thing about this particular occultation is that it is happening at full Moon. Occultations like this can happen at any time of year or month, but when they happen at full Moon, it represents a very special geometry in the sky. In particular, it means that the Sun, Earth, Moon and Mars lie in almost a straight line, as shown (not to scale!!!) in Fig. 2.

• The Moon is full because it is fully lit from our perspective, which means that it must lie almost directly behind the Earth relative to the Sun. [If it were precisely behind it, then it would be in Earth’s shadow, leading to a lunar eclipse; instead it is slightly offset, as it is at most full Moons.]
• And when the Moon covers Mars from our perspective, that must mean Mars lies almost directly behind the Moon relative to the Earth.

So all four objects must lie nearly in a line, a relatively rare coincidence.

Figure 2: (Distances and sizes not to scale!!) For a full Moon to block our sight of Mars, it must be that the Sun, Earth, Moon and Mars lie nearly in a line, so that the night side of the Earth sees the Moon and Mars as both fully lit and in the same location in the sky. This is quite rare. What Does This Occultation Teach Us?

Aside from the two things I’ve already mentioned — that an occultation is an opportunity to see the Moon’s motion, and that an occultation at full Moon implies the geometry of Fig. 2 — what else can we learn from this event, considered both on its own and in the context of others like it?

Distances and Sizes

Let’s start with one very simple thing: Mars is obviously farther from Earth than is the Moon, since it passes behind it. In fact, the Moon has occultations with all the planets, and all of them disappear behind the Moon instead of passing in front of it. This is why it has been understood for millennia that the Moon is closer to Earth than any of the planets.

Less obvious is that the map in Fig. 1 teaches us the size of the Moon. That’s because the width of the band where the Moon-Mars meeting is visible is approximately the diameter of the Moon. Why is that? Simple geometry. I’ve explained this here.

“Oppositions” and Orbital Periods

The moment when Mars is closest to Earth and brightest in the sky is approximately when the Sun, Earth and Mars lie in a straight line, known as “opposition”. Fig. 2 implies that an occultation of a planet at full Moon can only occur at or around that planet’s opposition. And indeed, while today’s occultation occurs on January 13th, Mars’ opposition occurs on January 15th.

Oppositions are very interesting for another reason; you can use them to learn a planet’s year. Mars’ most recent oppositions (and the next ones) are given in Fig. 3. You notice they occur about 25-26 months apart — just a bit more than two years.

Figure 3: A list of Martian oppositions (when Mars lies exactly opposite the Sun from Earth’s perspective, as in Fig. 2) showing they occur a bit more than two years apart. From nakedeyeplanets.com. [The different size and brightness of Mars from one opposition to the next reflects that the planetary orbits are not perfect circles.]

This, in turn, implies something interesting, but not instantly obvious: the time between Martian oppositions tells us that a Martian year is slightly less than two Earth years. Why?

Fig. 4 shows what would happen if (a) a Martian year (the time Mars takes to orbit the Sun) were exactly twice as long as an Earth year, and (b) both orbits were perfect circles around the Sun. Then the time between oppositions would be exactly two Earth years.

Figure 4: If Mars (red) took exactly twice as long to orbit the Sun (orange) as does Earth (blue), then an opposition (top left) would occur every two Earth years (bottom). Because oppositions occur slightly more than 24 months apart, we learn that Mars’ orbit of the Sun — its year — is slightly less than twice Earth’s year. (Yes, that’s right!) Oppositions for Jupiter and Saturn occur more often because their years are even longer.

But neither (a) nor (b) is exactly true. In fact a Martian year is 687 days, slightly less than two Earth years, whereas the time between oppositions is slightly more than two Earth years. Why? It takes a bit of thought, and is explained in detail here (for solar conjuctions rather than oppositions, but the argument is identical.)

The Planets, Sun and Moon are In a Line — Always!

And finally, one more thing about occultations of planets by the Moon: they happen for all the planets, and they actually happen pretty often, though some are much harder to observe than others. Here is a partial list, showing occultations of all planets [except Neptune is not listed for some unknown reason], as well as occultations of a few bright stars, in our current period. Why are these events so common?

Well (although the news media seems not to be aware of it!) the Moon and the planets are always laid out roughly in a (curved) line across the sky, though not all are visible at the same time. Since the Moon crosses the whole sky once a month, the chance of it passing in front of a planet is not particularly small!

Why are they roughly in a line? This is because the Sun and its planets lie roughly in a disk, with the Earth-Moon system also oriented in roughly the same disk. A disk, seen from someone sitting inside it, look like a line that goes across the sky… or rather, a huge circle that goes round the Earth.

To get a sense of how this works, look at Fig. 5. It shows a flat disk, seen from three perspectives (left to right): first head on, then obliquely (where it appears as an ellipse), and finally from the side (where it appears as a line segment.) The closer we come to the disk, the larger it will appear — and thus the longer the line segment will appear in side view. If we actually enter the disk from the side, the line segment will appear to wrap all the way around us, as a circle that we sit within.

Figure 5: A disk, seen from three perspectives: (left) face on, (center) obliquely, and (right) from the side, where it appears as a line segment. The closer we approach the disk the longer, the line segment. If we actually enter the disk, the line segment will wrap all the way around us, and will appear as a circle that surrounds us. Upon the sky, that circle will appear as a curved line (not necessarily overhead) from one horizon to the other, before passing underneath us.

Specifically for the planets, this means the following. Most planetary systems with a single star have the star at the near-center and planets orbiting in near-circles, with all the orbits roughly in a disk around the star. This is shown in Fig. 6. Just as in Fig. 5, when the star and planets are viewed obliquely, their orbits form an ellipse; and when they are viewed from the side, their orbits form a line segment, as a result of which the planets lie in a line. When we enter the planetary disk, so that some planets sit farther from the Sun than we do, then this line becomes a circle that wraps around us. That circle is the ecliptic, and all the planets and the Sun always lie close to it.

Fig. 6: (Left) Planets (colored dots) orbiting a central star (orange) along orbits (black circles) that lie in a plane. (Center) the same system viewed obliquely. (Right) The same system viewed from the side, in which case the planets and the star always lie in a straight line. (See also Fig. 5.) Viewed from one of the inner planets, the other planets and the star would seem to lie on a circle wrapping around the planet, and thus on a line across the night sky.

Reversing the logic, the fact that we observe that the planets and Sun lie on a curved line across the sky teaches us that the planetary orbits lie in a disk. This, too, has been known for millennia, long before humans understood that the planets orbit the Sun, not the Earth.

(This is also true of our galaxy, the Milky Way, in which the Sun is just one of nearly a trillion stars. The fact that the Milky Way always forms a cloudy band across the sky provides evidence that our galaxy is in the shape of a disk, probably somewhat like this one.)

The Mysteries of the Moon

But why does the Moon also lie on the ecliptic? That is, since the Moon orbits the Earth and not the Sun, why does its orbit have to lie in the same disk as the planets all do?

This isn’t obvious at all! (Indeed it was once seen as evidence that the planets and Sun must, like the Moon, all orbit the Earth.) But today we know this orientation of the Moon’s orbit is not inevitable. The moons of the planet Uranus, for instance, don’t follow this pattern; they and Uranus’ rings orbit in the plane of Uranus’ equator, tipped almost perpendicular to the plane of planetary orbits.

Well, the fact that the Moon’s orbit is almost in the same plane as the planets’ orbits — and that of Earth’s equator — is telling us something important about Earth’s history and about how the Moon came to be. The current leading explanation for the Moon’s origin is that the current Earth and Moon were born from the collision of two planets. Those planets would have been traveling in the same plane as all the others, and if they suffered a glancing blow within that plane, then the debris from the collision would also have been mostly in that plane. As the debris coalesced to form the Earth and Moon we know, they would have ended up orbiting each other, and spinning around their axes, in roughly this very same plane. (Note: This is a consequence of the conservation of angular momentum.)

This story potentially explains the orientation of the Moon’s orbit, as well as many other strange things about the Earth-Moon system. But evidence in favor of this explanation is still not overwhelmingly strong, and so we should consider this as an important question that astronomy has yet to fully settle.

So occultations, oppositions, and their near-simultaneous occurrence have a great deal to teach us and our students. Let’s not miss the opportunity!

My recent article on social media has fostered good social media engagement, so I thought I would follow up with a discussion of the most urgent question regarding social media – should the US ban TikTok? The Biden administration signs into law legislation that would ban the social media app TikTok on January 19th (deliberately the day before Trump takes office) unless it is sold off to a company that is not, as it is believed, beholden to the Chinese government. The law states it must be divested from ByteDance, which is the Chinese parent company who owns TikTok. This raises a few questions – is this constitutional, are the reasons for it legitimate, how will it work, and will it work?

A federal appeals court ruled that the ban is constitutional and can take place, and that decision is now before the Supreme Court. We will know soon how they rule, but indicators are they are leaning towards allowing the law to take effect. Trump, who previously tried to ban TikTok himself, now supports allowing the app and his lawyers have argued that  he should be allowed to solve the issue. He apparently does not have any compelling legal argument for this. In any case, we will hear the Supreme Court’s decision soon.

If the ban is allowed to take place, how will it work? First, if you are not aware, TikTok is a short form video sharing app. I have been using it extensively over the past couple of years, along with most of the other popular platforms, to share skeptical videos and have had good engagement. Apparently TikTok is popular because it has a good algorithm that people like. TikTok is already banned on devices owned by Federal employees. The new ban will force app stores in the US to remove the TikTok app and now allow any further updates or support. Existing TikTok users will continue to be able to use their existing apps, but they will not be able to get updates so they will eventually become unusable.

ByteDance will have time to comply with the law by divesting TikTok before the app becomes unusable, and many believe they are essentially waiting to see if the law will actually take effect. So, it is possible that even if the law does take effect, not much will change for existing users unless ByteDance refuses to comply and the app slowly fades away. In this case it is likely that the two existing main competitors, YouTube shorts, and Instagram, will benefit.

Will users be able to bypass the ban? Possibly. You can use a virtual private network (VPN) to change your apparent location to download the app from foreign stores. But even if it is technically possible, this would be a significant hurdle for some users and likely reduce use of the app in the US.

That is the background. Now lets get to the most interesting question – are the stated reasons for wanting to ban the app legitimate? This is hotly debated, but I think there is a compelling argument to make for the risks of the app and they essentially echo many of the points I made in my previous post. Major social media platforms undeniably have an influence on the broader culture. If the platforms are left entirely open, this allows for bad actors to have unfettered access to tools to spread misinformation, disinformation, radicalization, and hate speech. I have stated that my biggest fear is that these platforms will be used by authoritarian governments to control their society and people. The TikTok ban is about a hostile foreign power using an app to undermine the US.

There are essentially two components to the fear – that TikTok is gathering information on US citizens that can then be weaponized against them or our society. The second is that the Chinese government will use TikTok in order to spread pro-communist China propaganda, anti-American propaganda, so social civil strife and influence American politics. We actually don’t have to speculate about whether or not China will do this – TikTok has already admitted that they have identified and shut down massive Chinese government campaigns to influence US users – one with 110,000 accounts, and another with 141,000 accounts.  You might argue that the fact that they took them down means they are not cooperating with the Chinese government, but we cannot conclude that. They may be making a public show of taking down some campaigns but leaving others in place. The more important fact here is that the Chinese government is using TikTok to influence US politics and society.

There are also more subtle ways than massive networks of accounts to influence the US through TikTok. American TikTok is different from the Chinese version, and analyses have found that the Chinese version has better quality informational content and more educational content than the US version. China can be playing the long game (actually, not that long, in my opinion) of dumbing down the US. Algorithms can put light thumbs on the scale of information that have massive effects.

It was raised in the comments to my previous post if all this discussion is premised on the notion that people are easily manipulated pawns in the hands of social media giants. Unfortunately, the answer to that question is a pretty clear yes. There is a lot of social psychology research to show that influence campaigns are effective. Obviously not everyone is affected, but moving the needle 10 or 20 percentage points (or even a lot less) can have a big impact on society. Again – I have been on TikTok for over a year. It is flooded with videos that seem crafted to spread ignorance and anti-intellectualism. I know that most of them are not crafted specifically for this purpose – but that is the effect they have, and if one did intend to craft content for this purpose they could not do a better j0b than what is already on the platform. There is also a lot of great science communication content, but it is drowned out by nonsense.

Social media, regardless of who owns it, has all the risks and problems I discussed. But it does seem reasonable that we also do not want to add another layer of having a foreign adversary with significant influence over the platform. Some argue that it doesn’t really matter, social media can be used for influence campaigns regardless of who owns them. But that is hardly reassuring. At the very least I would argue we don’t really know and this is probably not an experiment we want to add on top of the social media experiment itself.

The post Should the US Ban TikTok? first appeared on NeuroLogica Blog.

Trees dating back almost 6000 years have come to scientists' attention due to ice melting in the Rocky mountains, offering a "time capsule" into the past

A new technique involving lasers can measure long distances more precisely than ever, which could be useful for space telescopes

Ductal carcinoma in situ is a precursor of breast cancer that is usually treated with surgery, radiation therapy, and estrogen blockade. A new study suggests that watchful waiting might be safe for some women with DCIS.

The post Is watchful waiting for ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) safe? Preliminary results of the COMET trial first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

It’s turns out that you don’t need a high-powered quantum experiment to observe Heisenberg’s uncertainty Principle. You just need to go the beach.

Heisenberg’s famous principle tells us that the more precisely we try to measure the position of a subatomic particle, the less we know about its momentum, and vice versa. While the roots of this principle lay in a fundamental mathematical property of quantum mechanics, it’s easy enough to see this play out in a completely different context.

The next time you’re at a beach, check out the waves rolling onto shore. If you happen to see a perfectly even line of wave crests following one after another, you are looking at something called a plane wave. Plane waves have extremely easy to measure wavelengths. You simply break out a ruler and measure the distance from wave crest to wave crest.

But if I were to ask you to pinpoint the location of the wave, you wouldn’t be able to be that precise. You would just look out over the ocean, seeing all those beautiful waves lined up right against each other, and just wave your hand and say that the wave is just kind of all over the place.

So when it comes to plane waves, you can accurately measure their wavelength, but not their position.

Now let’s say that a tsunami wave is coming in. This kind of wave looks more like a pulse. If I asked you where the tsunami wave was, you would be able to point right to it and say it’s right there – it’s highly localized in space.

But what about its wavelength? Well, there’s no successive lines of wave crests to measure. At first there’s nothing, then there’s the big wave, and then there’s nothing again. So how do you define the wavelength of something like that?

It turns out that in order to describe a pulse, you need to combine lots of waves with all sorts of different wavelengths. They all work together to make the pulse happen, canceling each other out at the edges of the pulse in reinforcing each other at the center. So when it comes to a pulse, you know it’s position very well, but you are much less certain about its wavelength.

This relationship holds for all kinds of waves in the universe. And in the early 20th century, we realized that all particles had waves associated with them. These waves are very strange, they are waves of probability that describe where we are likely to see a particle the next time we go looking for it, but it’s still a wave. And as a wave, there is a trade-off we must make when trying to accurately measure one property versus another.

It means, fundamentally, that the precision of our knowledge of the subatomic world is limited. And there’s absolutely nothing we can do about it. It’s not a matter of technology or cleverness – it’s simply the way that nature plays the game.

The post The Wavey Reality Behind the Uncertainty Principle appeared first on Universe Today.

It’s not unusual for space probes to complete gravitational flyby manoeuvres en route to their destination. It’s a bit more unusual when the flyby is at the destination planet. ESA’s BepiColombo spacecraft is manoeuvring around Mercury into its final orbit. With each flyby it gets closer and closer and closer until its finally captured by Mercury’s gravity in 2026. During the latest flyby, stunning images of the nearest planet to the Sun were captured from just a few hundred km. Checkout the best and most stunning images of Mercury yet. 

Mercury, the smallest planet in the Solar System and closest to the Sun is a rocky world. It’s surface somewhat resembles the Moon, desolate and heavily cratered. The lack of an atmosphere and the proximity to the Sun means daytime temperatures can reach a whopping 472°C but they plummet to -200°C at night. Mercury’s orbit is highly elliptical taking just 88 Earth days to complete one full orbit around the Sun. From Earth Mercury is never far from the Sun in the sky and so is very difficult to observe in the bright twilight sky. 

Image of Mercury taken by NASA’s MESSENGER mission. Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/ASU/Carnegie Institution of Washington

To date, only two spacecraft have visited Mercury; Mariner 10 and Messenger. There is now another on the way, BepiColombo. It was launched on 20 October 2018 where it began its journey to the innermost planet. Led by ESA, this joint mission with Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA.) is made up of two orbiters; ESA’s Mercury Planetary Orbiter and JAXA’s Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter. On arrival, the two orbiters will manoeuvre into their dedicated polar orbits, beginning their operations in early 2027. 

BepiColombo stacked in preparation for launch. ESA

During a press briefing on 9 January 2025, ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher revealed the first images from the spacecraft’s monitoring cameras (M-CAMs) and the results did not disappoint. 

In this first image, BepiColombo passed over Mercury’s terminator, the line between the day and night hemispheres, allowing M-CAM 1 to peer into the permanently shadowed craters of the north pole. The craters Prokofiev, Kandinsky, Tolkien and Gordimer can be seen with their permanently dark floors. Despite Mercury’s proximity to the Sun, the floors of the craters are some of the coldest places in the Sun. In these dark, shadowy places there is even evidence of frozen water!

The second image captures the volcanic plane known as Borealis Planitia. The large smooth plains on Mercury, rather like those on the Moon, formed billions of years ago. In the case of Mercury, it’s thought the plains formed 3.7 billion years ago when volcanic eruptions flooded the surface with molten lava. Any craters that were in the area, such as Henri and Lismer got filled with lava and as the planet cooled, wrinkles formed in the plains much like the wrinkling of an apple skin. 

Many of the smaller craters in this region have been wiped out by the lava but the rim of Mendelssohn crater is still visible along with Caloris Basin, a large impact crater with a diameter of 1,500 km. 

The final image was taken by M-CAM 2 and shows more evidence of volcanic activity and impact events. There is a bright region toward the upper limb and this is known as Nathair Facula. It’s the result of the largest volcanic explosion on Mercury with a central vent 40km across. Evidence has been found for at least 3 major eruptions that have deposited lava over 150km away. In stark contrast, to the left is the much younger Fonteyn Crater, just 300 million years old! 

Source : Top three images from BepiColombo’s sixth Mercury flyby

The post BepiColombo Just Completed its Sixth Flyby of Mercury. Here are the Best Images appeared first on Universe Today.

According to the most widely held astronomical model (the Nebular Hypothesis), new stars are born from massive clouds of dust and gas (aka. a nebula) that experience gravitational collapse. The remaining dust and gas form a protoplanetary disk that encircles the new star, which slowly accretes to form systems of planets. For the past decade, astronomers have relied on the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile to study young stars and their disks and learn more about how this process occurs.

In a recent study, an international team of astronomers used ALMA to capture high-resolution images of eight protoplanetary disks in the Sigma Orionis cluster, a group of stars located in the constellation Orion. During their observations, the team found evidence of gaps and rings in most of the disks, which are potential indications that giant planets are forming. This was surprising, seeing as how these disks are irradiated by intense ultraviolet (UV) radiation from a massive star in the cluster. Their findings suggest that planet formation can occur in conditions that were previously thought to be inhospitable.

The study was led by Jane Huang, an assistant professor in the Department of Astronomy at Columbia University. She was joined by Shangjia Zhang, a NASA Sagan Fellow from Columbia University and the Nevada Center for Astrophysics, and Feng Long (also a NASA Sagan Fellow) from the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory (LPL). The team also included researchers from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU), the University of St. Andrews, the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and NASA Headquarters. Their research was recently published in The Astrophysical Journal.

Images captured by ALMA’s most extended antenna configuration reveal surprisingly rich disk structures in the sigma Ori cluster. Credit: ALMA (ESO/JAO/NAOJ/NRAO), J. Huang et. al.

The research team used the most extended configuration of ALMA’s 12-meter antennas, which provided a zoom lens effect, allowing them to achieve a resolution of about eight astronomical units (eight times the distance between the Sun and Earth). This allowed them to resolve multiple gaps and rings in images of five of the disks, comparable to what astronomers have observed in other systems where giant planets were forming. The most impressive of these was the disk known as SO 1274, which features five gaps that could be a system of planets in the making.

Whereas previous studies have focused on disks in regions with low ultraviolet radiation, this research provides ALMA’s highest-resolution observations of disks in a more extreme environment. While stars are typically born in much harsher UV environments, astronomers understanding of substructures is primarily based on observations of nearby star-forming regions with mild UV environments. These findings could have implications for our understanding of how the Solar System formed, which may have evolved in a similarly high-radiation environment. As Huang noted in an NRAO press release:

“We expected the high levels of radiation in this cluster to inhibit planet formation in the outer regions of these disks. But instead, we’re seeing signs that planets may be forming at distances of tens of astronomical units from their stars, similar to what we’ve observed in less harsh environments. These observations suggest that the processes driving planet formation are quite robust and can operate even under challenging circumstances. This gives us more confidence that planets may be forming in even more places throughout the galaxy, even in regions we previously thought were too harsh.”

However, the team acknowledges that these structures could also result from interactions between planets in formation and the disk material. Their findings, therefore, illustrate the need and potential for follow-up studies of disks in even more extreme stellar environments. It also demonstrates the ability of ALMA to probe protoplanetary disks in diverse environments throughout the galaxy.

Further Reading: NRAO, The Astrophysical Journal

The post Planets Can Form in Even the Harshest Conditions appeared first on Universe Today.

Meanwhile, in Dobrzyn, Hili is being zen:

Hili: Sometimes you just have to stop thinking.
A: It’s not always possible.
Hili: You have to train more.

Hili: Czasem trzeba po prostu przestać myśleć.
Ja Nie zawsze się daje.
Hili: Musisz więcej ćwiczyć.

If only they had let more unvaccinated children suffer and die from COVID, we wouldn't be in this position today.

The post Science-Based Satire: My Patients are Refusing the MMR Because the CDC Added the COVID Vaccine to the Routine Vaccine Schedule first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

The hunt for aliens goes hand in hand with the hunt for habitable planets. Astronomers are on the hunt for exoplanets with atmospheric chemicals that could be a sign of an advanced civilisation. These chemicals, known as technosignatures are found on Earth and are the result of burning fossil fuels. A team of researchers have been exploring Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons and whether they could detect them.

Over the decades, researchers have developed a number of different ways to hunt for advanced civilisations. From scanning stars for abnormal radio signals or laser pulses to searching for evidence of water the techniques have so far returned no positive results. Initiatives like SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) have used some of the world’s most powerful radio telescopes to listen for signals. At the same time, the habitable zones of exoplanets have been probed for signs of water suggesting life may exist. 

The Allen Telescope Array searches for alien technosignals. Credit: Seth Shostak, SETI Institute

A team of researchers led by Dwaipayan Dubey explored the viability of using Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAH) as an alternate way to continue the search. PAH’s sprung into the headlines when they were detected inside a Martian Meteorite. Their discovery received a lot of attention since the hydrocarbons are known to be the byproduct of life and finding them buried in Martian meteorites suggested some form of life at some point in the history of Mars. The debate is still continuing but the team believe searching for the hydrocarbon in planetary atmospheres could give away advanced civilisations.

In 1996 a team of scientists lead by Dr. David McKay of NASA’s Johnson Space Center announced possible evidence of life on Mars. The evidence came from their studies of a Martian meteorite found in Antarctica, called Alan Hills 84001. The researchers found chemical and physical traces of possible life including carbonate globules that resemble terrestrial nanobacteria (electron micrograph shown) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. In terrestrial rock, the chemical traces would be considered breakdown products of bacterial life. The findings became the subject of controversy as non-biological explanations for the findings were found. Today, they are no longer regarded as definitive evidence of Martian life. Credits: NASA Johnson Space Center

There are sources of PAH’s in space such as the interstellar medium but they are mostly associated with activities from biological beings. The team focus their attention on hydrocarbons that have available absorption cross sections in the atmosphere of exoplanets like Earth. An absorption cross section is a measure of the probability of an absorption process such as particle scattering being detected by the 8m Habitable Worlds Observatory. The chosen chemicals are Naphthalene, Anthracene, Phenanthrene, and Pyrene. 

A future interstellar probe mission aims to travel beyond the heliosphere to the local interstellar medium to understand where our home came from and where it is going. Credit: John Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory.

Drawing on evidence from Earth-based PAH concentrations the team knew that they have declined a little since the industrial revolution. Learning from this they ran simulations across a range of concentrations hoping they could prove the detection capabilities of an Earth-like civilisation. Telescope architecture was also explored in the paper and, whilst large mirrors help improve resolution and light gathering capability the result was less positive. 

The analysis relied upon a large telescope mirror being able to resolve detail in the spectral signature of four molecules. They found however that telescopes with 6m, 8m or 10m aperture would have an insufficient signal to noise ratio to be able to resolve the necessary details. The final conclusion of the team was that the detection of PAH signatures between 0.2 and 0.515?m using large Earth-based telescope is infeasible. 

This is a great example of a piece of work that doesn’t yield a positive outcome however a negative result in scientific research is also valuable. Further research and lab based measurements are now needed to help improve the detectability of the molecules and perhaps help us to find our first comic neighbour. 

Source : Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons as an Extraterrestrial Atmospheric Technosignatures

The post Could We Detect Advanced Civilisations by their Industrial Pollution? Probably Not. appeared first on Universe Today.

Computers are an integral part of space exploration, keeping them functioning when away from Earth. The space environment however is a far from ideal environment for them to operate in. High energy particles can even flip memory bits effecting storage and damaging the computers. NASA are now testing a Radiation Tolerant Computer (RadPC) which has been designed to handle higher levels of radiation. It’s inaugural flight is booked on a trip to the Moon as part of the Firefly Aerospace Blue Ghost 1 Lunar Lander. 

Modern space missions rely critically upon computers to perform functions like navigation, processing data and communication. The extreme environment of space however makes computer operations challenging as, aside form high levels of radiation they must endure microgravity, vibrations upon launch and high thermal variations. Without the computers to operate life-support for crewed missions or the multitude of scientific experimentation, and variety of data gathering the missions not achieve their goals. Ground based systems complement the onboard computers providing further analytical information, communication and other support functions but as computers advance and space missions become more ambitious, computers will become relied upon even more. 

SpaceX’s Starship lifts off from its Texas pad for the launch system’s sixth flight test. (Credit: SpaceX)

One of the challenges bestowed upon computer operations in space is radiation. On Earth, computers (and human beings, indeed everything on the planet) is largely protected by the planet’s magnetic field and the atmosphere. Journey into space however, and these natural shields are absent, immersing the traveller and their craft to high levels of radiation. The Sun, events on the Sun and cosmic rays are just some of the sources of radiation that our craft are exposed to. Exposure to radiation can damage materials, electronic systems and even data. Ideally advanced shielding materials can be employed but this becomes even more crucial for long duration missions. 

The Solar Orbiter mission is studying the Sun in great detail. It is helping scientists track down the source of the solar wind. Courtesy: ESA.

Even one high-energy dose of radiation can trigger the so called “single event effect.” These can lead to data errors that can lead to a cascading malfunction that can even crash systems. For some time now, NASA has been exploring ways to protect against radiation damage to on board computers. The solution; the Radiation Tolerant Computer known as the RadPC. It’s scheduled to be one of the payloads on board the Commercial Lunar Payload Services mission to the Moon, carried by Blue Ghost 1.

NASA has selected three commercial Moon landing service providers that will deliver science and technology payloads under Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) as part of the Artemis program. Each commercial lander will carry NASA-provided payloads that will conduct science investigations and demonstrate advanced technologies on the lunar surface, paving the way for NASA astronauts to land on the lunar surface by 2024…The selections are:..• Astrobotic of Pittsburgh has been awarded $79.5 million and has proposed to fly as many as 14 payloads to Lacus Mortis, a large crater on the near side of the Moon, by July 2021…• Intuitive Machines of Houston has been awarded $77 million. The company has proposed to fly as many as five payloads to Oceanus Procellarum, a scientifically intriguing dark spot on the Moon, by July 2021…• Orbit Beyond of Edison, New Jersey, has been awarded $97 million and has proposed to fly as many as four payloads to Mare Imbrium, a lava plain in one of the Moon’s craters, by September 2020. ..All three of the lander models were on display for the announcement of the companies selected to provide the first lunar landers for the Artemis program, on Friday, May 31, 2019, at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. ..Read more: https://go.nasa.gov/2Ki2mJo..Credit: NASA/Goddard/Rebecca Roth

The system, which aims to demonstrate recovery from faults caused by radiation events, was developed by a team of researchers at Montana State University. Rather cleverly, it can monitor its own health in real-time using a series of processors known as programmable gate arrays. These logic blocks are easy to repair should they be struck by radiation and that’s the secret behind the success of RadPC. If it detects a strike, it will be able to identify its location and repair the issue in the background. It also has sensors that can measure the varying levels of radiation, known as dosimeters. It will constantly monitor and measure the interactions between the Earth’s magnetosphere and the solar wind on the way to the Moon and generate detailed radiation information about the landing site. 

If RadPC is successful it could lead to a new generation of computers perfectly suited to the harsh environments of space. It could harbour in an era of less damage to systems or minimal data corruption making computers far more resilient

Source: NASA to Test Solution for Radiation-Tolerant Computing in Space

The post Protecting Computers from Space Radiation appeared first on Universe Today.

Here is Philomena Cunk (Diane Morgan) with a clip from her new show “Cunk on Life” in an interview with Stephen Colbert. Cunk admits that 99% of her Cunk character is actually really her own personality (“we’re the same person, she says), with the other 1% involving her having to develop social skills to get along with others. She seems to be somewhat of a hermit and doesn’t mind being rude!

By now most people interviewed by Cunk know that it’s comedy, but that wasn’t the case when she began her interview career talking to academics and intellectuals. Those were the days! But it’s still great to hear her talk here about her relationship with Philomena. And that Bolton accent. . . .

Oh, and listen to her reveal the name of the person she most wants to interview!

h/t: Barry, Ursula

By the end of this decade, NASA, the Chinese National Space Agency (CNSA), Roscosmos, and other space agencies plan to establish a sustained human presence on the Moon. A crucial aspect of these plans is using local resources (particularly water) to lessen dependence on Earth, a process known as in-situ resource utilization (ISRU). Hence why NASA plans to establish a base of operations around the lunar south pole, a heavily cratered region where water ice exists in abundance in permanently shadowed regions (PSRs).

To harvest water ice and other resources successfully, NASA is investing in technologies that will enable cost-effective sample collection, in-situ testing (with or without astronaut oversight), and real-time data transmission to Earth. One such technology is the Lunar PlanetVac (LPV), a sample acquisition and delivery system designed to collect and transfer lunar regolith to sample containers without reliance on gravity. The LPV is one of 10 payloads that will be flown to the lunar surface as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program.

Developed by Honeybee Robotics, a Blue Origin company, LPV is a pneumatic, compressed gas-powered vacuum cleaner designed to work in low gravity and the near vacuum of space. Once the lander reaches the lunar surface, the LPV sampling head will use its supply of compressed gas to stir up the lunar regolith, which will then be funneled into a transfer tube via the payload’s secondary pneumatic jets and collected in a sample container. The regolith will then be sieved and photographed inside the container, and the findings will be transmitted back to Earth in real-time.

The operation will be entirely autonomous and is expected to take just a few seconds. NASA also claims the operation will be conducted in accordance with planetary protection protocols. According to Dennis Harris, who manages the LPV payload for the CLPS initiative at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, the LPV has the potential to be a game changer. As he stated in a recent NASA press release:

“There’s no digging, no mechanical arm to wear out requiring servicing or replacement – it functions like a vacuum cleaner. The technology on this CLPS payload could benefit the search for water, helium, and other resources and provide a clearer picture of in situ materials available to NASA and its partners for fabricating lunar habitats and launch pads, expanding scientific knowledge and the practical exploration of the solar system every step of the way.”

The LPV will be flown to the Moon aboard the Blue Ghost 1 lunar lander (developed by Firefly Aerospace) no sooner than January 15th. The other payloads include technology demonstrations that will investigate regolith adherence, Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) abilities, radiation tolerant computing, and dust mitigation using electrodynamic fields. The lander will also investigate heat flow from the lunar interior, plume-surface interactions, crustal electric and magnetic fields, and take X-ray images of the Earth’s magnetosphere.

Further Reading: NASA

The post NASA is Sending a Vacuum Cleaner to the Moon appeared first on Universe Today.

by Greg Mayer

A traveling exhibit from the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle (Paris) is now on display at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. Entitled “Cats: Predators to Pets“, it is sure to be of interest to WEIT’s many ailurophiles, not least of all PCC(E). The entrance shows a large scale phylogenetic tree of the living cats

“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.

including Jerry’s favorite species of wild cat, Pallas’s cat,

“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.

and then opens into a broad hall with representatives of all the living species. (The whole exhibit is very dark, making photography difficult.)

“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.

Interestingly, they’re arranged geographically, which as someone very interested in zoogeography, I rather liked. Here are some of the Asian cats (some American cats are in the background to the left). How many can you identify? (Put answers in the comments.)

“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.

Here are some African cats. In this and the preceding photo, you’ll notice that some species are represented by life size photos, rather than specimens.

“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.

A closeup of the male lion.

“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.

If you think those canines are large, have a look at the saber-tooth!

Smilodon, “Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.

Throughout the exhibit, an ordinary moggy is often inconspicuously lurking,

“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.

in this case demonstrating the stealthy approach used by his wild cousins.

“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.

“Predators” is not just part of the name of the exhibit: predation is shown in both several videos and mounted specimen groupings.

“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.

A caracal gets its dinner,

“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.

as does our cartoon moggy,

“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.

apparently because he’s been authorized by His Majesty’s Government.

“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.

I liked this demonstration, sort of from the inside, of how cats land on their feet.

“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.

These margay kittens won my vote for the cuteness award.

“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.

There was an explanation of how domestic cats evolved.

“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.

The following bit, however, was curiously equivocal as to how domestic cats got to the Americas– there’s no doubt they were brought here by man; it’s not just what “some historians believe”! Perhaps something was lost in the translation from French.

“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.

The latter part of the exhibit emphasizes cats in culture, including Bastet from Egypt,

Bastet, “Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.

guardian lions from China,

“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.

and maneki neko from everywhere!

“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.

The biggest question posed by the exhibit is perhaps . . .

“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.

The popularity of Pusheen,

“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.

cat videos,

“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.

and cat stars of all sorts are explored.

“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.

Some of my favorites were Professor Cat

“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.

the original meme cat,

“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.

and, of course, Larry, from No. 10.

“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.

At the end of the exhibit, there’s a set of people-sized cat accessories– a scratching post, a mouse on a stick, a carpeted cat house. Here, a Field Museum colleague demonstrates how to remain alert for flying cat toys!

“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.

There’s a special “cat shop” just outside the exhibit. If you don’t already have your copy, you’ll want to get my friend and colleague Jon Losos’ book, The Cat’s Meow. Jerry reviewed it for the Washington Post, and also noticed it here at WEIT.

“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.

The exhibit is open till April 27. The exhibit has already been to the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto; I don’t know if it will continue its North American tour. So, to be safe, plan your visit to Chicago now!

Quickie with Steve: Primate Twins: News Items: Mars Sample Return, Unique Glacial Microbiomes, Transatlantic Tunnel, Alcohol Advisory; Who's That Noisy; Your Questions and E-mails: Bird Flu Vaccine, Cryptid Mascots; Science or Fiction

I’ve been ssaving these, which were tendered by one “Cerry Joyne” on two different and random threads, the first on the ideological capture of scientists in New Zealand and the second on, of all things, a readers’ wildlife photo post.

Comment #1:

have you considered just fellating a shotgun instead of being a disgusting, transphobic cunt?

Comment #2:

hey jerry merry christmas, just wondering, along with all the other “new atheist” guys when it was that you became a delusional right-wing racist fuckwit?

Judging from the IP number, 60.234.105.217, it appears that this delightful person is a Kiwi:

Country:New Zealand
State/Region:Taranaki
City:Hawera

Needless to say, this Kiwi will post no more.  This is only a sample of the (unposted and nasty) comments I have gotten since the KerFFRFle began. For some reason I cannot understand–and I invite readers to speculate—gender issues engender (pardon the pun) more hateful comments than any controversial topic I have ever discussed here.  Suggestions?

Here’s some quick morning news before I hightail it to the ideology-in-science meeting:

*The meeting yesterday was good, highlighted by a superb opening talk given by Jonathan Rauch, echoing the themes of his equally great book, The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth.  The quality of the talks was in general high, with just a few clunkers. Props to Anna Krylov, who was the uber-organizer of it all.

Lee Jussim gave a passel of examples of censorship in science, as did Lawrence Krauss (via Zoom), the latter concentrating on physics.  Krauss also excoriated the National Academy of Sciences for political correctness, especially its explicit attempts to equalize membership equity, bypassing merit and apportioning extra new membership slots to sections of the Academy that have more ethnic and gender diversity, as well as geographic diversity.  (He explicitly quoted the NAS’s policy which you can see here; it’s also quoted by Krauss in his WSJ piece here.)

But Marcia McNutt, President of the National Academies, was also at the meeting. When it was the turn of her panel (she talked about the geology of western North America), she briefly struck back at Krauss in an addendum, saying that she was talking about her own area of geological expertise and that Krauss, who “wasn’t a member of the NAS,” shouldn’t speak outside of his area of expertise. That was an unfair remark on her part, especially since Krauss quoted her own organization.  Since when are you disqualified from criticizing how an organization based on merit places merit in second (or third) place when selecting members–just because you don’t belong to that organization? It may not be pleasant for the NAS to hear this, but people have every right to call out such a policy.

*Back in the real world, the LA wildfires are slowly coming “under control” as they say, but not all of them (article archived here):

The mammoth Palisades fire was roaring closer to residential areas of Los Angeles early Saturday, forcing a new round of evacuation orders and dimming hopes that a brief drop in wind speeds would help firefighters tame Southern California’s devastating blazes.

The desert winds that have stoked the fires are expected to pick up again Saturday afternoon. But even without high winds, the most destructive wildfires in Los Angeles’s history expanded overnight across the region’s bone-dry terrain.

The Palisades fire, the largest of them, tore east, chewing up parched vegetation as it raced up the ridges of Mandeville Canyon. The authorities issued mandatory evacuation orders for an area including parts of the Brentwood and Encino neighborhoods, as well as the Getty Center, one of Southern California’s cultural jewels.

The blaze, which has burned through 21,600 acres and razed stretches between Santa Monica and Malibu since it broke out on Tuesday, was only 8 percent contained, according to Cal Fire. To the east, firefighters had contained 3 percent of the 14,000-acre Eaton fire, near Altadena and Pasadena. The blazes, which have killed at least 11 people and destroyed thousands of structures, now rank among the five most damaging in California’s history.

With many people still unaccounted for, officials have said the death toll could rise.

Los Angeles announced a curfew from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. for areas under mandatory evacuation orders. National Guard units have been deployed to secure evacuation zones.

Here’s what we’re covering:

• Water shortage: After reports emerged that a critical reservoir was offline when the fires started, California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, said he was ordering an independent review to determine why firefighters ran out of water early on, calling the situation “deeply troubling.”

• The victims: Those who have died include a man in his 60s who lived in his childhood home and drove a bloodmobile; a retired aerospace engineer and an active church deacon; and a retired pharmacy technician whom neighbors called “an angel.” Read more about the fires’ victims.

• Scale of destruction: The combined area burned by this week’s fires is larger than the city limits of San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Boston or Miami. As of Saturday morning, more than 100,000 people were under evacuation orders, and some 160,000 electricity customers were without power.

That is a huge area. I can’t see the destruction from USC, but after the meeting is over I’ll venture out for a couple of days, coming near the burned area.  I’m not a gawker and have no desire to see people’s destroyed homes, but two friends live close to the burned area and I’m visiting them. Another friend lost his beloved home and studio in the woods.

If you’re a celebrity-follower, or one of those who are delighted when the rich get a comeuppance (I’m not one of those, either), here’s a WSJ map of celebrity homes destroyed in the Palisades fire:

*Reader Norm sent this headline (click to read). Wouldn’t you know that those pnefarious Jews were responsible for the California wildfires? Oy! The article is by Vered Weiss from the World Israel News (h/t Norm):

A quote:

Code Pink: ‘When US taxes go to burning people alive in Gaza, we can’t be surprised when those fires come home.’

Anti-Israel groups took to social media to blame Israel for Los Angeles wildfires.

The fires have destroyed hundreds of buildings and prompted the evacuation of tens of thousands of California residents.

On Instagram, Code Pink created a tenuous connection between the fires and Israel’s war in Gaza.

Code Pink wrote, “When US taxes go to burning people alive in Gaza, we can’t be surprised when those fires come home.”

The Anti-Zionist group Jewish Voice for Peace wrote, “Instead of putting resources toward making our country livable, our government is putting billions toward Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.”

Fatima Mohammed, head of anti-Israel group Within Our Lifetime posted, “The flames of Gaza will not stop there.”

“Dropping hundreds of thousands of bombs on Gaza, turning it into a blazing inferno, has consequences,” she said. “There are climate consequences that will find us all.”

Commentator Mehdi Hasan asserted that aid to Israel was interfering with funding LA’s fire department.

However, Hasan failed to recognize that Israeli military aid is federal and funding for the fire department is from the City of Los Angeles.

I mean, is that so hard to believe? After all, wasn’t it Marjorie Taylor Greene who, four years ago, blamed California wildfires on Jewish space lasers? Meanwhile, the Palestinians are celebrating the devastation (h/t Malgorzata):

Palestinians celebrate and gloat as the Los Angeles fires rage in the Hollywood hills, while their fans in the UK try to identify which of the victims in California deserve it because they are “Zionists.” pic.twitter.com/fMFTQHbgO8

— Saul Sadka (@Saul_Sadka) January 9, 2025

*Two pair of lynx have been captured in Scotland—in Cairngorms National Park in Scotland.  Lynx do not exist in the wild in Scotland, and it’s not clear if these are Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx; h/t Jez)

A second pair of lynx have been captured after being found near Kingussie in the Cairngorms National Park.

Two other lynx, released illegally, were caught in the same area on Thursday.

Staff from the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland caught all the animals by baiting a series of humane traps in the area to entice them.

The RZSS confirmed that the latest pair had been captured at about 18:30 near the Dell of Killiehuntly, where the two other lynx were also successfully caught.

The latest lynx, believed to be larger than the other two cats, were first spotted at about 07:10 on Friday.

Dr Helen Senn, head of conservation at RZSS, said: “I’m sure that everyone in the community will be happy and relieved to know that the second pair of lynx have been safely captured.

“Early reports are that they appear to be in good health, which is the most important thing.

“It’s been a rollercoaster 48 hours, with people working throughout the day and night, in some extremely challenging conditions, but I’ve been so impressed by the efforts of our own staff as well as partners, and members of the local community to ensure that the outcome is a positive one.”

She added that the lynx would be taken to the Highland Wildlife Park before being moved to Edinburgh Zoo to quarantine for 30 days – as has happened with the first pair found on Thursday.

It’s not clear if they will be released if they are given a clean bill of health, for Scottish naturalists would dearly love to have the species back where it once roamed.

*Today I’ll post four instead of the usual three items stolen from Nellie Bowles’s weekly news summary in the Free Press, called this week, “TGIF: Hellfire.”

→ The Gulf of America: Trump announced that he’ll be renaming the Gulf of Mexico. Now it’ll be the Gulf of America. Here was Trump on Tuesday:

We’re going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, which has a beautiful ring, that covers a lot of territory. The Gulf of America, what a beautiful name, and it’s appropriate.

I love that Trump is framing this as the normal way countries negotiate with each other. Tariffs? Yes. Sanctions? Sure. Change the name of a universally agreed-upon ocean? Absolutely. That is how real statesmen operate: Force your adversaries to relabel their maps. It’s also an incredible PR tactic. Shipwreck in the “Gulf of Mexico”? Don’t know what you’re talking about. New oil field discovered in the Gulf of America? Cha-ching!

Trump is going to release a whole new world map by the end of the year. Canada will be labeled “Area 51.” China renamed CHY-na. Ukraine? You’re thinking of “Little Russia.” New Mexico will, of course, become New America, Florida is D.C., and we’re throwing Connecticut to Elon Musk, who has decided to rename it X!12-ZZ Infiniti.

→ News for the Jews: In more news relevant to Jews (other than world domination), the head of Within Our Lifetime explained that there’s obviously no two-state solution: “As long as Israel exists, it is a genocide against the Palestinian people.” Remember when the whole thing was ceasefire and #peace? Funny how that shifts.

→ Funeral side-eyeing: At President Jimmy Carter’s state funeral yesterday, Kamala, who was seated in front of the formers (Trump, Obama, Clinton, my sweet little George), turned around as Trump and Obama chatted. She quickly looked away, took a deep breath, and pursed her lips. She pretended to read the bulletin like there were secrets in there. And for a moment, I felt her pain. George W. even gave Obama a little tap on the stomach. My favorite part of presidential funerals—yes, I have a favorite part—is getting to watch all these characters interact with each other. It’s like watching the most awkward reunion of The Real Househusbands of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

→ Sex is back: I don’t mean sex-sex. I mean males and females existing. That’s what a federal Kentucky judge decided when this week he struck down one of Biden’s signature policies: remaking Title IX to say that students can self-ID as whatever sex or gender they feel, play on any sport team they identify with, and enter any locker room. If schools didn’t go along with it, they would face the full force of the federal government. Now it’s over. What a strange journey we’ve gone on. Did that really happen?

Yes, indeed, Nellie, yes indeed it did.

After a break, Andrew Sullivan is back with The Weekly Dish. His column this week is called “The Price of Orthodoxies“. The theme is how orthodox opinion can blind us to not only the truth, but to horrible truths. His example are the Pakistani/Bangladeshi “rape gangs” (also called “grooming gangs”) in the UK. (And yes, I know there were some white rape gangs, too.) Excerpts:

The more intense the horror, the more powerful the instinct to doubt when you first hear of it. The sex-abuse scandal in my own church first numbed and incapacitated me. It took some time for me to see the totality of what had happened, and how deeply it had destroyed Catholic moral authority. Again, when I first read about, say, the Catholic school for deaf children where a priest had picked his victims among those whose parents did not know sign language, the feeling of horror was almost too much to process at all. And as with the Bush administration’s torture policy, it took even more time to grasp how this moral rot had been enabled by the very top.

This is why, I think, the scandal of Britain’s Pakistani rape-gangs, and the institutional negligence toward tens of thousands of underage victims over several years, has had a second burst of life. A serious national inquiry on the scandal was conducted years ago (its recommendations not yet implemented). But several towns with the worst records were omitted from that inquiry; and the sheer scale and depravity of what happened has finally begun to sink in. The precipitant was Elon Musk pontificating about the scandal on X, as part of his campaign to bring down Keir Starmer.

The details are hard to absorb. Think of the hideous abuse suffered by that extraordinary French woman, Gisèle Pelicot, sedated and raped by dozens of French men, organized by her husband. Now think of that kind of organized gang-bang — but make it close to ubiquitous in some towns and the victims under-age girls: raped, brutalized, mutilated, beaten, their lives destroyed. Yes, it was that bad. Tens of thousands of rape victims across the country. . .

Why was this allowed to go on for so long? For the same reason the Catholic Church covered up child rape for decades, and Dick Cheney covered up torture. Because the orthodoxies of Catholicism, of the American military, and, in this case, the multicultural experiment were respectively involved. These orthodoxies were sacred, their cultural power extreme. Catholic Boston, conservative America, and elite liberal Britain therefore defended their own orthodoxies for a very long time. And with every successful deflection of responsibility, the number of victims increased.

The truth damns the multicultural project in Britain. Rather than integrating these men of Pakistani heritage, insisting that they adopt the laws and mores of the native population, and treating them like everyone else, the UK elites celebrated cultural difference, enabled the siloing of these populations, bemoaned their own white working-class populations, and forbade any criticism of Islam. So if you called out this stuff, you were instantly called racist. After all, to accuse a non-white minority of raping white girls was a trope right out of white-supremacist fever dreams. And yes, it is a hideous racist trope — from the depths of the American South. But sometimes the trope is the truth.

In all the major cases, I’ve found no reported evidence of Pakistani or Muslim girls being groomed and raped — only poor, white natives.The justification among the rapists, moreover, was that these non-Muslims were sluts who were asking for it and beneath contempt. Racist insults were common as these girls were brutally abused. These were not just rapes, but hate crimes of a grisly sort.

It’s not true that the Brit media ignored the scandal. But it is also true that the space they gave it was trivial compared with, say, coverage of the George Floyd murder, thousands of miles away. And ask yourself: if it had been discovered that there were gangs of white nationalists singling out Pakistani-heritage girls for rape and abuse, with racist and Islamophobic slurs added for good measure, what would the media response have been? The question answers itself.

And if a white Brit had been found guilty of organizing the brutal gang-rape of a Pakistani 12-year-old girl, it’s hard to imagine him receiving a sentence of just three years. To get a sense of why the British public is pissed, it’s worth noting that last year, a white Brit was sentenced to a longer 38-month sentence for writing a social media post. More punishment for a white man’s inflammatory speech than for a non-white man’s gang-rape of a child: a near definition of wokeness. And you wonder why they call him Two-Tier Keir.

Yes, some readers think this is a confected scandal by conservatives aiming to depose the Labour Party and its Prime Minister.  I do not agree with them in the sense that it is not made up, and it is a scandal involving disproportionate numbers of Pakistanis and Bangladeshis.

Finally, a few of us went to Anna Krylov’s (conference organizer) and her partner Jay’s lovely house for dinner the other night. They had been given an evacuation warning, and packed their car, but fortunately the warning was rescinded. I forgot to take photos of the food which was delicious (grilled chicken and a variety of Russian-style sides), but I did get one of the dessert. Also, I was promised that I would get to pet one of their two cats: Mishka (“bear” in Russian), a beautiful gray English shorthair. Here they are:

Mishka (he is somewhat standoffish):

Dessert:

I’ll try to get more photos today, but I doubt the picture of the venue (a large auditorium) or of the box lunches (delicious but unphotogenic) will thrill you.

Meanwhile, in Dobrzyn, Hili is getting some self-care:

A: What are you doing?
Hili: I’m getting depressed.
A: And now, what?
Hili: As a part of the therapy I will turn to the wall.

In Polish:

Ja: Co ty robisz?
Hili: Wpadam w depresję.
Ja: I co teraz?
Hili: W ramach terapii odwrócę się od ściany.

Could a new, fifth force of nature provide some answers to our biggest questions about dark matter and dark energy? We’re working on it.

The Standard Model is, for all intents and purposes, the supreme accomplishment of modern physics. It describes four forces of nature, a zoo of particles, and how they all interact. It is perhaps the most successful scientific theory of all time.

And it’s fantastically incomplete.

It turns out that the Standard Model is able to account for less than 5% of all the matter and energy in the cosmos. Another 25% or so is Dark Matter, an unknown kind of matter that is for all intents and purposes invisible. The rest is known as Dark Energy, a mysterious entity that is causing the expansion of the universe to accelerate.

One of the first things astronomers noticed when they first discovered dark matter and dark energy was their apparent similarity. Why in the world are the two dark components of our universe roughly the same strength? I know, 25% and 70% don’t sound very similar, but when it comes to astronomy – and especially cosmology – they’re basically the exact same number.

Maybe it’s just a coincidence that they have about the same strength, and we’re overthinking it.

Or maybe it’s something else. Clever physicists have proposed connections within the “dark sector” of the universe, where dark matter and dark energy talk to each other. This would allow them to follow each other’s evolution, ensuring that they have roughly equal contributions to the energy budget of the universe for long periods of time.

To make them talk to each other, you need a force. But this force can’t be any of the known ones, otherwise dark matter and/or dark energy must also interact with normal matter, and we would have seen more directly evidence of them already.

So it has to be a new force, a fifth force of nature, completely different from electromagnetism, gravity, strong nuclear, and weak nuclear.  While ideas like this remain only in the realm of hypothesis, some of the ideas already have names.

One name is quintessence, the fifth essence of the universe. Another is dark photons, a particle that travels the cosmos like a photon but is, as its name suggests, dark.

To test these ideas we have to turn to the cosmos for answers. If a fifth force exists, it must be very subtle. Stronger manifestations of the fifth force have already been ruled out by observations of galaxy clusters, the expansion of the universe, and even the behaviors of neutron stars. So we have our work cut out for us – it will take a truly massive amount of data to tease out some signal that differs from expectations.

The post Is There a Fifth Force of Nature? appeared first on Universe Today.