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UPDATE: The NSS says that the hamhanded tweet-changing was done without the society’s usual vetting, with a tweeter panicking and taking out the Jewish part.  They have corrected the tweet now to what’s below, which is what they should have posted in the first place:

We’re joining in solidarity with others across the nation this evening to remember the six million Jewish men, women, and children who were murdered during the Holocaust, alongside the many others killed under Nazi persecution. Be the light in the darkness.#LightTheDarkness pic.twitter.com/Ss28NcNgmi

— National Secular Society (@NatSecSoc) January 27, 2024

**************************

It’s not often that I devote a post to a single tweet, but this one deserves it. It was put up by the British National Secular Society to “commemorate” Holocaust Memorial Day—the day in 1945 when Auschwitz was liberated by the Red Army.

Here’s what you see now:

It's #HolocaustMemorialDay, when we remember all the atrocities of the Holocaust. #LightTheDarkness #FragilityOfFreedom pic.twitter.com/454aGavuYh

— National Secular Society (@NatSecSoc) January 27, 2024

But here’s the original, which I can’t find on the site. . . .

Clearly, the Holocaust, originally described as “the murder of 6 million Jewish children, women, and men” has been replaced simply by “the atrocities”, as noted by the reader below.

Now why on earth would they do that? I can think of only one explanation. Actually two, but the alternative explanation—it’s a “secular” society so it can’t name a religion—doesn’t make sense.

Working hypothesis: the word “Jewish” has become pejorative. Even to the National Secular Society!

 

Interesting edit there… pic.twitter.com/SfTRW0Vqwg

— Ben Cooper (@bencooper) January 27, 2024

 

h/t: Jez, Orli

Our planet sits in the Habitable Zone of our Sun, the special place where water can be liquid on the surface of a world. But that’s not the only thing special about us: we also sit in the Galactic Habitable Zone, the region within the Milky Way where the rate of star formation is just right.

The Earth was born with all the ingredients necessary for life – something that most other planets lack. Water as a solvent. Carbon, with its ability to form long chains and bind to many other atoms, a scaffold. Oxygen, easily radicalized and transformable from element to element, to provide the chain reactions necessary to store and harvest energy. And more: hydrogen, phosphorous, nitrogen. Some elements fused in the hearts of stars, other only created in more violent processes like the deaths of the most massive stars or the collisions of exotic white dwarfs.

And with that, a steady, long-lived Sun, free of the overwhelming solar flares that could drown the system in deadly radiation, providing over 10 billion years of life-giving warmth. Larger stars burn too bright and too fast, their enormous gravitational weight accelerating the fusion reactions in their cores to a frenetic pace, forcing the stars to burn themselves out in only a few million years. And on the other end of the spectrum sit the smaller red dwarf stars, some capable of living for 10 trillion years or more. But that longevity does not come without a cost. With their smaller sizes, their fusion cores are not very far from their surfaces, and any changes or fluctuations in energy result in massive flares that consume half their faces – and irradiate their systems.

And on top of it all, our neighborhood in the galaxy, on a small branch of a great spiral arm situated about 25,000 light-years from the center, seems tuned for life: a Galactic Habitable Zone.

Too close to the center and any emerging life must contend with an onslaught of deadly radiation from countless stellar deaths and explosions, a byproduct of the cramped conditions of the core. Yes, stars come and go, quickly building up a lot of the heavy elements needed for life, but stars can be hundreds of times closer together in the core. The Earth has already suffered some extinction events likely triggered by nearby supernovae, and in that environment we simply wouldn’t stand a chance. Explosions would rip away our protective ozone layer, exposing surface life to deadly solar UV radiation, or just rip away our atmosphere altogether.

And beyond our position, at greater galactic radii, we find a deserted wasteland. Yes, stars appear and live their lives in those outskirts, but they are too far and too lonely to effectively spread their elemental ash to create a life-supporting mixture. There simply isn’t enough density of stars to support sufficient levels of mixing and recycling of elements, meaning that it’s difficult to even build a planet out there in the first place.

And so it seems that life would almost inevitably arise here, on this world, around this Sun, in this region of the Milky Way galaxy. There’s little else that we could conceivably call home.

The post The Galactic Habitable Zone appeared first on Universe Today.

It's the pump! But you knew that.

The post Skeptics in the Pub. Cholera. Chapter 8b first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

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If you could rewind your life to the very beginning and then press play, would everything turn out the same? Or could making an accidental phone call or missing an exit off the highway change not just your life, but history itself? And would you remain blind to the radically different possible world you unknowingly left behind?

In Fluke, myth-shattering social scientist Brian Klaas dives deeply into the phenomenon of random chance and the chaos it can sow, taking aim at most people’s neat and tidy storybook version of reality. The book’s argument is that we willfully ignore a bewildering truth: but for a few small changes, our lives—and our societies—could be radically different.

Offering an entirely new lens, Fluke explores how our world really works, driven by strange interactions and apparently random events. How did one couple’s vacation cause 100,000 people to die? Does our decision to hit the snooze button in the morning radically alter the trajectory of our lives? And has the evolution of humans been inevitable or are we simply the product of a series of freak accidents?

Drawing on social science, chaos theory, history, evolutionary biology, and philosophy, Klaas provides a brilliantly fresh look at why things happen—all while providing mind-bending lessons on how we can live smarter, be happier, and lead more fulfilling lives.

Brian Klaas grew up in Minnesota, earned his DPhil at Oxford, and is now a professor of global politics at University College London. He is a regular contributor for The Washington Post and The Atlantic, host of the award-winning Power Corrupts podcast, and frequent guest on national television. Klaas has conducted field research across the globe, interviewing despots, CEOs, torture victims, dissidents, cult leaders, criminals, and everyday power abusers. He has also advised major politicians and organizations including NATO, the European Union, and Amnesty International. His previous book, for which he appears on this podcast, was Corruptible: Who Gets Power and How it Changes Us. His new book is Fluke: Chance, Chaos and Why Everything We Do Matters. You can find him at BrianPKlaas.com and on X @brianklaas.

Shermer and Klaas discuss:

• contingency and necessity/convergence
• chance and randomness
• complexity and chaos theory
• Jorge Luis Borges “The Garden of Forking Paths”
• self-organized criticality
• limits of probability in a complex, ever-changing world
• frequency- vs. belief-type probability
• ceteris paribus, or “all else being equal” but things are never equal
• economic forecasting
• free will, determinism, and compatibilism
• Holy Grail of Causality
• Easy Problem of Social Research and the Hard Problem of Social Research
• Was the original theory wrong, or did the world change?
• When Clinton lost, Silver pointed to his model as a defense: 71.4 percent isn’t 100 percent! There was nearly a 30 percent chance of Clinton losing in the model, so the model wasn’t wrong—it was just something that would happen nearly a third of the time!
• Special Order 191 and the turning point of the Civil War
• Implicit in the baby Hitler thought experiment is the idea that without Hitler the Nazis wouldn’t rise to power in Germany, World War II wouldn’t happen, and the Holocaust would be avoided. It therefore assumes that Hitler was the sole, or at least the crucial, cause of those events. Many historians would take issue with that viewpoint, arguing that those cataclysms were all but inevitable. Hitler might have affected some outcomes, they’d say, but not the overall trajectory of events. The Nazis, the war, and the genocide were due to larger factors than just one man.
• weak-link problem
• complex world defined by tipping points, feedback loops, increasing returns, lock-in, emergence, and self-organized criticality
• QWERTY and path dependency, Betamax vs. VHS, cassette v. CD v. streaming.

If you enjoy the podcast, please show your support by making a $5 or $10 monthly donation.

Ground-penetrating radar on board NASA's Mars Perseverance rover has confirmed that the Jezero Crater, formed by an ancient meteor impact just north of the Martian equator, once harbored a vast lake and river delta. Over eons, sediment deposition and erosion within the crater shaped the geologic formations visible on the surface today. The discovery of lake sediments reinforces the hope that traces of life might be found in soil and rock samples collected by Perseverance.

An interdisciplinary team of researchers has developed a soft implantable device with dozens of sensors that can record single-neuron activity in the brain stably for months.

Scientists have harnessed the power of specially made nanostructures to enhance the neural response in a locust's brain to specific odors and to improve their identification of those odors.

In the beginning, the Universe was so hot and so dense that light could not travel far. Photons were emitted, scattered, and absorbed as quickly as the photons in the heart of the brightest stars. But in time the cosmos expanded and cooled to the point that it became transparent, and the birthglow of the Big Bang could traverse space and time for billions of years. We still see it as the microwave cosmic background. As the Universe expanded it grew dark, filled only with warm clouds of hydrogen and helium. In time those clouds collapsed to form the first stars, and light again filled the heavens.

None of the stars we see today were among those first stars. Modern stars are rich with elements such as carbon and iron. Heavier elements only formed in stellar cores and other astrophysical processes. The first stars we made only of hydrogen and helium. They must have been massive beasts, with fleeting lives that ended in brilliant supernova explosions. Only their remnants remain. There have been several deep sky searches for these first stars, but we have so far not seen them. There is some indirect evidence of them in the distant Universe, but we have not yet seen their light. Now a new study argues that the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope might capture their dying radiance.

How a TDE of a first-generation star might be observed. Credit: Chowdhury, et al

Formally known as the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST), The Roman Space Telescope is scheduled to launch in late 2026. Like the JWST, it will observe the cosmos in infrared, but Roman will have a wider field of view. This will better enable it to find the highly redshifted light of the first stars. However, the authors note that given the short lifespan of these first stars, Roman will not likely observe them directly. They instead propose looking for evidence of these stars as they are consumed by a black hole.

Specifically, the team proposes looking for what are known as Tidal Disruption Events (TDEs). When a star passes near a black hole, the gravitational tidal forces of the black hole can rip the star apart. As a result, the remnants of the star can be strewn across a large arc. This process takes time and creates a stream of heated gas. The authors modeled the emission spectra of this gas for a first-generation star and found they have a unique signature that lasts for a considerable amount of time. Much of the light from such a TDE would be emitted in the strong ultraviolet, but since they would occur at a cosmic redshift of about z = 10, the light we see would be shifted to the infrared, making it observable by JWST and the Roman Space Telescope.

The authors note that the rate at which TDEs occur for first-generation stars depends on several factors, but given reasonable estimates Roman could expect to see tens of these TDEs per year. So in a few years, we might finally be able to capture the last dying light of the first stars.

Reference: Chowdhury, Rudrani Kar, et al. “Detecting Population III Stars through Tidal Disruption Events in the Era of JWST and Roman.” arxiv preprint arXiv:2401.12752 (2024).

The post Nancy Grace Roman Could Find the First Stars in the Universe appeared first on Universe Today.

We live in an age of renewed space exploration, colloquially known as Space Age 2.0. Unlike the previous one, this new space age is characterized by inter-agency cooperation and collaboration between space agencies and the commercial space industry (aka. NewSpace). In addition to sending crews back to the Moon and onto Mars, a major objective of the current space age is the commercialization of Low Earth Orbit (LEO). That means large constellations of satellites, debris mitigation, and plenty of commercial space stations.

To accommodate this commercial presence in LEO, Sierra Space has developed the Large Integrated Flexible Environment (LIFE) habitat, an inflatable module that can be integrated into future space stations. As part of the Commercial Low Earth Orbit Development Program, NASA, Sierra Space, and ILC Dover (the Delaware-based engineering manufacturing company) recently conducted a full-scale burst pressure test of their LIFE habitat. The test occurred at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and was caught on video (see below).

Commercial space has become one of the fastest-growing businesses on Earth. In the past decade, the space economy has expanded by over 60% and is currently valued at around $400 billion. This is expected to grow considerably in the coming years as launch services increase, small satellites (CubeSats) become more affordable, and orbital stations are built. As the International Space Station (ISS) nears retirement, these commercial stations will provide opportunities for research and development, orbital manufacturing, and space tourism.

Sierra Space, the developer of the Dream Chaser reusable spaceplane, has demonstrated its commitment to the commercialization of LEO and the NewSpace economy. The first iteration of their inflatable habitat, LIFE 1.0, measures 6 meters (~20 feet) long and 9 meters (~30 feet) in diameter and can be launched using conventional rockets and inflates once in orbit. With a volume of 285 cubic meters (over 10,000 ft3), it can accommodate four astronauts, with additional room for science experiments, exercise equipment, and Sierra Space’s Astro Garden® plant-growing system.

The purpose of a burst pressure test is to gauge the structural tolerances of a component, be it a fuel tank or an inflatable module. The data gained from this test will assist engineers in simulating how the module will fare in the vacuum of space. Once development and testing are complete, the module will be used on commercial space stations like Orbital Reef, a collaborative effort between Blue Origin and Sierra Space. Future versions, like Life 2.0 and 3.0, will offer additional volume and be able to accommodate larger crews and more science operations.

According to their National Strategic Plan (released in 2022), one of NASA’s strategic goals is to develop a human spaceflight economy in collaboration with the NewSpace industry. In 2021, as part of a Commercial LEO Destinations (CLDs) project, NASA Space Act Agreements with three companies to design commercial space stations. This includes the Orbital Reef proposed by Blue Origin and Sierra Space, the Starlab space station by Nanoracks LLC, Voyager Space, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman’s free flyer commercial space station.

Starlab, from Nanoracks, Voyager Space, and Lockheed Martin – a continuously crewed, free-flying commercial space station in low-Earth Orbit. Credits: NanoRacks/Lockheed Martin/Voyager Space

As per NASA’s plan, creating a human spaceflight economy will ensure continued research and development in space while “allowing NASA to focus Government resources on the challenges of deep space exploration through Artemis.” Another goal is to maintain the legacy of the ISS long past its retirement:

“Since its inception, industry, academia, and our international partners have used the International Space Station (ISS) as a testbed for research and the development and maturation of state-of-the-art systems that increase access to space. NASA is supporting new space stations from which we and other customers can purchase services and stimulate the growth of commercial human spaceflight activities. As commercial LEO destinations become available, we intend to implement an orderly transition from current ISS operations to these new commercial destinations.”

Further Reading: Sierra Space

The post Watch a House-Sized Space Habitat (Intentionally) Burst appeared first on Universe Today.

Although our Moon formed 4.5 billion years ago, it’s still evolving. The interior continues to cool and its orbit is slowly changing. As a result, the Moon has lost 150 feet of its circumference. That shrinkage contributes to near-constant moonquakes, and those trigger landslides and other surface changes. The Moon is currently uninhabited, but all that activity threatens future Artemis landing sites and missions at the South Pole.

In a recent paper, planetary scientists point out that the potential of strong seismic events from active thrust faults should be a top consideration when NASA and other agencies are planning permanent outposts on the Moon. This is particularly true as the Artemis mission planners plot exploration of the South Pole. “Our modeling suggests that shallow moonquakes capable of producing strong ground shaking in the south polar region are possible from slip events on existing faults or the formation of new thrust faults,” said the study’s lead author Thomas R. Watters, a senior scientist emeritus in the National Air and Space Museum’s Center for Earth and Planetary Studies. “The global distribution of young thrust faults, their potential to be active, and the potential to form new thrust faults from ongoing global contraction should be considered when planning the location and stability of permanent outposts on the Moon.”

The Moon is particularly vulnerable to the large-scale effects of moonquakes. That’s because its surface is very brittle and easily broken up during a quake. One of the strongest quakes in lunar history occurred in the 1970s and lasted for hours. Such a lengthy event does quite a bit of damage to the lunar surface. So, even a light moonquake could cause significant damage via landslides.

Our Shaky, Shrinking Moon

Moonquakes generally happen within a hundred miles or so of the lunar surface. On Earth, that might result in a fairly mild quake. But, since the Moon’s surface is so brittle, the effects of those “shakes” are much more noticeable. According to Nicholas Schmerr, a co-author of the paper and an associate professor of geology at the University of Maryland, this means that shallow moonquakes can devastate hypothetical human settlements on the Moon.

“You can think of the Moon’s surface as being dry, grounded gravel and dust,” he said. “Over billions of years, the surface has been hit by asteroids and comets, with the resulting angular fragments constantly getting ejected from the impacts,” Schmerr explained. “As a result, the reworked surface material can be micron-sized to boulder-sized, but all very loosely consolidated. Loose sediments make it very possible for shaking and landslides to occur.”

An LROC NAC mosaic of the Wiechert cluster of lobate scarps in Moon’s south pole region, left pointing arrows). A scarp crosscuts a small (?1 km) degraded crater (right-pointing arrow).

Quakes affect every part of the lunar surface. Global compressional stresses deform the surface, forcing splits and cracks to occur. These scarps—steep slopes and cliffs—exist everywhere there. In their paper, the team suggests that many are close to the epicenters of geologically recent quakes. And the regions where they occurred could still be active today. That includes the lunar South Pole.

Risks to Artemis

The team led by Watters examined data and images of the lunar South Pole and linked faults there to a major moonquake in the 1970s. The region is filled with scarps, which are prime evidence for moonquakes. Although they conclude that some regions in the area are probably safe enough for the Artemis missions, others are not. The team’s computer models show that the most dangerous areas are vulnerable to landslides triggered by seismic shaking. They continue to map the Moon and track its quakes to identify the riskiest areas for Artemis astronauts to land.

A mosaic of Shackleton Crater at the Moon’s south pole region. It shows a portion of an interior wall and floor, with arrows pointing to boulder falls likely created during seismic shaking during a moonquake. Image courtesy: NASA/KARI/ASU

That mission could take place by the end of the decade, when NASA hopes to establish long-term habitations for research and exploration. Schmerr points out that the risks to safety from even the slightest quakes can’t be overestimated. “As we get closer to the crewed Artemis mission’s launch date, it’s important to keep our astronauts, our equipment, and infrastructure as safe as possible,” Schmerr said. “This work is helping us prepare for what awaits us on the moon—whether that’s engineering structures that can better withstand lunar seismic activity or protecting people from really dangerous zones.”

The Artemis missions essentially mark NASA’s return to human exploration of the Moon. The idea is to collaborate with both commercial partners and international agencies to make this happen. Teams of lunar astronauts will establish an Artemis Base camp, and depend on a lunar gateway to connect the mission to Earth. Eventually, what they learn there will inform the first human missions to Mars.

For More Information

The Moon is Shrinking, Causing Landslides and Instability in Lunar South Pole
Tectonics and Seismicity of the Lunar South Polar Region
Artemis

The post The Moon is Still Shrinking, Explaining Why it Still Has Landslides appeared first on Universe Today.

A rubbery patch studded with suction cups that imitate the suckers on octopus limbs can make drugs penetrate the skin without breaking it or causing irritation

TOI-1136, a dwarf star located more than 270 light years from Earth, is host to six confirmed exoplanets and a seventh as yet unconfirmed candidate. The system has provided a rich source of information on planet formation and evolution in a young solar system. Researchers used a variety of tools to compile radial velocity and transit timing variation readings to derive highly precise measurements of the exoplants' masses, orbital information and atmospheres.

Scientists undertook a study of dragonfly wings in order to better understand the relationship between a corrugated wing structure and vortex motions. They discovered that corrugated wings exhibit larger lift than flat wings.

A new study found that graphene derived from metallurgical coke, a coal-based product, through flash Joule heating could serve not only as a reinforcing additive in cement but also as a replacement for sand in concrete.

Physicists propose a novel way to create photoconductive circuits, where the circuit is directly patterned onto a glass surface with femtosecond laser light. The new technology may one day be useful for harvesting energy, while remaining transparent to light and using a single material.

Physicists propose a novel way to create photoconductive circuits, where the circuit is directly patterned onto a glass surface with femtosecond laser light. The new technology may one day be useful for harvesting energy, while remaining transparent to light and using a single material.

Physicists discovered stars near the edge of the Milky Way travel more slowly than those closer to its center -- a surprise suggesting our galaxy's gravitational core may have less dark matter than previously thought.

Compared to robots, human bodies are flexible, capable of fine movements, and can convert energy efficiently into movement. Drawing inspiration from human gait, researchers from Japan crafted a two-legged biohybrid robot by combining muscle tissues and artificial materials. This method allows the robot to walk and pivot.

Compared to robots, human bodies are flexible, capable of fine movements, and can convert energy efficiently into movement. Drawing inspiration from human gait, researchers from Japan crafted a two-legged biohybrid robot by combining muscle tissues and artificial materials. This method allows the robot to walk and pivot.

A study reconstructing the climate of Italy during the Roman Empire based on marine sediments shows that three pandemics coincided with cooler, drier conditions