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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

If you go back to my posts from before October 7, you’ll see that I have always favored a two-state solution to resolve the enmity between Palestine and Israel, although I knew that such a solution had been proposed several times by Israel—and rejected by the Palestinians.  Now, however, it’s not a viable solution to the problem, despite many touting it as an exigent and workable solution.

That suggestion is, I think, misguided right now, though perhaps some day it might work.  On the Palestinian side, it’s clear that they want a one-state solution (“from the river to the sea”), and that one state will be Palestinian. What would happen to the Jews in such a solution? Well, they can all be deported (I think Bill Maher joking suggested using a “Jew Haul” system), but most people think that a one-state solution that contains both Jews and Palestinians would inevitably lead to a massacre of Jews as well as the extinction of Israel.  I doubt that anybody in Israel except for a few far-left nutjobs now favor a one-state solution.

On the Israeli side, while many once favored a two state solution, they no longer do. It’s simply unthinkable, after October 7, to imagine a Palestinian state rubbing up against a Jewish one.  The fear, of course, is terrorism. If Hamas ran that state, forgetaboutit. They’ve already vowed to repeat the October 7 massacre over and over again.  And the Palestinian Authority, otherwise known as the corrupt and terrorist-promoting government of Mahmoud Abbas, is not a viable negotiating partner (neither is Netanyahu, as he isn’t trusted by many Israelis but also shares Israel’s correct assessment that a two-state solution is not worth considering now).  First, the war has to end and then—and this is the tough part—there have to be honest brokers and negotiators on both sides. Given the Palestinians’ complete aversion to a two-state solution, though, I simply can’t imagine it happening. What Palestinian government will guarantee to live peacefully beside Israel with no more terrorism, especially since Palestinian children are taught to hate Jews and love martyrdom almost from birth?

I wrote the above because the article below, from Tablet, will make people see why a two-state solution is presently inviable.  For a long time I and others have thought there were two groups of Palestinians: the terrorists sworn to extirpate Israel, and the “regular” people who just wanted to live their lives in peace. And I assumed the latter group was far more numerous than the former. But this is likely an illusion given the polls showing an increase in support for Hamas and a decrease in support for the Palestinian authority and Abass (see here and here). Those same polls show that many Palestinians admire the October 7 attacks as a sign of resistance, not an episode of brutal butchery.

And it’s not just Palestinians: it’s Arab-world wide. Here’s the results of a poll I posted about recently, one taken by the The Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, and it shows widespread support for Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack in every country in the Arab world (Egypt and Iraq show lower but still substantial support:

Given all this, who could possibly confect a two-state solution that would work? Certainly not one with Hamas involved. My view now is that Hamas still should be defeated and dismantled, but what happens next is shrouded in mystery. But any solution has to allow Israel to be free from terrorism.

Right now I agree with Douglas Murray on the two-state solution below (I don’t agree on anything pro-Trump said, especially by the moderator!) I’d forgotten that the Palestinian Authority had agreed to pay the families and perpetrators of Hamas’s October 7 attack.

The article below is infinitely depressing because it shows that not just a small group of Palestinian terrorists participated in the October 7 massacre. Instead, many, many civilians, including Palestinian children and even old men on crutches.  The conclusion adumbrated by Jews who were interviewed—many of them Jews who used to work for peace with Palestine—is that Palestine is riddled with people who approve of the massacre and would participate in another one if given a chance.  When the title says that October 7 is a “pogrom”, they are using this definition from Wikipedia: it’s not really a genocide, but a mass attack on one group, not necessarily, I think, with intent to wipe out a whole ethnic group—which is of course what Hamas intends in the long run:

A pogrom is a violent riot incited with the aim of massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews.[1] The term entered the English language from Russian to describe 19th- and 20th-century attacks on Jews in the Russian Empire (mostly within the Pale of Settlement).

This article is one in a series from Tablet, “Hamas’s war on Israel“.  Click below to read. It’s not super-long, and it’s very enlightening.

I’ll just give quotes. First, the overall take. (Quotes are indented; my own remarks are flush left.)

Survivors’ accounts, video evidence, and the interrogation recordings of apprehended Palestinians paint a damning picture of the complicity of Gazan civilians both in the Oct. 7 attack, in which more than 1,200 people were murdered and 240 people were abducted to Gaza, and its aftermath. It is one that has sparked a debate in Israel that challenges the inclination to draw distinctions between ordinary Palestinian civilians of Gaza—often referred to in Israel as bilti me’uravim (uninvolved)—and their terror leaders. For many, Oct. 7 reeked of something that Jews have been familiar with for centuries; a phenomenon where not just a vanguard, but a society at large participates in the ritual slaughter of Jews.

Around 700 Palestinians stormed Barad’s kibbutz of Nir Oz—less than a five-minute drive from Gaza—that day, CCTV footage shows. The overwhelming majority of those, estimated by Eran Smilansky, a member of the kibbutz’s security squad, to be around 550, were civilians. They were largely unarmed and not in uniform. Some of those civilians carried out wholesale acts of terror themselves, including rape and abduction—and in some cases, the eventual sale of hostages to Hamas—while others abetted the terrorists. Others still simply took advantage of the porous border to loot Israeli homes and farms, including stealing hundreds of thousands of shekels in agricultural equipment.

Similar scenes played out in several of the more than 20 brutalized Israeli communities. In one video that has become emblematic of the debate around the “uninvolved,” an elderly Palestinian man with walking sticks is seen hobbling at an impressive clip along with the rest of the mob through the breached gate of Be’eri.

Differentiating between terrorists and civilians is tricky, particularly since Hamas terrorists often wear civilian clothing, a tactic evident in the ongoing war in Gaza. However, other indicators help make this distinction, such as the absence of weapons and the fact that many were filmed crossing the border barefoot or even on horseback. Even senior Hamas official Mousa Abu Marzouk readily admitted that Gaza civilians had taken part in the Oct. 7 atrocities.

One video shows a group of men in civilian clothing beating a soldier while a separate image shows another group of what appears to be civilian men celebrating atop the smoking husk of a burned-out tank. In the infamous 47-minute terror reel of the Oct. 7 atrocities, Palestinians in civilian clothing are seen beating elderly hostages with sticks. Another repeatedly screams “Allahu akbar!” as he decapitates a Thai farm worker with a garden tool.

Barad’s speed camera in Nir Oz includes images of a Palestinian girl riding a stolen bike. In another, a Palestinian woman is seen pointing out Barad’s neighbor’s home to a uniformed terrorist. An image captured later shows a resident of that home being hoisted onto a motorcycle to be taken into Gaza.

But it’s the testimonies of the survivors that provide the clearest evidence that Oct. 7 was not just a terrorist attack, but a pogrom.

Two aspects of the narrative are surprising and saddening:  Palestinian workers at the kibbutz—as well as the 18,000 Palestinians per day who cross the border to work in the “apartheid state” of Israel—apparently participated in the massacre, giving Hamas valuable information about the layout, sites of electrical panels, and so on. Further, the southern border of Israel harbored many Israelis who were there to work for peace: to create some kind of harmony, or even two harmonious states, between Israel and Palestine. And yet these peace activists were murdered just as brutally as anyone else.  Some quotes:

 

Then there are the Gazans who worked at the kibbutzim. Yohanan’s husband, a farmer, is one of many people in the Gaza periphery communities who hired Palestinian workers from Gaza. Like many others I spoke to, Yohanan believed that the terrorists were acting on inside knowledge obtained by those Gazan workers. Israel had gradually raised the number of work permits in the months leading up to Oct. 7 with an estimated 18,500 Gazans working in Israel before the onslaught. The thinking behind the policy was that economic incentives to the residents of the Strip would sustain the fragile peace. Hanan Dann, from Kfar Aza, told me that he was “glad that workers from Gaza were coming to Israel to have jobs and meet Israelis, to see that we’re not all devils.”

In several of the devastated communities, detailed maps were found on the bodies of dead terrorists, maps that residents say could have only been drawn up by people with intimate knowledge of the area. Gazan workers relayed an extensive range of information to Hamas that enabled the terror group to plan its attack with extraordinary meticulousness, including the identities and residences of security heads, the locations of electric boards and communications systems and how to disable them.

The workers’ betrayal left an indelible mark on the surviving kibbutzniks, leading many to reexamine previously held beliefs about their Palestinian neighbors. Nir Oz, like many of the other ravaged kibbutzim in the area, was home to scores of peace activists, many of whom volunteered for a program known as Road to Recovery, driving sick Gazans to Israeli hospitals for treatment. Many now believe that while there are Gazans who want to live in peace, they do not represent the majority; or, as one survivor summed it up to AFP, “there are more who don’t want us alive.”

Irit Lahav, whose parents were from Nir Oz’s founding members, described the community as a “peace lovers’” kibbutz. “It broke my heart. How can we ever get over this sense of betrayal?” Lahav, who shuttled Palestinian cancer patients several hours from the border with Gaza to their treatments in central Israel, told me. “The Palestinian public simply hates us.”

And this is the conclusion of one disaffected Israeli:

Not everyone, however, was surprised by the involvement of Gazan civilians. “I don’t differentiate between them and Hamas,” Nir Shani told me. “Let me know of one Palestinian in Gaza who tried to save a Jew and maybe I’ll change my mind.”

That’s a good question.

Here’s a peace worker betrayed:

Batya Holin is a photographer and peace activist from Kfar Aza, which alongside Nir Oz and Be’eri, was one of the heaviest-hit communities. Holin had developed a friendship with a Gazan photographer, Mahmoud, with whom she arranged a joint exhibit last year of photos of her kibbutz and his village in the Gaza Strip. On the morning of Oct. 7, Mahmoud called and interrogated Holin, asking her how many soldiers were in her vicinity. That was when Holin realized that Mahmoud had given the photos of her village to Hamas. “Whoever says there are people there who are uninvolved, here is the proof,” she told Israel’s Channel 13 News. “They are all involved. They are all Hamas.”

There’s more documentation of civilian involvement, including not just the participation of civilians in the attack itself but also their approbation of the hostages and bodies of Israelis brought back, and, finally, their involvement in other ways. Here’s an example of the last two:

In one viral video, the near-naked and bloodied body of Shani Louk, an Israeli German who was abducted from the Nova music festival but who was later declared dead, is seen being paraded through the streets of Gaza in the back of a pickup truck. Hordes of Palestinian civilians are cheering, spitting and slapping Louk’s deformed figure while chanting “Allahu akbar.” The last tranche of hostages to be released in November’s truce saw crowds of Palestinians line the streets, jeering as the Red Cross ambulances passed by. The aunt of released hostage Eitan Yahalomi said that after the arrival of her 12-year-old nephew into Gaza, “all the civilians, everyone, beat him.”

IDF Sgt. Adir Tahar was murdered and decapitated during the invasion while manning a post near the Erez border crossing. His father, David, was forced to bury his son’s body without his head. An interrogation of two Palestinians by Israel’s Shin Bet security agency revealed that the remains of the head—which had been mutilated until it barely resembled a human skull—were kept in the freezer of an ice cream store in Gaza. One of the men had tried to sell the head for $10,000. The man in question was a Palestinian civilian and not a Hamas operative, Tahar told me. The Shin Bet did not respond to a request for confirmation in time for publication.

The conclusions: the Israelis, after hearing things like this, have become wary of not just Hamas, but of most Palestinians, who, they think are eager to kill them—civilians that could become terrorists or could aid terrorists. And this has pushed the chance for postwar peace to near zero:

 

“If we previously believed that there was a chance for peace, we’ve lost all faith in these people, especially after we were there and among the population,” Goldstein-Almog added.

 

A tiny, biohybrid robot moves by contracting lab-grown muscle tissue in its legs – but it needs help to stand up in a water tank and it tops out at just 5.4 millimetres per minute

Engineered cells that make the substances they need to grow could dramatically reduce the cost of cultivating lab-grown meat

Engineered cells that make the substances they need to grow could dramatically reduce the cost of cultivating lab-grown meat

As April’s ‘Great North American Eclipse’ nears, here’s a look at eclipses in time and space.

It comes around every total solar eclipse, and I fully expect to hear it trotted out once again this year, leading up to the Great North American eclipse on April 8th, 2024.

It’s often repeated (usually around the time leading up to a total solar eclipse) that the syzygy of the Earth, Moon and Sun is special, allowing totality to occur. To be sure, eclipses are extraordinary and spectacular events, and standing in the shadow of the Moon during totality is a spectacle that shouldn’t be missed.

But just how rare are the circumstances we witness on Earth during totality across time and space?

The path of totality across North America on April 8th, 2024. Credit: Michael Zeiler/The Great American Eclipse How Rare are Eclipses?

The Moon’s orbit intersects the ecliptic at two points, known as its ascending and descending nodes. We see lunar and solar eclipses on Earth when these nodes line up with the Sun (during a solar eclipse) or the Earth’s shadow (during a lunar eclipse). The Moon’s path is tilted just over 5 degrees versus the ecliptic plane. This means that most of the time, the Moon misses the Sun, and the Earth’s shadow. If it wasn’t tilted, an even more unique situation would occur. In this case, we’d see two eclipses (one lunar and one solar) occurring every synodic period or roughly just under once a month. As it is, eclipses worldwide happen in seasons or about twice a year as the nodes line up, with a solar and lunar eclipse about two weeks apart.

How a totality occurs. Credit: NASA

The precision-looking fit of the Moon over the Sun seen during totality is due to geometry. The Sun is about 400 times farther away from the Earth than the Moon, and 400 times as large in terms of physical diameter. But this is only approximate, and only true for our current epoch.

Geometry for lunar and solar eclipses, with the true scale of the Moon’s umbra during totality (bottom). From The Universe Today’s Ultimate Guide to Viewing the Cosmos. A Receding Moon

In fact, we know from the retro-reflectors placed on the Moon by Apollo astronauts that the Moon is moving away from us at 3.8 centimeters per year. About 600 million years from now, the last total solar eclipse will occur as seen from the Earth. Likewise, about a billion years in the past, the first brief annular solar eclipse must have occurred.

The apparent size of the Sun and Moon also vary slightly from one eclipse the the next. This ranges around half a degree (30 arcminutes) by few arcminutes (‘). This occurs as the Earth travels from perihelion to aphelion, and the Moon travels from perigee to apogee. When the Moon is too small to cover the Sun, a ‘ring of fire’ annular solar eclipse occurs.

The value difference for the apparent size of the Sun ranges from 31.6′ to 32.6′, and the Moon is 29.3′ to 34.1′. During the April 8th total solar eclipse, the Sun will be an apparent 31′ 57″ across. The Moon will be slightly larger, at 33′ 37″ across. This will yield a generous maximum totality of 4 minutes and 28 seconds in duration, as seen from near Nazas, Mexico .

A Fortunate Epoch

Even now in our current 5,000-year epoch, annulars are already more common, at 33.2% to 26.7% versus totals. The remainder are partials and rare hybrid annular-total eclipses.

“I found that whenever I use the phrase ‘cosmic coincidence’ to describe our current good fortune in the distance/diameter ratios favorable for a tight occultation of the Moon and Sun, almost predictably some of the responses will be ‘there are no coincidences,’ or ‘divine provenance,'” Eclipse chaser and cartographer Michael Zeiler told Universe Today. “I respond that often coincidences are true! We are simply lucky to live within the evolution of our solar system to witness total solar eclipses.”

Looking Out Across the Solar System

To be sure, solar eclipses do occur throughout the solar system. It’s all a matter of perspective, and literally knowing where and when to stand. New Horizons saw the Sun pass behind Pluto in 2015 (a sight no human eye has ever witnessed). Rovers on Mars have caught strange potato-shaped annular eclipses (or more properly, transits) courtesy of Deimos and Phobos.

Deimos transits the Sun, as seen by NASA’s Perseverance Rover of Sol 1037 (January 20th, 2024). Credit: NASA/JPL Image processing: Simeon Schmaub

These robotic observations of the Martian moons aren’t just pretty pictures. They also also researchers to refine and pin down the exact orbits of both Phobos and Deimos. This is handy, as Japans Martian Moons Explorer is headed to the pair in 2026.

What’s more, Phobos is doomed to crash into Mars millions of years from now… at some far off date, it will briefly be close enough to totally eclipse the Sun as seen from the Martian surface. If humans are on Mars on November 10th, 2084, they can witness an uber-rare, transit featuring Phobos, the Earth and the Moon.

Eclipses and the Curious Case of the Jovian Moons

Of course, none of these are are precise fits in terms of the eclipsing body versus the Sun. There is, however, another place in the solar system you could stand on a solid surface and witness totality similar to what’s seen on Earth. (Be sure to pack your space suit). Jupiter’s major moons produce eclipses very analogous to those seen on Earth as they pass one in front of the other. This happens in cycles that occur during what’s known as mutual eclipse-transit season. This happens when the major Galilean moons of Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto mingle as seen from our perspective.

Europa as seen from the surface of Callisto is a particularly good baseline ‘fit’. Europa is about 1/450th the size of the Sun, which is also 450 times farther away at certain points along its orbital path… not all that different than eclipse circumstances here on Earth. These events are faster, lasting only a few dozen seconds at most. Mutual transit-eclipse season occurs twice every Jovian orbit, or every six years. The next cycle resumes in 2026.

Io casts its shadow on Ganymede in 2009. Image credit: Christopher Go. A Twice a Decade Transit Season

We noticed this similarities of Jovian versus terrestrial eclipses while writing an article on mutual eclipse season in 2015. To be sure, eclipse seasons on the Earth tend to be biannual, while seasons in the Jovian system occur less frequently, about twice a decade. More distant moons may see similar celestial sights, but for now, my future plans for building an eclipse viewing hotel and resort are pegged for the surface of Callisto.

Bill Kramer also did a fascinating look at eclipses throughout the solar system from a few years back, posted on his Eclipse-Chasers website.

The Hunt for ‘Exo-Eclipses’

So, what does this all say for eclipses beyond our solar system? Well, as of writing this, there are 5,506 exoplanets known… but claims of any ‘exomoons’ orbiting them remain controversial. Even the best known cases—such as the contentious recent Kepler-1513 b exomoon claim—still have very wide distance and diameter perimeters to say if good-fit eclipses are possible. Still, as the menagerie of extra-solar worlds grow and good exomoon candidates are found, we might yet be able to say with some authority just how common ‘exo-eclipses’ are very soon.

Perhaps, human astronauts will one day witness these far-flung eclipses. Imagine standing on the Earthward face of the Moon during a total lunar eclipse, and witnessing ‘a thousand sunsets’ as the Earth eclipses the Sun. For now, I’d wager that ideal tight-fit eclipses aren’t all that uncommon when you take into account the vast expanse of time and space… but totality over an expanse where life has evolved to enjoy it might be rare indeed.

The post How Rare Are Total Solar Eclipses… Really? appeared first on Universe Today.

All modern life shares a robust, hardy, efficient system of intertwined chemicals that propagate themselves. This system must have emerged from a simpler, less efficient, more delicate one. But what was that system, and why did it appear on, of all places, planet Earth?

This is the central question of abiogenesis, the generation of life from not-life. We do not yet have an answer to that question, but we do have a collection of curious clues and brilliant hypotheses that might lead us in the right direction.

First, the chemistry. All proteins on Earth are made from just 22 amino acids. Those amino acids require abundant amounts of organic molecules – the most basic building blocks of life. Astronomers have detected organic molecules, and even some amino acids, scattered throughout space, from the depths of interstellar gas clouds to the fragile meteoroids that wander the solar system. So it’s natural to assume that our planet, as it coalesced from the maelstrom that surrounded our infant Sun, was born with the right ingredients…but surely they couldn’t survive the initial formation of our planet, when it was still molten from the countless collisions that lead to its development.

Instead, these organic compounds must have been delivered to us well after the planet cooled and solidified. Astronomers believe that the first few million years in the solar system was a quite unfriendly time. Even after the protoplanetary disk around the Sun evaporated and the eight major planets of the system emerged victorious over their rivals, fragments and debris still littered the orbital lanes. Impact after impact struck each of the planets, with new rounds triggered by gravitational rearrangements of the giant outer worlds as they settled into stable, permanent configurations.

We still see the scars of that youthful violence today, visible on the sterile vacuum surfaces of the Moon and Mercury.

But in that violence came a chance for life. Fresh water, delivered by countless cometary impacts, replenished what the Earth lost during its molten state. And with that water, organic compounds rained onto the surface. Here too we see yet another delicate balancing act. If the Earth had been struck too few times, we might not have been wealthy enough in molecular resources to begin the ascent to life. If too many had come, however, the persistent heat of the impacts would have boiled our oceans and sent any nascent life scattering into interplanetary space.

We were lucky. Somewhere life gained a foothold. The earliest undisputed fossil evidence for life sets the clock as early as 3.5 billion years ago. More speculative evidence – again, this work becomes exceedingly difficult the farther back into the past we peer, because the earliest life was not much different than the non-living chemical reactions that preceded it, so it’s difficult to tell if some molecular imprint in a rock is the fossil of a living creature or merely some manifestation of exotic chemistry, and if there’s even a difference between them – suggests that life started as early as 4.5 billion years ago. That alone is surprising, given the hellish conditions our planet was experiencing at the time, with some scientists arguing that our world wasn’t even habitable until some 500 million years later.

But somewhere, in some quiet place, the magic happened. A chance group of molecules and chemical reactions began storing information, began self-replicating, and began catalyzing reactions. Some biologists suspect that it was deep-sea hydrothermal vents, which spew organic-rich molecules into their surroundings. Or perhaps it was in tidal pools, which provided a natural rhythm that would turn into the cycles of life. Or maybe hot springs, or even underground.

It may have happened more than once and in more than one way, but it appears from all available evidence that as soon as life could arise, it did arise.

The post Early Life Was Radically Different Than Today appeared first on Universe Today.

After causing an international incident by suggesting that adding salt to your cup of tea will improve it, chemist Michelle Francl says it’s great to see everyone talking about chemistry

My recent article on settling Mars has generated a lot of discussion, some of it around the basic concept of how difficult it is for humans to live anywhere but a thin envelope of air hugging the surface of the Earth. This is undoubtedly true, as I have discussed before – we evolved to be finely adapted to Earth. We are only comfortable in a fairly narrow range of temperature. We need a fairly high percentage of oxygen (Earth’s is 21%) at sufficient pressure, and our atmosphere can’t have too much of other gases that might cause us problems. We are protected from most radiation that bathes the universe. Our skin and eyes have adapted to the light of our sun, both in frequency and intensity. And we are adapted to Earth’s surface gravity, with any significantly more or less causing problems for our biology.

Space itself is an extremely unforgiving environment requiring a total human habitat, with the main current technological challenges being artificial gravity and radiation protection. But even on other worlds it is extremely unlikely that all of the variables will be within the range of human survival, let alone comfort and thriving. Mars, for example, has too thin an atmosphere with no oxygen, no magnetic field to protect from radiation, it’s too cold and its surface gravity is too little. It’s better than the cold vacuum of space, but not by much. You still need essentially a total habitat, and we will probably have to go underground for radiation protection. Gravity is 38% that of Earths, which is probably not ideal for human biology. In space, with microgravity, at least you can theoretically use rotation to simulate gravity.

In addition to adapting off-Earth environments to humans, is it feasible to adapt humans to other environments? Let me start with some far-future options then finish with what is likely to be the nearest-future options.

Perhaps the optimal way to most fully adapt humans to alien environments is to completely replace the human body with one that is adapted. This could be a robot body, a genetically engineered biological one, or a cyborg combination. How does one replace their body? One option might be taking virtual control of the “brain” of the avatar (yes, like in the movie, Avatar). This could be through a neural link, or even just through virtual reality. This way you can remain safely ensconced in a protective environment, while your Avatar runs around a world that would instantly kill you. We are closer to having robotic avatars than biological ones, and to a limited degree we are already doing this through virtual presence technology.

But this approach has a severe limitation – you have to be relatively close to your Avatar. If, for example, you wanted to explore the Martian surface with an avatar, you would need to be in Mars orbit or on the surface of Mars. You could not be on Earth, because the delay in communication would be too great. So essentially this approach is limited by the speed of light.

You could also “upload” your mind into the Avatar, so that real time communication is not required. I put “upload” in quotes, because in reality you would be copying the structure and function of your brain. The avatar would not be you, it would be a mental copy of you operating the avatar (again, whether machine or biological). That copy would feel like it is you, and so that would be a way for “you” to explore a hostile environment, but it would not be the original you. However, it may also be possible, once the exploration has concluded, to copy the acquired memories back to you. It may also be possible to do this as a streaming function. In this case the distance does not matter as much, because you have a local copy with real time interaction, while you are receiving the feed in a constant stream, just delayed by the communication time. Because the avatar is a copy of you, the original you would not need to send instructions, only receive the feed. So you could be safely on Earth while your mental twin avatar is running around on Mars.

A more advanced version of this is similar to the series Altered Carbon. In this hypothetical future people can have their minds transferred (again, copied) to a “stack” which is essentially a computer. The stack, which is now you, operates your body, which is called your “sleeve”. This means, however, that you can change sleeves by pulling our your stack and plugging it into a different sleeve. Such a sleeve could be genetically engineered for a specific environment, or again it could be a robot. This envisions a future in which humans are really digital information that can inhabit biological, robotic, or virtual entities.

So far these options are pretty far in the future. The closest would be using virtual reality to control a robot, which is currently very limited but I can this being fairly robust by the time we could, for example, get to Mars. Another approach which is also fairly near term (at least more than the other options) is to use genetic engineering, medical interventions, and cyborg implants to enhance our existing bodies. This does not involve any avatars or neural transfer, just making our existing bodies better able to handle harsh environments.

For existing adults, genetic engineering options are likely limited, but could still be helpful. For example, inserting a gene that produces a protein derived from tardigrades could protect our DNA from radiation damage. We could also adapt our skin to block out more radiation, and be resistant to UV damage. We could adapt our bones and muscles to different surface gravities. We may even find ways to adapt to microgravity, allowing our bodies to better handle fluids with gravity.

For adults, using medical interventions, such as drugs, is another option. Drugs could theoretically compensate for lower oxygen tension, radiation damage, altered cardiac function, neutralizing toxins, and other physiological responses to alien environments.  Cyborg implants are yet another option, reinforcing our bones, enhancing cardiac function, shielding light or radiation, or adapting to low pressure.

But we could more profoundly adapt humans to alien environments with germ line genetic engineering – altering the genes that control development from an embryo. We could then make profound alterations to the anatomy and physiology of humans. This would create, in essence, a subspecies of humans, adapted to a specific environment – Homo martianus or Homo lunus. Then we could theoretically include extreme adaptations, to temperature, air pressure, oxygen tension, radiation exposure, and surface gravity. These subspecies would not be adapted to Earth, and may find Earth as hostile and we find Mars. They would be an offshoot of humanity.

Even the nearest of these technologies will take a long time to develop. For now we need to carry our Earth environment with us, even if it is within the confines of a spacesuit. But it seems likely we will find ways to adapt ourselves to space to some degree.

The post How Humans Can Adapt to Space first appeared on NeuroLogica Blog.

Learning to play the piano causes various changes in activity in areas of the brain involved in memory, movement and processing sensory information

There have been numerous robotic space missions reach the end of their operating life over the years and for a multitude of reasons. Be they catastrophic failure or a scheduled end but I must say one that has recently made me a little sad is the demise of the Ingenuity helicopter on Mars. It sustained damage after its recent flight and can now no longer fly. In a mission that was supposed to complete five flights in 30 days, the plucky little helicopter completed 72 flights over three years! 

The Ingenuity helicopter’s historic journey began on 18 February 2021 when it arrived on Mars. It was transported as part of the Mars 2020 mission which included the Perseverance rover too. Ingenuity had been built by NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory with involvement from AeroVironment Inc., Qualcomm, SolAero and Lockheed Space. The task for Ingenuity was a simple one, to demonstrate the technology to perform flights on another world.

Perseverance Rover (Credit : NASA)

Once setup for flight, it stood 0.49 metres tall and its rotors had a span of 1.2 metres. This may seem a large wingspan in comparison to drones here on Earth but they needed to be this long to achieve flight on Mars. The lower atmospheric density meant that larger rotors were needed to produce the required amount of lift. The blades were to spin at a rate of 2,400 revolutions per minute but there were two drives that would spin one set of blades clockwise and the other counterclockwise. At the very top, above the rotors was a solar panel to charge its batteries, there was a wireless communication system and of course navigation sensors and cameras. 

The first flight took place on 19th April in the same year proving for the first time that powered flight was possible on another world. In the flights that followed, the operations team tested its systems and used it to scout out locations for the Perseverance rover to explore in detail.  

The plan was for Ingenuity to only last 3 days during the spring of 2021 and so the team had to overcome a number of obstacles during its extended mission. The teams had to develop winter operating procedures so that Ingenuity could survive the long cold nights. They upgraded the systems giving it the ability to choose its own landing sites and even had to clean itself after dust storms.

On the 18th January this year, the team had to identify the location of Ingenuity since it had to make an emergency landing on a previous flight. As planned, the helicopter lifted off to an altitude of 12 metres to survey the surrounding terrain and hovered for 4.5 seconds before descending again at a velocity of 1 metre per second.  Unfortunately and for unknown reasons, there was a communication failure at an altitude of about 1 metre.  Investigations the following day revealed there was damage to one of the rotor blades rendering the helicopter incapable of further flight. 

The team are now trying to identify the cause of the failure while they perform tests on the systems one last time and download the last images stored onboard. Too often we hear of missions that go wrong but Ingenuity was a fabulous example of a mission that went way beyond its expectations giving us so much more than was ever hoped for. 

Source : After Three Years on Mars, NASA’s Ingenuity Helicopter Mission Ends

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I warned you this would happen.

The post Science Based Satire: The CDC’s Unyielding, Unscientific Push to Vaccinate Children Against COVID Caused a Measles Outbreak in Europe first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

What were you doing last Saturday? As it turns out, I was doing something rather unexciting… Trying to fix my washing machine (I did – in case you are interested). At the same time, Hungarian geography teacher by day and asteroid hunter by night Krisztián Sárneczky was out observing and detected a small asteroid which it transpired was on a collision course with Earth! 

Spotting asteroids is a tricky business. Not least because they are typically dark in colour against a very black sky but the sky is quite a big place and spotting a tiny dark object against a massive black sky is worse than looking for a needle in a haystack!

Unperturbed by the statistics and likelihood of actually discovering one, Sárneczky regularly scours the sky looking for asteroids and supernova at the Konkoly observatory in Budapest, Hungary.  He was engaged in this very task last Saturday night (20th January) at 22:48 CET (21:48 UT) when he spotted a new asteroid using a 0.6m Schmidt Telescope. Any discovery of this sort requires swift action to get the data over to the Minor Planet Center (MPC) who co-ordinate observations from astronomers around the World. 

Sárneczky only had three observations when he submitted the data but continued to observe and over the course of the following minutes secured four more observations which he passed over realising it was heading straight for Earth. The actions that follow any such discovery like this are that the MPC alert others for follow up observations. Astronomers and automated impact monitoring systems including the European Space Agency’s wonderfully named ‘MeerKAT’ system sprang into action and more observations came in. 

A radio image of the central portions of the Milky Way galaxy composited with a view of the MeerKAT radio observatory. Radio bubbles and associated vertical magnetized filaments can be seen. Courtesy: MeerKAT/SARAO/Oxford University/Heywood

With more data, came more accuracy and thankfully the knowledge the the impactor was only about a metre across and due to impact just west of Berlin in Germany. It is not unusual for asteroids of this size to hit Earth indeed, we get them every couple of weeks but they generally burn up in the atmosphere and pose no threat. Larger asteroids that do pose a threat are thankfully much rarer. Larger objects are also easier to spot so the majority have already been spotted and are already being tracked but there are automated searches and individuals like Sárneczky who are always on the look out.

The asteroid, which is now known as 2024-BX1 hit the Earth’s atmosphere just a few hours after discovery at 01:32 CET (00:32 UT) on Sunday morning the 21st January, 50km to the west of Berlin. It burned up, leaving a fabulous streak across the sky which people witnessed as a fireball even being spotted over here in the UK.

Worryingly it is actually quite an unusual thing for asteroids to have been discovered before they impact our atmosphere. Only eight have been spotted with the first back in 2008. The difficulty of course is to find them early enough to give us time to understand their trajectory and size to understand what level of threat they pose to us. I should add there are no known asteroids on a collision course with Earth  and fortunately there are people like Sárneczky and a number of automated search systems out there on the lookout for the next one. 

Source : Asteroid 2024 BX1 spotted three hours before impact

The post Another Asteroid Discovered Hours Before it Impacts the Earth appeared first on Universe Today.

'Hidden' stars including a new type of elderly giant nicknamed an 'old smoker' have been spotted for the first time by astronomers. The mystery objects exist at the heart of our Milky Way galaxy and can sit quietly for decades -- fading almost to invisibility -- before suddenly puffing out clouds of smoke, according to a new study.

Researchers have incorporated an innovative ultra-broadband, quantum-entangled light source that generates a relatively wide range of infrared photons with wavelengths between 2 m and 5 m for dramatically downsizing the infrared spectroscopy system and upgrading its sensitivity. It can obtain spectra for various target samples, including hard solids, plastics, and organic solutions. This new technique uses the unique properties of quantum mechanics -- such as superposition and entanglement -- to overcome the limitations of conventional techniques.

People who were more skeptical of human-caused climate change or the Black Lives Matter movement who took part in conversation with a popular AI chatbot were disappointed with the experience but left the conversation more supportive of the scientific consensus on climate change or BLM. This is according to researchers studying how these chatbots handle interactions from people with different cultural backgrounds.