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The many sheltered doctors who confidently said herd immunity was at hand and that fear of COVID was pathological are the last people to sanctimoniously sermonize on the importance of trust in medicine.

The post Dr. Lucy McBride: “As physicians, dispensing false hope is dangerous & unethical.” first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

There can’t be many ideas that beat the crazy yet ingenious idea of a rocket engine that actually uses part of the fuselage for fuel! Typically a rocket will utilise multiple stages so that excess weight can be jetisoned allowing the rocket to be as efficient as possible. Now a team in Scotland is working on a rocket engine that actually consumes part of its body to use as fuel, reducing weight and providing even more thrust so that greater payloads can be used. 

Rockets go back thousands of years from the earliest rocket propelled arrows used by the Mongolian empire to the mighty Saturn V rocket that took Apollo astronauts to the Moon, the principle has remained largely the same. Take a fuel, cram it inside a container of some sort, ignite it in some way and you can use it to propel something forwards or upwards… or actually backwards too now I think about it. 

The Apollo 10 Saturn V during rollout. Credit: NASA

Things are changing though. A team from the James Watt School of Engineering at University of Glasgow and led by Professor Patrick Harkness have developed the self-eating rocket engine! When the ‘autophage’ (from the latin for self-eating) fires it consumes part of its own body for fuel. 

It’s really quite an ingenious concept, essentially some fuel is stored up inside the rocket chamber itself. As the engine fires, some of the heat melts through the plastic of its own fuselage and as the plastic melts, it is fed into the chamber as fuel to suplement the usual liquid propellant. 

Using the rocket chamber itself as fuel means less fuel has to be carried and the mass saving can be used up by more massive payloads. There are further benefits too, as the rocket chamber is used in the combustion it will reduce the chances of space debris. 

The idea is not a new one though since the idea of a self-eating rocket was first discussed just over 80 years ago. The team from Glasgow have taken the concept a step further though by building one! The container was made out of polyethylene plastic which would burn as suplementary fuel along side the regular liquid propellant, a mix of gaseous oxygen and liquid propane. 

They succesfully fired the engine that they have called Ouroborous-3 which produced 100 newtons of thrust. The thrust was stable even through the autophage stage when the plastic case was providing a fifth of the total propellant used.  

Previous rocket tech used a solid propellant, for example the solid boosters on the side of the space shuttle and once this stuff was lit, whether you liked it or not, you were going in to space. This new design is controllable, indeed the team demonstrated how it was capable of being restarted, throttled and pulsed in an on/off pattern, all of which are necessary for an efficient rocket enginge. 

Source : Self-Eating Rocket Could Help UK Take a Big Bite of Space Industry

The post A Self-Eating Engine Could Make Rockets More Efficient appeared first on Universe Today.

When scientists detected phosphine in Venus’ atmosphere in 2020, it triggered renewed, animated discussions about Venus and its potential habitability. It would be weird if the detection didn’t generate interest since phosphine is a potential biomarker. So people were understandably curious. Unfortunately, further study couldn’t confirm its presence.

But even without phosphine, Venus’ atmosphere is full of chemical intrigue that hints at biological processes. Is it time to send an astrobiology mission to our hellish sister planet?

While the phosphine discussion petered out pretty quickly, there are other, more long-lived indications that Venus’ atmosphere contains chemical anomalies, some of which might relate to life. Some of the atmospheric gases appear to be out of thermodynamic equilibrium, for example. Adding to the complexity, scientists aren’t certain what the composition of large particles in the lower atmosphere is.

The authors of a new paper illustrate why Venus captures our chemical curiosity and suggest that it’s time for an astrobiological mission to satisfy it.

The paper is “Astrobiological Potential of Venus Atmosphere Chemical Anomalies and Other Unexplained Cloud Properties.” It hasn’t been peer-reviewed and published yet, but it’s available on the preprint server arxiv.org. The lead author is Janusz Petkowski, an astrobiology researcher in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at MIT.

“Scientists have been speculating on Venus as a habitable world for over half a century,” the authors write, “based on the Earth-like temperature and pressure in Venus’ clouds at 48–60 km above the surface.”

Most space-interested people know that Venus’ atmosphere is extremely dense ant hot. We also know that it’s dominated by carbon dioxide, that its other main component is nitrogen, and that it supports dense clouds of sulfuric acid. Other chemicals are present in only tiny, trace amounts.

There’s not much else to Venus’ atmosphere beyond CO2 and a small component of nitrogen. The trace elements add up to less than one percent of the atmosphere. Image Credit: By Junkcharts – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31595105

The atmospheric region between 48 to 60 km above the surface is particularly interesting. At that altitude, both the pressure and the temperature approach near Earth-like levels. Between about 52.5 km and 54 km, the temperature is between 20 °C and 37 °C.) At about 49.5 km above the surface, the pressure is the same as at Earth’s sea level. There’s no way that liquid water could be present on Venus’ surface, but in the atmosphere it’s possible.

That’s the backdrop for considering Venus’ potential habitability.

But there are ample chemical considerations, too, and in their paper, the authors outline one long-standing mystery in the planet’s atmosphere.

“In this paper, we review and summarize Venus’ long-lasting, unexplained atmospheric observations,
which have been acquired over the span of the last half-century,” they write.

A lot of the mystery around Venus concerns the so-called “unknown absorber(s).” As far back as the 1920s, ultraviolet observations showed unusual high-contrast features that move in conjunction with Venus’ upper cloud deck’s four-day rotation. Something is absorbing the UV light. “Much effort has gone into attempting to identify the substance(s) responsible for the absorption between 320–400 nm, but no proposed candidate satisfies all of the observational constraints, leading to the oft-used descriptive term ‘unknown UV absorber,'” the authors write.

Researchers have made a prolonged effort to understand what the absorber or absorbers might be, and some have made progress. Research has shown that sulphur allotropes and sulphur compounds could be responsible, and researchers have uncovered new pathways for their formation in Venus’ atmosphere. But these pathways are the result of simulations, not exploration. Not everyone agrees with these findings. There’s no consensus.

“Despite decades of effort and observations by two orbiting spacecraft in the 21st century (Venus Express
by ESA and Akatsuki by JAXA), none of the proposed candidate molecules have been found to entirely fit
the observational data,” the authors explain. The candidates either don’t match the profile well, or they’re not abundant enough. Some of the proposed candidates aren’t stable, either.

But it’s critical that we figure out what it is. “The unknown absorber is remarkably efficient, capturing more than 50% of the solar energy reaching Venus, with consequent effects on atmospheric structure and dynamics,” write the authors. Though the mystery persists, it’s a huge missing piece that stymies our efforts to understand the planet.

Some researchers propose that the UV absorber is a sign of cloud-based biological activity. “The spectral characteristics of the Venus clouds, including the strong UV absorption, are consistent with the spectrum of certain types of terrestrial bacteria,” the authors explain.

A composite image of the planet Venus as seen by the Japanese probe Akatsuki. The clouds of Venus could have environmental conditions conducive to microbial life. Credit: JAXA/Institute of Space and Astronautical Science

Another of the mysteries concerns lower clouds. A subset of cloud particles larger than 7 µm is unknown. Adding to the mystery is that some of them aren’t round. We know this from NASA’s Pioneer Venus mission. Since the particles, called Mode 3 particles, are non-spherical, they can’t be liquid droplets. “The nature and composition of the Mode 3 particles is debated with data presently in hand,” the authors write, making it clear that we need more data from a modern mission.

Some have proposed that the particles could be sulfuric acid, but the authors say data rules that out. If they’re not sulfuric acid, that works in favour of the idea that life could persist in the clouds. “This result could indicate unknown chemistry and is intriguing with regard to the possible presence of ‘life as we know it,’ which cannot withstand a concentrated sulfuric acid environment,” the authors explain.

It should be noted, however, that not all scientists agree that the large particles even exist and that calibration errors could be responsible for their detection instead.

The authors outline other reasons why only a biological mission to Venus can solve these mysteries. In-situ measurements from the Venera program and the VeGa balloons suggested that the atmosphere hosted non-volatile compounds necessary for life. Life as we know it requires metals, including iron. Venera found iron, while VeGa didn’t. More mystery waiting to be solved.

There are other unexplained components in Venus’ atmosphere. There are trace gases with abundance profiles that scientists can’t explain. Venera and Pioneer also found oxygen there. Nobody knows where it came from, and it’s a subject of frequent discussion. Other chemical detections add to the mystery and complexity.

The maddening thing about studying Venus from afar is that many of the observations could be explained by either biotic or abiotic processes. That’s why we need a biological mission.

NASA’s upcoming DAVINCI mission will send an orbiter and an atmospheric probe to Venus sometime in the 2030s. Image Credit: NASA

“The habitability of the Venusian clouds should also be explored by new in situ missions,” the author explains. Lots of scientists agree with them, including renowned planetary scientist Sara Seager. In fact, Seager goes even further, suggesting that a sample-return mission is needed.

There are missions to Venus coming in the future. NASA’s VERITAS mission and DAVINCI mission will both head to Venus, but not for several more years. DAVINCI will send a probe into Venus’s atmosphere for in situ observations, while VERITAS will map the surface in more detail.

In the meantime, the data we have is all the data scientists have to work with. While scientists are resourceful and determined, that’s not enough.

Only a mission to Venus that’s solely focused on biology and chemistry can solve the planet’s mysteries.

The post There are Mysteries at Venus. It’s Time for an Astrobiology Mission appeared first on Universe Today.

Astrophysicists have confirmed the accuracy of an analytical model that can unlock key information about supermassive black holes and the stars they engulf.

A team of astronomers has created the first-ever map of magnetic field structures within a spiral arm of our Milky Way galaxy. Previous studies on galactic magnetic fields only gave a very general picture, but the new study reveals that magnetic fields in the spiral arms of our galaxy break away from this general picture significantly and are tilted away from the galactic average by a high degree. The findings suggest magnetic fields strongly impact star-forming regions which means they played a part in the creation of our own solar system.

Astronomers analyzing 13 years of data from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope have found an unexpected and as yet unexplained feature outside of our galaxy.

An insight into preventing perovskite semiconductors from degrading quickly could help enable solar cells estimated to be two to four times cheaper than today's thin-film solar panels.

Researchers have merged nonlinear optics with electron microscopy, unlocking new capabilities in material studies and the control of electron beams.

Researchers have merged nonlinear optics with electron microscopy, unlocking new capabilities in material studies and the control of electron beams.

The world is filled with a myriad of sounds and vibrations -- the gentle tones of a piano drifting down the hall, the relaxing purr of a cat laying on your chest, the annoying hum of the office lights. Imagine being able to selectively tune out noises of a certain frequency. Researchers have now synthesized polymer networks with two distinct architectures and crosslink points capable of dynamically exchanging polymer strands to understand how the network connectivity and bond exchange mechanisms govern the overall damping behavior of the network. The incorporation of dynamic bonds into the polymer network demonstrates excellent damping of sound and vibrations at well-defined frequencies.

The fasted object ever made by humans has completed another milestone. The Parker Solar Probe recently celebrated the new year by completing its 18th flyby of the Sun.

After launching in 2018, Parker has spent the last five years zooming in close to the Sun and then back out again. We’ve reported on its achievements at various points in its journey, such as taking pictures of Venus or finding comets. And it still has almost two years to go on its planned seven-year mission. 

Over those seven years, mission planners have designed 24 perihelion events where the prove passes as closely as possible to the Sun. Each time, the instruments on the probe are taking as much data as possible. Those instruments had better be quick, as the probe is literally the fastest thing ever.

Fraser discusses the Parker Solar Probe.

Or ever made by humans, at least. On its 18th perihelion event at 7:56 PM on December 28th, 2023, Parker matched its previous fastest-ever speed of 635,226 kph (394,736 mph). That doesn’t leave much time for the instruments to collect much data, though the overall solar encounter lasted from December 24th through January 2nd. It passed as close as 7.26 million kilometers (4.51 million miles) from the surface of the Sun on this flyby. That is by far the closest any probe has even gotten to our Sun – intentionally, at least.

There are currently eight more planned solar encounters ahead for the mission, designed to end in December 2025 after its 26th flyby. Later this year, it will also complete its last flyby of Venus to gain even more speed as it travels. 

Data from the 18th flyby isn’t yet available for scientists to pour over, but the spacecraft did check in with a “hello” signal on January 5th, a few days after the planned flyby. Hopefully, that means it’s alive and well and will continue its orbit around the Sun, looking to provide even more insight into the details of heliophysics at an even more significant speed.

Video from the Applied Physics Laboratory describes Parker’s 16th encounter last year.
Credit – John Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory

Learn More:
NASA – NASA’s Parker Solar Probe Completes 18th Close Approach to the Sun
UT – Wow. Parker Solar Probe Took a Picture of the Surface of Venus
UT – Parker Solar Probe Flies Through the Sun’s Outer Atmosphere for the First Time
UT – Parker Solar Probe Captured Images of Venus on its way to the Sun

Lead Image:
Artist’s depiction of the Parker Solar Probe
Credit – NASA

The post Parker Solar Probe Skims the Sun on its 18th Flyby appeared first on Universe Today.

Venus is wrapped in clouds that are rich in concentrated sulphuric acid, and we now know that several of the amino acids and nucleic acids used by life could survive in them

Before planets form around a young star, the protosolar disk is populated with innumerable planetesimals. Over time, these planetesimals combine to form planets, and the core accretion theory explains how that happens. But before there are planets, the disk full of planetesimals is a messy place.

The history of rocky objects smashing into each other is written in the craters scarring the surfaces of the planets and moons. But that’s the macro scale of the history. There’s more to planetesimals than their eventual accretion into planets.

New research shows that these small bodies are subject to headwinds made of gas and particles in the protosolar disk that can strike them and throw rocky debris out into space. This is a new wrinkle in our understanding of how rocky planets form.

(A note on terminology: a protosolar disk is the disk of gas and dust that exists while the star at the center is forming. A protoplanetary disk is the same disk after the star has formed but while planets are still forming.)

The study is “Wind erosion and transport on planetesimals.” It’s published in the journal Icarus, and the lead author is Alice Quillen, Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Rochester.

The new study concerns planetesimals between 10 and 100 km in diameter embedded in the protosolar nebula. In these nebulae, the stars are not really stars yet. They’re young stellar objects that don’t undergo any nuclear fusion. So it’s not stellar winds that strike them; it’s the headwinds in the nebula itself. Those headwinds are made of the gas and dust in the disk and arise from the difference in velocity between the material in the disk and the planetesimal. Temperature and pressure differences in different regions of the protosolar disk also contribute.

A protosolar disk is a disk of material around a young stellar object that isn’t yet a star. It’s called a protoplanetary disk once the star has formed and begun fusion. Planetesimals are the building blocks of planets and are present in both stages of a disk’s evolution. Image Credit: NASA/JPL

“We consider the possibility that aeolian (windblown) processes occur on small, 1 to 100 km diameter, planetesimals when they were embedded in the protosolar nebula,” the authors write.

Planetesimals form via cohesion. As small particles collide with each other in the protosolar nebula, they stick together. But a young nebula is a chaotic, messy place. There are collisions which can either add more material to the planetesimals or remove material. Particles and gas can exchange angular momentum, and there’s also gas pressure. There’s a lot going on during this stage, which can last several million years.

Over time, enough particles stick together that a planetesimal takes shape.

But there’s gas pressure in the young disk, and as a planetesimal moves through it, it experiences it as a headwind full of particles. That headwind is strong enough to overcome the planetesimal’s surface cohesion.

“Aeolian (wind-driven) particle transport has occurred on many bodies in the Solar system, including Earth, Mars, Venus, Triton, Titan, Pluto, Io, and comet 67P/ChuryumovGerasimenko,” the authors write. “The ubiquity of aeolian processes in the Solar system suggests that planetesimal surfaces can be modified by protostellar-disk headwinds and the particles within them.”

According to the authors, the headwind in a protostellar disk is powerful enough to loft cm and smaller-sized particles off of planetesimals. This can happen on a planetesimal with a 10 km diameter in the inner Solar System.

Beyond that, in the outer Solar System, something different happens. Particles in the headwinds strike the planetesimals and remove micron-sized particles from the surface. These particles can be thrown into space or distributed back onto the surface of the planetesimal.

For planetesimals below about 6 km in diameter, erosion from particles in the headwind creates mass loss rather than accretion. Factors like wind velocity, headwind particle size, and material size affect the overall process.

The authors point to Arrokoth, a well-known Kuiper Belt Object, as an example. It’s a trans-Neptunian object that probably formed in the outer Solar System. It was likely created when two objects collided at a relatively low velocity. “Amongst Arrokoth’s most striking features are the smooth and undulating terrain present on its larger lobe (or head), also called Wenu,” the authors write.

Arrokoth is not only a trans-Neptunian object; it’s a Jupiter family comet. These comets began as Kuiper Belt Objects but were pulled into the inner Solar System by the gravity of the large gas giants. While other Jupiter family comets have cliffs, perched boulders, and chasms on their surfaces, Arrokoth’s surface is strangely smooth in comparison. Evidence shows that Arrokoth formed when the disk around the young stellar object that would become the Sun was optically thick. So its surface was unaffected by the luminosity coming from the young Sun. That indicates that another process shaped its surface.

“Winds from a protostellar disk could account for Kuiper Belt Object (486958) Arrokoth’s smooth undulating terrain,” they write, but only when there were a lot of particles and only when their velocity was low.

This composite image of the Kuiper Belt object 2014 MU69 (Arrokoth) came from data obtained by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft as it flew by the object on Jan. 1, 2019. The authors of the new paper say that the headwind in the protosolar nebula could be responsible for Arrokoth’s smooth, undulating terrain. Credits: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute//Roman Tkachenko

This research is extremely detailed. But overall, it shows that aeolian processes can alter the surfaces of planetesimals and play a role in the planet formation process. There are many variables involved, like headwind velocity, gas pressure, particle size, and planetesimal velocity. Sometimes, the particles are removed from the planetesimal; sometimes, they splash back onto the surface.

The main variable is distance from the protostar. It plays a big role in the process. “The erosion or accretion rates are higher in the inner solar system where the density of the disk is higher,” the authors write.

“Interactions between particle-rich headwinds and planetesimals are likely to cause a variety of interesting phenomena which could be the focus of future studies,” the authors conclude.

The post Planetesimals Are Buffeted by Wind in their Nebula, Throwing Debris into Space appeared first on Universe Today.

There are many different ways to get to Mars, but there are always tradeoffs. Chemical propulsion, proven the most popular, can quickly get a spacecraft to the red planet. But they come at a high cost of bringing their fuel, thereby increasing the mission’s overall cost. Alternative propulsion technologies have been gaining traction in several deep space applications. Now, a team of scientists from Spain has preliminary studied what it would take to send a probe to Mars using entirely electric propulsion once it leaves Earth.

Electric propulsion systems have several advantages over chemical rockets. While they will never be able to be scaled up enough to lift anything heavy into orbit, once in space, they are extraordinarily efficient at moving payloads where they need to go. While a typical chemical rocket requires 70-90% of its launch mass to be used as fuel, an electric propulsion system can get by with just 10-40% of its launch mass as fuel.

The tradeoff to be made is in thrust. Electric propulsion systems typically have a thrust at least four orders of magnitude smaller than that created by chemical rockets. Meanwhile, in space, its significant impact is that electric propulsion systems are much slower. But that might not be as much of a concern for uncrewed missions.

Fraser describes the underlying mechanics of an ion engine.

So far, no one has spent the time to consider just how much difference there would be between a Mars mission driven by electric rather than chemical propulsion. The closest study was one drawn up for a visit to Mars’ moons – Phobos and Deimos – that relied entirely on electric propulsion. In that study, the researchers found that the chemical propulsion option would require 2.5 times as much mass as the electric propulsion option. That would significantly decrease the overall cost of the mission.

In this new study, the researchers focused on a trajectory that would place a 2000 kg spacecraft into a polar orbit around Mars between 300 km and 1000 km. The 2000 kg weight limit was selected as a package that could contain equivalent scientific packages to the ExoMars orbiter that ESA worked on.

With those mission constraints, the researchers considered several different types of electric propulsion systems. They came up with an additional requirement – it must operate at the upper thrust range of many electric propulsion systems. A thrust of .1 N is the minimum required to enter into orbit around Mars successfully.

Electric Drives can be used for some pretty incredible thing, as described in this video with Dr. Sonny White.

This constraint led to the selection of the BHT-6000 as the mission’s primary propulsion system. It’s a Hall Effect thruster that operates with between 2 and 6kW of power and can use relatively common electrical propulsion propellants such as Xenon and Krypton. With this selection of propulsion, it was time to get to every astrodynamist’s favorite activity – modeling.

The researchers used a multi-body model to map out the gravitational impact of their selected trajectory. Then, they ran simulations of a mission with a standard chemical propellant and the BHT-6000. What they found seemed in line with general expectations of the advantages of electric propulsion.

In terms of speed, the chemical rocket was faster, but not egregiously so. A chemical rocket could make the journey in a little under a year, while a BHT-6000-powered mission would take approximately 3.2 years from launch. However, the weight of the chemical propulsion system would be 2.4 times that of the electric propulsion system. Even at a relatively conservative launch cost of $10,000 / kg, that would put the cost saving of an electric propulsion system at almost $30 million over the chemical alternative. All at the cost of a few more years of travel time to get the mission on station.

That is a tradeoff many space exploration agencies would gladly pay due to constrained budgets. But, so far, this is only a model as there is no planned deep space mission that would use this electric propulsion method as its primary propulsion system, though a few deep space missions, such as Hayabusa-2, already have. As the technology advances, though, it’s becoming more and more likely that future deep space missions, especially unmanned ones, will go to Mars.

Learn More:
Casanova-Álvarez, Navarro-Medina, & Tommasin – Feasibility study of a Solar Electric Propulsion mission to Mars
UT – The Most Powerful Ion Engine Ever Built Passes the Test
UT – Magnetic Fusion Plasma Engines Could Carry us Across the Solar System and Into Interstellar Space
UT – NASA Selects Aerojet Rocketdyne to Develop Solar Electric Propulsion for Deep Space Missions

Lead Image:
Artist’s impression of a solar electric propulsion system
Credit – NASA

The post Solar Electric Propulsion Systems are Just What we Need for Efficient Trips to Mars appeared first on Universe Today.

Natural gas plant failures were the main factor behind electricity shortfalls and outages during major winter storms in the US since 2011 – that risk remains as the US faces more extreme cold weather

A mysterious civilisation built a network of cities and roads in the Amazon between 3000 and 1500 years ago, and then disappeared

I believe I mentioned this faux pas by the BBC earlier today, but here are the hard, cold facts.

On Christmas Eve, BBC radio repeated, six times, a completely false report that Israeli troops had executed 137 Palestinian civilians and buried them in unmarked graves. This of course came from a notice by the ever-reliable Hamas, which loves to fabricate such stuff.  Eventually the BBC corrected itself (see below), but this shows the willingness of its journalistic chowderheads to lap up and regurgitate to the public whatever saucer of cream Hamas sets before them.  The BBC and the Guardian, it seems, are doing the absolute worst and most biased reporting on the Israel/Hamas war among all mainstream media.

Click below to read the archived report, which of course isn’t in the BBC online but in the Times of London.

The story:

The BBC has apologised for reporting Hamas claims that the Israeli army was responsible for carrying out “summary executions” in the Gaza strip without seeking sufficient corroborating evidence.

The broadcaster has issued an apology via its website for the Christmas Eve report, which is understood to have aired six times on the BBC World Service and Radio 4 before being pulled.

The story, which appears to have been based on a report from the news agency AFP [Agence France-Presse], centered on a statement from the Hamas terror group. It accused Israeli troops of illegally killing 137 Palestinian civilians since the war started on October 7 and burying them in a pit in northern Gaza.

The BBC said that it had failed to “make sufficient effort to seek corroborating evidence to justify reporting the Hamas claim”.

It added that its accusations were attributed and its story contained a response from the Israeli military saying that it was unaware of the incident and that Hamas was a terrorist organisation that did not value truth.

Some staff considered that by posting the report on its corrections and clarifications web page, the BBC had not gone far enough to rectify its mistake.

“Unless this apology is public and broadcast in the same arena as the original mistake, the damage is done,” said one Jewish employee.

A second staffer added: “They have taken the Hamas line — a terror organisation — at face value, far too much since October 7. And nothing has changed. And again it’s an apology about a very serious accusation against Israel hidden on a corrections page.”

The BBC has previously apologised for a television report that Israeli troops had targeted medical staff during a raid on a hospital in Gaza in November.

The previous month it had admitted that it was wrong of one of its correspondents to speculate that that a rocket that fell outside al-Ahli hospital in Gaza had been fired by Israel.

So there you have it: a completely bogus report, originating from Hamas, that the BBC apologized for because it didn’t do “due diligence”. But crikey, the story sounds so fishy from the outset—the IDF doesn’t really do stuff like that—that serious fact-checking would be required. Apparently there was none, just a lifting of the story from the AFP followed by an online apology that was so hard to find that reader Jez, who saw the Times story, had to sniff all around the BBC website, using various permutations of words like “Gaza” and “apology” to even find the apology.

Well, he finally did, and it’s below (click the link to see it, though I reproduce it in full):

Anyway, here it is in full:

I agree with the Times: this apology has to be broadcast (preferably six times) on the same radio station where the false report appeared.  And “they didn’t make sufficient effort to seek corroborating evidence”? They appear to have made NO effort!  How many people who heard the original radio report will even know about this correction?

Fortunately, the Times did the BBC’s work for them, also mentioning how the Beeb had falsely reported the Hamas line two times before this.  In the end, it shows the BBC’s anti-Israel and antisemitic tilt, something that becomes more evident every day.

Based on satellite imagery, geologists have determined major cities on the U.S. Atlantic coast are sinking, some areas as much as 2 to 5 millimeters (.08-0.2 inches) per year. Called subsidence, this sinking of land is happening at a faster rate than was estimated just a year ago. In a new paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences, researchers say their analysis has far-reaching implications for community and infrastructure resilience planning, particularly for roadways, airport runways, building foundations, rail lines, and pipelines.

These coastal areas, which include population centers such as New York City, Baltimore, Virginia Beach and Norfolk, are also vulnerable to weather and storm issues. The land subsidence problem exacerbates any problems caused by increasingly intense storms due to climate change.

“Continuous unmitigated subsidence on the U.S. East Coast should cause concern,” said lead author Leonard Ohenhen, a graduate student working with Associate Professor Manoochehr Shirzaei at Virginia Tech’s Earth Observation and Innovation Lab, in a press release from Virginia Tech. “This is particularly in areas with a high population and property density and a historical complacency toward infrastructure maintenance.”

The research team, from Virginia Tech and the U.S. Geological Survey, used satellite imagery and radar data to create digital terrain maps that show exactly where the land subsidence presents the most risks to vital infrastructure. They used data from multiple years, which showed a large area of the East Coast is sinking at least 2 mm (.08 inches) per year, with several areas along the mid-Atlantic coast  — up to 3,700 square kilometers, or more than 1,400 square miles — is sinking more than 5 mm (0.2 inches) per year. Adding complexity to the issue is that the current rate of global sea level rise is estimated to be about 4 mm per year.

A map of primary, secondary, and interstate roads on Hampton Roads, Norfolk, and Virginia Beach, Virginia (top panel); and John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York (bottom panel). The yellow, orange and red areas on these maps denote areas of sinking. Images by Leonard Ohenhen/ Virginia Tech.

“We measured subsidence rates of 2 mm per year affecting more than 2 million people and 800,000 properties on the East Coast,” Shirzaei said. “We know to some extent that the land is sinking. Through this study, we highlight that sinking of the land is not an intangible threat. It affects you and I and everyone, it may be gradual, but the impacts are real.”

In their paper, “Slowly but surely: Exposure of communities and infrastructure to subsidence on the US east coast,” the team wrote that they evaluated the subsidence-hazard exposure to population, assets, and infrastructure systems/facilities along the US east coast: “Here, we show that 2,000 to 74,000?square km land area, 1.2 to 14 million people, 476,000 to 6.3 million properties, and greater than 50% of infrastructures in major cities … are exposed to [these] subsidence rates.”

“Here, the problem is not just that the land is sinking. The problem is that the hotspots of sinking land intersect directly with population and infrastructure hubs,” said Ohenhen. “For example, significant areas of critical infrastructure in New York, including JFK and LaGuardia airports and its runways, along with the railway systems, are affected by subsidence rates exceeding 2 mm per year. The effects of these right now and into the future are potential damage to infrastructure and increased flood risks.”

“This information is needed. No one else is providing it,” said Patrick Barnard, a research geologist with the USGS and co-author of the study. “Shirzaei and his Virginia Tech team stepped into that niche with his technical expertise and is providing something extremely valuable.”

The post Satellite Data Shows US East Coast is Sinking appeared first on Universe Today.

On a hot day, numbats can only look for food for 10 minutes before they are forced to seek shade, raising concerns about the endangered animal's conservation amid Australia's increasing temperatures

Weibo, a social media platform, tried to reduce incivility by displaying estimated locations for users, but this gave trolls another way to target people