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Shrinking sea ice has made life harder for polar bears in many parts of the Arctic, but the population in Svalbard seems to be thriving

"The worst thing about lockdowns is that they are over, and everyone else moved on long ago."

The post Science Based Satire:  My 2026 Interview with Jay Bhattacharya. It’s Still Lockdowns All the Way Down. first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

Reader EdwardM has sent us some travel photos from Sri Lanka.  His captions are indented, and you can click on the photos to enlarge them.

These photos are of statuary and frescoes in the Dambulla Cave Temples outside Kandy, Sri Lanka. Kandy, by the way, has a venerated shrine which holds one of Buddha’s teeth! The Dambulla Cave Temples date to the first century AD. The caves, which sit high on a bare rock escarpment, were used as a refuge for a king, called Valagamba, and his people during one of the many invasions of Sri Lanka. To commemorate their survival, Valagamba and heirs founded a monastery in the caves. Over the centuries images, frescoes, and statues of the Lord Buddha, the bodhisattvas, and various gods and goddesses were installed. Typically they were funded by wealthy Sri Lankans for their private redemptive purposes, much like many Christian sites were funded by the wealthy in hopes of favor or forgiveness. The caves are full of these wonderfully vibrant icons.

The caves themselves were welcoming, with soft light and wonderfully cool air; a respite from the brutal Sri Lankan midday heat. One note I’d like to add. Sri Lanka is a fabulously beautiful land, and I know it has had a complex past with much turmoil and violence. But I became endeared to the people; they are delightful and they get genuine pleasure from other people’s happiness. They aren’t faking it. I loved the country, the people, and I encourage anyone who can go; visit.

Here are a few of the shots from the complex. There are five caves but two of them we closed for work when we were there. First, a reclining Buddha with statues of minor gods and goddesses at his head and one of the bodhisattvas (I have no idea which) seated at left. The Buddha was carved out of the rock in the cave. There are several of these at Dambulla.

This image gives an idea of the size of this reclining Buddha. This one is not the largest in the complex. Amazing that this is carved from the rock itself:

 

Some more statuary. These are depictions of the bodhisattvas, the enlightened followers of Buddha. Unlike the reclining Buddhas, most of the statuary was NOT carved from the rock of the cave, but was instead carved outside the caves and installed within:

The monks (it’s an active monastery) place offerings to various gods and goddesses. Here they put these fabrics on statues of a couple of the Enlightened, but I don’t recall the significance:

More shots of statuary:

The walls and ceilings were covered in beautiful frescoes, some ancient. Here are a few shots:

Quantum computers need extreme cold to work, but the very systems that keep them cold also create noise that can destroy fragile quantum information. Scientists in Sweden have now flipped that problem on its head by building a tiny quantum refrigerator that actually uses noise to drive cooling instead of fighting it. By carefully steering heat at unimaginably small scales, the device can act as a refrigerator, heat engine, or energy amplifier inside quantum circuits.

Adults with kidney cancer who received faecal microbiota transplants on top of their existing drugs did better than those who had placebo transplants as their add-on intervention

Even given a set of possible quantum states for our cosmos, it's impossible for us to determine which one of them is correct

Scientists have created a device that captures carbon dioxide and transforms it into a useful chemical in a single step. The new electrode works with realistic exhaust gases rather than requiring purified CO2. It converts the captured gas into formic acid, which is used in energy and manufacturing. The system even functions at CO2 levels found in normal air.

Jupiter’s atmosphere and clouds have mesmerized stargazers for centuries, as their multi-colored, swirling layers can easily be viewed from powerful telescopes on Earth. However, NASA’s Juno spacecraft has upped the ante regarding our understanding of Jupiter’s atmospheric features, having revealed them in breathtaking detail. This includes images of massive lightning storms, clouds swallowing clouds, polar vortices, and powerful jet streams. Yet, despite its beauty and wonder, scientists are still puzzled about the processes occurring deep inside Jupiter’s atmosphere that result in these incredible features.

The Dark Energy Survey Collaboration collected information on hundreds of millions of galaxies across the Universe using the U.S. Department of Energy-fabricated Dark Energy Camera, mounted on the U.S. National Science Foundation Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at CTIO, a Program of NSF NOIRLab. Their completed analysis combines all six years of data for the first time and yields constraints on the Universe's expansion history that are twice as tight as past analyses.

After months of protests led by Nobel laureate Reinhard Genzel, the American energy company AES Andes has abandoned plans to build a massive solar and wind facility just kilometres from one of the world's premier telescope sites. The decision preserves the pristine night skies above Chile's Paranal Observatory, where the European Southern Observatory operates some of humanity's most powerful eyes on the universe.

Nearly a century after Edwin Hubble discovered the universe's expansion, astronomers have finally explained the nagging mystery of why most nearby galaxies rush away from us as if the Milky Way's gravity doesn't exist? The answer lies in a vast, flat sheet of dark matter stretching tens of millions of light years around us, with empty voids above and below that make the expansion appear smoother than it should.

Researchers using machine learning have discovered hundreds of mysterious bright streaks on Mercury's surface that appear to be caused by gases escaping from the planet's interior. The finding suggests the Solar System's smallest planet isn't the static, geologically dead world we thought it was, Mercury might still be active today, continuously releasing material into space even billions of years after its formation.

Our current understanding of the Cosmos shows that structures emerge hierarchically. First there are dark matter densities, then dwarf galaxies. Those dwarfs then merge to form more massive galaxies, which merge together into even larger galaxies. Evidence of dwarf galaxy mergers is difficult to obtain, but new research found some in the Milky Way's halo.

Many countries are debating whether to follow Australia and ban social media for younger teenagers. But with more robust evidence on its harms coming, we shouldn't be too hasty

While snakes and ladders is purely a game of chance, there is a way to add some strategy, says mathematician Peter Rowlett

Where is physics headed? No one knows for sure, but Beyond the Quantum by Antony Valentini is a striking new book that reminds us what a big idea really looks like, finds Jon Cartwright

The books, TV, games and more that New Scientist staff have enjoyed this week

Susan Wise Bauer's The Great Shadow investigates the effects of illness on individual lives and collective beliefs. It's a mixed bag, says Peter Hoskin

From health tech developers to influencers, our health is being monetised – and we need to be aware of what's going on, says Deborah Cohen

How much do you know about friction? Jennifer R. Vail's charming, if sometimes technical, "biography" of the force showcases its amazing and largely overlooked role in everything from climate change to dark matter, says Karmela Padavic-Callaghan