EverythingScience

Physicists Create a Thermometer for Measuring ‘Quantumness’ Source:Wired @EverythingScience

Shouting at Stars: A History of Interstellar Messages Since the early 1970s, humanity has sent messages beyond the Solar System in the hopes of contacting another civilization. Some were physically attached to interstellar spacecraft, while others were beamed into space in the form of radio signals. This video provides a detailed chronology of almost all of these messages with a focus on their meaning and improbability of reception. 𝐂𝐫𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐭𝐬, 𝐫𝐞𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐬, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 https://www.lemmi.no/p/shouting-at-stars 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬 00:00:00 Intro 00:02:08 Pioneer Plaques 00:15:33 Arecibo Message 00:26:36 The Golden Records 00:41:47 Message to Altair 00:48:18 Poetica Vaginal 00:54:46 NASDA Space Camp Messages 00:57:31 Cosmic Call I 01:11:07 The Teenage Message 01:18:40 Cosmic Call II 01:25:45 New Horizons 01:32:19 Across the Universe 01:34:08 Doritos Broadcast Project 01:35:24 A Message From Earth 01:38:25 Hello From Earth 01:42:12 RuBisCO Stars Message 01:49:06 The Wow! Reply 01:56:05 Lone Signal 01:59:28 JAXA Space Camp Messages 02:01:37 A Simple Response to an Elemental Message 02:04:35 Sónar Calling GJ273b 02:08:46 Stephen Hawking's Memorial Broadcast 02:10:23 The Transmission Debate Source:LEMMiNO @EverythingScience

Orcas seen killing young great white sharks by flipping them upside-down A specialized shark-hunting pod of orcas in the Gulf of California has been caught on camera expertly targeting young great white sharks—flipping them upside-down to eat the energy-rich liver. The pod, known as Moctezuma's pod, could be taking advantage of warming waters altering shark nursery areas to hunt juveniles, which lack the experience to flee as older sharks do. These observations suggest that orcas may hunt white sharks more often than we realized. However, a broader survey collecting more data is needed to draw strong conclusions. "I believe that orcas that eat elasmobranchs—sharks and rays—could eat a great white shark, if they wanted to, anywhere they went looking for one," said marine biologist Erick Higuera Rivas, project director at Conexiones Terramar and Pelagic Life and lead author of the article in Frontiers in Marine Science. "This behavior is a testament to orcas' advanced intelligence, strategic thinking, and sophisticated social learning, as the hunting techniques are passed down through generations within their pods." Source:Phys.org @EverythingScience

Secret Atomic Patterns Have Been Discovered Hidden Inside Metals When metal alloys are processed during manufacturing, the atoms of the combined elements are mixed together at random, according to conventional wisdom – but new research challenges this thinking, revealing hidden atomic patterns that persist. The study is the work of researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and it promises to open up new ways to control the properties of metals during manufacturing Recent lab studies have identified subtle patterns in metal alloys that can be tweaked to enhance the material's properties, including mechanical strength, durability and radiation tolerance. This new study reveals in simulations how those patterns – and some new ones – emerge and linger even after intense processing. "This is the first paper showing these non-equilibrium states that are retained in the metal," says MIT materials scientist Rodrigo Freitas. "Right now, this chemical order is not something we're controlling for or paying attention to when we manufacture metals." Understanding the new findings is a little tricky if you're not already familiar with the physics of metal alloys, but the chemical short-range order (SRO) that the researchers were looking at in this study is the arrangement that atoms fall into in metal alloys Source:ScienceAlert @EverythingScience

What's happening on the International Space Station while the government is shut down? Although the U.S. government is shut down, NASA's astronauts in space are still expected to show up for work every day. As the shutdown continues into its second month, many federal employees are furloughed. Some, however, keep working (mostly without pay at the moment), because they're considered critical to the continued operation of the nation's functions, like the delivery of the mail. Thankfully for the NASA astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS), their wellbeing falls into the category of "protection of life and safety," which NASA is tasked with maintaining while the government's doors are closed. Like all federal agencies, NASA has had to severely cut back on its day-to-day activities, as more than 15,000 NASA civil servants have been furloughed since Oct. 1. Only essential personnel deemed "necessary to protect life and property" are granted "excepted" status, according to NASA's shutdown guidance. This includes astronauts in space and the technicians in mission control on the ground who support them. For the most part, life aboard the ISS has continued as usual. The Expedition 73 crew currently occupying the space station have spent the past month conducting microgravity research and other experiments on their rotation and performing scheduled maintenance. Source:Space.com @EverythingScience

Delhi's cloud seeding effort fails to ease smog, raises questions on effectiveness India's efforts to combat air pollution by using cloud seeding in its sprawling capital New Delhi appear to have fallen flat, with scientists and activists questioning the effectiveness of the move. Cloud seeding involves spraying particles such as silver iodide and salt into clouds from aircraft to trigger rain, that can wash pollutants from the air. Delhi authorities, working with the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur, began trials last week using a Cessna aircraft over parts of the city. But officials said the first trials produced very little rainfall because of thin cloud cover. "This will never ever do the job, it's an illusion," said Bhavreen Kandhari, an environmental campaigner in Delhi. "Only when we clean up sources of air pollution can we control it." The government has spent around $364,000 on the trials, according to local media reports. Each winter, thick smog chokes Delhi and its 30 million residents. Cold air traps emissions from farm fires, factories and vehicles. Despite various interventions—such as vehicle restrictions, smog sucking towers, and mist-spraying trucks—the air quality ranks among the worst for a capital in the world. A day after the latest trial, levels of cancer-causing PM2.5 particles hit 323, more than 20 times the daily limits set by the World Health Organization. It will likely worsen further through the season. A study published in The Lancet Planetary Health last year estimated that 3.8 million deaths in India between 2009 and 2019 were linked to air pollution Source:Phys.org @EverythingScience

Groundbreaking New Treatment Is the First to Halt This Common Eye Disease About one in three people over the age of 80 are affected by age-related macular degeneration (AMD), and roughly 20 million Americans aged 40 and older are currently living with the condition. Most patients experience the dry form of AMD, which develops gradually and eventually leads to the loss of central vision, making it difficult to see objects directly ahead. Despite how common it is, there are still no effective treatments for the dry type of the disease. Researchers at Aalto University have now identified a promising new method that could help stop the progression of dry AMD if applied during the early stages of diagnosis. The technique works by using heat to strengthen the cells’ natural defense systems, according to Professor Ari Koskelainen. “Cellular functionality and protective mechanisms weaken with age, which exposes the fundus [the inside surface at the back of the eye] to intense oxidative stress,” he explains. “Free oxygen radicals damage proteins, which causes them to misfold and aggregate, then fatty protein deposits called drusen begin to accumulate, which is the main diagnostic criterion for the dry form of age-related macular degeneration.” Source:SciTechDaily @EverythingScience

We sharpened the James Webb telescope's vision from a million miles away. Here's how. Source:Live Science @EverythingScience

We Were Not Alone: Earliest Humans Lived Beside Australopithecus, Fossils Reveal Although scientists have uncovered much of the story of human evolution, several key chapters are still missing. One major gap lies between 2 and 3 million years ago, a period for which fossil evidence remains scarce. This absence is especially significant because it marks the era when the branch of the hominin family tree that includes modern humans, or Homo sapiens, first appears in the fossil record. Today, Homo sapiens (commonly referred to by anthropologists as Homo) is the only surviving member of the hominin lineage. In earlier times, however, our ancestors shared the Earth with other related species, sometimes competing and coexisting with them. Recent research supported by the National Science Foundation and the Leakey Foundation, and published in Nature, helps close one of these evolutionary gaps by revealing two early hominin species that lived side by side. At the Ledi-Geraru site in Ethiopia’s Afar Region, an international research team discovered hominin fossils dated between 2.6 and 3.0 million years old. Lucas Delezene, an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Arkansas, served as the study’s second author, contributing alongside more than 20 scientists from North America, Africa, and Europe. The findings include fossils of Homo that establish the oldest confirmed evidence of our lineage at 2.8 million years ago, with additional remains dating to 2.6 million years ago. These discoveries strengthen the case for Homo’s deep evolutionary roots. Even more surprising, the team found that Homo lived in the same region at the same time as another hominin, Australopithecus, around 2.6 million years ago. This overlap challenges long-held assumptions, as Australopithecus was believed to have vanished from the area roughly 3 million years ago. The famous Australopithecus specimen known as Lucy was discovered nearby, yet her species was thought to have disappeared from the fossil record by that point. Source:SciTechDaily @EverythingScience

Exactly 25 years ago, at 09:21 UTC, the era of continuous human presence on the International Space Station began. Since Crew One took up residence in 2000, 21 esa astronauts have lived and worked on this orbital outpost, conducting essential research to benefit life on Earth. Source: @esaspaceflight @EverythingScience

SpaceX launches private space station pathfinder 'Haven Demo,' 17 other satellites to orbit SpaceX just launched a satellite that could help pave the way for a private space station in the very near future. A Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida today at 1:09 a.m. EDT (0509 GMT), on a multi-satellite rideshare mission that SpaceX calls Bandwagon-4. Among the 18 payloads on board the Falcon 9 is Haven Demo, a pathfinder for Haven-1, the private space station that California company Vast Space plans to launch to Earth orbit next year. "The first step in our iterative approach towards building next-generation space stations, Haven Demo will test critical systems for Haven-1, including propulsion, flight computers and navigation software," Vast wrote in a description of the satellite. Vast's Haven-1 will launch to low Earth orbit (LEO) atop a Falcon 9, perhaps as soon as the second quarter of 2026. If that schedule holds, Haven-1 — which can support up to four astronauts at a time — will be the first standalone private space station in human history. The other 17 payloads that went up today will be operated by South Korea's Agency for Defense Development (ADD), the Berlin-based company Exolaunch, Turkey's Fergani Space, the weather-forecasting outfit Tomorrow Companies and Starcloud, which aims to build data centers in space. Source:Space.com @EverythingScience

Humans Used to Sleep Twice Every Night. Here's Why It Vanished. Continuous sleep is a modern habit, not an evolutionary constant, which helps explain why many of us still wake at 3 am and wonder if something's wrong. It might help to know that this is a deeply human experience. For most of human history, a continuous eight-hour snooze was not the norm. Instead, people commonly slept in two shifts each night, often called a "first sleep" and "second sleep." Each of these sleeps lasted several hours, separated by a gap of wakefulness for an hour or more in the middle of the night. Historical records from Europe, Africa, Asia, and beyond describe how, after nightfall, families would go to bed early, then wake around midnight for a while before returning to sleep until dawn. Breaking the night into two parts probably changed how time felt. The quiet interval gave nights a clear middle, which can make long winter evenings feel less continuous and easier to manage. The midnight interval was not dead time; it was noticed time, which shapes how long nights are experienced. Some people would get up to tend to chores like stirring the fire or checking on animals. Others stayed in bed to pray or contemplate dreams they'd just had. Letters and diaries from pre-industrial times mention people using the quiet hours to read, write, or even socialise quietly with family or neighbours. Many couples took advantage of this midnight wakefulness for intimacy. Literature from as far back as ancient Greek poet Homer and Roman poet Virgil contains references to an "hour which terminates the first sleep," indicating how commonplace the two-shift night was. Source:ScienceAlert @EverythingScience