- — Maya used hallucinogenic plants in “ensouling” rituals for their ball courts
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at 5/2/24 9:30amEnlarge / A decorative ring made from carved stone is embedded in the wall of a ballcourt in the ancient Maya city of Chichen Itza. (credit: Kåre Thor Olsen/CC BY-SA 3.0) It's well-known that the ancient Maya had their own version of ball games, which were played with a rubber ball on stone courts. Such games served not just as athletic events but also religious ones that often involved ritual sacrifices. Archaeologists have now found evidence that the Maya may have blessed newly constructed ball courts in rituals involving plants with hallucinogenic properties, according to a new paper published in the journal PLoS ONE. “When they erected a new building, they asked the goodwill of the gods to protect the people inhabiting it,” said co-author David Lentz of the University of Cincinnati. “Some people call it an ensouling ritual, to get a blessing from and appease the gods.” Lentz and his team previously used genetic and pollen analyses of the wild and cultivated plants found in the ancient Maya city Yaxnohcah in what is now Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, revealing evidence of sustainable agriculture and forestry spanning a millennia. As we've reported previously, there is ample evidence that humans in many cultures throughout history used various hallucinogenic substances in religious ceremonies or shamanic rituals. That includes not just ancient Egypt but also ancient Greek, Vedic, Maya, Inca, and Aztec cultures. The Urarina people who live in the Peruvian Amazon Basin still use a psychoactive brew called ayahuasca in their rituals, and Westerners seeking their own brand of enlightenment have also been known to participate.Read 12 remaining paragraphs | Comments- — Storing energy with compressed air is about to have its moment of truth
- at 5/2/24 7:57amEnlarge / A rendering of Silver City Energy Centre, a compressed air energy storage plant to be built by Hydrostor in Broken Hill, New South Wales, Australia. (credit: Hydrostor) The need for long-duration energy storage, which helps to fill the longest gaps when wind and solar are not producing enough electricity to meet demand, is as clear as ever. Several technologies could help to meet this need. But which approaches could be viable on a commercial scale? Toronto-based Hydrostor Inc. is one of the businesses developing long-duration energy storage that has moved beyond lab scale and is now focusing on building big things. The company makes systems that store energy underground in the form of compressed air, which can be released to produce electricity for eight hours or longer.Read 26 remaining paragraphs | Comments
- — NASA says Artemis II report by its inspector general is unhelpful and redundant
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at 5/2/24 7:43amEnlarge / Orion, the Moon, and Earth in one photo in December 2022. (credit: NASA) NASA's acting inspector general, George A. Scott, released a report Wednesday that provided an assessment of NASA's readiness to launch the Artemis II mission next year. This is an important flight for the space agency because, while the crew of four will not land on the Moon, it will be the first time humans have flown into deep space in more than half a century. The report did not contain any huge surprises. In recent months the biggest hurdle for the Artemis II mission has been the performance of the heat shield that protects the Orion spacecraft during its fiery reentry at more than 25,000 mph from the Moon. Although NASA downplayed the heat shield issue in the immediate aftermath of the uncrewed Artemis I flight in late 2022, it is clear that the unexpected damage and charring during that uncrewed mission is a significant concern. As recently as last week, Amit Kshatriya, who oversees development for the Artemis missions in NASA's exploration division, said the agency is still looking for the root cause of the problem.Read 14 remaining paragraphs | Comments - — Alarming superbug from deadly eyedrop outbreak has spread to dogs
- at 5/1/24 2:07pmEnlarge / A dog gets examined by veterinary technicians in Texas. (credit: Getty | Michael Paulsen) Two separately owned dogs in New Jersey tested positive last year for a dreaded, extensively drug resistant bacterial strain spread in the US by contaminated artificial eye drops manufactured in India. Those drops caused a deadly multi-state outbreak in humans over many months last year, with at least 81 people ultimately infected across 18 states. Fourteen people lost their vision, an additional four had eyeballs surgically removed, and four people died. The preliminary data on the dogs—presented recently at a conference of disease detectives hosted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—highlights that now that the deadly outbreak strain has been introduced around the US, it has the potential to lurk in unexpected places, spread its drug resistance to fellow bacteria, and cause new infections in people and animals who may have never used the drops. The two dogs in New Jersey were not known to have received the drops linked to the outbreak: EzriCare Artificial Tears and two additional products made by the same manufacturer, which were recalled in February 2023. Such over-the-counter products are sometimes used in animals as well as people. But the dogs' separate owners said they didn't recall using the drops either. They also didn't report any exposures in health care settings or recent international travel that could explain the infections. One of the dogs did, at one point, receive eye drops, but they were not an outbreak-associated brand. The only connection between the two dogs was that they were both treated at the same veterinary hospital, which didn't stock the outbreak-associated eyedrops.Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments
- — Europe’s ambitious satellite Internet project appears to be running into trouble
- at 5/1/24 8:43amEnlarge / EU Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton wants Europe to have its own secure satellite communications network. (credit: Thierry Monasse/Getty Images) It has been 18 months since the European Union announced its intent to develop an independent satellite Internet constellation, and the plans appear to be heading into troubled waters. In that time, a single bid—from a consortium of multinational companies that includes Airbus Defence and Space, Thales Alenia Space, and Arianespace—has emerged to build the network of a few hundred satellites. The companies are to build, launch, and deploy the network of satellites, intended as Europe's answer to SpaceX's Starlink satellite Internet service for connectivity and secure communications, by 2027. However, the European Commission recently delayed the awarding of a contract to this consortium from March to an undetermined date. In April, Europe's Commissioner for Internal Market, Thierry Breton, said, “There is an independent committee which is working on the evaluation process. The work is being carried out extremely seriously." He did not say when this work would conclude.Read 10 remaining paragraphs | Comments
- — Daily Telescope: The Horsehead Nebula as we’ve never seen it before
- at 5/1/24 6:00amEnlarge / The James Webb Space Telescope has captured the sharpest infrared images to date of one of the most distinctive objects in our skies, the Horsehead Nebula. (credit: ESA/Webb, NASA, CSA, K. Misselt (University of Arizona) and A. Abergel (IAS/University Paris-Saclay, CNRS)) Welcome to the Daily Telescope. There is a little too much darkness in this world and not enough light, a little too much pseudoscience and not enough science. We'll let other publications offer you a daily horoscope. At Ars Technica, we're going to take a different route, finding inspiration from very real images of a universe that is filled with stars and wonder. Good morning. It's May 1, and today's photo is ridiculously awesome. Taken by the James Webb Space Telescope, it features the sharpest infrared image of the Horsehead Nebula captured to date—it is so zoomed in we can only see the mane. Even so, the image covers an area that is nearly one light-year across, or about 7.6 trillion km. The Horsehead Nebula is fairly close to Earth, as these things go, about 1,300 light-years. So, it is within our galaxy. In addition to the prominent star at the top of the image and a handful of other stars with six diffraction spikes, the rest of the objects in this image are distant galaxies.Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments
- — Two giants in the satellite telecom industry join forces to counter Starlink
- at 4/30/24 7:30pmEnlarge / The Intelsat 901 satellite is seen by a Northrop Grumman servicing vehicle in 2020. (credit: Northrop Grumman) Facing competition from Starlink and other emerging satellite broadband networks, the two companies that own most of the traditional commercial communications spacecraft in geostationary orbit announced plans to join forces Tuesday. SES, based in Luxembourg, will buy Intelsat for $3.1 billion. The acquisition will create a combined company boasting a fleet of some 100 multi-ton satellites in geostationary orbit, a ring of spacecraft located more than 22,000 miles (nearly 36,000 kilometers) over the equator. This will be more than twice the size of the fleet of the next-largest commercial geostationary satellite operator. The problem is that demand is waning for communication services through large geostationary (GEO) satellites. There are some large entrenched customers, like video media companies and the military, that will continue to buy telecom capacity on geostationary satellites. But there's a growing demand among consumers, and some segments of the corporate and government markets, for the types of services offered by constellations of smaller satellites flying closer to Earth.Read 19 remaining paragraphs | Comments
- — DEA to reclassify marijuana as a lower-risk drug, reports say
- at 4/30/24 3:16pmEnlarge / Medical marijuana growing in a facility in Canada. (credit: Getty | Richard Lautens) The US Drug Enforcement Administration is preparing to reclassify marijuana to a lower-risk drug category, a major federal policy change that is in line with recommendations from the US health department last year. The upcoming move was first reported by the Associated Press on Tuesday afternoon and has since been confirmed by several other outlets. The DEA currently designates marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug, defined as drugs "with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse." It puts marijuana in league with LSD and heroin. According to the reports today, the DEA is moving to reclassify it as a Schedule 3 drug, defined as having "a moderate to low potential for physical and psychological dependence." The move would place marijuana in the ranks of ketamine, testosterone, and products containing less than 90 milligrams of codeine. Marijuana's rescheduling would be a nod to its potential medical benefits and would shift federal policy in line with many states. To date, 38 states have already legalized medical marijuana.Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments
- — Researchers make a plastic that includes bacteria that can digest it
- at 4/30/24 2:11pmEnlarge (credit: Han Sol Kim) One reason plastic waste persists in the environment is because there's not much that can eat it. The chemical structure of most polymers is stable, and different enough from existing food sources that bacteria didn't have enzymes that could digest them. Evolution has started to change that situation, though, and a number of strains have been identified that can digest some common plastics. An international team of researchers has decided to take advantage of those strains and bundle plastic-eating bacteria into the plastic. To keep them from eating it while it's in use, the bacteria is mixed in as inactive spores that should (mostly—more on this below) only start digesting the plastic once it's released into the environment. To get this to work, the researchers had to evolve a bacterial strain that could tolerate the manufacturing process. It turns out that the evolved bacteria made the plastic even stronger. Bacteria meet plastics Plastics are formed of polymers, long chains of identical molecules linked together by chemical bonds. While they can be broken down chemically, the process is often energy-intensive and doesn't leave useful chemicals behind. One alternative is to get bacteria to do it for us. If they've got an enzyme that breaks the chemical bonds of a polymer, they can often use the resulting small molecules as an energy source.Read 11 remaining paragraphs | Comments
- — New space company seeks to solve orbital mobility with high delta-v spacecraft
- at 4/30/24 7:30amEnlarge / What a Supernova spacecraft might look like in orbit. (credit: Portal Space Systems) Over the course of the last seven decades, the vast majority of satellites have launched into orbit with propulsion mostly as an afterthought. That's not to say having thrusters is not important, but once the vehicle reached its intended orbit, the on-board propulsion was used mainly for station keeping and small maneuvers. One of the truisms about spaceflight, in fact, has been that a vehicle isn't going anywhere after it reaches a particular orbit. That's because the energy needed to make significant changes in one's orbit around Earth is very high. In space today, the current choices of on-orbit maneuverability are not optimal. There are conventional rocket-powered thrusters that require an extraordinary amount of propellant to move around. There are ion thrusters, which are significantly more fuel-efficient, but cannot make changes quickly. And that's really about it.Read 11 remaining paragraphs | Comments
- — NASA lays out how SpaceX will refuel Starships in low-Earth orbit
- at 4/29/24 6:19pmEnlarge / Artist's illustration of two Starships docked belly-to-belly in orbit. (credit: SpaceX) Some time next year, NASA believes SpaceX will be ready to link two Starships in orbit for an ambitious refueling demonstration, a technical feat that will put the Moon within reach. SpaceX is under contract with NASA to supply two human-rated Starships for the first two astronaut landings on the Moon through the agency's Artemis program, which aims to return people to the lunar surface for the first time since 1972. The first of these landings, on NASA's Artemis III mission, is currently targeted for 2026, although this is widely viewed as an ambitious schedule. Last year, NASA awarded a contract to Blue Origin to develop its own human-rated Blue Moon lunar lander, giving Artemis managers two options for follow-on missions.Read 34 remaining paragraphs | Comments
- — Cats suffer H5N1 brain infections, blindness, death after drinking raw milk
- at 4/29/24 4:41pmEnlarge / Farm cats drinking from a trough of milk from cows that were just milked. (credit: Getty | ) On March 16, cows on a Texas dairy farm began showing symptoms of a mysterious illness now known to be H5N1 bird flu. Their symptoms were nondescript, but their milk production dramatically dropped and turned thick and creamy yellow. The next day, cats on the farm that had consumed some of the raw milk from the sick cows also became ill. While the cows would go on to largely recover, the cats weren't so lucky. They developed depressed mental states, stiff body movements, loss of coordination, circling, copious discharge from their eyes and noses, and blindness. By March 20, over half of the farm's 24 or so cats died from the flu. In a study published today in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, researchers in Iowa, Texas, and Kansas found that the cats had H5N1 not just in their lungs but also in their brains, hearts, and eyes. The findings are similar to those seen in cats that were experimentally infected with H5N1, aka highly pathogenic avian influenza virus (HPAI). But, on the Texas dairy farm, they present an ominous warning of the potential for transmission of this dangerous and evolving virus. The contaminated milk was the most likely source of the cat's fatal infections, the study authors concluded. Although it can't be entirely ruled out that the cats got sick from eating infected wild birds, the milk they drank from the sick cows was brimming with virus particles, and genetic data shows almost exact matches between the cows, their milk, and the cats. "Therefore, our findings suggest cross-species mammal-to-mammal transmission of HPAI H5N1 virus and raise new concerns regarding the potential for virus spread within mammal populations," wrote the authors, who are veterinary researchers from Iowa, Texas, and Kansas.Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments
- — Swimming and spinning aquatic spiders use slick survival strategies
- at 4/28/24 5:11amEnlarge / Of all the aquatic spiders, the diving bell spider is the only one known to survive almost entirely underwater, using bubbles of air it brings down from the surface. (credit: Oxford Scientific via Getty) Shrubbery, toolsheds, basements—these are places one might expect to find spiders. But what about the beach? Or in a stream? Some spiders make their homes near or, more rarely, in water: tucking into the base of kelp stalks, spinning watertight cocoons in ponds or lakes, hiding under pebbles at the seaside or creek bank. “Spiders are surprisingly adaptable, which is one of the reasons they can inhabit this environment,” says Ximena Nelson, a behavioral biologist at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. Read 14 remaining paragraphs | Comments
- — Why Germany ditched nuclear before coal—and why it won’t go back
- at 4/27/24 5:27amEnlarge / Jürgen Trittin, member of the German Bundestag and former environment minister, stands next to an activist during an action of the environmental organization Greenpeace in front of the Brandenburg Gate in April 2023. The action is to celebrate the shutdown of the last three German nuclear power plants. (credit: Christoph Soeder/Picture Alliance via Getty Images) One year ago, Germany took its last three nuclear power stations offline. When it comes to energy, few events have baffled outsiders more. In the face of climate change, calls to expedite the transition away from fossil fuels, and an energy crisis precipitated by Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Berlin’s move to quit nuclear before carbon-intensive energy sources like coal has attracted significant criticism. (Greta Thunberg prominently labeled it “a mistake.”) This decision can only be understood in the context of post-war socio-political developments in Germany, where anti-nuclearism predated the public climate discourse.Read 23 remaining paragraphs | Comments
- — US’s power grid continues to lower emissions—everything else, not so much
- at 4/26/24 12:51pmEnlarge (credit: US EIA) On Thursday, the US Department of Energy released its preliminary estimate for the nation's carbon emissions in the previous year. Any drop in emissions puts us on a path that would avoid some of the catastrophic warming scenarios that were still on the table at the turn of the century. But if we're to have a chance of meeting the Paris Agreement goal of keeping the planet from warming beyond 2° C, we'll need to see emissions drop dramatically in the near future. So, how is the US doing? Emissions continue to trend downward, but there's no sign the drop has accelerated. And most of the drop has come from a single sector: changes in the power grid. Off the grid, on the road US carbon emissions have been trending downward since roughly 2007, when they peaked at about six gigatonnes. In recent years, the pandemic produced a dramatic drop in emissions in 2020, lowering them to under five gigatonnes for the first time since before 1990, when the EIA's data started. Carbon dioxide release went up a bit afterward, with 2023 marking the first post-pandemic decline, with emissions again clearly below five gigatonnes.Read 9 remaining paragraphs | Comments
- — 20% of grocery store milk has traces of bird flu, suggesting wider outbreak
- at 4/26/24 8:26amEnlarge (credit: Getty | Jeffrey Greenberg) The Food and Drug Administration reported late Thursday that about 20 percent of retail milk samples from around the country tested positive for genetic fragments of the bird flu, aka highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) virus H5N1. While retail milk is still considered to be safe, the finding suggests that the spread of the virus in cows is more extensive than is currently known. The FDA used a test called quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR), which can only detect the presence of genetic fragments. In pasteurized retail milk, it is highly likely that those genetic snippets are merely remnants of virus particles destroyed during pasteurization. The FDA is currently conducting additional testing using egg inoculation tests, a gold-standard for detecting a live virus, to confirm the effectiveness of pasteurization. Meanwhile, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Jeanne Marrazzo, told reporters Wednesday that tests at the agency's federal labs so far did not identify live virus from any of its sampling. Additionally, several previous studies have found that pasteurization of eggs—which is done at a lower temperature than it is for milk—was effective at destroying H5N1. While experts are largely unconcerned with the safety of commercial milk, the potential for wide, unrecognized spread of bird flu in dairy herds is alarming. To date, the US Department of Agriculture has only confirmed infections in 33 herds in eight states. The FDA acknowledged that of its positive samples, "a greater proportion of positive results [are] coming from milk in areas with infected herds." But with tens of thousands of dairy herds in the US, the finding suggests that infections are being missed. It does not necessarily suggest that 20 percent of all cows are affected, since milk is pooled for commercial distribution. But 33 herds alone are unlikely to explain the high prevalence.Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments
- — Lost opportunity: We could’ve started fighting climate change in 1971
- at 4/26/24 8:19amEnlarge / A newly revealed research proposal from 1971 shows that Richard Nixon’s science advisors embarked on an extensive analysis of the potential risks of climate change. (credit: Oliver Atkins/National Archives) In 1971, President Richard Nixon’s science advisers proposed a multimillion dollar climate change research project with benefits they said were too “immense” to be quantified, since they involved “ensuring man’s survival,” according to a White House document newly obtained by the nonprofit National Security Archive and shared exclusively with Inside Climate News. The plan would have established six global and 10 regional monitoring stations in remote locations to collect data on carbon dioxide, solar radiation, aerosols and other factors that exert influence on the atmosphere. It would have engaged five government agencies in a six-year initiative, with spending of $23 million in the project’s peak year of 1974—the equivalent of $172 million in today’s dollars. It would have used then-cutting-edge technology, some of which is only now being widely implemented in carbon monitoring more than 50 years later. But it stands as yet another lost opportunity early on the road to the climate crisis. Researchers at the National Security Archive, based at the George Washington University, could find no documentation of what happened to the proposal, and it was never implemented.Read 19 remaining paragraphs | Comments
- — Nixon administration could’ve started monitoring CO2 levels but didn’t
- at 4/26/24 8:19amEnlarge / A newly revealed research proposal from 1971 shows that Richard Nixon’s science advisors embarked on an extensive analysis of the potential risks of climate change. (credit: Oliver Atkins/National Archives) In 1971, President Richard Nixon’s science advisers proposed a multimillion dollar climate change research project with benefits they said were too “immense” to be quantified, since they involved “ensuring man’s survival,” according to a White House document newly obtained by the nonprofit National Security Archive and shared exclusively with Inside Climate News. The plan would have established six global and 10 regional monitoring stations in remote locations to collect data on carbon dioxide, solar radiation, aerosols and other factors that exert influence on the atmosphere. It would have engaged five government agencies in a six-year initiative, with spending of $23 million in the project’s peak year of 1974—the equivalent of $172 million in today’s dollars. It would have used then-cutting-edge technology, some of which is only now being widely implemented in carbon monitoring more than 50 years later. But it stands as yet another lost opportunity early on the road to the climate crisis. Researchers at the National Security Archive, based at the George Washington University, could find no documentation of what happened to the proposal, and it was never implemented.Read 19 remaining paragraphs | Comments
- — Rocket Report: SLS workforce cuts; New Glenn launch to launch in the early fall
- at 4/26/24 5:00amEnlarge / The flight hardware core stage for Europe’s new rocket, Ariane 6, is moved onto the launch pad for the first time this week. A launch is possible some time this summer. (credit: ESA-M. Pédoussaut) Welcome to Edition 6.41 of the Rocket Report! As I finish up this edition I'm listening to the post-Flight Readiness Review news conference for Boeing's Crew Flight Test. It sounds like everything remains on track for a launch attempt on May 6, at 10:34 pm ET. It's exciting to see this important milestone for Boeing and the US human spaceflight program so near to hand. As always, we welcome reader submissions, and if you don't want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar. Shetland spaceport advancing toward launch. SaxaVord Spaceport in Scotland is on track to launch the United Kingdom’s first vertical rocket into orbit, the BBC reports. The Civil Aviation Authority has granted a range license to the Scottish spaceport, which will allow the company to control the sea and airspace during launch. Previously, the site received a spaceport license in December 2023. Ambitiously, the facility aims to launch up to 30 rockets every year.Read 20 remaining paragraphs | Comments
- — Russia stands alone in vetoing UN resolution on nuclear weapons in space
- at 4/25/24 5:09pmEnlarge / A meeting of the UN Security Council on April 14. (credit: Fatih Aktas/Anadolu via Getty Images) Russia vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution Wednesday that would have reaffirmed a nearly 50-year-old ban on placing weapons of mass destruction into orbit, two months after reports Russia has plans to do just that. Russia's vote against the resolution was no surprise. As one of the five permanent members of the Security Council, Russia has veto power over any resolution that comes before the body. China abstained from the vote, and 13 other members of the Security Council voted in favor of the resolution. If it passed, the resolution would have affirmed a binding obligation in Article IV of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which says nations are "not to place in orbit around the Earth any objects carrying nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction."Read 13 remaining paragraphs | Comments
- — Three women contract HIV from dirty “vampire facials” at unlicensed spa
- at 4/25/24 3:37pmEnlarge / Drops of the blood going onto an HIV quick test. (credit: Getty | BRITTA PEDERSEN) Trendy, unproven "vampire facials" performed at an unlicensed spa in New Mexico left at least three women with HIV infections. This marks the first time that cosmetic procedures have been associated with an HIV outbreak, according to a detailed report of the outbreak investigation published today. Ars reported on the cluster last year when state health officials announced they were still identifying cases linked to the spa despite it being shut down in September 2018. But today's investigation report offers more insight into the unprecedented outbreak, which linked five people with HIV infections to the spa and spurred investigators to contact and test nearly 200 other spa clients. The report appears in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. The investigation began when a woman between the ages of 40 and 50 turned up positive on a rapid HIV test taken while she was traveling abroad in the summer of 2018. She had a stage 1 acute infection. It was a result that was as dumbfounding as it was likely distressing. The woman had no clear risk factors for acquiring the infection: no injection drug use, no blood transfusions, and her current and only recent sexual partner tested negative. But, she did report getting a vampire facial in the spring of 2018 at a spa in Albuquerque called VIP Spa.Read 8 remaining paragraphs | Comments
- — Recoding Voyager 1—NASA’s interstellar explorer is finally making sense again
- at 4/23/24 11:56amEngineers have partially restored a 1970s-era computer on NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft after five months of long-distance troubleshooting, building confidence that humanity's first interstellar probe can eventually resume normal operations. Several dozen scientists and engineers gathered Saturday in a conference room at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, or connected virtually, to wait for a new signal from Voyager 1. The ground team sent a command up to Voyager 1 on Thursday to recode part of the memory of the spacecraft's Flight Data Subsystem (FDS), one of the probe's three computers. “In the minutes leading up to when we were going to see a signal, you could have heard a pin drop in the room," said Linda Spilker, project scientist for NASA's two Voyager spacecraft at JPL. "It was quiet. People were looking very serious. They were looking at their computer screens. Each of the subsystem (engineers) had pages up that they were looking at, to watch as they would be populated."Read 24 remaining paragraphs | Comments
- — Daily Telescope: The ambiguously galactic duo
- at 4/23/24 5:30amEnlarge / This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope features NGC 3783, a bright barred spiral galaxy about 130 million light-years from Earth. (credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, M. C. Bentz, D. J. V. Rosario) Welcome to the Daily Telescope. There is a little too much darkness in this world and not enough light, a little too much pseudoscience and not enough science. We'll let other publications offer you a daily horoscope. At Ars Technica, we're going to take a different route, finding inspiration from very real images of a universe that is filled with stars and wonder. Good morning. It's April 23, and today's photo comes from the Hubble Space Telescope. It features a lovely, barred spiral galaxy and a photobombing star on the right-hand side of the image. The galaxy is NGC 3783, which can be found 130 million light-years away from Earth. Astronomical distances are all mind-boggling, but to try to put things into perspective, that means this galaxy is about 1,000 times the distance farther from us compared to the diameter of our own Milky Way Galaxy. So it's far, far away.Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments
- — Concern grows as bird flu spreads further in US cows: 32 herds in 8 states
- at 4/22/24 4:24pmEnlarge (credit: Getty | Daniel Bockwoldt) Researchers around the world are growing more uneasy with the spread of highly pathogenic avian influenza (H5N1) in US dairy cows as the virus continues to make its way into new herds and states. Several experts say the US is not sharing enough information from the federal investigation into the unexpected and growing outbreak, including genetic information from isolated viruses. To date, the US Department of Agriculture has tallied 32 affected herds in eight states: Idaho, Kansas, Michigan, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, South Dakota, and Texas. In some cases, the movement of cattle between herds can explain the spread of the virus. But the USDA has not publicly clarified if all the herds are linked in a single outbreak chain or if there is evidence that the virus has spilled over to cows multiple times. Early infections in Texas were linked to dead wild birds (pigeons, blackbirds, and grackles) found on dairy farms. But the USDA reportedly indicated to Stat News that the infections do not appear to be all linked to the Texas cases. Spread of the virus via cattle movements indicates that there is cow-to-cow transmission occurring, the USDA said. But it's unclear how the virus is spreading between cows. Given that even the most symptomatic cows show few respiratory symptoms, the USDA speculates that the most likely way it is spreading is via contaminated milking equipment.Read 10 remaining paragraphs | Comments
- — High-speed imaging and AI help us understand how insect wings work
- at 4/22/24 2:16pmEnlarge / A time-lapse showing how an insect's wing adopts very specific positions during flight. (credit: Florian Muijres, Dickinson Lab) About 350 million years ago, our planet witnessed the evolution of the first flying creatures. They are still around, and some of them continue to annoy us with their buzzing. While scientists have classified these creatures as pterygotes, the rest of the world simply calls them winged insects. There are many aspects of insect biology, especially their flight, that remain a mystery for scientists. One is simply how they move their wings. The insect wing hinge is a specialized joint that connects an insect’s wings with its body. It’s composed of five interconnected plate-like structures called sclerites. When these plates are shifted by the underlying muscles, it makes the insect wings flap. Until now, it has been tricky for scientists to understand the biomechanics that govern the motion of the sclerites even using advanced imaging technologies. “The sclerites within the wing hinge are so small and move so rapidly that their mechanical operation during flight has not been accurately captured despite efforts using stroboscopic photography, high-speed videography, and X-ray tomography,” Michael Dickinson, Zarem professor of biology and bioengineering at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), told Ars Technica.Read 15 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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