Today’s stories include Why a Puzzling New Image Of Jupiter Could Help Us Find Life Beyond Earth to Scientists Test Einstein’s Relativity On A Cosmological Scale and Discover Something Strange, and much more.
Why this puzzling new image of Jupiter could help us find life beyond Earth, reports Jamie Carter for Forbes. Scientists today published a strange image of Jupiter that will help them find Earth-like planets orbiting distant star systems. The odd image from the W. M. Keck Observatory in Maunakea, Hawaii comes from “first light” of its new instrument, the Keck Planet Finder, which is expected to revolutionize the hunt for life beyond Earth from spring 2023 onwards.
Chinese scientists create a quantum engine that is atom-sizedSouth China Morning News reports “Researchers use lasers to increase or suppress an ion’s quantum characteristics and generate power at microscopic level. The novel approach is outside mainstream quantum theory and divided scientific opinion during the peer-review submission process.”
300 million years ago, mass extinction could have been caused by evolution of the tree roots–The emergence of tree roots that shook the Earth’s waters around 300 million years ago may have set off a sequence of major extinctions, reports Interesting Engineering.
Relativity: What to Think About-Albert Einstein’s ideas about space-time aren’t exactly intuitive, and they aren’t exactly Einstein’s, either, writes Sean Carroll for Quanta. “One of the major reasons why relativity has a reputation for being difficult to understand is that our intuitions train us to think of space and time as separate things.”
Earth now has 8 billion people—and counting. Where do we go from here?–“From the emergence of Homo sapiens, it took roughly 300,000 years before one billion of us populated the Earth. This was in 1804, when Haiti gained independence from France and Beethoven performed his Third Symphony at Vienna. The implications for the planet—and our own welfare—hinge on how we tackle climate change, reports National Geographic.
Scientists accidentally discovered Antarctica’s life below 3,000 feet of ice.. ‘Never in a million years’ would they have expected it, the lead scientist said. “The creatures were found attached to a boulder in the arctic seas under the Filchner-Ronne ice shelf. British Antarctic Survey experts drilled through 2,860 feet ice to make the discovery. “The area underneath these ice shelves is probably one of the least-known habitats on Earth,” said Huw Griffiths, one of the scientists who made the discovery, in a Twitter video.”
Earth’s largest iceberg – 2 times bigger than London – is floating toward the equator. Interesting Engineering reports that the iceberg has been moving around Antarctica for more then a year. “According to the information shared by NASA’s Earth Observatory on October 31, the world’s largest iceberg, A-76A, has entered the Drake Passage, a waterway that contains a fast-moving ocean current that will send the mighty berg on a one-way trip to its watery grave.”
Great Filter means we could die out before we discover alien life,The Times of London reports
NASA plays a terrible asteroid impact catastrophe and it is manipulated by NASAThe Hill reports. Scientific American reports that NASA and several other federal, local, and state agencies war-gamed an impact of an asteroid on Winston-Salem in North Carolina. The scenario depicted an asteroid measuring 70 meters in diameter being detected shortly before it entered the Earth’s atmosphere.”
Ellerman bombs, a tiny explosion on Sun that has the same power as 100,000 atomic bombs–A coronal mass ejection from a solar filament is expected later in the week, reports Interesting Engineering. “Space enthusiasts are in for a treat this week after a photographer captured a phenomenon called Ellerman bombs on the surface of the Sun. The image was shared by Spaceweather.com and sparked quite an interest in what it means as the solar cycle is approaching its peak.”
Scientists just found a hidden 6th mass extinction in Earth’s ancient past, reports Joshua A. Krisch for Live Science. “A global drop in oxygen levels about 550 million years ago led to Earth’s first known mass extinction, new evidence suggests.”
Honey Bees live half as long today than they did 50 years ago.-“A drop in longevity for lab-kept honey bees could help explain colony losses and lower honey production in recent decades.”
How Australia became the world’s greatest lithium supplier,BBC Future reports. “As demand soars for electric vehicles and clean energy storage, Australia is rising to meet much of the world’s demand for lithium. While this helps reduce the need for fossil fuels, it raises another question – how can we source lithium sustainably?”
Is there life on Mars? Australian rocks could hold clues for the Nasa roverThe BBC reports. “Researchers studying the Australian rocks say only ancient microbes could have shaped them the way they are. Nasa’s Perseverance rover should look for similarities when exploring rocks of a similar age on Mars, they say.”
How JWST Is Redefining Our View of The UniverseClara Moskowitz reports for Scientific American that the James Webb Space Telescope is a breakthrough in astronomy.
Thought to be the brain area that imparts consciousness, it behaves rather like an Internet router –“Tucked underneath the brain’s outer, wrinkly cortex is a deeply mysterious area, known as the claustrum. In 2005, the famed scientist Francis Crick, PhD, proposed that the claustrum was the seat of consciousness. In other words, the region of the brain enabling awareness of the world and ourselves.” New research from University of Maryland School of Medicine suggests Crick was wrong.
Scientists Test Einstein’s Relativity On A Cosmological Scale and Discover Something Strange These statistical methods will allow researchers to improve general relativity, and open the door to solving cosmological problems, reports NDTV.
What it’s like living as a female psychopathBBC Future reports. “Psychopathy is a condition that reviles and fascinates many people in equal measure, but the deeply entrenched stigma surrounding it means the disorder is still poorly understood – especially when it occurs in women.”
The unexpected benefits of blue space, reports The BBC Future–“Mindfulness exercises have become increasingly mainstream in the last decade, but they tend to be practiced from the comfort of the home or a therapist’s office – not the deck of a ship.
Are you a prehistoric predator? Artificial intelligence disagrees According to the University of Queensland. “Artificial intelligence has revealed that prehistoric footprints thought to be made by a vicious dinosaur predator were in fact from a timid herbivore.”
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