The Zen of Technology & Scientific Discovery! (& Robots)

[Jundo]

Hubble to Webb ... for our genes ...

Unprecedented Detail: Researchers Capture How Genes Fold and Work

The new technique is “like upgrading from the Hubble to the James Webb.”

A new imaging technique captures the three-dimensional architecture of the human genome with unprecedented detail, showing how individual genes fold at the level of nucleosomes, the fundamental units constituting the genome’s three-dimensional architecture.

The technology, which was created by Barcelona-based researchers at the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) and the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona), combines high-resolution microscopy with sophisticated computer modeling. It is the most comprehensive technique to date for studying the shape of genes.

The new technique allows researchers to create and digitally navigate three-dimensional models of genes, seeing not just their architecture but also information on how they move or how flexible they are.

Comparison using a conventional microscope (left) to visualize the structure of the NANOG gene, which shows up as a bright green spot vs. using MiOS (right) which can image individual genes. MiOS is roughly ten times better in resolution and also details critical aspects of the structure that are not discernible using conventional methods.

https://scitechdaily.com/unprecedent...fold-and-work/

If the universe has "on" switches, it must have "off" switches too ...

Astronomers Discover Important New Information Regarding Star Formation

An important new hint regarding how galaxies halt intense episodes of star formation has been found by astronomers using the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) of the National Science Foundation. Their recent research on the nearby galaxy M33 suggests that fast cosmic ray electrons can generate winds that blow away the gas required for the formation of new stars.

As galaxies evolve over time, these winds are what cause the star formation rate to slow down. However, the primary sources of such winds have been attributed to material jets powered by black holes and shock waves from supernova explosions. Cosmic rays were assumed to be small contributors, especially in galaxies with prolific star formation, such as M33.

“We have seen galactic winds driven by cosmic rays in our own Milky Way and the Andromeda galaxy, which have much weaker rates of star formation, but not before in a galaxy such as M33,” said Fatemah Tabatabaei, of the Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences in Iran.

M33 is a spiral galaxy that is almost 3 million light-years distant and is a member of the Local Group of galaxies, which also contains the Milky Way. Tabatabaei and an international team of scientists made detailed, multi-wavelength VLA observations of M33. Additionally, they made use of information gathered from earlier observations made with the VLA, the German Effelsberg radio telescope, millimeter-wave, visible-light, and infrared telescopes.

Stars much larger than our Sun speed through their life cycles, eventually exploding as supernovae. Cosmic rays are produced when explosive shock waves accelerate particles almost to the speed of light. If there are enough of these cosmic rays, pressure can be created that drives winds that transport away the gas required for star formation.

https://scitechdaily.com/astronomers...tar-formation/

And a couple of important developments for differently abled folks ...

Groundbreaking New Technology Allows People To Listen to Music Through Touch

A ground-breaking prototype developed by experts from the Department of Electronics at the University of Malaga and members of the R&D group “Electronics for Instrumentation and Systems,” will allow those with hearing loss to listen to music through the sense of touch.

It consists of an audio-tactile algorithm that transforms monophonic music into tangible stimuli based on vibration utilizing “tactile illusions.” According to the researchers, “It’s like ‘hacking’ the nervous system to receive a different response to the real stimulus sent.”

“What we want to achieve in the long term is for people who do not hear to be able to ‘listen’ to music”, assures researcher Paul Remache, the main author of this paper, who insists on the power of music to influence mood, as well as its possibilities as a therapy for mental disorders and treatment of pain.

The researchers predict that this will lead to a portable terminal that may be brought to a concert since this prototype will be easily transferable to technological devices like smartphones.

https://youtu.be/Pc1JCMozsDU

https://scitechdaily.com/groundbreak...through-touch/

And, of course, legs are less important in the zero gravity of space ... and may even just get in the way sometimes ...

Disabled man joins European Space Agency's astronaut programme

- The European Space Agency on Wednesday named the first ever "parastronaut" in a major step towards allowing people with physical disabilities to work and live in space.

The 22-nation agency said it had selected former British Paralympic sprinter John McFall as part of a new generation of 17 recruits picked for astronaut training.

He will take part in a feasibility study designed to allow ESA to assess the conditions needed for people with disabilities to take part in future missions. ... ESA posted openings last year for people fully capable of passing its usual stringent psychological, cognitive and other tests who are only prevented from becoming astronauts due to the constraints of existing hardware in light of their disability. ...

"Better representation of disabled people in influential roles will really help improve attitudes and break down the barriers that many disabled people face today," the charity's Head of Communications, Alison Kerry, said.

Following a motorcycle accident that led to his right leg being amputated at the age of 19, McFall went on to win the 100-metres Bronze Medal at the Beijing Paralympic Games in 2008.

The 31-year-old doctor will help ESA engineers design changes in hardware needed to open professional spaceflight to a wider group of qualified candidates, the agency said.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/europe-names-worlds-first-disabled-astronaut-2022-11-23/

https://youtu.be/SB3VrNzzEEw

Gassho, J

stlah

[Jundo]

Here's several stories showing what modern chemistry can reveal these days ...

.. the original Oryoki ...

World’s ‘oldest meal’ discovered in 550-million-year-old fossil

An international team of scientists say they have new insight into how the very earliest animals survived after traces of what they described as the world’s oldest meal were found in a 550 million-year-old fossil.

Researchers from the Australian National University (ANU) analyzed ancient fossils from the Ediacaran period following their discovery in Russia in 2018. The findings were published in the journal Current Biology this week.

Some of the oldest life on Earth is referred to as the Ediacaran biota. This group is based on the earliest fossils ever discovered, providing evidence of complex, multicellular organisms.

In a fossilized specimen of the slug-like Kimberella, the team detected molecules of phytosterol preserved in the creature’s gut. The chemical product, which is found in plants, suggested it ate algae and bacteria from the ocean floor.

Study co-author Jochen Brocks, a professor at the Australian National University, said the nutrient-rich algae may have contributed to Kimberella’s growth. “The energy-rich food may explain why the organisms of the Ediacara biota were so large. Nearly all fossils that came before the Ediacaran biota were single-celled and microscopic in size,” Brocks said, according to a press release.

The palaeontologists suggested that Kimberella was likely one of the most advanced creatures of the Ediacaran era with a mouth and a gut and digested food the same way modern animals do.

“Scientists already knew Kimberella left feeding marks by scraping off algae covering the sea floor, which suggested the animal had a gut,” Brocks explained. “But it was only after analysing the molecules of Kimberella’s gut that we were able to determine what exactly it was eating and how it digested food,” he said in the news release.

https://us.cnn.com/2022/11/25/world/oldest-meal-550-million-year-old-fossil-intl-scli-scn/index.html

... what we can know from long ago, what we can know from very far away ...

New data on ‘hot Saturn’ exoplanet is a ‘game changer,’ scientists say

The James Webb Space Telescope has captured a detailed molecular and chemical portrait of a faraway planet’s skies, scoring another first for the exoplanet science community.

WASP-39b, otherwise known as Bocaprins, can be found orbiting a star some 700 light-years away. It is an exoplanet — a planet outside our solar system — as massive as Saturn but much closer to its host star, making for an estimated temperature of 1,600 degrees Fahrenheit (871 degrees Celsius) emitting from its gases, according to NASA. This “hot Saturn” was one of the first exoplanets that the Webb telescope examined when it first began its regular science operations. The new readings provide a full breakdown of Bocaprins’ atmosphere, including atoms, molecules, cloud formations (which appear to be broken up, rather than a single, uniform blanket as scientists previously expected) and even signs of photochemistry caused by its host star.

“We observed the exoplanet with multiple instruments that, together, provide a broad swath of the infrared spectrum and a panoply of chemical fingerprints inaccessible until (this mission),” said Natalie Batalha, an astronomer at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who contributed to and helped coordinate the new research, in a NASA release. “Data like these are a game changer.”

“This is the first time we have seen concrete evidence of photochemistry — chemical reactions initiated by energetic stellar light — on exoplanets,” said Shang-Min Tsai, a researcher at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, in a NASA release. “I see this as a really promising outlook for advancing our understanding of exoplanet atmospheres.”

Other compounds detected in Bocaprins’ atmosphere include sodium, potassium and water vapor, confirming previous observations made by other space and ground-based telescopes, including the Hubble Space Telescope.

Having such a complete roster of chemical ingredients in an exoplanet atmosphere provides insight into how this planet — and perhaps others — formed. Bocaprins’ diverse chemical inventory suggests that multiple smaller bodies, called planetesimals, had merged to create an eventual goliath of a planet, of similar size to the second-largest planet in our solar system.

“This is just the first out of many exoplanets that are going to be studied in detail by JWST. … We are already getting very exciting results,” Nestor Espinoza, an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute, told CNN. “This is just the beginning.”
https://us.cnn.com/2022/11/24/world/...scn/index.html

... Then, the chemistry in our heads ...

Researchers at Scripps Research examined how the levels of various proteins in brain cells change in response to brain activity.

Scripps Research Institute scientists have created a new tool to monitor brain plasticity—the process by which our brains remodel and physically adjust when we learn and experience new things, such as viewing a movie or learning a new song or language. Their method, which examines the proteins generated by various brain cell types, has the potential to provide fundamental explanations for how the brain functions as well as provide insight into the many diseases of the brain where plasticity malfunctions.

Previous research conducted in a number of laboratories has shown how brain activity triggers changes in gene expression in neurons, an early step in plasticity. The team’s research, which was recently published in the Journal of Neuroscience, focuses on the next important stage of plasticity—the conversion of the genetic code into proteins.

“We still don’t understand all the mechanisms underlying how cells in our brain change in response to experiences, but this approach gives us a new window into the process,” says Hollis Cline, Ph.D., the Hahn Professor and Chair of Neuroscience at Scripps Research and senior author of the new work.

Two things take place when you learn something new: First, neurons in your brain immediately transmit electrical signals along new neural pathways. This eventually results in changes to the physical structure of brain cells and their connections. But for a long time, scientists have wondered what occurs between these two steps. How does the brain eventually undergo more substantial changes as a result of this electrical activity in neurons? Also, how and why does this plasticity deteriorate with aging and certain diseases? ...

https://scitechdaily.com/new-tool-re...when-we-learn/

... And let's not fail to mention ... signs of life on Mars ... (maybe) ...

NASA’s Perseverance Rover Discovers Possible Organic Compounds in Mars Crater Rocks

Analyses of multiple rocks found at the bottom of Jezero Crater on Mars, where the Perseverance rover landed in 2020, has revealed significant interaction between the rocks and liquid water. Evidence consistent with the presence of organic compounds has also been discovered in those rocks.

[However] Organic compounds (chemical compounds with carbon–hydrogen bonds) can be created through nonbiological processes, so the mere existence of these compounds is not direct evidence of life. To determine this conclusively, a future mission returning the samples to Earth would be needed.

Led by researchers at Caltech and carried out by an international team including Imperial College London researchers, the study was published on November 23 in the journal Science. ... The minerals and co-located possible organic compounds were discovered using SHERLOC, or the Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics & Chemicals instrument.

Mounted on the rover’s robotic arm, SHERLOC is equipped with a number of tools, including a Raman spectrometer that uses a specific type of fluorescence to search for organic compounds and also see how they are distributed in a material, providing insight into how they were preserved in that location.

https://scitechdaily.com/nasas-perse...-crater-rocks/

... and as I understand this, they might use DNA for data storage, cause it holds A LOT of data ... a kind of DNA DVD?

Scientists Have Found a Way To Manipulate Digital Data Stored in DNA

DNA can be utilized to reliably store massive amounts of digital data. However, it has hitherto proven challenging to retrieve or manipulate the specific data embedded in these molecules. Now, scientists from the CNRS and the University of Tokyo have developed the use of a novel enzyme-based technique, providing the initial clues as to how these technical obstacles may be overcome. Their research was recently published in the journal Nature.

Nature has unquestionably developed the best method for massive data storage: DNA. Based on this knowledge, DNA has been used to store digital data by translating binary (0 or 1) values into one of the four different DNA “letters” (A, T, C, or G).

But how can one search through the database of data encoded in DNA to discover a certain datum? And how is it possible to execute computations using DNA-encoded data without first transforming it into electronic form? These are the questions that research teams from the LIMMS (CNRS / University of Tokyo) and Gulliver (CNRS / ESPCI) laboratories have attempted to answer. They are experimenting with a new approach using enzymes and artificial neurons and neural networks for direct operations on DNA data. ...

https://scitechdaily.com/scientists-...stored-in-dna/

And finally ... I don't even know what this is ...

New Measurements Provide a Glimpse of the Quantum Future

A multi-institutional team has created an efficient method for measuring high-dimensional qudits encoded in quantum frequency combs, a kind of photon source, on a single optical chip using already available experimental and computational resources.

Despite the fact that the word “qudit” may appear to be a typo, this less well-known relative of the qubit, or quantum bit, has the ability to carry more data and is more noise-resistant, two crucial characteristics required to enhance the performance of quantum networks, quantum key distribution systems, and eventually the quantum internet.

In contrast to traditional computer bits, which classify data as ones or zeros, qubits can hold values of one, zero, or both. This is due to superposition, a phenomenon that enables several quantum states to exist simultaneously. Qudit’s “d” refers to the variety of levels or values that may be encoded on a photon. Traditional qubits only have two levels, but by adding more levels, they become qudits.

Researchers from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne, or EPFL, Purdue University, and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory recently completed the characterization of an entangled pair of eight-level qudits that formed a 64-dimensional quantum space, quadrupling the previous record for discrete frequency modes. Their findings were recently published in the journal Nature Communications.
https://scitechdaily.com/new-measure...uantum-future/

Gassho, J

stlah

[Jundo]

Of mice and men ... and what makes us human sentient beings ...

What Makes Humans Different? A New Window Into the Brain

The human brain’s function is remarkable, driving all aspects of our creativity and thoughts. However, the neocortex, a region of the human brain responsible for these cognitive functions, has a similar overall structure to other mammals.

Researchers from The University of Queensland (UQ), The Mater Hospital, and the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital have shown that changes in the structure and function of our neurons may be the cause of the human brain’s increased processing power. ...

... “We compared the electrical properties of human and rodent neocortical pyramidal neurons by making intricate simultaneous electrical recordings from their cell bodies and thin dendrites. Our research revealed that human and rodent neocortical pyramidal neurons share fundamental biophysical properties. For example, we showed that both the dendrites of human and rodent neocortical pyramidal neurons generate dendritic sodium spikes, suggesting a conservation of the machinery for integrating the many thousands of input signals that a neuron receives. However, we discovered the computational function of human neocortical pyramidal neurons is dramatically enhanced.”

Dr. Helen Gooch, a QBI postdoctoral fellow and co-author of the study, stated that the team discovered that the architecture of human neocortical pyramidal neurons’ dendritic trees—the branch-like extensions that carry electrical signals—was larger and more complex than that of other mammals, such as rodents.

“This elaboration of the dendritic tree in humans was accompanied by the generation of dendritic spikes at multiple sites, which actively spread through the neuron to drive the output signals of each neuron,” Dr. Gooch said.

“We suggest that this enhancement of distributed dendritic information processing may therefore be one factor that increases our brain’s overall processing power.”

https://scitechdaily.com/what-makes-...nto-the-brain/

So, take a look at this: monkeys saying "take a look at that." It may be something. Or maybe just nothing. Hmmm.

Chimpanzees share experiences with each other, a trait once thought to be only human

Researchers have often observed captive chimps pointing to an object they want their caregivers to give them or young chimps in the wild having tantrums to get attention from their mother.

Until now, these behaviors have only been observed when a chimpanzee wants something. Recently, however, scientists documented footage of a wild adult chimpanzee showing her mother a leaf, apparently just to share the experience with her, according to a study published Monday in the journal PNAS.

More examples of such interactions are needed to better understand the intention behind the gesture, the study’s researchers said, but the observation could demonstrate chimpanzees possess a social behavior once thought to be specific only to their human relatives.

“Critically, she didn’t seem to want her mom to do anything with the leaf. … She seems to be showing it just for the sake of showing it. It’s like, ‘look, look, this is cool, isn’t it?’ And that is very humanlike and something that we thought was fairly unique to our species,” said study coauthor Katie Slocombe, a professor of psychology at the University of York in the United Kingdom.

... Fiona had been engaged in what researchers call “leaf grooming,” a common behavior in which a chimpanzee will stroke and manipulate a leaf. The reasoning behind the behavior is a mystery, but Slocombe and her colleagues suspect it could be to inspect an ectoparasite, such as a tick, on top of the leaf. Often, surrounding chimpanzees will also become engrossed in the action, intently watching the leaf being groomed. “When Fiona was doing this, (Sutherland) didn’t really seem interested; she wasn’t watching and wasn’t giving her any attention. Fiona is then showing her the leaf to say, ‘look at it,’” Slocombe said. “She is really persistent with trying to get her mom to look at it, and it’s only when her mom really visibly dropped her whole head to orient to the leaf that (Fiona) then seems satisfied.” https://us.cnn.com/2022/11/18/world/...scn/index.html

Gassho, J

stlah

[Jundo]

This blows even my spaced out mind ... each POINT of the map represents an entire GALAXY ...

New Map of the Universe Displays Span of Entire Cosmos With Pinpoint Accuracy and Sweeping Beauty

The map charts a broad expanse of the universe, from the Milky Way to ‘the edge of what can be seen.’

A new map of the universe displays the span of the entire known cosmos for the first time with pinpoint accuracy and sweeping beauty.

Compiled from data mined over two decades by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, the map was created by astronomers from Johns Hopkins University. It allows the public to experience data previously only accessible to scientists.

The interactive map depicts the actual position and real colors of 200,000 galaxies. It is available online, where it can also be downloaded for free.

... The map visualizes a slice of the universe, or about 200,000 galaxies—each dot on the map is a galaxy and each galaxy contains billions of stars and planets. The Milky Way is simply one of these dots, the one at the very bottom of the map. Ménard assembled the map with the help of former Johns Hopkins computer science student Nikita Shtarkman.

https://scitechdaily.com/new-map-of-the-universe-displays-span-of-entire-cosmos-with-pinpoint-accuracy-and-sweeping-beauty/

https://youtu.be/HiEKukQfISw

Oh my.

The map is even more colorful due to the expansion of the universe. Because of this, the farther an object is, the redder it appears. The first flash of radiation emitted soon after the Big Bang, 13.7 billion years ago is revealed at the top of the map.

“In this map, we are just a speck at the very bottom, just one pixel. And when I say we, I mean our galaxy, the Milky Way which has billions of stars and planets,” Ménard says. “We are used to seeing astronomical pictures showing one galaxy here, one galaxy there or perhaps a group of galaxies. But what this map shows is a very, very different scale.”

Oh my.

DO NOT miss this:

https://mapoftheuniverse.net/

Oh my.

Gassho, J

stlah

[Jundo]

In a similar vein ...

Major Implications – Scientists Have Created a “Living Blood Vessel”

This is the first time scientists have observed vessels form with such a close resemblance to the complicated structure of naturally occurring blood vessels.

An international research collaboration headed by the University of Sydney has created technology that allows for the production of materials that mirror the structure of living blood vessels, with major implications for the future of surgery.

Preclinical research showed that once the manufactured blood vessel was transplanted into mice, the body accepted it and new cells and tissue began to develop in the appropriate locations, thereby converting it into a “living blood vessel.”

While others have attempted to create blood vessels with varying degrees of success in the past, senior author Professor Anthony Weiss from the Charles Perkins Centre noted that this is the first instance where scientists have observed the vessels develop with such a high degree of similarity to the complex structure of naturally occurring blood vessels.

“Nature converts this manufactured tube over time to one that looks, behaves, and functions like a real blood vessel,” said Professor Weiss. “The technology’s ability to recreate the complex structure of biological tissues shows it has the potential to not only manufacture blood vessels to assist in surgery but also sets the scene for the future creation of other synthetic tissues such as heart valves.”

https://scitechdaily.com/major-implications-scientists-have-created-a-living-blood-vessel/

[ATTACH=CONFIG]8027[/ATTACH]

Gassho, J

stlah

[Jundo]

Mind reading on wheels ...

Not Science Fiction: Paralyzed People Can Navigate Using Mind-Controlled Wheelchairs

By translating users’ thoughts into mechanical commands, a mind-controlled wheelchair can help a paralyzed person gain new mobility. Researchers demonstrate that tetraplegic users can operate mind-controlled wheelchairs in a natural, cluttered environment after training for an extended period in a study published today (November 18) in the journal iScience. ... Millán and his colleagues recruited three tetraplegic people for the longitudinal study. Each of the participants underwent training sessions three times per week for 2 to 5 months. The participants wore a skullcap that detected their brain activities through electroencephalography (EEG), which would be converted to mechanical commands for the wheelchairs via a brain-machine interface device. The participants were asked to control the direction of the wheelchair by thinking about moving their body parts. Specifically, they needed to think about moving both hands to turn left and both feet to turn right. ...

Over the course of training, the brain-machine interface device team saw significant improvement in accuracy in participant 1, who reached an accuracy of over 95% by the end of his training. The team also observed an increase in accuracy in participant 3 to 98% halfway through his training before the team updated his device with a new algorithm.
https://scitechdaily.com/not-science...d-wheelchairs/

https://youtu.be/JyJj32MsAUo

Gassho, J

stlah

[Jundo]

Our planet's amazing balances ... and ability to maintain and regulate balances ...

“Stabilizing Feedback” Confirmed by MIT Scientists – Earth Can Regulate Its Own Temperature Over Millennia

Scientists have confirmed that a “stabilizing feedback” on 100,000-year timescales keeps global temperatures in check.

From global volcanism to planet-cooling ice ages and dramatic shifts in solar radiation, the Earth’s climate has undergone some big changes. And yet for the last 3.7 billion years, life has kept on beating.

Now, new research by MIT scientists confirms that the planet harbors a “stabilizing feedback” mechanism that acts over hundreds of thousands of years to pull the climate back from the brink, keeping global temperatures within a steady, habitable range. The study was published on November 16 in the peer-reviewed journal Science Advances.

Just how does Earth accomplish this? A likely mechanism is “silicate weathering” — a geological process by which the slow and steady weathering of silicate rocks involves chemical reactions that ultimately draw carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and into ocean sediments, trapping the gas in rocks.

It has been long suspected by researchers that silicate weathering plays a major role in regulating the Earth’s carbon cycle. The mechanism of silicate weathering could provide a geologically constant force in keeping carbon dioxide — and global temperatures — in check. But until now, there’s never been direct evidence for the continual operation of such a feedback.

... but also, maybe some elements of chance ...

Without stabilizing feedbacks, fluctuations of global temperature should grow with timescale. But the team’s analysis revealed a regime in which fluctuations did not grow, implying that a stabilizing mechanism reigned in the climate before fluctuations grew too extreme. The timescale for this stabilizing effect — hundreds of thousands of years — coincides with what scientists predict for silicate weathering.

Interestingly, Arnscheidt and Rothman found that on longer timescales, the data did not reveal any stabilizing feedbacks. That is, there doesn’t appear to be any recurring pull-back of global temperatures on timescales longer than a million years. Over these longer timescales, then, what has kept global temperatures in check? “There’s an idea that chance may have played a major role in determining why, after more than 3 billion years, life still exists,” Rothman offers.

In other words, as the Earth’s temperatures fluctuate over longer stretches, these fluctuations may just happen to be small enough in the geologic sense, to be within a range that a stabilizing feedback, such as silicate weathering, could periodically keep the climate in check, and more to the point, within a habitable zone.

“There are two camps: Some say random chance is a good enough explanation, and others say there must be a stabilizing feedback,” Arnscheidt says. “We’re able to show, directly from data, that the answer is probably somewhere in between. In other words, there was some stabilization, but pure luck likely also played a role in keeping Earth continuously habitable.”

https://scitechdaily.com/stabilizing...ver-millennia/

However, that's the long term ... In the short term, we may be in for trouble, the Karmic effects of humankinds own doing. ...

Gassho, J

stlah

[Jundo]

New "oldest galaxy ever seen" ... Webb keeps doing its thing ... and surprising scientists ...

James Webb telescope spots galaxies near the dawn of time, thrilling scientists

New baby pictures of the universe, taken by the James Webb Space Telescope, show that galaxies started forming faster and earlier than expected. ...

... The snapshots captured so far have both thrilled and perplexed scientists, because it turns out that many luminous galaxies existed when the universe was very young. "Just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang, there are already lots of galaxies," says Tommaso Treu, an astronomer at the University of California at Los Angeles. "JWST has opened up a new frontier, bringing us closer to understanding how it all began."

In research papers published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, Treu and other astronomers report the discovery of one galaxy that dates back to just 450 million years after the beginning, and another that dates back to 350 million years. That latter discovery broke a record set by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2016, when it managed to glimpse a galaxy called GN-z11, which existed about 400 million years after the Big Bang. Astronomer Garth Illingworth of the University of California, Santa Cruz was a member of the team that found GN-z11, and says that seeing it was "a huge surprise." But now, with the help of their new space telescope, scientists know it wasn't just a weird outlier — because they have at least two more examples.

... Since astronomers started using JWST, some have claimed to have spotted galaxies from even earlier times, like 250 million years after the Big Bang. But those are more tentative observations.

"We feel very confident about these two, but less confident about the others," says Illingworth. "There's certainly a lot of discussion going on."

The two newly-seen galaxies are both much smaller than our home galaxy, the Milky Way, and one appears to be unexpectedly elongated.

Because so many early, bright galaxies have been seen by JWST, astronomers are having to rethink their old ideas about the evolution of the universe.

...

“Somehow, the universe managed to form galaxies faster and earlier than we thought. Just a few hundred million years after the big bang, there were already lots of galaxies. JWST has opened up a new frontier, bringing us closer to understanding how it all began. And we’ve just started to explore it,” said Treu, who was a coauthor of an October study in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

https://www.npr.org/2022/11/17/11374...lescope-images

The small red dot highlighted inside the white box on this James Webb Space Telescope image is an early galaxy, seen as it looked just 350 million years after the Big Bang.

Gassho, J

stlah

[Jundo]

A proto-star in an hour glass ...

Cosmic hourglass captured by the James Webb Space Telescope reveals birth of a star

The cosmic chaos caused by a very young star has been captured in the latest enchanting image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.

The protostar the image centers around is hidden from view in the neck of a dark, hourglass-shape cloud of gas and dust. The dark line across the middle of the neck is a protoplanetary disc — dense gas and dust that could form a planet in the future — about the size of our solar system. Light from the protostar spreads above and below this disc, according to a news release.

It has a long way to go until it becomes a full-fledged star. L1527, as the protostar and its cloud are known, is only about 100,000 years old — a relatively young celestial body compared with our sun, which is about 4.6 billion years old.

The blue and orange clouds in the image outline cavities created as material shoots away from the protostar and collides with the surrounding matter, the release noted.

The nebula’s vibrant colors are only visible in infrared light detected by Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera, or NIRCam. Infrared light is invisible to the human eye, making Webb particularly essential to revealing otherwise hidden aspects of the universe.

The blue areas are where the dust is thinnest. The thicker the layer of dust, the less blue light is able to escape, creating pockets of orange.

“Shocks and turbulence inhibit the formation of new stars, which would otherwise form throughout the cloud. As a result, the protostar dominates the space, taking much of the material for itself,” according to the news release.

The protostar doesn’t yet generate its own energy through nuclear fusion of hydrogen, an essential characteristic of stars. Its shape — a puffy clump of hot gas somewhere between 20% and 40% of the mass of our sun — is also unstable.

The image provides context for what our sun and solar system looked like in their infancy.

https://us.cnn.com/2022/11/16/world/webb-telescope-hourglass-star-formation-scn/index.html

and
https://esawebb.org/news/weic2219/

... and real ghosts detected from outer space ...

“Ghost” Particles Detected Emanating From Galactic Neighbor With a Gigantic Black Hole

On Earth, trillions of subatomic particles called neutrinos stream through our bodies every second, but we never notice because they rarely interact with matter. In fact, because they so rarely interact with other matter, neutrinos can travel straight paths over vast distances unimpeded, carrying information about their cosmic origins.

Although most of these aptly named “ghost” particles detected on Earth originate from the Sun or our own atmosphere, some neutrinos come from the cosmos, far beyond our galaxy. Called astrophysical neutrinos, these neutrinos can provide valuable insight into some of the most powerful objects in the universe.

An international team of scientists has, for the first time, found evidence of high-energy astrophysical neutrinos emanating from the galaxy NGC 1068 in the constellation Cetus.

The detection was made by the IceCube Neutrino Observatory. This 1-billion-ton neutrino telescope is made of scientific instruments and ice that is situated 1.5-2.5 kilometers (0.9 to 1.2 miles) below the surface at the South Pole. ...

On Earth, trillions of subatomic particles called neutrinos stream through our bodies every second, but we never notice because they rarely interact with matter. In fact, because they so rarely interact with other matter, neutrinos can travel straight paths over vast distances unimpeded, carrying information about their cosmic origins.

Although most of these aptly named “ghost” particles detected on Earth originate from the Sun or our own atmosphere, some neutrinos come from the cosmos, far beyond our galaxy. Called astrophysical neutrinos, these neutrinos can provide valuable insight into some of the most powerful objects in the universe.

An international team of scientists has, for the first time, found evidence of high-energy astrophysical neutrinos emanating from the galaxy NGC 1068 in the constellation Cetus.

“The IceCube Neutrino Observatory’s identification of a neighboring galaxy as a cosmic source of neutrinos is just the beginning of this new and exciting field that promises insights into the undiscovered power of massive black holes and other fundamental properties of the universe.” — Denise Caldwell, director of NSF’s Physics Division

The detection was made by the IceCube Neutrino Observatory. This 1-billion-ton neutrino telescope is made of scientific instruments and ice that is situated 1.5-2.5 kilometers (0.9 to 1.2 miles) below the surface at the South Pole. The National Science Foundation (NSF) provided the primary funding for the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, and the University of Wisconsin–Madison is the lead institution, responsible for the maintenance and operations of the detector.

These new results, which were published this month in the journal Science, were shared in a presentation given at the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery.

“One neutrino can single out a source. But only an observation with multiple neutrinos will reveal the obscured core of the most energetic cosmic objects,” says Francis Halzen, a University of Wisconsin–Madison professor of physics and principal investigator of the IceCube project. “IceCube has accumulated some 80 neutrinos of teraelectronvolt energy from NGC 1068, which are not yet enough to answer all our questions, but they definitely are the next big step toward the realization of neutrino astronomy.” ...

... The galaxy NGC 1068, also known as Messier 77, is one of the most familiar and well-studied galaxies to date. Located 47 million light-years away — close in astronomical terms — this galaxy can be observed with a pair of large binoculars. ... As is the case with our home galaxy, the Milky Way, NGC 1068 is a barred spiral galaxy, with loosely wound arms and a relatively small central bulge. However, unlike the Milky Way, NGC 1068 is an active galaxy where most radiation is not produced by stars, but rather by material falling into a black hole millions of times more massive than our Sun and even more massive than the inactive black hole at the center of the Milky Way ...

https://scitechdaily.com/ghost-parti...ic-black-hole/

The IceCube Lab sits atop a 1-billion-ton network of sensing equipment and ice at the South Pole.

Gassho, J

stlah

[Jundo]

In this world of change, all species were "invasive" at some point ...

Against Common Belief – Invasive Species Are Often Beneficial

A Brown University biologist calls for a more balanced view of invasive species.

Invasive species, also known as non-native species, have become much more well-known over the last 50 years, to the point that everybody with a green conscience has heard of them and their detrimental effects.

The advantages of non-native species are less well known, and biologist Dov Sax from Brown University thinks that has to change.

Sax and two co-authors pointed out that the majority of research on non-native species concentrates on their detrimental effects in a review article that was recently published in the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution. They said that long-standing prejudices against non-native species in the scientific literature had muddled the scientific process and made it more difficult for the public to understand. The authors of the new paper attempt to shift the focus to explore the benefits of non-native species in order to have a more balanced discussion.

“Positive impacts of non-native species are often explained as serendipitous surprises — the sort of thing that people might expect to happen every once in a while, in special circumstances,” said Sax, a professor of environment and society, and of ecology, evolution and organismal biology. “Our new paper argues that the positive impacts of non-native species are neither unexpected nor rare, but instead common, important, and often of large magnitude.”

The study, according to Sax, a member of the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society, applies a recent framework that looks at the benefits of biodiversity for people and nature to non-native species, illuminating the frequent, diverse, and important ways that non-native species provide positive value for people and nature.

... The authors, who also included Julian Olden from the University of Washington and Martin Schlaepfer from the University of Geneva, acknowledged that certain non-native species, such as introduced pathogens and agricultural pests, have undeniably high net costs. However, they pointed out that the majority of domesticated species, including crops like wheat and tomatoes, textiles like cotton and wool, and animals like dogs and goldfish who are kept as pets, provide significant net advantages to human society. They concentrated on so-called “wild” or “naturalized” species, which are species that are not directly controlled by humans, noting that many of these species have both negative and positive effects on both people and the environment.

As one example of a non-native species with underappreciated benefits, Sax cited the earthworm. While they can negatively change forest ecosystems, Sax said that earthworms can also augment organic agriculture: Some research has shown that when earthworms are present, there can be a 25% increase in agricultural productivity. The resulting decrease in food costs and increased ability to feed people is a direct economic benefit, Sax said.

Sax also extolled the unexpected benefits of another non-native species — brown trout. Looking at New Zealand as an example, he said most of the non-native species that have invaded the country have negative consequences, and residents, therefore, focus on eradicating them. Yet the nation has effectively embraced brown trout, Sax said: New Zealanders value the nutritional benefits of eating brown trout and the recreational benefits of fishing brown trout so much that they’ve established new environmental regulations to protect the species within their waters.

... non-native species can be a leading cause of species extinctions, but also contribute, through their own migration, to regional biodiversity; they can reduce certain ecosystem functions, such as water clarity, while increasing others, such as erosion control; they can provide new resources, such as recreational hunting and fishing opportunities.

Yet because of the research bias against non-native species that focuses on threats and harm, Sax said that the net consequences of most non-native species are less certain. That is why he and his co-authors call for a re-evaluation of non-native species, informed by data.

https://scitechdaily.com/against-common-belief-invasive-species-are-often-beneficial/

Gassho, J

stlah

[Jundo]

I look forward to the coming day when many kinds of addiction ... as well as the humor tendency to violence triggered by excess anger ... are vaccinated away ...

Fentanyl Vaccine Breakthrough – Potential “Game Changer” for Opioid Epidemic

A new vaccine has been developed that targets the dangerous synthetic opioid fentanyl that could block its ability to enter the brain, thus eliminating the drug’s “high.” The breakthrough discovery could have major implications for the nation’s opioid epidemic by becoming a relapse prevention agent for people trying to quit using opioids. While research reveals Opioid Use Disorder (OUD) is treatable, an estimated 80% of those dependent on the drug suffer a relapse. The vaccine was developed by a research team led by the University of Houston.

Published recently in the journal Pharmaceutics, the findings could not be timelier or more in demand: Over 150 people die every day from overdoses of synthetic opioids including fentanyl, which is 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine. Consumption of about 2 milligrams of fentanyl (the size of two grains of rice) is likely to be fatal depending on a person’s size.

“We believe these findings could have a significant impact on a very serious problem plaguing society for years – opioid misuse. Our vaccine is able to generate anti-fentanyl antibodies that bind to the consumed fentanyl and prevent it from entering the brain, allowing it to be eliminated out of the body via the kidneys. Thus, the individual will not feel the euphoric effects and can ‘get back on the wagon’ to sobriety,” said the study’s lead author Colin Haile, a research associate professor of psychology at UH and the Texas Institute for Measurement, Evaluation and Statistics (TIMES), and a founding member of the UH Drug Discovery Institute.

In another positive finding, the vaccine did not cause any adverse side effects in the immunized rats involved in lab studies. The team plans to start manufacturing clinical-grade vaccine in the coming months with clinical trials in humans planned soon.

https://scitechdaily.com/fentanyl-va...ioid-epidemic/

Gassho, J

stlah

[Jundo]

This video is speeded up (even for the original 612,000 km per hour) ... but so beautiful ...

Solar Orbiter has detected a ‘tube’ of cooler atmospheric gases rapidly snaking its way through the Sun’s powerful magnetic field. This observation provides a fascinating new addition to the zoo of features revealed by the Solar Orbiter mission, which is led by the European Space Agency (ESA). It is especially intriguing because the snake was a precursor to a much larger eruption.

The snake was spotted on September 5, 2022, as the Solar Orbiter spacecraft was approaching the Sun for a close pass that took place on October 12. The ‘snake’ is a tube of cool plasma suspended by magnetic fields in the hotter surrounding plasma of the Sun’s atmosphere.

Plasma is a state of matter much like the more familiar solid, liquid and gas. Plasmas are so incredibly hot, that the electrons leave their atoms, making it essentially a gas of charged particles. As charged particles, they are therefore susceptible to magnetic fields. All gas in the Sun’s atmosphere is plasma because the temperature there is more than a million degrees centigrade.

The plasma in the snake is following a particularly long filament of the Sun’s magnetic field that is reaching from one side of the Sun to another.

... The movie at the top of this page has been constructed as a time-lapse from images from the Extreme-Ultraviolet Imager (EUI( onboard Solar Orbiter. In reality, the snake took around three hours to complete its journey. However, at the distances involved in crossing the solar surface, that means the plasma must have been traveling at around 170 kilometers per second (106 miles per second) or 612,000 km per hour (380,000 miles per hour). ...
https://scitechdaily.com/see-a-solar...iles-per-hour/

https://youtu.be/lF9MxR3L_3w

Gassho, J

stlah

[Jundo]

And then there was fire ... and fried fish ... and friends sharing a meal around the fire ...

Clues at ancient lake site reveal earliest known cooked meal

Scientists have found the earliest known evidence of cooking at an archaeological site in Israel.

The shift from eating raw to cooked food was a dramatic turning point in human evolution, and the discovery has suggested prehistoric humans were able to deliberately make fires to cook food at least 780,000 years ago.

The detailed study of fish teeth unearthed at the Gesher Benot Ya’aqov site, situated on the edge of the ancient lake Hula, revealed that some of our early ancestors — most likely Homo erectus — were able to cook fish, said study author Dr. Irit Zohar, a researcher at Tel Aviv University’s Steinhardt Museum of Natural History.

The lakeside dwellers feasted on a large freshwater species, according to Zohar, who is also a curator of the Beit Margolin Biological Collections at Oranim Academic College.

No human remains had been found at the site, but the stone tools matched those found at Homo erectus sites across Africa, Zohar said. She said the lake would have been shallow, and it might have been easy to catch large fish like the extinct Luciobarbus longicep, which could grow up to 6.5 feet (2 meters), by hand.

... The shift to eating cooked meals meant humans expended less energy on the intensive work of searching for and digesting fresh, raw food, freeing up more time in which to develop new social and behavioral systems. “Diet has had a big impact on the evolution of our species. It has been suggested that the consumption of meat in particular contributed to the increase in relative brain size of our early Homo ancestors — but pathogenic bacteria make the consumption of uncooked meat a risky business,” Linscott said.

“Cooking, however, kills bacteria and increases the energetic value of meat — thereby creating a new, reliable food source for early hominins. Understanding when this happened is therefore a topic of great interest, because it might help to explain why our hominin ancestors evolved the way that they did.”

... Homo erectus was the first hominin to migrate outside Africa, and the research suggested ancient Lake Hula might have been a key staging post on the route of these early migrations.

Exactly when humans first began cooking fish — or any other type of food — is unknown, and there’s no consensus on when ancient hominins first developed the ability to start fires and cook. Until this study, the earliest hard evidence of the use of fire to cook was by Neanderthals and Homo sapiens, who cooked starchy roots in what’s now South Africa about 170,000 years ago.

... “Fire is not just about safety and protection. It prolongs the working day and provides a really important mechanism for social bonding — we literally built our societies around our fires. Cooking opens up new dietary opportunities and brings new food stuffs on-line, as well as increasing the nutritious potential of what we eat. Was cooking the reason Homo erectus was able to move into strange new territories.”

https://us.cnn.com/2022/11/14/world/...scn/index.html

... which led us to this other milestone today ...

15 November 2022 is predicted to be the day that the global population reaches eight billion. The projection is revealed in the UN’s World Population Prospects 2022 report, which also shows that India is on course to surpass China as the world’s most populous country in 2023.

https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/07/1122272

Gassho, J

stlah

[Jundo]

More about what separates man from monkey ... for better or worse ... (I actually posted about this same paper a few weeks ago, but it is still very interesting) ...

Small but Significant: Differences Between Brains of Primates Revealed – Humans, Apes and Monkeys

A new study reveals that the brains of humans and non-human primates may be remarkably similar, despite the very distinct physical differences between them. And yet, the smallest changes may make big differences in developmental and psychiatric disorders.

Understanding the molecular differences that make the human brain distinct can help scientists investigate disruptions in its development. A new study investigates the differences and similarities of cells in the prefrontal cortex — the frontmost region of the brain, an area that plays a central role in higher cognitive functions — between humans and non-human primates such as chimpanzees, Rhesus macaques, and marmosets. Published recently in the journal Science, the study was conducted by a team of researchers including University of Wisconsin–Madison neuroscience professor Andre Sousa.

The cellular differences between these species may illuminate steps in their evolution and how those differences can be implicated in disorders, such as autism and intellectual disabilities, seen in humans. ... “We are profiling the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex because it is particularly interesting. This cortical area only exists in primates. It doesn’t exist in other species,” Sousa says. “It has been associated with several relevant functions in terms of high cognition, like working memory. It has also been implicated in several neuropsychiatric disorders. So, we decided to do this study to understand what is unique about humans in this brain region.”

Sousa and his lab collected genetic information from more than 600,000 prefrontal cortex cells from tissue samples from humans, chimpanzees, macaques and marmosets. ... “Most of the cells are actually very similar because these species are relatively close evolutionarily,” Sousa says. Sousa and his collaborators found five cell types in the prefrontal cortex that were not present in all four of the species. They also found differences in the abundances of certain cell types as well as diversity among similar cell populations across species. When comparing a chimpanzee to a human the differences seem huge — from their physical appearances down to the capabilities of their brains. But at the cellular and genetic level, at least in the prefrontal cortex, the similarities are many and the dissimilarities sparing.

Researchers analyzed genetic material from cells in the prefrontal cortex (the area shaded in each brain) from four closely-related primates to characterize subtle differences in cell type and genetics.

https://scitechdaily.com/small-but-significant-differences-between-brains-of-primates-revealed-humans-apes-and-monkeys/

And some research on what the prefrontal cortex does ... if I remember correctly ...

Remembering directions someone just gave you is an example of working memory. In a new study, MIT researchers show that the brain’s focus on the contents of what it’s holding in mind derives from bursts of gamma frequency rhythms in the front of the brain.

Working memory is the handy ability to consciously hold and manipulate new information in mind. It takes mental work. In particular, participating neurons in the prefrontal cortex have to work together in synchrony to focus our thoughts, whether we’re remembering a set of directions or tonight’s menu specials. Researchers based at The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT show how that focus emerges in a new study.

The key measure in the study published recently in the journal Scientific Reports is the variability of the neurons’ activity. There is wide agreement among scientists that less variability activity means more-focused attunement to the task. Indeed, measures of that variability have shown that it decreases when humans and animals focus during working memory games in the lab.

In several studies between 2016 and 2018, lead author Mikael Lundqvist and co-senior author Earl K. Miller showed through direct measurements of hundreds of neurons and rigorous modeling that bursts of gamma frequency rhythms in the prefrontal cortex coordinate neural representation of the information held in mind. The information representation can be measured in the synchronized spiking of populations of individual neurons. Bursts of beta frequency rhythms, meanwhile, implement the brain’s manipulation of that information.

The theory, which Miller dubbed “Working Memory 2.0” challenged a long-held orthodoxy that neurons maintain working memory information through steady, persistent activity. Proponents of that older model, which emerged from averaged measurements made in relatively few neurons, used computer-based modeling of brain activity to argue that reduced variability cannot emerge from intermittent bursts of rhythmic activity.

But the new study shows that the reduced variability, does, in fact, emerge.

“We used actual neural activity recorded from the prefrontal cortex to show that the rhythmic bursts reduce their variability as animals focus on a task,” says Miller, Picower Professor in MIT’s Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences.

https://scitechdaily.com/working-mem...whats-in-mind/

... and one thing the human brain has done is plan our return to the moon ... (Mina and I had the thrill of seeing a "night launch" of a Shuttle many years ago, when we lived in Florida. It is something.) ...

... check out the video for an amazing ballet ...

The Artemis I mega Moon rocket is on the launch pad at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. This powerful Space Launch System (SLS) rocket is getting ready to launch the Orion spacecraft and its European Service Module. The first opportunity for launch is November 16 at 1:04 a.m. EST/local time (07:04 CET, 06:04 GMT).

Artemis I is the first mission in a large program to send astronauts around and on the Moon sustainably. This uncrewed first launch will see the Orion spacecraft travel to the Moon, enter an elongated orbit around our satellite, and then return to Earth. The Orion spacecraft is powered by the European-built module that supplies electricity, propulsion, fuel, water, and air in addition to keeping the spacecraft operating at the right temperature.

https://scitechdaily.com/artemis-i-mega-moon-rocket-ready-for-launch/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2cuoWOczxQ&t=32s

The Orion spacecraft with European Service Module will fly farther from Earth than any human-rated vehicle has ever flown before. This video gives an overview of the first mission – without astronauts – for Artemis, focusing on ESA’s European Service Module that powers the spacecraft. The spacecraft will perform a flyby of the Moon, using lunar gravity to gain speed and propel itself 70,000 km beyond the Moon, almost half a million km from Earth – further than any human has ever traveled, where it will inject itself in a Distant Retrograde Orbit around the Moon. On its return journey, Orion will do another flyby of the Moon before heading back to Earth. The total trip will take around 20 days, ending with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean without the European Service Module – it separates and burns up harmlessly in the atmosphere.

... and also this week, in moon news ...

Today, November 13, CAPSTONE will reach the Moon and become the first spacecraft to enter into a unique, elongated orbit that will support NASA’s Artemis missions.

Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment (CAPSTONE) is a microwave oven-sized satellite, weighing just 55 pounds, that will be the first CubeSat to fly to and operate at the Moon. It serves as a pathfinder for Gateway, a Moon-orbiting space station that is part of NASA’s Artemis program. CAPSTONE’s mission will help reduce risk for future spacecraft, including Orion, by validating innovative navigation technologies and verifying the dynamics of a type of halo-shaped orbit that has never been flown before.

Gassho, J

stlah

[Jundo]

Just a lovely story of the GEOMETRY of life finding a way ...

One of nature’s great mysteries may now have an answer, according to new ‘fairy circle’ study

For over 50 years, ecologists have studied and debated the mystery of the Namib Desert’s “fairy circles,” circular patches, mostly barren of grass, that have spread across 1,100 miles in the arid grasslands of Southern Africa. ... Many theories have been put forth, but two have held the most merit. One theory has looked to blame termites for these dry patches, while the other considers the grasses’ evolution. Scientists have gone back and forth for decades, but a new study offers what may finally be evidence for a clear explanation.

... What makes the fairy circles distinctive are the barren patches within them, but the growth of grasses around them is notable as well — they have found a way to thrive in what is considered one of the driest places in the world. In previous research, Getzin and his team hypothesized that plants in the circles’ outer rings had evolved to maximize their limited water in the desert. ... Analyzing the data from these rainfall seasons, Getzin’s team found water from within the circles was depleting fast, despite not having any grass to use it, while the grasses on the outside were as robust as ever. Under the strong heat in the desert, these well-established grasses had evolved to create a vacuum system around their roots that drew any water toward them, according to Getzin. The grasses from within the circles, which attempt to grow right after rainfall, meanwhile, were unable to receive enough water to live.

“A circle is the most logical geometric formation which you would create as a plant suffering from lack of water,” Getzin said. “If these circles were squares, or low, complex structures, then you would have a lot more individual grasses along the circumference. … The proportional area is smaller than if you grow in a circle. These grasses end up in a circle because that’s the most logical structure to maximize the water available to each individual plant.”

The study called this an example of “ecohydrological feedback,” in which the barren circles become reservoirs that help sustain grasses at the edges — though at the expense of grasses in the middle. This self-organization is used to buffer against the negative effects of increasing aridity, Getzin said, and is also seen in other harsh drylands in the world.

https://us.cnn.com/2022/11/10/world/...scn/index.html

All happened in a week, some 11 billion years ago ...

Light from a star that exploded over 11 billion years ago was captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. It was not just one postcard from the remote past but three messages that chronicle the fading fireball over a period of one week. ... When the star exploded more than 11 billion years ago, the universe was less than a fifth of its current age of 13.8 billion years.

For starters, the feeble light from the supernova was amplified by the gravitational field of an enormous foreground galaxy cluster, Abell 370. The gravitational warp in space acts as a cosmic lens, bending and magnifying the light from the more distant supernova, which was located far behind the cluster.

A bonus for astronomers is that not one but three images of the supernova appear in the photo, strung along the cluster. They show the explosion over different times that all arrived at Hubble simultaneously. ...

... In fact, this is the first detailed look at a supernova so early in the universe’s history.

https://youtu.be/XGlWDljCdkw

https://scitechdaily.com/secrets-of-...ion-years-ago/

... and other ruins of the past, a hint at our future ... impermanence, all composite things change, said the Buddha ... so be the space, flow with the change ...

Astronomers Discover Oldest Planetary Debris in Our Galaxy – Remnants of Destroyed Solar System

... Astronomers have identified the oldest star in our galaxy that is accreting debris from orbiting planetesimals, making it one of the oldest rocky and icy planetary systems ever discovered in the Milky Way.

Their findings conclude that a faint white dwarf located just 90 light-years from Earth, as well as the remains of its orbiting planetary system, are over ten billion years old. ... Most stars, including those like our Sun, will eventually turn into white dwarfs. A white dwarf is a star that has used up all of its fuel, lost its outer layers, and is now undergoing a process of contracting and cooling. Any planets in orbit will be disrupted and, in some circumstances, destroyed during this process, and their debris will be left behind to accrete onto the surface of the white dwarf. ...

Artist’s impression of the old white dwarfs WDJ2147-4035 and WDJ1922+0233 surrounded by orbiting planetary debris

https://scitechdaily.com/astronomers-discover-oldest-planetary-debris-in-our-galaxy-remnants-of-destroyed-solar-system/

And if that gives you nightmares, an interesting treatment for bad dreams ...

Reducing Nightmares: Scientists Manipulate Emotions in Dreams

Some adults suffer from them multiple times a week, or even every night, for months on end. In therapy, dreamers may be coached to rehearse positive versions of their most frequent nightmares. However, scientists in Switzerland have taken this a step further in a study of such patients that was published in the journal Current Biology on October 27. They discovered that also playing a sound—one associated with a positive daytime experience—through a wireless headband during sleep may reduce nightmare frequency.

“There is a relationship between the types of emotions experienced in dreams and our emotional well-being,” says senior author Lampros Perogamvros, a psychiatrist at the Sleep Laboratory of the Geneva University Hospitals and the University of Geneva. “Based on this observation, we had the idea that we could help people by manipulating emotions in their dreams. In this study, we show that we can reduce the number of emotionally very strong and very negative dreams in patients suffering from nightmares.”

Up to 4 percent of adults have chronic nightmares at any given moment, according to the findings of epidemiological studies. Chronic nightmares are commonly associated with waking up during the night and lower-quality sleep. Patients are often prescribed imagery rehearsal therapy, which asks them to change the negative storyline toward a more positive ending and rehearse the rewritten dream scenario during the day. While effective for many, some cases are unresponsive. ...

https://scitechdaily.com/reducing-ni...ons-in-dreams/

I wish you sweet dreams.

Gassho, J

stlah