Astronomers have discovered lithium in a type of stellar explosion known as a nova for the first time, a find that helps clear up a longstanding mystery in astrophysics about the quantity of the element that has been observed in stars.
Using two telescopes in Chile, astronomers detected tiny amounts of the chemical element lithium in Nova Centauri, which exploded in 2013 - the brightest nova so far this century, the European Southern Observatory said this week.
That could be the first step in solving the so-called lithium riddle. Models of the Big Bang at the birth of the universe 13.8 billion years ago allow astronomers to calculate quite accurately how much lithium should be present.
But older stars do not have as much lithium as the models suggest, while younger ones have more.
Astronomers have long speculated that the latter part of the problem could be explained by novae expelling the element, "seeding" space with lithium and enriching the interstellar medium from which new stars are born.
But no clear evidence to date has been found of lithium in novae.
The discovery of lithium being expelled at some 2 million kilometers (1.24 million miles) per hour in Nova Centauri could, when extrapolated to the billions of other novae that have exploded in the Milky Way's history, explain the unexpectedly large amount of lithium in our galaxy, the ESO said.
"If we imagine the history of the chemical evolution of the Milky Way as a big jigsaw, then lithium from novae was one of the most important and puzzling missing pieces," said Massimo Della Valle, a coauthor of the study.
The mismatch between the observed amount of lithium in older stars and the abundance estimated from the Big Bang, however, still remains an open problem, said Della Valle and team leader Luca Izzo.
Results of the study were published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.
A search for the amount of money Americans spend annually on astrology turns up estimates ranging from several million to a couple hundred million dollars, depending on the source. Astrology is definitely popular, a deduction you could make just by looking at the number of newspapers and magazines with astrology columns. Back in the 1980s, Ronald and Nancy Reagan admitted they’d consulted an astrologer for advice on when to schedule certain events; more recently, a National Science Foundation study found that the number of Americans who say they believe astrology is “not at all” scientific is actually dwindling.
I personally think astrology is fun, and also completely useless, an opinion supported by numerous studies and social experiments. And yet — not that I’m a psychic or anything — I’m pretty sure astrology isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Aside from the fact that there is a desperate human need to make sense of the frightening and utter chaos that is our universe, why does astrology persist? Maybe because, despite all its faux scientific underpinnings, there is some truth to the astrological idea that our birthdate has some link to certain aspects of our personality. This is not an endorsement of astrology but a shoutout to science, which has turned up more than a few examples of the way our birthdates might influence our natures. There’s still plenty of room for more research to firm up some of the findings on this list. And there are so many convoluted and intersecting explanations for who we are — nature, nurture, biology, sociology, culture, family, environment — so no one’s suggesting anything crazy here.
But science is discovering links between season of birth and personality, and the findings are pretty interesting. Here are six examples.
1. Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are more common among people born in winter and early spring.
We’re still unraveling all the contributing factors to schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, and newdiscoveries are being made all the time. But one of the most interesting facts about people with either condition is that they’re more likely to be born in the winter or early spring months. A 2012 study by Queen Mary University in London examined the health records of more than 29 million people in England, 58,000 of whom had been diagnosed with schizophrenia. Researchers determined that January was the most common birth month, with February and March birthdays also overrepresented.
An earlier Finnish study corroborates this, determining that “[t]he birth rate of patients with schizophrenia during the winter and spring months is 5 percent to 8 percent higher worldwide than the birth rate of the general population in the winter and spring months.” (Interestingly, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder were least likely to present in people born in July, August and September.) Researchers aren’t sure why this is true, but suggest certain prenatal conditions might be the cause. “For example, maternal infections — a mother may be more likely to have the flu over the winter. Does this increase risk?” proposes Sreeram Ramagopalan, part of the team that completed the study. “Or diet. Depending on the season, certain foods —fruits, vegetables — are more or less available, and this may impact on the developing baby. Or another key candidate is vitamin D, which is related to sunshine exposure. During the winter, with a lack of sunshine, moms tend to be very deficient in vitamin D.”
2. Suicidality is more common among people born in the spring.
According to a study from University College London, St. Helen's College and the University of Liverpool, suicide is more common among those born in April, May and June. Researchers examined the data from almost 27,000 suicides between 1970 and 2001 in England and Wales. They found that “[o]verall, [there was] an increase of 17 percent in the risk of suicide” for people born in the spring and early summer compared with those whose birthdays fell in autumn and early winter. Sex was also an influencing issue, Phys.org noted. “Women are at even greater risk with those born during April, May and June accounting for 30 percent of suicides vs. men born during that period, who accounted for 14 percent of suicides.”
Obviously, there are numerous other issues that might affect a person’s decision to commit suicide, and researchers acknowledge their conclusions are just one piece of the puzzle. “Our findings might have implications for our understanding of the multifaceted [causes] of suicide,” they write, “and may eventually offer new strategies for research and prevention.” (One also wonders if you can extrapolate findings from a British study and apply them elsewhere, since culture likely plays some role in all of this.)
3. Dyslexia is more common among people born in the summertime.
In a study of 585 boys and young men who had dyslexia, which impacts learning and reading abilities, researchers found that being born in the summer makes one a more likely candidate for the disorder. (No girls were studied, partly because there were too few in the sample to make useful determinations and partly because of a now disproven belief that dyslexia is more common among males.)
Another 1994 study, cited by Alan A. Beaton in his book Dyslexia, Reading and the Brain, also found that “specifically more dyslexics were born during May, June and July than any other period.” As with other conditions on this list, seasonally linked prenatal factors are believed to be part of the problem. Richard Livingston, a psychiatrist and member of the research team behind the first study mentioned, said, “We think that exposure to the influenza or measles virus during mid-pregnancy is the most attractive hypothesis to explain the disproportionate summer births of dyslexics.”
4. People with birthdays from December to February rate lower for agreeableness.
The Big Five theory posits that there are five traits that make up personality: agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion, neuroticism and openness. The first on the list, agreeableness, is defined the way you might expect, with LiveScience outlining it as “the extent of a person's warmth and kindness. The more agreeable someone is, the more likely they are to be trusting, helpful and compassionate.” One thing they are not likely to be, however, is born in the winter. At least, that’s the finding of a study done by the University of Tokyo.
Researchers, citing the “[s]easonality of births in schizophrenia and other mental disorders [that] has been consistently observed,” decided to look into agreeability based on month of birth. They found, “[a] trend for lower agreeableness in subjects born during winter (December to February)” than those born during other times of the year. Again, this is a single study, and surely, cultural factors hold some sway.
5. Men born during the summer are less conscientious.
Here’s another study where the Big Five personality model makes an appearance. Conscientiousness, the trait mentioned in the previous entry, is defined by Wikipedia as “the personality trait of being thorough, careful, or vigilant.” According to a study by researchers at the University of Bologna, Italy, those are personality markers that men born during the summer have in less abundance than those born during other times during the year. The study, based on data collected from 419 men and women between 18 and 30, found that “males presented greater conscientiousness variation with summer born participants scoring lower.” Again, we’re dealing with a single study, so make what you will of the findings; the researchers themselves concede that “circadian preference” (that is, whether subjects were what might be called “morning people” or “night owls”) likely has an impact on individual results. One other interesting conclusion drawn by the study? “People born during autumn/winter have shown a more marked morning preference compared to those born during spring/summer, who are more evening types regardless of nationality.”
6. People born during the summer are moody.
Last year, at the annual European College of Neuropsychopharmacology conference, researchers from Hungary presented findings from a study on the effects of birth season on mood. Based on self-assessment questionnaires from 366 university students, researchers determined that “cyclothymic temperament” (which they define as “characterized by rapid, frequent swings between sad and cheerful moods”) was “significantly higher in those born in the summer, in comparison with those born in the winter.” (Maybe that explains the origins of the astrological theory about Geminis having two personalities.)
A few other key findings:
Hyperthymic temperament — a tendency to be excessively positive — [was] significantly higher in those born in spring and summer.
Those born in the winter were significantly less prone to irritable temperament than those born at other times of the year.
Those born in autumn show a significantly lower tendency to depressive temperament than those born in winter.
Xenia Gonda, an assistant professor from Semmelweis University in Budapest, said in a statement, “We can’t yet say anything about the mechanisms involved. What we are now looking at is to see if there are genetic markers which are related to season of birth and mood disorder.”
U.S. scientists have used high-tech detective work to identify the remains of four leaders of Jamestown, the New World's first successful English colony, more than 400 years after they died, the Smithsonian Institution said on Tuesday.
The research also provided new insight into life and death and the importance of religion in the Jamestown settlement in Virginia, about 80 miles (130 km) south of Washington, the Smithsonian said.
The men were identified as the Reverend Robert Hunt, Captain Gabriel Archer, Sir Ferdinando Wainman and Captain William West. All of them helped guide the colony during its difficult years after its founding in 1607.
“This is an extraordinary discovery,” said James Horn, president of the Jamestown Rediscovery Foundation, which teamed with scientists from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History to identify the bodies.
The four were found buried within Jamestown’s 1608 church, which fell into disrepair in 1617. The burials were investigated in November 2013, according to the Smithsonian.
Researchers used archaeology, skeletal analyses, chemical testing, 3-D technology and genealogical research to identify the men who lived and died when the settlement was on the brink of failure due to famine, disease and war.
About 30 percent of each skeleton was recovered, and the scientific team was able to determine the men's rough ages at death, the Smithsonian said.
Researchers also conducted chemical analyses to examine diet, the presence of heavy metals and the men's origins. The style of coffins and artifacts also led scientists to identify the remains.
Hunt, who died at about age 39 in 1608, was the first Anglican minister at Jamestown, the Smithsonian said.
Archer died in late 1609 or 1610 at 34 during the "starving time," a period when about 250 settlers died from disease, starvation and Indian attacks, the Smithsonian said.
He led some of the earliest expeditions in the Jamestown colony. Researchers also found a small silver box on top of his coffin that is likely a Catholic reliquary, the Smithsonian said.
Wainman died at about 34 and was the cousin of the Virginia governor, Sir Thomas West, the Smithsonian said. Wainman was the first English knight to be buried in America.
William West died at about 24 in 1610 during a skirmish with Powhatan Native Americans, the Smithsonian said. Scientists found scraps of a military leader's sash near his body.
(Reporting by Ian Simpson; Editing by Will Dunham)
What if I told you that half of the studies published in scientific journals today – the ones upon which news coverage of medical advances is often based – won’t hold up under scrutiny? You might say I had gone mad. No one would ever tolerate that kind of waste in a field as important – and expensive, to the tune of roughly US$30 billion in federal spending per year – as biomedical research, right? After all, this is the crucial work that hunts for explanations for diseases so they can better be treated or even cured.
Wrong. The rate of what is referred to as “irreproducible research” – more on what that means in a moment – exceeds 50%, according to a recent paper. Some estimates are even higher. In one analysis, just 11% of preclinical cancer research studies could be confirmed. That means that an awful lot of “promising” results aren’t very promising at all, and that a lot of researchers who could be solving critical problems based on previously published work end up just spinning their wheels.
So what gives? And how can we fix this problem?
What worms tell us about reproducibility
Although definitions of reproducibility and replication vary somewhat, for a study to be reproducible, another researcher needs to be able to replicate it, meaning use the same data and analysis to come to the same conclusions. There are lots of reasons why a study may not pass the replication test, from flat-out errors to a failure to adequately describe the methodology used. A researcher may have forgotten about a step in the process when he wrote up the methodology, for example, counted data in the wrong category, or written the wrong code for her statistics program.
Faking results is another reason, but it’s not nearly as common as others. Out-and-out fraud like that, or suspected fraud, is the reason for a bit fewer than half of the 400-plus retractions per year. But there are something like two million papers published annually, so the vast majority of studies containing irreproducible data are never retracted. And most scientists would agree that they shouldn’t be; after all, most science is overturned one way or another over time. Retraction should be reserved for the most severe cases. That doesn’t mean irreproducible papers shouldn’t be somehow marked, though.
Here’s a fresh example of a study that turned out not to be reproducible, because the results couldn’t be replicated: as Ben Goldacre relates in BuzzFeed, two economists published a massive study in 2004 claiming that a “deworm everyone” approach in Kenya “improved children’s health, school performance, and school attendance,” even among children several miles away who didn’t get deworming pills. Endorsed by the World Health Organization, it helped set policy that affects hundreds of millions of children annually in the developing world.
But now researchers have published papers describing two failures to replicate the original findings. Many of them just didn’t hold up, although some did.
That, as Goldacre explains, “is definitely problematic.” But the reanalyses were possible only because the original authors “had the decency, generosity, strength of character, and intellectual confidence to let someone else peer under the bonnet” – a rare situation indeed.
The fixes
Researchers are aware of the reproducibility problem, and some are trying to fix it. In response to alarming findings about the reproducibility of basic cancer research, a program called the Reproducibility Initiative has started providing “both a mechanism for scientists to independently replicate their findings and a reward for doing so.” It’s chosen 50 studies for independent validation – or not, since there’s certainly a chance the initial results won’t be reproducible. Those working on the project will perform the same kind of analyses that researchers did in the worm study replications. A similar effort has been ongoing in psychology, and other projects are under way in the social sciences.
Perhaps more important, however, is that researchers – and the public that funds many of them – realize that science is a process, and that all knowledge is provisional. “It’s not just naive to expect that all research will be perfectly free from errors,” writes Goldacre, “it’s actively harmful.” Journalists, take note.
Translated into policy, that means valuing replication efforts, which right now are essentially unfunded and hardly ever published. If we want scientists to validate others' work, we’ll need to create grants to do that. That means digging up additional funding, but replicating a study costs a tiny fraction of what the original work does. Funding new studies based on those that turn out to be irreproducible…well, now that’s expensive.
A 16-year-old French volunteer archaeologist has found an adult tooth dating back around 560,000 years in southwestern France, in what researchers hailed as a "major discovery" Tuesday.
"A large adult tooth -- we can't say if it was from a male or female -- was found during excavations of soil we know to be between 550,000 and 580,000 years old, because we used different dating methods," paleoanthropologist Amelie Viallet told AFP.
"This is a major discovery because we have very few human fossils from this period in Europe," she said.
The tooth was found at one of the world's most important prehistoric sites in Tautavel, which has been excavated for about 50 years.
It is also the site of the discovery of fossils belonging to Tautavel Man, a species that lived an estimated 450,000 years ago.
Volunteer Camille, 16, was working with another young archaeologist when she found the tooth.
If you want to know the secret behind the success of Tyrannosaurus rex and its meat-eating dinosaur cousins, look no further than their teeth.
Scientists on Tuesday unveiled a comprehensive analysis of the teeth of the group of carnivorous dinosaurs called theropods, detailing a unique serrated structure that let them chomp efficiently through the flesh and bones of large prey.
Theropods included the largest land predators in Earth's history. They first appeared about 200 million years ago and were the dominant terrestrial meat-eaters until the age of dinosaurs ended about 65 million years ago.
The study involving eight theropod species revealed their previously unknown tooth complexity. Internal dental tissues were arranged in a way that reinforced the strength and prolonged the life of teeth that were serrated like steak knives for easy dismembering of other dinosaurs.
University of Toronto Mississauga paleontologist Kirstin Brink said fossil evidence showed that T. rex's teeth could crush bone. Its teeth have been found embedded in the bones of its prey and chunks of bone appear in its fossilized dung.
"But the serrations were most efficient for piercing flesh and gripping it while ripping off a chunk of meat, called the 'puncture and pull' feeding style," Brink said.
The researchers analyzed slices from fossil teeth using a powerful microscope and a sophisticated device that revealed tooth chemical properties.
They studied teeth from: the early and relatively small Coelophysis; bird-like Troodon; large predators Allosaurus, Gorgosaurus, Daspletosaurus, Tyrannosaurus and Carcharodontosaurus; and big, semi-aquatic Spinosaurus.
The teeth of Tyrannosaurus and Carcharodontosaurus measured up to 9 inches (23 cm) long.
"In theropods, the serrations are larger and deeper than the superficial view suggests, making them stronger and longer lasting, less likely to get damaged or worn," University of Toronto Mississauga paleontology professor Robert Reisz said.
Dinosaurs were able to continuously grow teeth throughout their lives. When a tooth was broken, another could replace it.
"It could take up to two years for a tooth to grow back in the big theropods like T. rex. Therefore, having specially reinforced teeth means less tooth breakage and less gaps in the jaw, leading to more efficient eating," Brink said.
The Komodo dragon, a lizard up to 10 feet (3 meters) long from Indonesia, is the only living reptile with serrated teeth closely resembling those of theropods although these teeth evolved independently of those of the dinosaurs, Brink said.
The research appears in the journal Scientific Reports.
Hillary Clinton was set to lay out an ambitious plan Monday to invest in solar and other renewable energy sources if elected president, drawing a contrast with her fossil fuel-loving Republican rivals.
The Democratic front-runner was to speak at 1500 GMT at the main bus station in Des Moines, Iowa where she has been campaigning since Saturday.
"First, I will ensure we hit a target of having more than half a billion solar panels installed across the country by the end of my first term," Clinton said in a video released Sunday.
"Second, we'll set a 10-year goal of generating enough renewable energy to power every single home in America."
According to her campaign, those goals translate into an installed solar energy capacity of 140 gigawatts by the end of 2020, or a 700 percent increase over the number of solar panels installed today.
Her plan calls for using all forms of renewable energy to generate a third of all electric power in 2020, along with investments that her campaign says will put the US economy on the road towards "deep decarbonization by 2050."
In 2014, about 67 percent of the electricity generated in the United States came from fossil fuels, principally coal, according to the Energy Information Administration.
Only about 13 percent comes from renewables, and only 0.4 percent from solar. The rest, almost 20 percent, is generated by nuclear power plants.
In the video, Clinton said future generations will ask "what were we thinking?"
"I'm just a grandmother with two eyes and a brain and I know what's happening in the world is going to have a big effect on my daughter and especially on my granddaughter.
"It's hard to believe there are people running for president who still refuse to accept the settled science of climate change," she said.
On how she plans to accomplish her goals, Clinton proposes giving states, towns and rural communities financial incentives to fight climate change, either by placing more stringent curbs on emissions than the law requires or through stepped up investments in renewable energy.
Climate change is a hyper partisan issue in the United States, with many Republicans questioning whether human activity is contributing to global warming.
In Congress, the Republican majority has fought anti-pollution standards put in place by President Barack Obama, notably for coal-fueled power plants.
On July 22, in announcing the federal indictment of Charleston killer Dylann Roof, Attorney General Loretta Lynch commented that the expression of forgiveness offered by the victims' families is “an incredible lesson and message for us all.”
Forgiveness and grace are, indeed, hallmarks of the Black Church.
Since slavery, the church has been a formidable force for the survival of blacks in an America still grappling with the residual effects of white supremacy.
This was eloquently illustrated in the aftermath of the Charleston church massacre. Americans rightly stood in awe of the bereaved families' laudable demonstration of God’s grace in action.
But what about the psychic toll that these acts of forgiveness exact?
Events like Charleston put a spotlight on the growing body of literature that looks not only at the United States’ failure to have authentic conversations about slavery and its legacy but also at the mental health impact of forgiving acts of white racism and repressing justifiable feelings of anger and outrage – whether these are horrific acts of terrorism or nuanced microaggressions.
I am a social work educator and practitioner with 25 years of experience in the field of mental health. I teach at one of the nation’s leading schools of social work, committed to preparing its graduates to work with racially and ethnically diverse populations. It is time, I believe, to bring this new field of inquiry into the mainstream.
His research illuminates the role of religion in building the resilience that allows blacks as a people to overcome the various forms of terrorism and oppression endured over centuries that sustain doctrines of white supremacy.
Indeed, in his analysis of the African-American family, Billingsley concludes that it is “amazingly strong, enduring, adaptive and highly resilient.”
But as we pay homage to church and family in buffering blacks against the full effects of white racism, we must not obscure or diminish racism’s impact on the mental health that few blacks – irrespective of educational, social or economic status – will escape.
There is increasing evidence that repressing feelings associated with acts of white racism may be psychologically damaging and lay the foundation for future mental health problems and behaviors symptomatic of post-traumatic stress syndrome.
Evidence of racism’s impact on mental health
Harvard psychiatrist Alvin Poussaint asked why suicide rates among black males doubled between 1980 and 1995.
Terrie M Williams is a clinical social worker in New York. In her book, Black Pain: It Just Looks Like We’re Not Hurting, she uses powerful personal narratives of blacks from all walks of life to illustrate the high toll of hiding the pain associated with the black experience on mental health.
Joy DeGruy, Portland State University researcher and scholar, has developed “post-traumatic slave syndrome” as a theory for explaining the effects of unresolved trauma on the behaviors of blacks that is transmitted from generation to generation.
DeGruy’s argument may be controversial, but the questions she asked are surely relevant as we try to make sense, for example, of research released this July that shows suicide rates among black elementary school pupils significantly increasing between 1993 and 2012.
Moving to the mainstream…slowly
The fact is that from my perspective at New York University’s Silver School of Social Work, these publications have yet to move into mainstream literature. They have low visibility in the curricula and training programs for mental health professionals.
Nor have the questions these scholars and practitioners raised led to the kind of research that is needed to support race-conscious and culturally appropriate practices for the mental health programs and agencies working with African-American families.
At the same time, however, the original thinking of authors like Poussaint and DeGruy is very much in sync with the new emphasis on trauma-informed care in social work across all fields of practice.
As the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concluded in a May 2014 research report, undiagnosed childhood neglect or trauma is widespread among American adults and is the root cause of mental health and behavioral problems in adulthood.
Indeed, it is now the recommendation of the National Council for Behavioral Health that trauma-informed care be integrated into all assessment and treatment procedures.
This emphasis on trauma provides a new lens for developing research into the impact of slavery - and its legacy of structural and institutional racism - on black mental health today.
A difficult topic of conversation
The problem is, no one likes to talk about slavery.
For blacks descended from slaves, the subject evokes feelings of shame and embarrassment associated with the degradations of slavery. For whites whose ancestry makes them complicit, there are feelings of guilt about a system that is incongruent with the democratic ideals on which this country was founded.
Cloaked in a veil of silence or portrayed as a benevolent system that was in the best interest of blacks, slavery – much like mental illness – has become shrouded in secrecy and stigma.
Associated emotions are pushed away.
Anger, however, is a healthy emotion, as even the Scriptures acknowledge.
The God of the Old Testament is angry and vengeful. In the New Testament, Jesus vents his anger in driving the money changers from the Temple.
As research (including my own) has shown, when anger is internalized and driven deep into the unconscious, contaminated by unresolved pain, it becomes problematic.
So what happens to the anger felt by people discriminated against and, in extreme cases, physically targeted because of their race?
Not enough is known about the relationship between clinical depression and race. But there are extensive findings (including reports by the Surgeon General) that attribute racial disparities in mental health outcomes for African Americans and whites to clinician bias, socioeconomic status and environmental stressors (such as high rates of crime and poor housing). And there is evidence of a link between perceived racism and adverse psychological outcomes such as increased levels of anxiety, depression and other psychiatric symptoms.
The numbers tell a story. According to the Minority Health Office of the Department of Health and Human Services, black adults are 20% more likely to report serious psychological distress than white adults and are more likely to have feelings of sadness, hopelessness and worthlessness than do their white counterparts.
And yet there continues to be reluctance to forthrightly confront the impact of racism on mental health. Some of my colleagues, for example, say that content on race and racism is the most challenging content for them to teach. Authentic dialogue on race is constrained by the fear of being “political incorrect.” It takes less effort to promote the more inclusive liberal view that we live in a “color-blind society.”
It may be easier to allow everyone to remain in their comfort zone. But today as the US faces what would appear to be an epidemic of race-based attacks committed by whites, it is time to examine how our history of racism affects the mental health of African Americans as well as that of whites.
NASA's discovery of Earth-like exoplanet Kepler-452b, nicknamed "Earth 2.0", has social media buzzing about the chances of finding a faraway world, possibly with alien life or key resources such as water.
Science or fiction? The experts respond.
- Is 'Earth 2.0' like our planet? -
Currently we don't know if this planet is terrestrial -- rocky ?- or a small gas planet. If Kepler-452b turns out to be a terrestrial world, it will be the most Earth-like known which also orbits a G-class star like the Sun. The other leading competitors have mostly be found to orbit cooler dwarf stars.
There's a real chance we're talking about a terrestrial, potentially habitable exoplanet, with more similarities to our home world than any other place in our Solar System.
- Tom Kerss, astronomer at the Royal Observatory Greenwich
- Could we settle there? -
With our best available technology, we have no chances of reaching any exoplanet in the near future! The fastest spacecraft in the Solar System -- NASA's Juno probe -- is currently travelling at almost 86,000 miles (138,000 kilometres) per hour relative to the Earth. At this speed it would take about 33,000 years to reach the nearest star after the Sun, and
almost 11 million years to reach Kepler-452b!
- Kerss
- So what can we do? -
If we had a sufficiently large telescope -- and there are people who are studying such concepts right now -- we could actually make the first primitive maps of an Earth-like planet around a nearby star that would provide us details about the atmospheric composition, the surface composition, whether they have oceans, clouds, perhaps even seasons, and start characterising what those planets are like.
Whether or not we can discover life, now that is a very tricky question and a very hot topic in astrobiology -- would we recognise those signs of life? And it is a very exciting prospect.
- John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA's science mission directorate
Perhaps in the distant future, human beings will develop the technology necessary to journey out into the galaxy and begin exploring the billions of worlds hidden among the stars.
Until then, astronomers will continue to study exoplanets to learn more about the history of our own Solar System, and the nature of the Galaxy in general.
- Kerss
- A new world? -
Given the diversity of the planets discovered to date, I believe we will find a habitable planet yet.
I'm sure that one day we will discover a planet similar to Earth in terms of size and other features.
- University of Bordeaux astronomer Emeline Bolmont
Throughout my childhood, astronomers simply guessed that there might be a few hundred habitable worlds in the Galaxy, but fortunately this turned out to be very pessimistic. The true figure is closer to tens of billions!
Particular Earth-like candidates have also thrown up surprises which are fuelling exciting speculation -- as well as research -- on the range of worlds where forms of life might be able to cling on!
NASA might use wind-powered robots to explore Jupiter
Engineers at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California are reportedly in the process of developing "windbots" – robotic probes that could stay aloft in the clouds of a distant world, and these probes may eventually be used to explore Jupiter or other gas giants. According to Mashable and Engadget, the project would ideally remain…
A stunning silhouette of Pluto taken by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft after it shot past the icy orb last week show an extensive layer of atmospheric haze, while close-up pictures of the ground reveal flows of nitrogen ice, scientists said on Friday.
New Horizons became the first spacecraft to visit Pluto and its entourage of moons and so far has returned about 5 percent of the pictures and science data collected in the days leading up to, during and immediately following the July 14 flyby.
The latest batch of images includes a backlit view of Pluto with sun, located more than 3 billion miles away, shining around and through the planet’s atmosphere.
Analysis shows distinct layers of haze in Pluto’s nitrogen, carbon monoxide and methane atmosphere. The haze extends at least 100 miles (161 km) off the surface.
“This is our first peek at weather in Pluto’s atmosphere,” New Horizons scientist Michael Summers, with George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, told reporters during a teleconferenced press briefing.
As the tiny particles fall to the ground, they may trigger chemical reactions that give Pluto its reddish hue, he added.
The haze layer, which extends five times farther than predicted by computer models, was not the only surprise. Pressure measurements show the total mass of Pluto’s atmosphere has halved in two years.
“That’s pretty astonishing, at least to an atmospheric scientist. That tells you something is happening,” Summers said.
More details will come over the next year as New Horizons sends recorded data back to Earth.
NASA also released new images of Pluto’s surface, with telltale signs of a wide range of geologic activities including a Pluto version of glacial ice flows.
With surface temperatures just shy of 400 degrees below zero Fahrenheit (-235 degrees Celsius), Pluto is too cold for the ice to be made of water. Instead, Pluto’s surface ice consists mostly of nitrogen.
“We knew that there was nitrogen ice on Pluto ... and we imagined that nitrogen was sublimating, or evaporating, in one place and condensing in another place. But to see evidence for recent geologic activity is simply a dream come true,” said New Horizons scientist William McKinnon, with Washington University in St. Louis.
“Recent” in geological terms does not mean yesterday, he added. Based on the lack of impact craters, scientists suspect the surface of Pluto is less than a few hundred million years old, a fraction of the solar system’s 4.6 billion year age.
Scientists have successfully altered the neural networks of laboratory mice using a wireless controller; allowing them to study the effects of neural stimulation without invasive procedures and without test subjects tethered by wires.
The tiny implant, smaller than the width of a human hair, let the scientists determine the path a mouse walks using a remote control to inject drugs and shine lights on neurons inside the brain.
Neuroscientists have until now been limited to injecting drugs through larger tubes and delivering photostimulation through fiber-optic cables, both of which require surgery that can damage the brain and restrict an animal's natural movements.
The optofluidic implant developed by the team from Washington University School of Medicine and the University of Illinois was found to damage and displace much less brain tissue than the metal tubes, or cannulas, scientists typically use to inject drugs.
The device is mounted to the head of the mouse and is powered by a small battery, removing the need for it to be wired, and contains tiny reservoirs filled with the drugs to be administered during tests.
In one such experiment, mice were made to walk in circles after a drug that mimics morphine was injected into the region of the mouse's brain that controls motivation and addiction.
In other tests the scientists used a technique known as optogenetics, where mice have been modified so that their neurons are lights sensitive, to stimulate the mice's brain cells with miniature LEDs. The test subjects were made to stay on one side of a cage by remotely making the implant shine pulses of light on the specific cells. The mice were about three feet away from the remote antenna during the experiments.
The research, published recently in scientific journal Cell, could lead to the development of more minimally invasive probes to treat neurological disorders including stress, depression, addiction, and pain.
California quickly became notorious for its high number of vaccination skeptics. Yet, this outbreak is not simply the result of a few outspoken “anti-vaxxers” – celebrities or otherwise – but instead is part of a more general trend of increased distrust over the use of mandatory vaccinations.
These vaccines have been used safely and effectively for decades. So why is the American public – or at least a significant segment of it – now increasingly skeptical of mandatory school vaccinations? One possible source for this trend is that as vaccination rates have fallen, so have civic engagement and public trust in the government and the medical profession.
Growing skepticism of vaccines
The majority of parents in the US still have their children vaccinated on schedule. But there is a small minority who refuse vaccines altogether, or choose some vaccines and not others, or want a different schedule.
In some states, the decline has been dramatic. In California, the number of kindergarten-aged children who have failed to complete all their recommended vaccinations has gone up significantly in the last five years.
Other states, such as Colorado, Connecticut, Kentucky, Arizona and Washington, have also experienced significant decreases in their vaccination rates that put them well below “herd immunity” (the threshold where enough people are immune to a disease that transmission chains are broken).
In Seattle, the polio vaccination rate (81.4%) is lower than in Rwanda. And while California just passed a bill to eliminate religious and personal exemptions to vaccinations (it is now, along with West Virginia and Mississippi, one of only three states that allow only medical exemptions), legislators in Washington state and Oregon have backed away from similar bills.
A recent survey by the independent Pew Research Center suggests that there may be growing doubts about the practice of mandatory vaccines.
Younger Americans (18 to 29) are much more likely than older respondents to believe that childhood vaccinations should be a choice – 41% think parents should decide. They’re also more skeptical about the safety of vaccines, such as the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine – 15% think they are unsafe and another 8% are unsure. These results suggest the potential for a demographic shift in the US population where, over time, there is less and less support for the use of widespread vaccinations.
If so, why is this trend occurring? Why are we becoming more wary of the practice of compulsory vaccinations, and why are vaccination rates falling so dramatically in some states?
We are more solitary than ever – and trust each other less
In his book Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam argues that since the middle of the 20th century, Americans have become increasingly distant from one another. (In the jargon of sociologists, there has been a dramatic decrease in “social capital.”)
Sometime after the 1950s, Putnam says Americans started to retreat into their own private spheres of family and close friends. Partly because of the increase in entertainment technologies (first television and now the internet), we became less politically engaged, less civically minded, and less involved in community organizations like the Lions Club or the local PTA.
Putnam’s favorite example is bowling leagues. Bowling used to be the most popular sport in the US, and Americans used to bowl in leagues and compete against other members of their community. Now hardly anyone bowls in leagues.
What does this have to do with vaccinations? A key feature of Putnam’s theory is “social trust” – the degree to which people think others are honest and reliable. As we have become less civically engaged, our trust in other people has decayed.
We trust institutions less and less
It is not just our trust in people that has decayed, but also social institutions. In 1964, 77% of the population said that they had trust that those in the federal government would do what was right; by 2014 this number had fallen to 24%.
And the same trend can be seen in trust for the medical profession. Research shows that in 1966, 73% of the population trusted the leaders of the medical profession; by 2012 this has fallen to 34%, and less than one-quarter (23%) of the population has confidence in the US health care system as a whole. This lack of trust puts the US near the bottom among industrialized nations – in terms of trust in doctors, the US ranks 24 out of 29 countries surveyed.
Distrust of the government is one of the main arguments of the anti-vaccination movement. In a piece that is typical of the movement, author and freelance journalist Bertigne Shaffer writes:
The state already controls vast swathes of what we can do with our lives: What professions we may enter, how and where we may conduct business, what substances we cannot ingest, how much of the money we earn we are allowed to keep… If you do not believe that individuals have the right to control what goes into their own bodies then I have to wonder what rights – if any – you do believe people still have.
These arguments made by the anti-vaccination movement have begun to resonate because of our historically low levels of trust in the government and lack of civic engagement. Recent research finds that those who have less faith in the government are less likely to vaccinate in the case of an outbreak of disease.
People still favor government actions, like quarantine
If some Americans are becoming more distrustful of the government’s involvement in their medical lives, the puzzle is that many of us still support other government-sponsored practices such as quarantine.
A CBS news poll conducted during the Ebola outbreak last year found that 80% of Americans believed that US citizens returning from West Africa should be automatically quarantined. And there is in fact a long history of the use of quarantine in the United States, dating back to at least the turn of the 20th century.
How have we become wary of the practice of vaccination, while still maintaining our support of isolating the infectious?
Our lack of trust also helps explain this puzzle. As we have lost trust in the people around us, we have become fearful of the sick, distrustful of the infectious. So much so that we are willing to use the power of the state to protect ourselves from the threat that other people’s bodies may pose.
Our bowling-alone society has created fertile ground for falling rates of vaccination. Achieving high rates of vaccination – above the 90% that ensures herd immunity – requires that the community think of themselves as being in it together. Everyone gets vaccinated so that everyone is protected. When trust breaks down, that medical social contract we’ve historically had with one another starts to dissolve.
