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Science

A 2021 fusion power breakthrough is celebrated in three new studies, but controversy remains around replicating the findings.

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On 8 August, 2021, 192 laser beams pumped vastly more power than the entire US electric grid into a small gold capsule and ignited, for a faction of a second, the same thermonuclear fire that powers the Sun.

The experiment in fusion power, conducted by the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, is explored in detail in three new papers — one published in Physical Review Lettersand twopapers published in Physical Review E — that argue the researchers achieved “ignition,” a crucial step proving that controlled nuclear fusion is achievable. But definitions of what constitutes “ignition” vary, and however defined, the results of 2021 are still very far away from a practical fusion reactor, despite producing a very large amount of energy.

Nuclear fusion involves the fusion of two elements, typically isotopes of hydrogen, into the heavier element helium. It releases tremendous amounts of energy in the process, which is the process that powers stars like the Sun.

A fusion power plant would produce abundant energy using only hydrogen from water as fuel, and producing helium as waste, without the risk of meltdowns or radiation. This is in contrast with nuclear fission, the type of reaction in contemporary nuclear power plants, which splits the nuclei of heavy elements like uranium to produce energy.

While fusion reactions take place in the Sun, and uncontrolled fusion takes place in thermonuclear weapon explosions, controlling a sustained fusion reaction for generating power has eluded nuclear engineers for decades. Experiments of varied design have managed to produce fusion reactions for very small amounts of time, but never have they reached “ignition,” the point where the energy released from a fusion reaction is greater than the amount of energy required to generate and maintain that reaction.

The team at the National Ignition Facility and authors of one of the three new papers, the one published in the journal Physical Review Letters, argue that “ignition is a state where the fusion plasma can begin ‘burn propagation’ into surrounding cold fuel, enabling the possibility of high energy gain.” That is, fusion began in cold hydrogen fuel and the reaction expanded to generate far more power than in previous experiments.

The 8 August 2021 experiment required 1.9 megajoules of energy in the form of ultraviolet lasers to instigate a fusion reaction in a small, frozen pellet of hydrogen isotopes, — an inertial confinement fusion reaction design — and released 1.3 megajoules of energy, or about 70% of the energy put into the experiment. The output, in other words, was more than a quadrillion watts of power, even if released for only a small fraction of a second.

“The record shot was a major scientific advance in fusion research, which establishes that fusion ignition in the lab is possible at NIF,” Omar Hurricane, chief scientist for Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s inertial confinement fusion program, said in a statement. “Achieving the conditions needed for ignition has been a long-standing goal for all inertial confinement fusion research and opens access to a new experimental regime where alpha-particle self-heating outstrips all the cooling mechanisms in the fusion plasma.”

Subsequent attempts to replicate the experiment have produced far less output energy, most in the 400 to 700 kilojoules range, leading some researchers to suggest that the experimental design of the National Ignition Facility is a technical dead-end, according to reporting by the news department at the journal Nature.

“I think they should call it a success and stop,” physicist and former US Naval Research Laboratory laser fusion researcher Stephen Bodner told Nature.

The National Ignition Facility cost $3.5 billion, more than $2 billion more than expected, and is behind schedule, with researchers initially targeting 2012 as the deadline to prove ignition was possible using the design.

The new studies suggest that researchers are willing to keep exploring what the National Ignition Facility is capable of, especially because unlike other fusion researchers, the researchers at the facility are not primarily focused on developing fusion power plants, but better understanding thermonuclear weapons.

“We’re operating in a regime that no researchers have accessed since the end of nuclear testing,” Dr Hurricane said. “It’s an incredible opportunity to expand our knowledge as we continue to make progress.”

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Science

Scientists release new findings about gigantic lightning jets – study

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A new study found new information about gigantic jets, which are supercharged lightning bolts that shoot upward.

Researchers examined the most powerful gigantic jet studied yet, which occurred in Oklahoma with 100 times more electrical charge than a regular lightning bolt.

In the peer-reviewed study, published in the journal Science Advances on Wednesday, the researchers created a three-dimensional map of the Oklahoma jet, according to corresponding author Levi Boggs, a scientist at the Georgia Tech Research Institute.

“We were able to map this gigantic jet in three dimensions with really high-quality data,” Boggs said. “We were able to see very high frequency (VHF) sources above the cloud top, which had not been seen before with this level of detail. Using satellite and radar data, we were able to learn where the very hot leader portion of the discharge was located above the cloud.”

As the Oklahoma jet emerged from the top of a cloud, the researchers detected multiple very high frequency (VHF) radio sources at an altitude of 22-45km, as well as simultaneous optical emissions near the top of the cloud at an altitude of 15-20 km. This indicated that the VHF sources were produced by small structures at the tip of the lightning bolt called streamers and that the streamer discharge activity can reach all the way from the top of the cloud to the ionosphere, according to the study.

Red sprite lightning seen from ISS (credit: NASA/EXPEDITION 31/PUBLIC DOMAIN/VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS)

Streamers and leaders

Furthermore, The data from the 3D radio and optical emissions suggested that networks of VHF lightning detect emissions from the top of the streamers, not the leader, a current that flows behind the tip.

“The radio and optical data show the first clear evidence that the VHF observed by lightning networks is produced by streamers ahead of the leader,” the study read.

Study co-author Doug Mach of the Universities Space Research Association (USRA) emphasized the study’s novel approach to using 3D mapping to determine that the lightning’s optical emissions occurred far above the top of the clouds.

“The fact that the gigantic jet was detected by several systems, including the Lightning Mapping Array and two geostationary optical lightning instruments, was a unique event and gives us a lot more information on gigantic jets,” he said, adding, “More importantly, this is probably the first time that a gigantic jet has been three-dimensionally mapped above the clouds with the Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM) instrument set.”

According to the researchers, these findings may have a major impact on lightning physics in general.



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Science

Findings Could “Revolutionize” Our Understanding of Distance

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The researchers discovered that a new theoretical framework to unify Hermitian and non-Hermitian physics is established by the duality between non-Hermiticity and curved spaces.

A physics puzzle is resolved through a new duality.

According to traditional thinking, distorting a flat space by bending it or stretching it is necessary to create a curved space. A group of scientists at Purdue University has developed a new technique for making curved spaces that also provides the answer to a physics mystery. The team has developed a method using non-Hermiticity, which occurs in all systems coupled to environments, to build a hyperbolic surface and a number of other prototypical curved spaces without causing any physical distortions of physical systems.

“Our work may revolutionize the general public’s understanding of curvatures and distance,” says Qi Zhou, Professor of Physics and Astronomy.

“It has also answered long-standing questions in non-Hermitian quantum mechanics by bridging non-Hermitian physics and curved spaces. These two subjects were assumed to be completely disconnected. The extraordinary behaviors of non-Hermitian systems, which have puzzled physicists for decades, become no longer mysterious if we recognize that the space has been curved. In other words, non-Hermiticity and curved spaces are dual to each other, being the two sides of the same coin.”

A Poincaré half-plane can be viewed in the background which demonstrates a curved surface. The white geodesics of the curved surface are shown as an analog of straight lines on a flat space. White balls moving in the right direction demonstrate the geometric origin of an extraordinary skin effect in non-Hermitian physics. Credit: Chenwei Lv and Ren Zhang.

The team’s results were published in the journal 

One must first comprehend the distinction between Hermitian and non-Hermitian systems in physics in order to comprehend how this discovery works. Zhou explains it using the example of a quantum particle that can “hop” between several locations on a lattice.

If the probability for a quantum particle to hop in the right direction is the same as the probability to hop in the left direction, then the Hamiltonian is Hermitian. If these two probabilities are different, the Hamiltonian is non-Hermitian. This is the reason that Chenwei and Ren Zhang have used arrows with different sizes and thicknesses to denote the hopping probabilities in opposite directions in their plot.

“Typical textbooks of quantum mechanics mainly focus on systems governed by Hamiltonians that are Hermitian,” says Lv.

“A quantum particle moving in a lattice needs to have an equal probability to tunnel along the left and right directions. Whereas Hermitian Hamiltonians are well-established frameworks for studying isolated systems, the couplings with the environment inevitably lead to dissipations in open systems, which may give rise to Hamiltonians that are no longer Hermitian. For instance, the tunneling amplitudes in a lattice are no longer equal in opposite directions, a phenomenon called nonreciprocal tunneling. In such non-Hermitian systems, familiar textbook results no longer apply and some may even look completely opposite to that of Hermitian systems. For instance, eigenstates of non-Hermitian systems are no longer orthogonal, in sharp contrast to what we learned in the first class of an undergraduate quantum mechanics course. These extraordinary behaviors of non-Hermitian systems have been intriguing physicists for decades, but many outstanding questions remain open.”

He further explains that their work provides an unprecedented explanation of fundamental non-Hermitian quantum phenomena. They found that a non-Hermitian Hamiltonian has curved the space where a quantum particle resides. For instance, a quantum particle in a lattice with nonreciprocal tunneling is in fact moving on a curved surface. The ratio of the tunneling amplitudes along one direction to that in the opposite direction controls how large the surface is curved.

In such curved spaces, all the strange non-Hermitian phenomena, some of which may even appear unphysical, immediately become natural. It is the finite curvature that requires orthonormal conditions distinct from their counterparts in flat spaces. As such, eigenstates would not appear orthogonal if we used the theoretical formula derived for flat spaces. It is also the finite curvature that gives rise to the extraordinary non-Hermitian skin effect that all eigenstates concentrate near one edge of the system.

“This research is of fundamental importance and its implications are two-fold,” says Zhang. “On the one hand, it establishes non-Hermiticity as a unique tool to simulate intriguing quantum systems in curved spaces,” he explains. “Most quantum systems available in laboratories are flat and it often requires significant efforts to access quantum systems in curved spaces. Our results show that non-Hermiticity offers experimentalists an extra knob to access and manipulate curved spaces.

An example is that a hyperbolic surface could be created and further be threaded by a magnetic field. This could allow experimentalists to explore the responses of quantum Hall states to finite curvatures, an outstanding question in condensed matter physics. On the other hand, the duality allows experimentalists to use curved spaces to explore non-Hermitian physics. For instance, our results provide experimentalists a new approach to access exceptional points using curved spaces and improve the precision of quantum sensors without resorting to dissipations.”

Now that the team has published their findings, they anticipate it spinning off into multiple directions for further study. Physicists studying curved spaces could implement their apparatuses to address challenging questions in non-Hermitian physics.

Also, physicists working on non-Hermitian systems could tailor dissipations to access non-trivial curved spaces that cannot be easily obtained by conventional means. The Zhou research group will continue to theoretically explore more connections between non-Hermitian physics and curved spaces. They also hope to help bridge the gap between these two physics subjects and bring these two different communities together with future research.

According to the team, Purdue University is uniquely qualified to foster this type of quantum research. Purdue has been growing strong in quantum information science at a fast pace over the past few years. The Purdue Quantum Science and Engineering Institute paired with the Department of Physics and Astronomy, allows the team to collaborate with many colleagues with diverse expertise and foster interdepartmental and collegiate growth on a variety of platforms that exhibit dissipations and nonreciprocal tunneling.

Reference: “Curving the space by non-Hermiticity” by Chenwei Lv, Ren Zhang, Zhengzheng Zhai, and Qi Zhou, 21 April 2022, Nature Communications.
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-29774-8



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Business

Cryptomining Capacity in U.S. Rivals Energy Use of Houston, Findings Show

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Seven of the largest Bitcoin mining companies in the United States are set up to use nearly as much electricity as all the homes in Houston, according to data disclosed Friday as part of an investigation by congressional Democrats who say miners should be required to report their energy use.

The United States has seen an influx of cryptocurrency miners, who use powerful, energy-intensive computers to create and track the virtual currencies, after China cracked down on the practice last year. Democrats led by Senator Elizabeth Warren are also calling for the companies to report their emissions of carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas that is the main driver of climate change.

“This limited data alone reveals that cryptominers are large energy users that account for a significant — and rapidly growing — amount of carbon emissions,” Senator Warren and five other members of Congress wrote in a letter to the heads of the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy. “But little is known about the full scope of cryptomining activity,” they wrote.

Research has shown that a surge in cryptomining is also significantly raising energy costs for local residents and small businesses, and has added to the strain on the power grid in states like Texas, the letter noted.

Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin have grown exponentially since they were introduced more than a decade ago, and in recent years, so have concerns over cryptomining, the process of creating a virtual coin. That process, a complex guessing game using powerful and power-hungry computers, is highly energy intensive. Worldwide, Bitcoin mining uses more electricity than many countries.

Earlier this year, a group of congressional Democrats launched an investigation into energy use at the country’s largest cryptomining companies. They asked seven cryptomining companies for data on their operations, and the group’s findings, issued Friday, are based on the companies’ responses.

That data showed that the seven companies alone had set up to tap as much as 1,045 megawatts of power, or enough electricity to power all the residences in a city the size of Houston, the nation’s fourth-largest city with 2.3 million residents. The companies also said that they plan to expand their capacity at an eye-popping rate.

One of the largest cryptomining companies in the United States, Marathon Digital Holdings, told the probe that it operated almost 33,000 highly specialized, power-intensive computers, known as “mining rigs,” as of February, up from just over 2,000 at the start of 2021. By early next year, it intends to get that number up to 199,000 rigs, an almost hundredfold increase in two years, it said.

The company currently operates a cryptomining center powered by the Hardin Generating Station in Montana, which generates electricity by burning coal, the dirtiest fuel. But in April, Marathon announced that it would be moving those operations to “new locations with more sustainable sources of power” and that the company was moving toward achieving carbon neutrality. It did not provide further details.

Cryptomining companies are often located near power sources because of their heavy demand for electricity.

Greenidge Generation Holdings, which operates a Bitcoin mining center powered by a natural gas plant in upstate New York, said it expected to ramp up its mining capacity tenfold in multiple locations, including in South Carolina and Texas, by 2025. But New York last month refused to renew an air pollution permit for the facility, calling Greenidge’s cryptomining operations a threat to the state’s goals to limit emissions of greenhouse gases in order to fight climate change. Greenidge has said it could continue to operate under its current permit while it challenged the state’s decision.

Overall, the biggest seven cryptomining companies expected to increase their total mining capacity by at least 2,399 megawatts in the coming years, an increase of nearly 230 percent from current levels, and enough energy to power 1.9 million residences.

Some cryptomining companies say they operate using renewable energy. Riot Blockchain, in the response it provided to the senators’ request for information, pointed to its Coinmint mining facility in Massena, N.Y., which uses hydroelectricity almost exclusively. But its far larger Whinstone facility draws power from the Texas grid, which relies on coal or natural gas for more than 60 percent of its generating capacity, the letter said.

The company’s chief executive, Jason Les, said in a statement that renewable energy in Texas continued to grow and that cryptominers had the flexibility to shut down during high periods of demand, relieving pressure on the grid.

Surging demand from cryptomining, meanwhile, has also been blamed for driving up local electricity bills. A study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, found that the power demands of cryptominers in upstate New York had pushed up annual electric bills by about $165 million for small businesses, and $79 million for individual households. That came out to about $71 a year extra for the average household, or about a 6 percent increase.

It was unclear how a recent slump in cryptocurrency prices would affect expansion plans. And the overall picture of cryptominers’ energy use beyond the seven companies was also not clear.

Given these concerns, Senator Warren said in her letter, the E.P.A. and D.O.E. should work together to establish rules that would require cryptominers to report their energy use and emissions. That would allow the federal government to monitor energy use and trends with an eye to starting to regulate a largely unregulated industry.

The White House is also studying policy recommendations to lower cryptocurrency mining’s energy consumption and emissions footprint, Bloomberg Law reported last month.

China’s crackdown on cryptocurrencies upended the crypto world last year, triggering a mass exodus of miners. Data compiled by researchers at Cambridge show that the United States is now the world’s largest Bitcoin mining hub, making up about 37 percent of the global hashrate, a measure of the computing power used for mining.

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Entertainment

Meghan ‘bullying’ inquiry buried: Findings of Palace probe into claims will NEVER be made public

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Buckingham Palace has effectively buried a report into allegations of bullying by the Duchess of Sussex.

Royal aides yesterday admitted for the first time that the findings will never be made public.

A source said last night: ‘People suspected it would be buried, and now it seems that it has.’ The Daily Mail understands that even those who took part in the inquiry haven’t been told what the outcome is.

Palace officials would confirm only that their investigation had concluded and ‘recommendations on our policy and procedures’ had been taken forward.

Royal aides announced in March last year that they were launching an inquiry into claims that Meghan’s ‘belittling’ behaviour while a working member of the Royal Family drove two female personal assistants out of the household and ‘undermined the confidence’ of a third.

Controversial: Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, during last year’s interview with Oprah Winfrey 

Staff were said to have been left in tears and feeling ‘traumatised’ – with some likening their condition to having post-traumatic stress.

The Royal Household employed a third-party law firm, paid for by the family privately, to probe the claims in a move that some predicted could increase tensions between Harry and Meghan and ‘the institution’.

The allegations have always been strongly denied by the duchess, whose lawyers described them at the time as a ‘calculated smear campaign’. They did not respond to requests for comment yesterday.

Last year a palace spokesman made clear that the specifics of the allegations – which were brought to the attention of senior household staff at the time by Harry and Meghan’s concerned press secretary, Jason Knauf – would not be probed.

But they said they would investigate how the ‘historic allegations of bullying’ were handled by officials and whether any changes to their HR policies and procedures should be instigated as a result.

A spokesman confirmed that ‘if’ those findings were to be made public, they would be included in this year’s Sovereign Grant report – the official annual review into the Queen’s public finances and the running of her household.

But announcing the report yesterday, her Master of the Privy Purse, Sir Michael Stevens, said of the investigation: ‘There is nothing on this in the report. As we said last year, this work was undertaken privately and had no Sovereign Grant money spent on it.

Buckingham Palace has effectively buried a report into allegations of bullying by the Duchess of Sussex (seen with Harry at Kensington Palace)

‘The review has been completed and recommendations on our (HR) policy and procedures have been taken forward. But we will not be commenting further.’

The Mail understands that although the review was concluded several months ago, the tiny handful of former royal staff invited to take part only recently discovered it had been wound up.

And they will not be told what its findings are, or what changes to HR procedures have been made as a result.

‘Considering those who participated did so at great personal and reputational risk to themselves, the fact that they haven’t even been told what the findings are is unfathomable,’ said one source with knowledge of the process.

‘I am sure they will be deeply distressed, but perhaps not entirely surprised given how things have been handled. The household seems to be terrified of upsetting or provoking Harry and Meghan.’

The issue was raised during a briefing about the Sovereign Grant which showed:

  • The Queen’s annual expenditure increased by 17 per cent to £102.4 million during 2021/22, forcing officials to dip into savings; 
  • The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are now ‘financially independent’, with royal sources saying this was of ‘great credit to them’;
  • Sources said Prince Charles would never again accept suitcases stuffed with cash following a row over charity donations;
  • The most expensive royal trip in the past year was the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s flights to the Caribbean, costing £226,000;
  • Officials insisted they would keep the royal train, despite it being used just six times last year at an average cost of £34,307;
  • Property maintenance soared by £14.4 million to £63.9 million, as the ten-year project to renovate Buckingham Palace reaches a crucial stage.

Reports about Meghan’s alleged bullying of staff surfaced just ahead of her explosive Oprah Winfrey interview with Prince Harry early last year. The Palace said it took such claims seriously and vowed to investigate.

The allegations have always been strongly denied by the duchess, whose lawyers described them at the time as a ‘calculated smear campaign’. They did not respond to requests for comment yesterday. Pictured: Lawyer Jenny Afia speaking on The Princes And The Press documentary

Last year, however, the Mail established that only a tiny number of royal employees – both past and present – had been spoken to and that staff feared it was already being ‘kicked into the long grass’. Those interviewed included two of Meghan’s former personal assistants, another senior female member of staff and Cabinet Secretary Simon Case, who was then working as Prince William’s private secretary.

Asked why the report into alleged bullying had not even been privately disseminated, a senior royal aide claimed yesterday: ‘One has to recognise HR matters involving individuals are private and those individuals who participated in the review… have a right to that confidentiality.

‘Where there have been improvements that needed to be made to policies and procedures, those have been implemented. And those who participated in the review have been informed that the review has concluded and contained recommendations. Because of the confidentiality of the discussions, we have not communicated the detailed recommendations.’

Palace prioritised peace, whatever the cost to their staff

Analysis by Rebecca English royal editor  

Allegations that the Duchess of Sussex systemically targeted and bullied female staff have been deeply troubling – and problematic – for the Royal Family since they were aired early last year.

It was the first time a member of the Royal Family had been the subject of a formal complaint to senior management about their alleged behaviour – and there was no formal HR policy in place to deal with it.

The fact the allegations had first been made three years previously without any action seemingly being taken also uncomfortably accentuated the depth of the Palace’s paralysis over the issue.

The delicacy of the situation was further exacerbated by the state of relations between Harry and Meghan and the rest of the Royal Family.

Meghan, Duchess of Sussex and Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex depart the National Service of Thanksgiving at St Paul’s Cathedral during the Platinum Jubilee earlier this month 

In the wake of their acrimonious departure as working royals and explosive Oprah Winfrey interview, palace officials were simply unable to predict just how this most defensive of couples would react. This is why they decided to focus their inquiries on how the allegations against Meghan were handled, as opposed to the substance of the claims themselves, whose truth or falsity has not been objectively established.

It seemed a neat-ish solution and one that was specifically designed to prevent the duchess and her legal team from having any say in what was being treated as a purely procedural matter.

Now officials have confirmed what the Daily Mail suggested would happen back in December last year – that their entire review is being buried, never to be made public.

And as I reveal today, even the tiny handful of staff who were consulted during the process haven’t been told what, if anything, the Palace plans to do to sharpen up their procedures in the future.

Senior palace officials such as the Queen’s private secretary, Sir Edward Young – who I have been told by multiple sources was also frequently on the receiving end of the worst of the Sussexes’ ire – wanted to do the right thing, but have clearly prioritised peace with Harry and Meghan over their workforce.

It has led some within the household to ask the question: is how your staff are treated and protected really deemed less important than angering the Sussexes?

The answer, for many, is clearly ‘yes’.

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Science

Scientists Found Superworms That Love Eating Styrofoam, And It Could Be a Good Thing

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Packing material, disposable cutlery, CD cases: Polystyrene is among the most common forms of plastic, but recycling it isn’t easy and the vast majority ends up in landfills or finds its way to the oceans where it threatens marine life.

 

Scientists at Australia’s University of Queensland have now discovered that superworms – the larvae of Zophobas morio darkling beetles – are eager to dine on the substance, and their gut enzymes could hold the key to higher recycling rates.

Chris Rinke, who led a study that was published in the journal Microbial Genomics on Thursday, told AFP previous reports had shown that tiny waxworms and mealworms (which are also beetle larvae) had a good track record when it came to eating plastic, “so we hypothesized that the much larger superworms can eat even more.”

Superworms grow up to two inches (five centimeters) and are bred as a food source for reptiles and birds, or even for humans in countries such as Thailand and Mexico.

Rinke and his team fed superworms different diets over a three week period, with some given polystyrene foam, commonly known as styrofoam, some bran, and others not fed at all.

“We confirmed that superworms can survive on a sole polystyrene diet, and even gain a small amount of weight – compared to a starvation control group – which suggests that the worms can gain energy from eating polystyrene,” he said.

Polystyrene in the gut of a worm. (University of Queensland)

Although the polystyrene-reared superworms completed their life cycle, becoming pupae and then fully developed adult beetles, tests revealed a loss of microbial diversity in their guts and potential pathogens.

These findings suggested that while the bugs can survive on polystyrene, it is not a nutritious diet and impacts their health.

Next, the team used a technique called metagenomics to analyze the microbial gut community and find which gene-encoded enzymes were involved in degrading the plastic.

Bio-upcycling

One way to put the findings to use would be to provide superworms with food waste or agricultural bioproducts to consume alongside polystyrene.

“This could be a way to improve the health of the worms and to deal with the large amount of food waste in Western countries,” said Rinke.

 

But while breeding more worms for this purpose is possible, he envisages another route: creating recycling plants that mimic what the larvae do, which is to first shred the plastic in their mouths then digest it through bacterial enzymes.

“Ultimately, we want to take the superworms out of the equation,” he said, and he now plans more research aimed at finding the most efficient enzymes, then enhancing them further through enzyme engineering.

The breakdown products from that reaction could then be fed to other microbes to create high-value compounds, such as bioplastics, in what he hopes would become an economically viable “upcycling” approach.

© Agence France-Presse

 

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Science

WATCH LIVE: Astronomers reveal ‘groundbreaking’ findings about the Milky Way

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The international network of researchers who first pictured a black hole say they have another big announcement coming out on Thursday about our own galaxy. The Event Horizon Telescope project and the European Southern Observatory have teased “groundbreaking Milky Way results,” which scientists will reveal in a news conference hosted in Garching, Germany.

The news conference is expected to begin at 9:00 a.m. EDT on Thursday, May 12. Watch live in our player above.

The creation of the first image in 2019 was an historic achievement that pictured a black hole from a nearby galaxy. The Event Horizon Telescope, made up of eight radio telescope observatories around the world, also captured data from Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, but at the time of the 2019 release, the team was still processing that information. The organizers have not said whether the new findings are related to Sagittarius A*.

Read more about black holes and Event Horizon Telescope

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Health

Surprising Findings on Low-Salt Diets, Heart Failure, and Quality of Life

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Study reveals how reducing sodium intake can help patients with heart failure.

Surprising findings show a low-salt diet doesn’t prevent death or hospital visits, but does improve symptoms and quality of life.

For the past century people with weak hearts have been told to lower their salt intake, but until now there has been little scientific evidence behind the recommendation.

The largest randomized clinical trial to look at sodium reduction and heart failure reported results simultaneously in (function(d, s, id){ var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.6"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); }(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));

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Health

Mysterious Link Between Vitamin D And COVID-19 Reaffirmed in ‘Striking’ New Findings

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Israeli scientists said they found “striking” differences in the chances of getting seriously ill from COVID-19 when they compared patients who had sufficient vitamin D levels prior to contracting the disease, with those who didn’t.

 

A study published Thursday in research journal PLOS One found that about half of people who were vitamin D deficient before getting COVID-19 developed severe illness, compared to less than 10 percent of people who had sufficient levels of the vitamin in their blood.

We know vitamin D is vital for bone health, but its role in protecting against severe COVID-19 is less-well established. 

The latest research was the first to examine vitamin D levels in individuals prior to them contracting COVID-19, the study authors said.

Dr. Amiel Dror, a study author and physician at the Galilee Medical Center, said of the findings: “We found it remarkable, and striking, to see the difference in the chances of becoming a severe patient when you are lacking in vitamin D compared to when you’re not,” per the Times of Israel.

The findings come from 253 people admitted to Galilee Medical Center in Nahariya, Israel between 7 April 2020 and 4 February 2021 – a period before the highly-infectious Omicron variant emerged.

Dror said the findings suggested vitamin D helped bolster the immune system to deal with viruses that attack the respiratory system.

 

“This is equally relevant for Omicron as it was for previous variants,” Dror said. 

The research doesn’t prove vitamin D protects against COVID-19 and isn’t a green light to avoid vaccines and take vitamins instead. Vaccines cut the risk of Omicron hospitalization, particularly after a booster, by up to 90 percent, according to the UK Health Security Agency.

Most vitamin D comes from direct sunlight on the skin. It’s also found in foods such as fatty fish, mushrooms, and egg yolks as well as supplements.

Vitamin D levels of more than 20 nanograms per milliliter are considered sufficient for most people, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – which is the benchmark used by the researchers from Bar-Ilan University and Galilee Medical Center.

Research compiled before the emergence of COVID-19 and published in The Lancet, found vitamin D cut the risk of other respiratory infections, compared with dummy drugs.

But for COVID-19, early findings have been inconsistent – some studies have found a link between low vitamin D levels and severe COVID-19, whilst others concluded the vitamin wasn’t protective.

 

It wasn’t clear – even from those studies with results showing a positive correlation between low vitamin D levels and severe COVID-19 – if depleted vitamin D came before or after people got sick, the Israeli researchers said.

Despite the new Israel data, we still don’t know if low vitamin D levels cause people with COVID-19 to develop serious disease.

Underlying conditions that reduce vitamin D can also make people more vulnerable to severe COVID-19, for example.

The Israeli researchers cautioned vitamin D was “one piece of the complex puzzle” underlying severe COVID-19, in addition to comorbidities, genetic predisposition, dietary habits, and geographic factors. 

“Our study warrants further studies investigating if and when vitamin D supplementation among vitamin D deficient individuals in the community impacts the outcome of an eventual COVID-19 episode,” they said. 

This article was originally published by Business Insider.

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Science

NASA Presents New Findings From Perseverance Mars Rover

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This illustration depicts NASA’s Mars 2020 rover studying rocks with its robotic arm. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The findings by rover scientists highlight the diversity of samples geologists and future scientists associated with the agency’s
Taken by Perseverance’s Mastcam-Z instrument, this video features an enhanced-color composite image that pans across Jezero Crater’s delta on Mars. The delta formed billions of years ago from sediment an ancient river carried to the mouth of a lake that once existed in the crater. Credit: NASA/

This graphic depicts Perseverance’s entry into “Séítah” from both an orbital and subsurface perspective. The lower image is a subsurface “radargram” from the rover’s RIMFAX instrument; the red lines indicate link subsurface features to erosion-resistant rocky outcrops visible above the surface. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/USGS/FFI

The drill at the end of Perseverance’s robotic arm can abrade, or grind, rock surfaces to allow other instruments, such as PIXL, to study them. Short for Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry, PIXL uses X-ray fluorescence to map the elemental composition of rocks. On Nov. 12, PIXL analyzed a South Séítah rock the science team had chosen to take a core sample from using the rover’s drill. The PIXL data showed the rock, nicknamed “Brac,” to be composed of an unusual abundance of large olivine crystals engulfed in pyroxene crystals.

“A good geology student will tell you that such a texture indicates the rock formed when crystals grew and settled in a slowly cooling magma – for example a thick lava flow, lava lake, or magma chamber,” said Farley. “The rock was then altered by water several times, making it a treasure trove that will allow future scientists to date events in Jezero, better understand the period in which water was more common on its surface, and reveal the early history of the planet. Mars Sample Return is going to have great stuff to choose from!”

Six facsimile sample tubes hang on the sample tube board in this image taken in the offices of NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The multi-mission Mars Sample Return campaign began with Perseverance, which is collecting Martian rock samples in search of ancient microscopic life. Of Perseverance’s 43 sample tubes, six have been sealed to date – four with rock cores, one with Martian atmosphere, and one that contained “witness” material to observe any contamination the rover might have brought from Earth. Mars Sample Return seeks to bring select tubes back to Earth, where generations of scientists will be able to study them with powerful lab equipment far too large to send to Mars.

Still to be determined is whether the olivine-rich rock formed in a thick lava lake cooling on the surface or in a subterranean chamber that was later exposed by erosion.

Organic Molecules

Also great news for Mars Sample Return is the discovery of organic compounds by the SHERLOC (Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics & Chemicals) instrument. The carbon-containing molecules are not only in the interiors of abraded rocks SHERLOC analyzed, but in the dust on non-abraded rock.

Confirmation of organics is not a confirmation that life once existed in Jezero and left telltale signs (biosignatures). There are both biological and non-biological mechanisms that create organics.

“Curiosity also discovered organics at its landing site within Gale Crater,” said Luther Beegle, SHERLOC principal investigator at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “What SHERLOC adds to the story is its capability to map the spatial distribution of organics inside rocks and relate those organics to minerals found there. This helps us understand the environment in which the organics formed. More analysis needs to be done to determine the method of production for the identified organics.”

The preservation of organics inside ancient rocks – regardless of origin – at both Gale and Jezero Craters does mean that potential biosignatures (signs of life, whether past or present) could be preserved, too. “This is a question that may not be solved until the samples are returned to Earth, but the preservation of organics is very exciting. When these samples are returned to Earth, they will be a source of scientific inquiry and discovery for many years,” Beegle said.

‘Radargram’

Along with its rock-core sampling capabilities, Perseverance has brought the first ground-penetrating radar to the surface of Mars. RIMFAX (Radar Imager for Mars’ Subsurface Experiment) creates a “radargram” of subsurface features up to about 33 feet (10 meters) deep. Data for this first released radargram was collected as the rover drove across a ridgeline from the “Crater Floor Fractured Rough” geologic unit into the Séítah geologic unit.

The ridgeline has multiple rock formations with a visible downward tilt. With RIMFAX data, Perseverance scientists now know that these angled rock layers continue at the same angle well below the surface. The radargram also shows the Séítah rock layers project below those of Crater Floor Fractured Rough. The results further confirm the science team’s belief that the creation of Séítah preceded Crater Floor Fractured Rough. The ability to observe geologic features even below the surface adds a new dimension to the team’s geologic mapping capabilities at Mars.

More About Perseverance

A key objective for Perseverance’s mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet’s geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust).

Subsequent NASA missions, in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.

The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASA’s Moon to Mars exploration approach, which includes Artemis missions to the Moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.

JPL, which is managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, California, built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover.



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