While we are looking for someone who wants to take over the Saturday science news digest, I am taking advantage of the Saturday night gig this week. Come on in, and post your own science news in the comments.
Live Science has the pictures of the week.
Let’s begin with news of the season, and other climate change issues, with the first item from the AP, via the Concord Monitor:
Winter is coming ... later. And it’s leaving ever earlier.
Across the United States, the year’s first freeze has been arriving further and further into the calendar, according to more than a century of measurements from weather stations nationwide.
Scientists say it is yet another sign of the changing climate, and that it has good and bad consequences for the nation. There could be more fruits and vegetables – and also more allergies and pests.
From Alaska Public Media:
Sixteen young Alaskans are suing the state, demanding Gov. Bill Walker’s administration take action on climate change.
It’s the second such legal action in the last six years. In 2014, the Alaska Supreme Court dismissed a similar lawsuit, Kanuk v Alaska, from six young people asking the state to reduce carbon emissions, among other recommendations. The justices ruled then that it’s not for the courts to set climate policy and that those decisions must be made through the political process, by the Legislature and the governor.
From mindbodygreen:
While 97 percent of climate scientists, hundreds of government heads around the world, and even the pope all agree that humans are contributing to global warming, the latest data says that 12 percent of Americans still don't believe in climate change. A mix of ideology, cultural values, and mistrust of the media are some of the main drivers of this skepticism.
While everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion, dealing with someone who thinks the world doesn't need our help can be a frustrating experience—but getting angry will not help your cause. Here are a few tips for having an honest, productive conversation with a climate change denier, whether it's your friend, family member, or elected official.
From The Holland Sentinel:
By Rick Holmes
Climate change isn’t a theoretical argument anymore; it’s happening in front of our eyes, even in the places we revere and vow to protect.
It’s been a bad year for moose in the Northeast and forests in the Northwest.
Moose are magnificent creatures, weighing 1,000 pounds or more and standing up to seven feet tall. They can be elusive, most of the time staying hidden in deep woods. Threats to their population have come from development and automobiles. Car versus moose collisions are so common that officials in northern Maine post instructions at the rest areas for how to minimize the damage (let up on the brakes just before impact, and aim for the rear end of the moose).
But what’s killing moose in large numbers this year isn’t trucks or hunters. It’s winter ticks, which have moved north and multiplied. As many as 100,000 ticks at a time have been known to feast on a single moose. The ticks drive the moose crazy and turn their fur white — leading naturalists to call stricken animals “ghost moose.” Their blood drained by the ticks, the moose grow weak, unable to reproduce, and die. Researchers estimate that for the last three years, 70 percent of moose calves in New Hampshire and Maine have died before reaching maturity.
Science journalism and public relations, first up with Popular Science:
Bill Nye has been educating the public about science for over 20 years. In fact, a new documentary about him, Bill Nye: Science Guy, is out now (there's a clip below). Nye stopped by PopSci HQ earlier this week, and responded to anti-science tweets with, well, science. Watch the video above or read on for select responses.
I don’t believe in evolution because then I’d have wings. And I don’t. Science sucks.
I’m not sure with evolution, if you’d have wings. Your bones are too heavy. You’ve got to have hollow bones, feathers. You have to make some changes. That branch in the evolutionary tree, cladistics, you’ve missed that branch. If there’s reincarnation for you, come back as a bird, way to go. But if you don’t come back I’m okay with that. Really.
From TwinCities.com:
Local social media erupted this weekend when a character from the hit show “Stranger Things” was spotted wearing a retired Science Museum of Minnesota hoodie.
The museum posted the picture and tweeted: “Check out what Dustin is wearing in season 2, episode 1.” Season 2 debuted on Friday.
The purple sweatshirt has the fossil of a brontosaurus, the subhead “Thunder Lizard” with the Science Museum of Minnesota written below in white letters.
From science20.com:
I've been writing Doomsday Debunking articles for a couple of years now. The amount of fake news about the end of the world on the web is incredible. What makes it worse is that stories that say the world is about to end get widely shared, linked to, read over and over, and rise right to the top of Google and Apple news. If you are intrigued by a news story about the search for "planet X" by astronomers, say, and go to Google News, the top result is usually one or other article from the Daily Express who regularly publish fake news saying that an extra planet is about to hit Earth or fly past Earth in the next week or month.This is followed by pages and pages of search results consisting almost entirely of "news" in a similar vein. It takes a fair bit of searching to find the genuine astronomy news amongst all this nonsense.
Astronomy news, beginning with this item from the CBC:
'Astronomers have been looking for this for more than a century,' professor says
By Nicole Mortillaro
Nicole has an avid interest in all things science. As an amateur astronomer, Nicole can be found looking up at the night sky appreciating the marvels of our universe. She is the editor of the Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada and the author of several books.
No, it's not an alien, but we may have just been visited by something that originated beyond our solar system.
For the first time, astronomers have observed something passing through our solar system that has likely travelled light years to get here.
From Live Science:
By Mike Wall
E.T. may be out there, silently swimming in frigid oceans beneath miles and miles of ice.
Nearly 70 years ago, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Enrico Fermi famously asked, "Where is everybody?" He was referring to intelligent aliens, who seemingly should have shown themselves by now, given the Milky Way galaxy's advanced age (roughly 13 billion years) and its billions of potentially habitable worlds.
In the decades since, scientists have offered many possible explanations for this puzzle, which has become known as the Fermi Paradox. For example, maybe Earth is the only inhabited world in the galaxy — or the only one with intelligent life, anyway. Or perhaps E.T. exists and is watching us stealthily from a distance.
From WLOS (ABC):
ASHEVILLE, N.C. (WLOS) —
Did you miss the Orionid meteor shower last month? No worries! There's another fall shower already underway
The Taurid meteor shower lasts for weeks (October 12 – December 2), but is a modest shower, peaking at about seven meteors per hour.
Meteors from this shower tend to move slowly, but can be very bright--what's called a "fireball." If you've never seen a glowing fireball plowing through the atmosphere, this is a good shower to see those bright, spectacular meteors.
The best viewing should be from midnight until dawn through December 2, with a slight peak expected on November 11 and 12, a Saturday and Sunday.
From Wired:
IN 1985, WHEN Carl Sagan was writing the novel Contact, he needed to quickly transport his protagonist Dr. Ellie Arroway from Earth to the star Vega. He had her enter a black hole and exit light-years away, but he didn’t know if this made any sense. The Cornell University astrophysicist and television star consulted his friend Kip Thorne, a black hole expert at the California Institute of Technology (who won a Nobel Prizeearlier this month). Thorne knew that Arroway couldn’t get to Vega via a black hole, which is thought to trap and destroy anything that falls in. But it occurred to him that she might make use of another kind of hole consistent with Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity: a tunnel or “wormhole” connecting distant locations in space-time.
Animal news from the past to the future, beginning with The Hindu:
Scientists have discovered a near-complete fossil of an ichthyosaur, an extinct marine reptile, from the Kutch area of Gujarat
In a first, a near-complete fossilised skeleton of a Jurassic ichthyosaur has been discovered in India, scientists said.
Fossil records of ichthyosaurs, which means ‘fish lizards’ in Greek, have been found in North American and Europe previously. However, in the Southern Hemisphere, they have mostly been limited to South America and Australia.
Researchers including those from the University
From Futurism:
Humanity isn’t above thinking we know what’s best for our animal neighbors. Over the centuries, we’ve taken in various animal species as pets, domesticating them and teaching them to be docile — serving humans while establishing that we are the dominant species on Earth. Humanity has also dabbled in the creation of new animals through breeding that either suit our needs or prove their ability to do so; a concept that’s seen as well-worn territory in the realm of science fiction.
Caesar, protagonist of the Planet of the Apes movies, is a result of human engineering. He was made to be smarter than the average ape, but eventually goes on to become just as smart, if not smarter than, those who gave him life.
For a relatively less friendly example, look no further than the Jurassic Park series. In Jurassic World, the DNA from various dinosaurs, amphibians, and reptiles was used to create the Indominus Rex, simply to make the park more exciting and appealing to visitors.
And saving the best for last, we have ARCHAEOLOGY!
From Gears of Biz:
A 6,000-year-old skull fragment from the town of Aitape in Papua New Guinea probably belonged to the victim of a tsunami – a massive, devastating ocean wave.
Researchers have analysed the geological sediment from the area where the mid-Holocene skull was found in 1929, and found strong evidence that it was swept by a tsunami – indicating a possible cause of death for the skull’s poor owner.
The skull was originally found buried in a mangrove by an Australian geologist called Paul Hossfeld. He retrieved it and took a field description of a region he called Paniri Creek, but didn’t sample the sediment in which it was buried – so this is what the team of researchers travelled to Aitape to do.
From The Local (Switzerland):
Archaeologists in the canton of Bern have discovered a large stone that they believe to be a menhir that would have been part of a place of worship during the Bronze Age.
The stone – two metres long and 1.3 metres wide, and weighing up to three tons – was found as part of excavations of a known Bronze Age site at Breitenacher near Kehrsatz on the outskirts of Bern, said the cantonal authorities in a
press release.
Judging by its size and shape, the stone is a menhir – a single standing stone, often unmarked, that was used to indicate a place of worship or meeting area.
Sort of archaeology, but also animal news, from the BBC:
Red squirrels traded by Vikings could have brought leprosy to pre-medieval England, according to archaeologists.
Research has revealed that a pre-Norman skull found in Hoxne in Suffolk has a leprosy strain closely related to a type known to affect squirrels.
The strain has also been found in Medieval Scandinavian skeletons.
Cambridge University's Sarah Inskip said contact with the "highly-prized squirrel pelt and meat" traded by Vikings could have spread the disease.
Of course we do have to finish with news of the season, Halloween stories for the Saturday night.
From Live Science:
By Sara G. Miller
The current plague outbreak in Madagascar has killed more than 100 people, and officials say that a centuries-old tradition may increase the risk of further spread, according to news reports.
The tradition, called "famadihana" in Malagasy, is sometimes referred to as "dancing with the dead," "the turning of the bones" or "body turning," according to Newsweek. It involves exhuming the bodies of the dead, rewrapping them in fresh cloth and then dancing with the wrapped corpses before returning the remains to their graves. The tradition is practiced in the central region of the island nation, on the country's high plateaus.
But removing infected bodies from graves poses a threat.
From Live Science as well (a picture show):
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Real-life Halloween horrors
Halloween is a ghoulish time of year, when people tell ghost stories about werewolves, black cats, zombies and vampires.
And from PBS:
Fear may be as old as life on Earth. It is a fundamental, deeply wired reaction, evolved over the history of biology, to protect organisms against perceived threat to their integrity or existence. Fear may be as simple as a cringe of an antenna in a snail that is touched, or as complex as existential anxiety in a human.
Whether we love or hate to experience fear, it’s hard to deny that we certainly revere it – devoting an entire holiday to the celebration of fear.
Thinking about the circuitry of the brain and human psychology, some of the main chemicals that contribute to the “fight or flight” response are also involved in other positive emotional states, such as happiness and excitement. So, it makes sense that the high arousal state we experience during a scare may also be experienced in a more positive light. But what makes the difference between getting a “rush” and feeling completely terrorized?