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Overnight News Science Digest - Cracks in the standard cosmology model [1]
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Date: 2023-04-15
Since 2007 the OND has been a regular community feature on Daily Kos, consisting of news stories from around the world, sometimes coupled with a daily theme, original research or commentary. Editors of OND impart their own presentation styles and content choices, typically publishing each day near 12:00 AM Eastern Time.
These stories appear in today’s digest:
Cracks in the standard cosmology model
Where Chaco Canyon timber originated and how it got to Chaco Canyon
Fetal alcohol syndrome attributed to father’s alcohol consumption
Cleaning plastic trash from the ocean
Feral pigs that evolved into valuable transplant material
Regenerative grazing saves land and water
Artificial wombs — changing the course of human reproduction
Thread that ties recent chemical spills together
Remote Oregon “Terrible Tilly” lighthouse
Zooniverse — Classifying interesting galaxies
Big Think
by Annelisa Leinbach
6 major cracks have appeared in the standard model of cosmology. Is it wrong?
For more than a half century, scientists have been developing a remarkable account of how the Universe evolved. Initially called the Big Bang, this account was refined as time went on, until it came to be known as the standard model of cosmology, inflationary cosmology, or the ΛCDM model, where Λ is the Greek letter Lambda and refers to dark energy, and CDM refers to cold dark matter. What these various names underscore is that the story of cosmic evolution told by physicists and astrophysicists includes various phases, like inflation, and various actors, such as dark energy and dark matter. Problems with the standard model While the standard model is rich in successful confrontations with observations, cracks have appeared in its foundations over time. In a recent paper, astrophysicist Fulvio Melia argues that its shortcomings are serious enough that it is time to consider whether the standard model should continue to be so standard.
Sapiens
by Stephan E. Nash
The astounding origins of Chaco Canyon timber
Some 1,000 years ago, a group of Ancestral Puebloans camped in a pine forest. They were part of an organized labor force focused on a singular task—harvesting trees that would be used to build the spectacular buildings of what we now call Chaco Culture National Historical Park in northwestern New Mexico. Workers used stone axes to pummel away (not cut, as with metal axes) at the base of trunks until the trees could be tipped over. Then a crew stripped the bark and branches, while roughly shaping the log into a long, straight timber. All told, these crews harvested at least 240,000 trees over a 300-year span. Many of the Chaco Canyon timbers were huge: Primary roofing beams averaged 8–10 inches in diameter, 15 feet long, and several hundred pounds.
Neuroscience News
by Texas A&M
Father’s Alcohol Consumption Before Conception Linked to Brain and Facial Defects in Offspring
According to the U.S. Surgeon General, women should not drink alcoholic beverages during pregnancy because of the risk of birth defects in their unborn child. Now, research at Texas A&M University demonstrates that a father’s alcohol consumption before conception also links to growth defects that affect the development of his offspring’s brain, skull and face. Research investigating fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) exclusively examines maternal alcohol exposure. However, because men drink more and are more likely to binge drink than women, Dr. Michael Golding, an associate professor in the School of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences’ Department of Veterinary Physiology & Pharmacology, and his team set out to challenge the existing dogma, using a mouse model to examine what happens when the mother, father and both parents consume alcohol. In a new article published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Golding and his team found that male alcohol consumption before conception caused FAS brain and facial growth defects.
My Modern Met
by Jessica Stewart
Ocean Cleanup Has Removed Over 220 Tons of Plastic Out of the Pacific Ocean
One non-profit organization is making progress toward its goal of ridding the oceans of plastic by 2040. With its latest haul from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP), The Ocean Cleanup has now removed over 220 tons (200,000 kg) of trash from the sea. It's a stunning achievement that should be applauded, particularly when one realizes that the entire project began thanks to a simple idea by a teenager. Dutch inventor Boyan Slat is the founder and CEO of The Ocean Cleanup. Now 28, he was just 16 years old when he wondered why it was so hard to keep plastic out of the ocean. That simple question led to big ambitions, and over the years Slat and his team have tested and improved a mechanism for hauling large quantities of trash from the seas.
Undark Magazine
by Bill Morris
How New Zealand’s Pesky Pigs Turned Into a Cash Cow
APPROXIMATELY 300 MILES south of New Zealand, the Auckland Islands lie in a belt of winds known as the Roaring Forties. In the late 19th century, sailing ships departing Australasia would catch a ride back to Europe by plunging deep into the Southern Ocean to ride the westerlies home. But these seas were poorly charted, and weather conditions frequently horrendous. Sometimes, navigators miscalculated the islands’ position and, too late, found their vessels thrown upon the islands’ rocky ramparts. Ships were torn to pieces and survivors cast ashore on one of the most remote and inhospitable places on the planet. These castaways soon found out they were not alone.
Eco Watch
by Libby Leonard
Regenerative Grazing 101: Everything You Need to Know
A revolution is spreading across several states, where farmers and ranchers are adopting regenerative grazing methods that utilize the power of livestock to revitalize, restore and transform where they graze into thriving ecosystems. Regenerative grazing (also called rotational, managed, mob and prescribed grazing) is a holistic livestock management method that involves the practice of containing and moving animals through pasture to improve soil, plant and animal health. It can be used in lieu of continuous grazing, where livestock graze a pasture for an extended period of time without allowing rest for plants, which can be detrimental to soil structure and harmful to our waterways.
Wired
by Rosalind Moran
Artificial Wombs Will Change Abortion Rights Forever
ONE DAY, HUMAN wombs may no longer be necessary for bearing children. In 2016, a research team in Cambridge, England, grew human embryos in ectogenesis—the process of human or animal gestation in an artificial environment—for up to 13 days after fertilization. A further breakthrough came the next year, when researchers at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia announced that they had developed a basic artificial uterus named the Biobag. The Biobag sustained lamb fetuses, equivalent in size and development to a human fetus at roughly 22 weeks gestation, to full term successfully. Then, in August of 2022, researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel created the world’s first synthetic embryos from mice stem cells. In the same month, scientists at the University of Cambridge used stem cells to create a synthetic embryo with a brain and a beating heart. Ectogenesis has the potential to transform reproductive labor and reduce risks associated with reproduction. It could enable people with wombs to reproduce as easily as cisgender men do: without risks to their physical health, their economic safety, or their bodily autonomy. By removing natural gestation from the process of having children, ectogenesis could offer an equal starting point for people of all sexes and genders, particularly for queer people who wish to have children without having to rely on the morally ambiguous option of surrogacy.
Vox
by Rebecca Leber
The thread that ties the recent chemical spills together
There’s a common thread linking many of the high-profile chemical spills that have made headlines across the country lately: the oil and gas industry. Philadelphia residents were on high alert after the Trinseo latex plant 20 miles from the city released at least 8,100 gallons of acrylic polymers into a tributary for the Delaware River on March 24. Those acrylic polymers were made up of compounds known as butyl acrylate, ethyl acrylate, and methyl methacrylate; all are produced from fossil fuels. Last month, East Palestine, Ohio, faced a Norfolk Southern train derailment with highly volatile toxic chemicals, including butyl acrylate and vinyl chloride — which is also derived from oil. On March 28, 10 barges, including one containing 1,400 metric tons of methanol — yup, you guessed it, made from oil or gas — broke loose in the Ohio River in Kentucky. Many other incidents don’t make national news: The Guardian reported that the US has averaged a chemical accident every two days so far in 2023. Every year, there’s an average of 202 accidental chemical releases at facilities, according to EPA data.
Oregon Live
by Janet Eastman
Crew lands on remote Oregon ‘Terrible Tilly’ lighthouse for first time in years. Here’s what they found
Five volunteers braved a brief but chilling helicopter ride Tuesday to return from “Terrible Tilly,” the abandoned 142-year-old Tillamook Rock Lighthouse, a watery mile off northern Oregon’s coast. The four men and one woman, age 29-58, had camped three nights on the exposed basalt outpost and spent their days cleaning up the stone fortress to ready it for sale. They also collected artifacts to raise money for more maintenance work. Oregon’s only offshore light station, rising 133 feet above the churning ocean, is visible from Seaside to Cannon Beach, but difficult to set foot on.
Your citizen science project for this week:
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