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Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday, 11/4/23 [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2023-11-04

Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, eeff, Magnifico, annetteboardman, Rise above the swamp, Besame, jck and jeremybloom. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) Interceptor 7, Man Oh Man, wader, Neon Vincent, palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse (RIP), ek hornbeck (RIP), rfall, ScottyUrb, Doctor RJ, BentLiberal, Oke (RIP) and jlms qkw.

OND is 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. Please feel free to share your articles and stories in the comments.

LIGO Surpasses the Quantum Limit

Wikipedia defines LIGO as "a large-scale physics experiment and observatory designed to detect cosmic gravitational waves." (It stands for Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory — that is, measuring the interference caused by superimposed waves.) Now Science Alert reports:A technique for squeezing light in the arms of LIGO's interferometer has allowed its measurements to cross the quantum barrier. For LIGO, it's a bold new realm of sensitivity, giving the gravitational wave detector the ability to find 60% more dead star mergers than the rate of its previous run, which was around one or two detections every week or so... "Now that we have surpassed this quantum limit, we can do a lot more astronomy," says physicist Lee McCuller of Caltech… LIGO's sensitivity was already absolutely jaw-dropping. The interferometer works by detecting ripples in space-time that are generated by colliding black holes and neutron stars, millions of billions to light-years away. These cause gravitational waves, like ripples in a pond. We can't feel them; but they can be detected in miniscule deviations in the path of light down a long, long tunnel. These deviations are incredibly small, down to trillions of times smaller than a human hair. But once you get into subatomic scales — the quantum realm — LIGO's abilities are hobbled. That's because, on those unimaginably small scales, particles randomly pop in and out of space, creating a constant background hiss of quantum noise that's louder than any signal. Frequency-dependent squeezing is a way of amplifying the signals to be 'louder' than the quantum noise... If you pinch a property of light, such as amplitude (or power), other properties, such as frequency, can be measured more accurately... [T]he light can be squeezed in multiple ways to amplify the frequency of the gravitational waves the scientists are looking for... "We've known for a while how to write down the equations to make this work, but it was not clear that we could actually make it work until now. It's like science fiction," says physicist Rana Adhikari of Caltech… This means we're likely to see a significant uptick in the number of black hole and neutron star collisions we observe out there in the wider Universe.

For the First Time, Scientists Have Fired Up the World's Smallest Particle Accelerators

"Scientists recently fired up the world's smallest particle accelerator for the first time," reports Space.com. "The tiny technological triumph, which is around the size of a small coin, could open the door to a wide range of applications, including using the teensy particle accelerators inside human patients."The new machine, known as a nanophotonic electron accelerator (NEA), consists of a small microchip that houses an even smaller vacuum tube made up of thousands of individual "pillars." Researchers can accelerate electrons by firing mini laser beams at these pillars. The main acceleration tube is approximately 0.02 inches (0.5 millimeter) long, which is 54 million times shorter than the 16.8-mile-long (27 kilometers) ring that makes up CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Switzerland — the world's largest and most powerful particle accelerator... The inside of the tiny tunnel is only around 225 nanometers wide. For context, human hairs are 80,000 to 100,000 nanometers thick, according to the National Nanotechnology Institute. In a new study, published Oct. 18 in the journal Nature, researchers from the Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg (FAU) in Germany used the tiny contraption to accelerate electrons from an energy value of 28.4âkiloelectron volts to 40.7âkeV, which is an increase of around 43%. It is the first time that a nanophotonic electron accelerator, which was first proposed in 2015, has been successfully fired, the researchers wrote in a statement… "For the first time, we really can speak about a particle accelerator on a [micro]chip," study co-author Roy Shiloh, a physicist at FAU, said in the statement.

What they accomplished "was demonstrated almost simultaneously by colleagues at Stanford University," according to the researchers' statement. "Their results are currently under review, but can be viewed on a repository. The two teams are working together on the realization of the 'Accelerator on a chip' in a project funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation" in 2015. x How physicists built the world’s smallest particle accelerator https://t.co/r7Cs2P2N28 — Popular Science (@PopSci) November 3, 2023

Asteroid Dust Caused 15-Year Winter That Killed Dinosaurs, Scientists Say

Around 66 million years ago, the Chicxulub asteroid caused a mass extinction event, killing three-quarters of life on Earth, including the dinosaurs. A new study suggests that fine silicate dust from the asteroid, which remained in the atmosphere for up to 15 years, played a more significant role in causing the impact winter and extinction than previously thought. Phys.Org reports: Fine silicate dust from pulverized rock would have stayed in the atmosphere for 15 years, dropping global temperatures by up to 15 degrees Celsius, researchers said in a study in the journal Nature Geoscience. [...] For the study, the international team of researchers was able to measure dust particles thought to be from right after the asteroid struck. The particles were found at the Tanis fossil site in the US state of North Dakota. Though 3,000 kilometers (1,865 miles) away from the crater, the site has preserved a number of remarkable finds believed to be dated from directly after the asteroid impact in sediment layers of an ancient lake. The dust particles were around 0.8 to 8.0 -- micrometers -- just the right size to stick around in the atmosphere for up to 15 years, the researchers said. Entering this data into climate models similar to those used for current-day Earth, the researchers determined that dust likely played a far greater role in the mass extinction than had previously been thought. Out of all the material that was shot into the atmosphere by the asteroid, they estimated that it was 75 percent dust, 24 percent sulfur and one percent soot. The dust particles "totally shut down photosynthesis" in plants for at least a year, causing a "catastrophic collapse" of life, [said Ozgur Karatekin, a researcher at the Royal Observatory of Belgium].

In a Surprising Finding, Light Can Make Water Evaporate Without Heat

David L. Chandler reports via MIT News: In recent years, some researchers have been puzzled upon finding that water in their experiments, which was held in a sponge-like material known as a hydrogel, was evaporating at a higher rate than could be explained by the amount of heat, or thermal energy, that the water was receiving. And the excess has been significant -- a doubling, or even a tripling or more, of the theoretical maximum rate. After carrying out a series of new experiments and simulations, and reexamining some of the results from various groups that claimed to have exceeded the thermal limit, a team of researchers at MIT has reached a startling conclusion: Under certain conditions, at the interface where water meets air, light can directly bring about evaporation without the need for heat, and it actually does so even more efficiently than heat. In these experiments, the water was held in a hydrogel material, but the researchers suggest that the phenomenon may occur under other conditions as well. The phenomenon might play a role in the formation and evolution of fog and clouds, and thus would be important to incorporate into climate models to improve their accuracy, the researchers say. And it might play an important part in many industrial processes such as solar-powered desalination of water, perhaps enabling alternatives to the step of converting sunlight to heat first. The new findings come as a surprise because water itself does not absorb light to any significant degree. That's why you can see clearly through many feet of clean water to the surface below. The findings have been published in the journal PNAS.

Rats Have an Imagination, New Research Finds

Researchers at HHMI's Janelia Research Campus have found that rats posses an imagination. Phys.Org reports: A team from the Lee and Harris labs developed a novel system combining virtual reality and a brain-machine interface to probe a rat's inner thoughts. They found that, like humans, animals can think about places and objects that aren't right in front of them, using their thoughts to imagine walking to a location or moving a remote object to a specific spot. Like humans, when rodents experience places and events, specific neural activity patterns are activated in the hippocampus, an area of the brain responsible for spatial memory. The new study finds rats can voluntarily generate these same activity patterns and do so to recall remote locations distant from their current position. This ability to imagine locations away from one's current position is fundamental to remembering past events and imagining possible future scenarios. Therefore, the new work shows that animals, like humans, possess a form of imagination, according to the study's authors. [...] The team found that rats can precisely and flexibly control their hippocampal activity, in the same way humans likely do. The animals are also able to sustain this hippocampal activity, holding their thoughts on a given location for many seconds -- a timeframe similar to the one at which humans relive past events or imagine new scenarios. "The stunning thing is how rats learn to think about that place, and no other place, for a very long period of time, based on our, perhaps naive, notion of the attention span of a rat," Harris says. The research also shows that BMI can be used to probe hippocampal activity, providing a novel system for studying this important brain region. Because BMI is increasingly used in prosthetics, this new work also opens up the possibility of designing novel prosthetic devices based on the same principles, according to the authors. The study has been published in the journal Science.

The remains of an ancient planet lie deep within Earth

In the 1980s, geophysicists made a startling discovery: two continent-sized blobs of unusual material were found deep near the center of the Earth, one beneath the African continent and one beneath the Pacific Ocean. Each blob is twice the size of the Moon and likely composed of different proportions of elements than the mantle surrounding it. Where did these strange blobs -- formally known as large low-velocity provinces (LLVPs) -- come from? A new study led by Caltech researchers suggests that they are remnants of an ancient planet that violently collided with Earth billions of years ago in the same giant impact that created our Moon. The study, published in the journal Nature on November 1, also proposes an answer to another planetary science mystery. Researchers have long hypothesized that the Moon was created in the aftermath of a giant impact between Earth and a smaller planet dubbed Theia, but no trace of Theia has ever been found in the asteroid belt or in meteorites. This new study suggests that most of Theia was absorbed into the young Earth, forming the LLVPs, while residual debris from the impact coalesced into the Moon. x This is mind-blowingly cool. Continent-sized fragments of the ancient planet Theia, which collided with Earth 4.5 billion years ago to form the Moon, have been located deep within Earth’s mantle. They are STILL THERE 🤯 https://t.co/rnasHNXjpm — Dr. Phil Metzger (@DrPhiltill) November 2, 2023

New research links high salt consumption to risk of Type 2 diabetes

Those at risk for Type 2 diabetes may already know to avoid sugar, but new research suggests they may want to skip the salt as well. A new study from Tulane University published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings found that frequently adding salt to foods was associated with an increased risk of developing Type 2 diabetes. The study surveyed more than 400,000 adults registered in the UK Biobank about their salt intake. Over a median of 11.8 years of follow-up, more than 13,000 cases of Type 2 diabetes developed among participants. Compared to those who "never" or "rarely" used salt, participants who "sometimes," "usually," or "always" added salt had a respective 13%, 20%, and 39% higher risk of developing Type 2 diabetes. "We already know that limiting salt can reduce the risk of cardiovascular diseases and hypertension, but this study shows for the first time that taking the saltshaker off the table can help prevent Type 2 diabetes as well," said lead author Dr. Lu Qi, HCA Regents Distinguished Chair and professor at the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine.

Some benefits of exercise stem from the immune system

The connection between exercise and inflammation has captivated the imagination of researchers ever since an early 20th-century study showed a spike of white cells in the blood of Boston marathon runners following the race. Now, a new Harvard Medical School study published Nov. 3 in Science Immunology may offer a molecular explanation behind this century-old observation. The study, done in mice, suggests that the beneficial effects of exercise may be driven, at least partly, by the immune system. It shows that muscle inflammation caused by exertion mobilizes inflammation-countering T cells, or Tregs, which enhance the muscles' ability to use energy as fuel and improve overall exercise endurance.

Maternal microbiota can affect fetal development

In a Finnish study, significant differences in the gene activity of the fetal intestine, brain and placenta were identified, depending on the microbes in the mother's body and the compounds produced by them. The findings indicate that maternal microbes are important to her offspring's development and health. The microbiota of the mother or dam is thought to be important for the development and health of her offspring. However, so far little is known about how interactions with the microbiota begin and what the mechanisms of action are. A collaborative study carried out at the Universities of Helsinki, Eastern Finland and Turku investigated how the maternal microbiota affects fetal development by comparing the foetuses of normal and germ-free mouse dams living in a sterile environment. The researchers measured gene expression and the concentrations of small-molecular compounds, or metabolites, in the fetal intestine, brain and placenta.

Seeing the unseen: How butterflies can help scientists detect cancer

There are many creatures on our planet with more advanced senses than humans. Turtles can sense Earth's magnetic field. Mantis shrimp can detect polarized light. Elephants can hear much lower frequencies than humans can. Butterflies can perceive a broader range of colors, including ultraviolet (UV) light. Inspired by the enhanced visual system of the Papilio xuthus butterfly, a team of researchers have developed an imaging sensor capable of "seeing" into the UV range inaccessible to human eyes. The design of the sensor uses stacked photodiodes and perovskite nanocrystals (PNCs) capable of imaging different wavelengths in the UV range. Using the spectral signatures of biomedical markers, such as amino acids, this new imaging technology is even capable of differentiating between cancer cells and normal cells with 99% confidence.

Chimpanzees use hilltops to conduct reconnaissance on rival groups -- study

Chimpanzees use high ground to conduct reconnaissance on rival groups, often before making forays into enemy territory at times when there is reduced risk of confrontation, a new study suggests. Tactical use of elevated terrain in warfare situations is considered unique to humans -- until now. For the first time, one of the oldest military strategies has been observed in our closest evolutionary relatives. Researchers conducted a three-year study of two neighbouring chimpanzee groups in the West African forests of Côte d'Ivoire, tracking the primates as they traversed their respective territories, including an overlapping border area where skirmishes occasionally took place. The team found that chimpanzees were more than twice as likely to climb hills when heading towards this contested frontier as when they were travelling into the heart of their own territory.

How sunflowers see the sun

Sunflowers famously turn their faces to follow the sun as it crosses the sky. But how do sunflowers "see" the sun to follow it? New work from plant biologists at the University of California, Davis, published Oct. 31 in PLOS Biology, shows that they use a different, novel mechanism from that previously thought. "This was a total surprise for us," said Stacey Harmer, professor of plant biology at UC Davis and senior author on the paper. Most plants show phototropism -- the ability to grow toward a light source. Plant scientists had assumed that sunflowers' heliotropism, the ability to follow the sun, would be based on the same basic mechanism, which is governed by molecule called phototropin and responds to light at the blue end of the spectrum.

Large herbivores such as elephants, bison and moose contribute to tree diversity

Using global satellite data, a research team has mapped the tree cover of the world's protected areas. The study shows that regions with abundant large herbivores in many settings have a more variable tree cover, which is expected to benefit biodiversity overall. Maintaining species-rich and resilient ecosystems is key to preserving biodiversity and mitigating climate change. Here, megafauna -- the part of the animal population in an area that is made up of the largest animals -- plays an important role. In a new study published in the scientific journal One Earth, an international research team, of which Lund University is a part, has investigated the intricate interplay between the number of voracious herbivores and the diversity of trees in the world's protected areas. "Our findings reveal a fascinating and complex story of how large herbivorous animals shape the world's natural landscapes. The tree cover in these areas is sparser, but the diversity of the tree cover is much higher than in areas without large herbivores," says Lanhui Wang, a researcher in physical geography and ecosystem science at Lund University.

Where is a sea star's head? Maybe just about everywhere

If you put a hat on a starfish, where would you put it? On the center of the starfish? Or on the point of an arm and, if so, which one? The question is silly, but it gets at serious questions in the fields of zoology and developmental biology that have perplexed veteran scientists and schoolchildren in introductory biology classes alike: Where is the head on a starfish? And how does their body layout relate to ours? Now, a new Stanford study that used genetic and molecular tools to map out the body regions of starfish -- by creating a 3D atlas of their gene expression -- helps answer this longstanding mystery. The "head" of a starfish, the researchers found, is not in any one place. Instead, the headlike regions are distributed with some in the center of the sea star as well as in the center of each limb of its body. "The answer is much more complicated than we expected," said Laurent Formery, lead author and postdoc in the labs of Christopher Lowe at the Stanford School of Humanities and Sciences and Daniel S. Rokhsar at the University of California, Berkeley. "It is just weird, and most likely the evolution of the group was even more complicated than this." x 😮 Very cool!

"...from the perspective of ectoderm patterning, echinoderms are mostly head-like animals and provides a developmental rationale for the re-evaluation of the events that led to the evolution of the derived adult body plan of echinoderms."https://t.co/5lATcZKFbo — Dr. Davey F. Wright ⛏️🦕 (@Davey_F_Wright) November 1, 2023

New secrets about cat evolution revealed

Researchers at the Texas A&M School of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences (VMBS) and an interdisciplinary team of collaborators have uncovered new information about the history of cat evolution explaining how cats -- including well-known species like lions, tigers, and domestic cats -- evolved into different species and shedding light on how different genetic changes in cats relate to survival abilities like the ability to smell prey. By comparing genomes of several cat species, the project, published today in Nature Genetics, has helped researchers understand why cat genomes tend to have fewer complex genetic variations (such as rearrangements of DNA segments) than other mammal groups, like primates. It also revealed new insights into which parts of cat DNA are most likely to evolve rapidly and how they play a role in species differentiation. "Our goal was to better understand how cats evolved and the genetic basis of the trait differences between cat species," said Dr. Bill Murphy, a VMBS professor of veterinary integrative biosciences who specializes in cat evolution. "We wanted to take advantage of some new technologies that allow us to create more complete cat genomic maps.

How the fish got its shoulder

A new analysis of the bones and muscles in ancient fish gives new clues about how the shoulder evolved in animals -- including us. The shoulder girdle -- the configuration of bones and muscles that in humans support the movement of the arms -- is a classic example of an evolutionary 'novelty'. This is where a new anatomical feature appears without any obvious precursors; where there is no smoking gun of which feature clearly led to another. The new research, which draws together a range of evolutionary investigation techniques including fossils, developmental biology, and comparative anatomy, suggests a new way of looking at how major anatomical features like shoulders evolved. x Dog-walking inspiration and the Evolution of the shoulder - research from @zerinajohanson Martin Brazeau @Friedman_Lab &al and article from @epennisi @ScienceMagazine https://t.co/S9aMbv6toI — NHM Science (@NHM_Science) November 2, 2023

New species of mosasaur named for Norse sea serpent

Scientists have discovered a new species of mosasaur, large, carnivorous aquatic lizards that lived during the late Cretaceous. With "transitional" traits that place it between two well-known mosasaurs, the new species is named after a sea serpent in Norse mythology, Jormungandr, and the small North Dakota city Walhalla near to where the fossil was found. Details describing Jormungandr walhallaensis are published today in the Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History. "If you put flippers on a Komodo dragon and made it really big, that's basically what it would have looked like," said the study's lead author Amelia Zietlow, a Ph.D. student in comparative biology at the American Museum of Natural History's Richard Gilder Graduate School. The first mosasaur was discovered more than 200 years ago, and the word "mosasaur" predates the word "dinosaur." But many questions about these animals remain, including how many times they evolved flippers and became fully aquatic -- researchers think it was at least three times, and maybe four or more -- and whether they are more closely related to monitor lizards or snakes. Researchers are still trying to determine how the different groups of mosasaurs are related to each other, and the new study adds a new piece to that puzzle. x I wouldn't be swimming TOWARD it, if I were you...



I've never illustrate a mosasaur before, but #Jormungandr was too exciting to ignore! Named after the mythical Norse "World Serpent", this Late Cretaceous marine reptile from North Dakota was probably at least six meters long! pic.twitter.com/tyK8JSvDYV — C. Marchant (@SlvrHwk_paleo) October 31, 2023

'Jurassic worlds' might be easier to spot than modern Earth

Things may not have ended well for dinosaurs on Earth, but Cornell University astronomers say the "light fingerprint" of the conditions that enabled them to emerge here provide a crucial missing piece in our search for signs of life on planets orbiting alien stars. Their analysis of the most recent 540 million years of Earth's evolution, known as the Phanerozoic Eon, finds that telescopes could better detect potential chemical signatures of life in the atmosphere of an Earth-like exoplanet more closely resembling the age the dinosaurs inhabited than the one we know today. Two key biosignature pairs -- oxygen and methane, and ozone and methane -- appeared stronger in models of Earth roughly 100 million to 300 million years ago, when oxygen levels were significantly higher. The models simulated the transmission spectra, or light fingerprint, generated by an atmosphere that absorbs some colors of starlight and lets others filter through, information scientists use to determine the atmosphere's composition. "Modern Earth's light fingerprint has been our template for identifying potentially habitable planets, but there was a time when this fingerprint was even more pronounced -- better at showing signs of life," said Lisa Kaltenegger, director of the Carl Sagan Institute (CSI) and associate professor of astronomy. "This gives us hope that it might be just a little bit easier to find signs of life -- even large, complex life -- elsewhere in the cosmos."

Giant planets cast a deadly pall

Giant gas planets can be agents of chaos, ensuring nothing lives on their Earth-like neighbors around other stars. New studies show, in some planetary systems, the giants tend to kick smaller planets out of orbit and wreak havoc on their climates. Jupiter, by far the biggest planet in our solar system, plays an important protective role. Its enormous gravitational field deflects comets and asteroids that might otherwise hit Earth, helping create a stable environment for life. However, giant planets elsewhere in the universe do not necessarily protect life on their smaller, rocky planet neighbors. A new Astronomical Journal paper details how the pull of massive planets in a nearby star system are likely to toss their Earth-like neighbors out of the "habitable zone." This zone is defined as the range of distances from a star that are warm enough for liquid water to exist on a planet's surface, making life possible.

Black holes are messy eaters

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