Science

lost-opportunity:-we-could’ve-started-fighting-climate-change-in-1971

Lost opportunity: We could’ve started fighting climate change in 1971

President Nixon on the phone in the Oval Office

Enlarge / A newly revealed research proposal from 1971 shows that Richard Nixon’s science advisors embarked on an extensive analysis of the potential risks of climate change.

Oliver Atkins/National Archives

In 1971, President Richard Nixon’s science advisers proposed a multimillion dollar climate change research project with benefits they said were too “immense” to be quantified, since they involved “ensuring man’s survival,” according to a White House document newly obtained by the nonprofit National Security Archive and shared exclusively with Inside Climate News.

The plan would have established six global and 10 regional monitoring stations in remote locations to collect data on carbon dioxide, solar radiation, aerosols and other factors that exert influence on the atmosphere. It would have engaged five government agencies in a six-year initiative, with spending of $23 million in the project’s peak year of 1974—the equivalent of $172 million in today’s dollars. It would have used then-cutting-edge technology, some of which is only now being widely implemented in carbon monitoring more than 50 years later.

But it stands as yet another lost opportunity early on the road to the climate crisis. Researchers at the National Security Archive, based at the George Washington University, could find no documentation of what happened to the proposal, and it was never implemented.

“Who knows what would have happened if we had some kind of concerted effort, just even on the monitoring side of things?” asked Rachel Santarsiero, an analyst who directs the National Security Archive’s Climate Change Transparency Project.

It turns out that the monitoring proposal, which was authorized by the head of Nixon’s White House Office of Science and Technology, Edward E. David Jr., did get a second life in another form. After leaving the Nixon administration, David joined the oil giant Exxon, and as president of the Exxon Research and Engineering Company from 1977 to 1986, he signed off on a groundbreaking Exxon project that used one of its oil tankers to gather atmospheric and oceanic carbon dioxide samples, beginning in 1979. That research, which was first reported by Inside Climate News in 2015, confirmed fossil fuels’ role in global warming. It also showed the oil industry knew the harm of its products and is now a key piece of evidence in lawsuits by states and cities across the country seeking compensation from the oil industry for climate damages.

The National Security Archive relies on the Freedom of Information Act to obtain such historical documents, and it currently maintains one of the largest non-governmental archives of declassified government documents—many relating to military and security issues. In the past year, the Archive has launched a project specifically to compile the historical record of the US government’s reckoning with climate change. On Friday, to mark Earth Week, the group released a briefing book detailing climate change discussions in the Nixon White House, including the new document.

Lost opportunity: We could’ve started fighting climate change in 1971 Read More »

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Rocket Report: SLS workforce cuts; New Glenn launch to launch in the early fall

All the news that’s fit to lift —

“This is a vital component in our preparations for launch.”

The flight hardware core stage for Europe’s new rocket, Ariane 6, is moved onto the launch pad for the first time this week. A launch is possible some time this summer.

Enlarge / The flight hardware core stage for Europe’s new rocket, Ariane 6, is moved onto the launch pad for the first time this week. A launch is possible some time this summer.

ESA-M. Pédoussaut

Welcome to Edition 6.41 of the Rocket Report! As I finish up this edition I’m listening to the post-Flight Readiness Review news conference for Boeing’s Crew Flight Test. It sounds like everything remains on track for a launch attempt on May 6, at 10: 34 pm ET. It’s exciting to see this important milestone for Boeing and the US human spaceflight program so near to hand.

As always, we welcome reader submissions, and if you don’t want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.

Shetland spaceport advancing toward launch. SaxaVord Spaceport in Scotland is on track to launch the United Kingdom’s first vertical rocket into orbit, the BBC reports. The Civil Aviation Authority has granted a range license to the Scottish spaceport, which will allow the company to control the sea and airspace during launch. Previously, the site received a spaceport license in December 2023. Ambitiously, the facility aims to launch up to 30 rockets every year.

From Germany to Scotland with love … “This is a vital component in our preparations for launch,” said Frank Strang, chief executive of SaxaVord Spaceport. “As Western Europe’s only fully licensed vertical launch spaceport, we are now preparing to make more space history with the beginning of orbital launch operations well underway.” Germany-based rocket manufacturer Rocket Factory Augsburg could be the first to launch an orbital mission from Shetland later this year. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

Rocket Lab launches 5th Electron this year. Rocket Lab launched a South Korean smallsat and a NASA solar sail experiment on the company’s fifth flight of the year on Tuesday, Space News reports. NEONSAT-1, the primary payload of the mission, is an imaging satellite with a mass of about 100 kilograms. The spacecraft is part of a constellation of 11 spacecraft called New-space Earth Observation Satellite Constellation for National Safety, with the other 10 to be launched by South Korea’s Nuri rocket in 2026 and 2027.

Better get busy … This was the first Electron launch in more than a month after a mission for the National Reconnaissance Office on March 21 from Rocket Lab’s Launch Complex 2 in Virginia. Company executives said in an earnings call in February that the company has 22 Electron launches planned for the year, two of which are of its HASTE suborbital version. That would be an impressive total if Rocket Lab can achieve it. (submitted by Jay500001)

The easiest way to keep up with Eric Berger’s space reporting is to sign up for his newsletter, we’ll collect his stories in your inbox.

PLD Space has raised 120 million euros. The Spanish launch startup revealed this week that it has raised 120 million euros to date, providing the funding needed to launch its orbital Miura 5 rocket by the end of 2025. Last October the company’s smaller, suborbital Miura 1 rocket made what the company characterized as a “successful” test flight, reaching an altitude of 46 km. By my very rough rule of thumb, a launch company must have at least $100 million in funding to have a fighting chance to reach orbit.

Building new buildings … The Miura 5 vehicle is intended to have a capacity of up to 250 kg in low-Earth orbit. The new funding will mainly be used for the expansion of PLD Space’s infrastructure, increasing the size of its facilities from 169,000 to 834,000 square meters. The company also plans to begin building a launch site for the Miura 5 rocket in Kourou, French Guiana, later this year. (submitted by Ken the Bin and EllPeaTea)

SpaceX lands 300th Falcon booster. With the launch of a Starlink mission on Tuesday evening and subsequent return of the Falcon 9 first stage, SpaceX recorded its 300th successful booster landing. In the Falcon fleet’s lifetime, SpaceX has now landed about 85 percent of the Falcon rockets it has launched, Ars reports. These days, more than 90 percent of all its missions launch on previously flown boosters. So, rocket recycling is totally a thing.

Saving a lot of metal … Landing 300 rockets means SpaceX has preserved 2,700 Merlin rocket engines. In round numbers, the dry mass of a Falcon 9 first stage is about 50 metric tons, so the landing of all these rockets has prevented 15,000 metric tons of metal and other materials from being dumped into the oceans. To put this number further into perspective, only a handful of rockets have ever launched more than 300 times, and they are all Russian.

China launches astronaut mission. A Long March 2F rocket lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert on Thursday, carrying the Shenzhou 18 spacecraft and its three-person crew into orbit, Space.com reports. Shenzhou 18 is commanded by Ye Guangfu, 43, who was part of the Shenzhou 13 mission three years ago. Fighter pilots Li Cong, 34, and Li Guangsu, 36, both spaceflight rookies, make up the rest of the crew.

A change in control … The three will spend around six months in space. Their spacecraft is scheduled to reach the Tiangong space station 6.5 hours after launch. The trio will be greeted aboard the orbital outpost by Tang Hongbo, Tang Shengjie, and Jiang Xinlin, who make up the Shenzhou 17 crew. The latter three will soon complete their six months in orbit. (submitted by Ken the Bin and EllPeaTea)

Rocket Report: SLS workforce cuts; New Glenn launch to launch in the early fall Read More »

us’s-power-grid-continues-to-lower-emissions—everything-else,-not-so-much

US’s power grid continues to lower emissions—everything else, not so much

Down, but not down enough —

Excluding one pandemic year, emissions are lower than they’ve been since the 1980s.

Graph showing total US carbon emissions, along with individual sources. Most trends are largely flat or show slight declines.

On Thursday, the US Department of Energy released its preliminary estimate for the nation’s carbon emissions in the previous year. Any drop in emissions puts us on a path that would avoid some of the catastrophic warming scenarios that were still on the table at the turn of the century. But if we’re to have a chance of meeting the Paris Agreement goal of keeping the planet from warming beyond 2° C, we’ll need to see emissions drop dramatically in the near future.

So, how is the US doing? Emissions continue to trend downward, but there’s no sign the drop has accelerated. And most of the drop has come from a single sector: changes in the power grid.

Off the grid, on the road

US carbon emissions have been trending downward since roughly 2007, when they peaked at about six gigatonnes. In recent years, the pandemic produced a dramatic drop in emissions in 2020, lowering them to under five gigatonnes for the first time since before 1990, when the EIA’s data started. Carbon dioxide release went up a bit afterward, with 2023 marking the first post-pandemic decline, with emissions again clearly below five gigatonnes.

The DOE’s Energy Information Agency (EIA) divides the sources of carbon dioxide into five different sectors: electricity generation, transportation, and residential, commercial, and industrial uses. The EIA assigns 80 percent of the 2023 reduction in US emissions to changes in the electric power grid, which is not a shock given that it’s the only sector that’s seen significant change in the entire 30-year period the EIA is tracking.

With hydro in the rearview mirror, wind and solar are coming after coal and nuclear.

With hydro in the rearview mirror, wind and solar are coming after coal and nuclear.

What’s happening with the power grid? Several things. At the turn of the century, coal accounted for over half of the US’s electricity generation; it’s now down to 16 percent. Within the next two years, it’s likely to be passed by wind and solar, which were indistinguishable from zero percent of generation as recently as 2004. Things would be even better for them if not for generally low wind speeds leading to a decline in wind generation in 2023. The biggest change, however, has been the rise of natural gas, which went from 10 percent of generation in 1990 to over 40 percent in 2023.

A small contributor to the lower emissions came from lower demand—it dropped by a percentage point compared to 2022. Electrification of transport and appliances, along with the growth of AI processing, are expected to send demand soaring in the near future, but there’s no indication of that on the grid yet.

Currently, generating electricity accounts for 30 percent of the US’s carbon emissions. That places it as the second most significant contributor, behind transportation, which is responsible for 39 percent of emissions. The EIA rates transportation emissions as unchanged relative to 2022, despite seeing air travel return to pre-pandemic levels and a slight increase in gasoline consumption. Later in this decade, tighter fuel efficiency rules are expected to drive a decline in transportation emissions, which are only down about 10 percent compared to their 2006 peak.

Buildings and industry

The remaining sectors—commercial, residential, and industrial—have a more complicated relationship with fossil fuels. Some of their energy comes via the grid, so its emissions are already accounted for. Thanks to the grid decarbonizing, these would be going down, but for business and residential use, grid-dependent emissions are dropping even faster than that would imply. This suggests that things like more efficient lighting and appliances are having an impact.

Separately, direct use of fossil fuels for things like furnaces, water heaters, etc., has been largely flat for the entire 30 years the EIA is looking at, although milder weather led to a slight decline in 2023 (8 percent for residential properties, 4 percent for commercial).

In contrast, the EIA only tracks the direct use of fossil fuels for industrial processes. These are down slightly over the 30-year period but have been fairly stable since the 2008 economic crisis, with no change in emissions between 2022 and 2023. As with the electric grid, the primary difference in this sector has been due to the growth of natural gas and the decline of coal.

Overall, there are two ways to look at this data. The first is that progress at limiting carbon emissions has been extremely limited and that there has been no progress at all in several sectors. The more optimistic view is that the technologies for decarbonizing the electric grid and improving building electrical usage are currently the most advanced, and the US has focused its decarbonization efforts where they’ll make the most difference.

From either perspective, it’s clear that the harder challenges are still coming, both in terms of accelerating decarbonization, and in terms of tackling sectors where decarbonization will be harder. The Biden administration has been working to put policies in place that should drive progress in this regard, but we probably won’t see much of their impact until early in the following decade.

Listing image by Yaorusheng

US’s power grid continues to lower emissions—everything else, not so much Read More »

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Russia stands alone in vetoing UN resolution on nuclear weapons in space

ASAT —

“The United States assesses that Russia is developing a new satellite carrying a nuclear device.”

A meeting of the UN Security Council on April 14.

Enlarge / A meeting of the UN Security Council on April 14.

Russia vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution Wednesday that would have reaffirmed a nearly 50-year-old ban on placing weapons of mass destruction into orbit, two months after reports Russia has plans to do just that.

Russia’s vote against the resolution was no surprise. As one of the five permanent members of the Security Council, Russia has veto power over any resolution that comes before the body. China abstained from the vote, and 13 other members of the Security Council voted in favor of the resolution.

If it passed, the resolution would have affirmed a binding obligation in Article IV of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which says nations are “not to place in orbit around the Earth any objects carrying nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction.”

Going nuclear

Russia is one of 115 parties to the Outer Space Treaty. The Security Council vote Wednesday follows reports in February that Russia is developing a nuclear anti-satellite weapon.

“The United States assesses that Russia is developing a new satellite carrying a nuclear device,” said Jake Sullivan, President Biden’s national security advisor. “We have heard President Putin say publicly that Russia has no intention of deploying nuclear weapons in space. If that were the case, Russia would not have vetoed this resolution.”

The United States and Japan proposed the joint resolution, which also called on nations not to develop nuclear weapons or any other weapons of mass destruction designed to be placed into orbit around the Earth. In a statement, US and Japanese diplomats highlighted the danger of a nuclear detonation in space. Such an event would have “grave implications for sustainable development, and other aspects of international peace and security,” US officials said in a press release.

With its abstention from the vote, “China has shown that it would rather defend Russia as its junior partner, than safeguard the global nonproliferation regime,” said Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US ambassador to the UN.

US government officials have not offered details about the exact nature of the anti-satellite weapon they say Russia is developing. A nuclear explosion in orbit would destroy numerous satellites—from many countries—and endanger astronauts. Space debris created from a nuclear detonation could clutter orbital traffic lanes needed for future spacecraft.

The Soviet Union launched more than 30 military satellites powered by nuclear reactors. Russia’s military space program languished in the first couple of decades after the fall of the Soviet Union, and US intelligence officials say it still lags behind the capabilities possessed by the US Space Force and the Chinese military.

Russia’s military funding has largely gone toward the war in Ukraine for the last two years, but Putin and other top Russian officials have raised threats of nuclear force and attacks on space assets against adversaries. Russia’s military launched a cyberattack against a commercial satellite communications network when it invaded Ukraine in 2022.

Russia has long had an appetite for anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons. The Soviet Union experimented with “co-orbital” ASATs in the 1960s and 1970s. When deployed, these co-orbital ASATs would have attacked enemy satellites by approaching them and detonating explosives or using a grappling arm to move the target out of orbit.

Russian troops at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in far northern Russia prepare for the launch of a Soyuz rocket with the Kosmos 2575 satellite in February.

Enlarge / Russian troops at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in far northern Russia prepare for the launch of a Soyuz rocket with the Kosmos 2575 satellite in February.

Russian Ministry of Defense

In 1987, the Soviet Union launched an experimental weapons platform into orbit to test laser technologies that could be used against enemy satellites. Russia shot down one of its own satellites in 2021 in a widely condemned “direct ascent” ASAT test. This Russian direct ascent ASAT test followed demonstrations of similar capability by China, the United States, and India. Russia’s military has also demonstrated satellites over the last decade that could grapple onto an adversary’s spacecraft in orbit, or fire a projectile to take out an enemy satellite.

These ASAT capabilities could destroy or disable one enemy satellite at a time. The US Space Force is getting around this threat by launching large constellations of small satellites to augment the military’s much larger legacy communications, surveillance, and missile warning spacecraft. A nuclear ASAT weapon could threaten an entire constellation or render some of space inaccessible due to space debris.

Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, called this week’s UN resolution “an unscrupulous play of the United States” and a “cynical forgery and deception.” Russia and China proposed an amendment to the resolution that would have banned all weapons in space. This amendment got the support of about half of the Security Council but did not pass.

Outside the 15-member Security Council, the original resolution proposed by the United States and Japan won the support of more than 60 nations as co-sponsors.

“Regrettably, one permanent member decided to silence the critical message we wanted to send to the present and future people of the world: Outer space must remain a domain of peace, free of weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons,” said Kazuyuki Yamazaki, Japan’s ambassador to the UN.

Russia stands alone in vetoing UN resolution on nuclear weapons in space Read More »

three-women-contract-hiv-from-dirty-“vampire-facials”-at-unlicensed-spa

Three women contract HIV from dirty “vampire facials” at unlicensed spa

Yikes —

Five patients with links to the spa had viral genetic sequences that closely matched.

Drops of the blood going onto an HIV quick test.

Enlarge / Drops of the blood going onto an HIV quick test.

Trendy, unproven “vampire facials” performed at an unlicensed spa in New Mexico left at least three women with HIV infections. This marks the first time that cosmetic procedures have been associated with an HIV outbreak, according to a detailed report of the outbreak investigation published today.

Ars reported on the cluster last year when state health officials announced they were still identifying cases linked to the spa despite it being shut down in September 2018. But today’s investigation report offers more insight into the unprecedented outbreak, which linked five people with HIV infections to the spa and spurred investigators to contact and test nearly 200 other spa clients. The report appears in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

The investigation began when a woman between the ages of 40 and 50 turned up positive on a rapid HIV test taken while she was traveling abroad in the summer of 2018. She had a stage 1 acute infection. It was a result that was as dumbfounding as it was likely distressing. The woman had no clear risk factors for acquiring the infection: no injection drug use, no blood transfusions, and her current and only recent sexual partner tested negative. But, she did report getting a vampire facial in the spring of 2018 at a spa in Albuquerque called VIP Spa.

“Vampire facial” is the common name for a platelet-rich plasma microneedling procedure. In this treatment, a patient’s blood is drawn, spun down to separate out plasma from blood cells, and the platelet-rich plasma is then injected into the face with microneedles. It’s claimed—with little evidence—that it can rejuvenate and improve the look of skin, and got notable promotions from celebrities, including Gwyneth Paltrow and Kim Kardashian.

The woman’s case led investigators to VIP Spa, which was unlicensed, had no appointment scheduling system, and did not store client contact information. In an inspection in the fall of 2018, health investigators found shocking conditions: unwrapped syringes in drawers and counters, unlabeled tubes of blood sitting out on a kitchen counter, more unlabeled blood and medical injectables alongside food in a kitchen fridge, and disposable equipment—electric desiccator tips—that were reused. The facility also did not have an autoclave—a pressurized oven—for sterilizing equipment.

A novel and challenging investigation

The spa was quickly shut down, and the owner Maria de Lourdes Ramos De Ruiz, 62, was charged with practicing medicine without a license. In 2022, she pleaded guilty to five counts and is serving a three-and-a-half-year prison sentence.

A second spa client, another woman between the ages of 40 and 50, tested positive for HIV in a screen in the fall of 2018 and received a diagnosis in early 2019. She has received a vampire facial in the summer of 2018. Her HIV infection was also at stage 1. Investigators scrambled to track down dozens of other clients, who mostly spoke Spanish as their first language. The next two identified cases weren’t diagnosed until the fall of 2021.

The two cases diagnosed in 2021 were sexual partners: a woman who received three vampire facials in the spring and summer of 2018 from the spa and her male partner. Both had a stage 3 HIV infection, which is when the infection has developed into Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS). The severity of the infections suggested the two had been infected prior to the woman’s 2018 spa treatments. Health officials uncovered that the woman had tested positive in an HIV screen in 2016, though she did not report being notified of the result.

The health officials reopened their outbreak investigation in 2023 and found a fifth case that was diagnosed in the spring of 2023, which was also in a woman aged 40 to 50 who had received a vampire facial in the summer of 2018. She had a stage 3 infection and was hospitalized with an AIDS-defining illness.

Viral genetic sequencing from the five cases shows that the infections are all closely related. But, given the extent of the unsanitary and contaminated conditions at the facility, investigators were unable to determine precisely how the infections spread in the spa. In all, 198 spa clients were tested for HIV between 2018 and 2023, the investigators report.

“Incomplete spa client records posed a substantial challenge during this investigation, necessitating a large-scale outreach approach to identify potential cases,” the authors acknowledge. However, the investigation’s finding “underscores the importance of determining possible novel sources of HIV transmission among persons with no known HIV risk factors.”

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Deciphered Herculaneum papyrus reveals precise burial place of Plato

As he lay buried —

Various imaging methods comprised a kind of “bionic eye” to examine charred scroll.

flattened ancient papyrus on a table with lights and cameras overhead

Enlarge / Imaging setup for a charred ancient papyrus recovered from the ruins of Herculaneum; 30 percent of the text has now been deciphered.

CNR – Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche

Historical accounts vary about how the Greek philosopher Plato died: in bed while listening to a young woman playing the flute; at a wedding feast; or peacefully in his sleep. But the few surviving texts from that period indicate that the philosopher was buried somewhere in the garden of the Academy he founded in Athens. The garden was quite large, but archaeologists have now deciphered a charred ancient papyrus scroll recovered from the ruins of Herculaneum, indicating a more precise burial location: in a private area near a sacred shrine to the Muses, according to Constanza Millani, director of the Institute of Heritage Science at Italy’s National Research Council.

As previously reported, the ancient Roman resort town Pompeii wasn’t the only city destroyed in the catastrophic 79 AD eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Several other cities in the area, including the wealthy enclave of Herculaneum, were fried by clouds of hot gas called pyroclastic pulses and flows. But still, some remnants of Roman wealth survived. One palatial residence in Herculaneum—believed to have once belonged to a man named Piso—contained hundreds of priceless written scrolls made from papyrus, singed into carbon by volcanic gas.

The scrolls stayed buried under volcanic mud until they were excavated in the 1700s from a single room that archaeologists believe held the personal working library of an Epicurean philosopher named Philodemus. There may be even more scrolls still buried on the as-yet-unexcavated lower floors of the villa. The few opened fragments helped scholars identify various Greek philosophical texts, including On Nature by Epicurus and several by Philodemus himself, as well as a handful of Latin works. But the more than 600 rolled-up scrolls were so fragile that it was long believed they would never be readable, since even touching them could cause them to crumble.

Scientists have brought all manner of cutting-edge tools to bear on deciphering badly damaged ancient texts like the Herculaneum scrolls. For instance, in 2019, German scientists used a combination of physics techniques (synchrotron radiation, infrared spectroscopy, and X-ray fluorescence) to virtually “unfold” an ancient Egyptian papyrus.

Brent Searles’ lab at the University of Kentucky has been working on deciphering the Herculaneum scrolls for many years. He employs a different method of “virtually unrolling” damaged scrolls, using digital scanning with micro-computed tomography—a noninvasive technique often used for cancer imaging—with segmentation to digitally create pages, augmented with texturing and flattening techniques. Then they developed software (Volume Cartography) to virtually unroll the scroll.

The older Herculaneum scrolls were written with carbon-based ink (charcoal and water), so one would not get the same fluorescing in the CT scans, but the scans can still capture minute textural differences indicating those areas of papyrus that contained ink compared to the blank areas, and it’s possible to train an artificial neural network to do just that.

History of the Academy text that were previously illegible.” height=”401″ src=”https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/plato4-640×401.jpg” width=”640″>

Enlarge / Infrared and X-ray scanners have deciphered more than 1,000 words of Philodemus’ History of the Academy text that were previously illegible.

D.P. Pavone

This latest work is under the auspices of the “GreekSchools” project, funded by the European Research Council, which began three years ago and will continue through 2026. This time around, scholars have used infrared, ultraviolet optical imaging, thermal imaging, tomography, and digital optical microscopy as a kind of “bionic eye” to examine Philodemus’ History of the Academy scroll, which was also written in carbon-based ink. Nonetheless, they were able to extract over 1,000 words, approximately 30 percent of the scroll’s text, revealing new details about Plato’s life as well as his place of burial.

Most notably, the historical account of Plato being sold into slavery in his later years after running afoul of the tyrannical Dionysius is usually pegged to around 387 BCE. According to the newly deciphered Philodemus text, however, Plato’s enslavement may have occurred as early as 404 BCE or shortly after the death of Socrates in 399 BCE.

“Compared to previous editions, there is now an almost radically changed text, which implies a series of new and concrete facts about various academic philosophers,” Graziano Ranocchia, lead researcher on the project, said. “Through the new edition and its contextualization, scholars have arrived at unexpected interdisciplinary deductions for ancient philosophy, Greek biography and literature, and the history of the book.”

Other deciphering efforts are also still underway. For instance, last fall we reported on the use of machine learning to decipher the first letters from a previously unreadable ancient scroll found in an ancient Roman villa at Herculaneum—part of the 2023 Vesuvius Challenge. And earlier this year tech entrepreneur and challenge co-founder Nat Friedman announced via X (formerly Twitter) that they had awarded the grand prize of $700,000 for producing the first readable text.

When the Vesuvius Challenge co-founders started the challenge, they thought there was less than a 30 percent chance of success within the year since, at the time, no one had been able to read actual letters inside of a scroll. However, the crowdsourcing approach proved wildly successful. That said, it’s still just 5 percent of a single scroll.

So there is a new challenge for 2024: $100,000 for the first entry that can read 90 percent of the four scrolls scanned thus far. The primary goal is to perfect the auto-segmentation process since doing so manually is both time-consuming and expensive (more than $100 per square centimeter). This will lay the foundation for one day being able to scan and read all 800 scrolls discovered so far, as well as any additional scrolls that are unearthed should the remaining levels of the villa finally be excavated.

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we-may-have-spotted-the-first-magnetar-flare-outside-our-galaxy

We may have spotted the first magnetar flare outside our galaxy

Magnetars: how do they work? —

Not all gamma-ray bursts come from supernovae.

Image of a whitish smear running diagonally across the frame, with a complex, branching bit of red material in the foreground.

Enlarge / M82, the site of what’s likely to be a giant flare from a magnetar.

NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team

Gamma rays are a broad category of high-energy photons, including everything with more energy than an X-ray. While they are often created by processes like radioactive decay, few astronomical events produce them in sufficient quantities that they can be detected when the radiation originates in another galaxy.

That said, the list is larger than one, which means detecting gamma rays doesn’t mean we know what event produced them. At lower energies, they can be produced in the areas around black holes and by neutron stars. Supernovae can also produce a sudden burst of gamma rays, as can the merger of compact objects like neutron stars.

And then there are magnetars. These are neutron stars that, at least temporarily, have extreme magnetic fields—over 1012 times stronger than the Sun’s magnetic field. Magnetars can experience flares and even giant flares where they send out copious amounts of energy, including gamma rays. These can be difficult to distinguish from gamma-ray bursts generated by the merger of compact objects, so the only confirmed magnetar giant bursts have happened in our own galaxy or its satellites. Until now, apparently.

What was that?

The burst in question was spotted by the ESA’s Integral gamma-ray observatory, among others, in November 2023. GRB 231115A was short, lasting only about 50 milliseconds at some wavelengths. While longer gamma-ray bursts can be produced by the formation of black holes during supernovae, this short burst is similar to those expected to be seen when neutron stars merge.

The directional data from Integral placed GRB 231115A right on top of a nearby galaxy, M82, which is also known as the Cigar Galaxy. M82 is what is called a starburst galaxy, which means that it’s forming stars at a rapid clip, with the burst likely to have been triggered by interactions with its neighbors. Overall, the galaxy is forming stars at a rate more than 10 times that of the Milky Way. That means lots of supernovae, but it also means a large population of young neutron stars, some of which will form magnetars.

That doesn’t rule out the possibility that M82 happened to be sitting in front of a gamma-ray burst from a distant event. However, the researchers use two different methods to show that this is pretty improbable, which leaves something happening inside the galaxy as being the most likely source of the gamma rays.

It could still be a gamma-ray burst happening within M82, except the estimated total energy of the burst is much lower than we’d expect from those events. A supernova should also be detected at other wavelengths, but there was no sign of one (and they typically produce longer bursts anyway). An alternative source, the fusion of two compact objects such as neutron stars, would have been detectable using our gravitational wave observatories, but no signal was apparent at this time. These events also frequently leave behind X-ray sources, but no new sources are visible in M82.

So, it looks like a magnetar giant flare, and the potential explanations for a brief burst of gamma radiation don’t really work for GRB 231115A.

Looking for more

The exact mechanism by which magnetars produce gamma rays isn’t entirely worked out. It is thought to involve the rearrangement of the crust of the neutron star, forced by the intense forces generated by the staggeringly intense magnetic field. Giant flares are thought to require magnetic field strengths of at least 1015 gauss; Earth’s magnetic field is less than one gauss.

Assuming that the event sent radiation off in all directions rather than directing it toward Earth, the researchers estimate that the total energy released was 1045 ergs, which translates to roughly 1022 megatons of TNT. So, while it’s less energetic than neutron star mergers, it’s still an impressively energetic event.

To understand them better, however, we probably need more than the three instances in our immediate neighborhood that are obviously associated with magnetars. So, being able to consistently identify when these events happen in more distant galaxies would be a big win for astronomers. The results could help us develop a template for distinguishing when we’re looking at a giant flare instead of alternative sources of gamma rays.

The researchers also note that this is the second candidate giant flare associated with M82 and, as mentioned above, starburst galaxies would be expected to be relatively rich in magnetars. Focusing searches on it and similar galaxies might be what we need to boost the frequency of our observations.

Nature, 2024. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07285-4  (About DOIs).

We may have spotted the first magnetar flare outside our galaxy Read More »

updating-california’s-grid-for-evs-may-cost-up-to-$20-billion

Updating California’s grid for EVs may cost up to $20 billion

A charging cable plugged in to a port on the side of an electric vehicle. The plug glows green near where it contacts the vehicle.

California’s electric grid, with its massive solar production and booming battery installations, is already on the cutting edge of the US’s energy transition. And it’s likely to stay there, as the state will require that all passenger vehicles be electric by 2035. Obviously, that will require a grid that’s able to send a lot more electrons down its wiring and a likely shift in the time of day that demand peaks.

Is the grid ready? And if not, how much will it cost to get it there? Two researchers at the University of California, Davis—Yanning Li and Alan Jenn—have determined that nearly two-thirds of its feeder lines don’t have the capacity that will likely be needed for car charging. Updating to handle the rising demand might set its utilities back as much as 40 percent of the existing grid’s capital cost.

The lithium state

Li and Jenn aren’t the first to look at how well existing grids can handle growing electric vehicle sales; other research has found various ways that different grids fall short. However, they have access to uniquely detailed data relevant to California’s ability to distribute electricity (they do not concern themselves with generation). They have information on every substation, feeder line, and transformer that delivers electrons to customers of the state’s three largest utilities, which collectively cover nearly 90 percent of the state’s population. In total, they know the capacity that can be delivered through over 1,600 substations and 5,000 feeders.

California has clear goals for its electric vehicles, and those are matched with usage based on the California statewide travel demand model, which accounts for both trips and the purpose of those trips. These are used to determine how much charging will need to be done, as well as where that charging will take place (home or a charging station). Details on that charging comes from the utilities, charging station providers, and data logs.

They also project which households will purchase EVs based on socioeconomic factors, scaled so that adoption matches the state’s goals.

Combined, all of this means that Li and Jenn can estimate where charging is taking place and how much electricity will be needed per charge. They can then compare that need to what the existing grid has the capacity to deliver.

It falls short, and things get worse very quickly. By 2025, only about 7 percent of the feeders will experience periods of overload. By 2030, that figure will grow to 27 percent, and by 2035—only about a decade away—about half of the feeders will be overloaded. Problems grow a bit more slowly after that, with two-thirds of the feeders overloaded by 2045, a decade after all cars sold in California will be EVs. At that point, total electrical demand will be close to twice the existing capacity.

Updating California’s grid for EVs may cost up to $20 billion Read More »

fragments-of-bird-flu-virus-genome-found-in-pasteurized-milk,-fda-says

Fragments of bird flu virus genome found in pasteurized milk, FDA says

Milk testing —

The test cannot tell if the virus is live. The FDA still assess milk supply as safe.

Cows being milked

Enlarge / Cows being milked

The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday announced that genetic fragments from the highly-pathogenic avian influenza virus H5N1 have been detected in the pasteurized, commercial milk supply. However, the testing completed so far—using quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR)—only detects the presence of viral genetic material and cannot tell whether the genetic material is from live and infectious viral particles or merely remnants of dead ones killed by the pasteurization process.

Testing is now ongoing to see if viable, infectious H5N1 can be identified in milk samples.

So far, the FDA still believes that the milk supply is safe. “To date, we have seen nothing that would change our assessment that the commercial milk supply is safe,” the agency said in a lengthy explanation of the finding and ongoing testing.

H5N1 made its startling jump to US dairy cows recently, with the first ever documented cases in a Texas herd confirmed on March 25. It has spread widely since then with at least 32 herds in eight states now known to be infected. The unexpected spread to bovines has raised fears that the virus is evolving to infect mammals more efficiently, and so poses a heightened risk of spread to and among humans.

But amid the alarming outbreak among the country’s dairy herds, federal agencies have appeared confident that the virus poses little risk to no risk to the safety of the milk supply.

“At this time, there continues to be no concern that this circumstance poses a risk to consumer health, or that it affects the safety of the interstate commercial milk supply because products are pasteurized before entering the market” the FDA wrote in an FAQ published Friday. “Pasteurization has continually proven to inactivate bacteria and viruses, like influenza, in milk.”

In the announcement Tuesday, the FDA also highlighted that multiple studies have shown that the pasteurization process for eggs, which uses lower temperatures than what is used for milk, is effective at inactivating H5N1.

Nevertheless, the FDA, along with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the US Department of Agriculture, have continued to investigate potential risks, including establishing whether pasteurization can inactivate this specific virus. The FDA noted in its announcement Tuesday that, while pasteurization is expected to kill the virus, pasteurization is “different than complete sterilization.”

As such, it carried out the qPCR tests, expecting it might find some genetic fragments in the pasteurized milk because virus has been detected in raw milk. “Based on available information, pasteurization is likely to inactivate the virus, however the process is not expected to remove the presence of viral particles,” the FDA explained. “Therefore, some of the samples collected have indicated the presence of HPAI [Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza] using quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) testing.”

The FDA did not indicate how many samples it has tested, where the samples were collected from, or the level of viral genetic material the samples contained.

The agency is now working on assessing whether it can identify if any virus particles are infectious using egg inoculation tests, which are considered a gold-standard for determining viral viability. It added that it will release results from those tests and others in “the next few days to weeks.”

“[W]e take this current situation and the safety of the milk supply very seriously. We recognize the importance of releasing further, actionable information,” the FDA said.

Meanwhile, the agency reported that the CDC’s food safety group has been closely monitoring emergency department data and flu testing data for any unusual trends in flu-like illness, flu, or conjunctivitis, which could indicate spread of H5N1 to people. “To date, surveillance systems do not show any unusual trends or activity,” the FDA said.

Fragments of bird flu virus genome found in pasteurized milk, FDA says Read More »

why-canned-wine-can-smell-like-rotten-eggs-while-beer-and-coke-are-fine

Why canned wine can smell like rotten eggs while beer and Coke are fine

The cork or the can? —

Sulfur dioxide in the wine reacts with the aluminum to make hydrogen sulfide.

Why canned wine can smell like rotten eggs while beer and Coke are fine

BackyardProduction/Getty Images

True wine aficionados might turn up their noses, but canned wines are growing in popularity, particularly among younger crowds during the summer months, when style often takes a back seat to convenience. Yet these same wines can go bad rather quickly, taking on distinctly displeasing notes of rotten eggs or dirty socks. Scientists at Cornell University conducted a study of all the relevant compounds and came up with a few helpful tips for frustrated winemakers to keep canned wines from spoiling. The researchers outlined their findings in a recent paper published in the American Journal of Enology and Viticulture.

“The current generation of wine consumers coming of age now, they want a beverage that’s portable and they can bring with them to drink at a concert or take to the pool,” said Gavin Sacks, a food chemist at Cornell. “That doesn’t really describe a cork-finished, glass-packaged wine. However, it describes a can very nicely.”

According to a 2004 article in Wine & Vines magazine, canned beer first appeared in the US in 1935, and three US wineries tried to follow suit for the next three years. Those efforts failed because it proved to be unusually challenging to produce a stable canned wine. One batch was tainted by “Fresno mold“; another batch resulted in cloudy wine within just two months; and the third batch of wine had a disastrous combination of low pH and high oxygen content, causing the wine to eat tiny holes in the cans. Nonetheless, wineries sporadically kept trying to can their product over the ensuing decades, with failed attempts in the 1950s and 1970s. United and Delta Airlines briefly had a short-lived partnership with wineries for canned wine in the early 1980s, but passengers balked at the notion.

The biggest issue was the plastic coating used to line the aluminum cans. You needed the lining because the wine would otherwise chemically react with the aluminum. But the plastic liners degraded quickly, and the wine would soon reek of dirty socks or rotten eggs, thanks to high concentrations of hydrogen sulfide. The canned wines also didn’t have much longevity, with a shelf life of just six months.

Thanks to vastly improved packing processes in the early 2000s, canned wine seems to finally be finding its niche in the market, initially driven by demand in Japan and other Asian markets and expanding after 2014 to Australia, New Zealand, the US, and the UK. In the US alone, projected sales of canned wines are expected to grow from $643 million in 2024 to $3.12 billion in 2034—a compound annual growth rate of 10.5 percent.

Granted, we won’t be seeing a fine Bordeaux in a can anytime soon; most canned wine comes in the form of spritzers, wine coolers, and cheaper rosés, whites, or sparkling wines. The largest US producers are EJ Gallo, which sells Barefoot Refresh Spritzers, and Francis Ford Coppola Winery, which markets the Sofia Mini, Underwood, and Babe brands.

Locations within the body of a can sampled for liner and surface analysis.

Enlarge / Locations within the body of a can sampled for liner and surface analysis.

M.J. Sheehan et al., 2024

There are plenty of oft-cited advantages to putting wine in cans. It’s super practical for picnics, camping, summer BBQs, or days at the beach, for example, and for the weight-conscious, it helps with portion control, since you don’t have to open an entire bottle. Canned wines are also touted as having a lower carbon footprint compared to glass—although that is a tricky calculation—and the aluminum is 100 percent recyclable.

This latest study grew out of a conference session Sacks led that was designed to help local winemakers get a better grasp on how best to protect the aromas, flavors, and shelf life of their canned wines since canned wines are still plagued by issues of corrosion, leakage, and off flavors like the dreaded rotten egg smell. “They said, ‘We’re following all the recommendations from the can suppliers and we still have these problems, can you help us out?’” Sacks said. “The initial focus was defining what the problem compounds were, what was causing corrosion and off aromas, and why was this happening in wines, but not in sodas? Why doesn’t Coca-Cola have a problem?”

Why canned wine can smell like rotten eggs while beer and Coke are fine Read More »

nestle-baby-foods-loaded-with-unhealthy-sugars—but-only-in-poorer-countries

Nestlé baby foods loaded with unhealthy sugars—but only in poorer countries

Bad track record —

Health experts say children under age 2 should have zero added sugars in their diets.

Night view of company logos in Nestlé Avanca Dairy Products Plant on January 21, 2019, in Avanca, Portugal. This plant produces Cerelac, Nestum, Mokambo, Pensal, Chocapic and Estrelitas, among others.

Enlarge / Night view of company logos in Nestlé Avanca Dairy Products Plant on January 21, 2019, in Avanca, Portugal. This plant produces Cerelac, Nestum, Mokambo, Pensal, Chocapic and Estrelitas, among others.

In high-income countries, Nestlé brand baby foods have no added sugars them, in line with recommendations from major health organizations around the world and consumer pressure. But in low- and middle-income countries, Nestlé adds sugar to those same baby products, sometimes at high levels, which could lead children to prefer sugary diets and unhealthy eating habits, according to an investigation released recently by nonprofit groups.

The investigation, conducted by Public Eye and the International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN), says the addition of added sugars to baby foods in poorer countries, against expert recommendations, creates an “unjustifiable double standard.” The groups quote Rodrigo Vianna, an epidemiologist and professor at the Department of Nutrition of the Federal University of Paraíba in Brazil, who calls added sugars in baby foods “unnecessary and highly addictive.”

“Children get used to the sweet taste and start looking for more sugary foods, starting a negative cycle that increases the risk of nutrition-based disorders in adult life,” Vianna told the organizations for their investigation. “These include obesity and other chronic non-communicable diseases, such as diabetes or high blood-pressure.”

The two groups compared the nutritional content of Nestlé’s Cerelac and Nido products, the company’s best-selling baby food brands in low- and middle-income countries that generate sales of over $2.5 billion. In a Cerelac wheat cereal product, for instance, the product contained up to 6 grams of added sugar in countries including Thailand, Ethiopia, South Africa, Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh. In the United Kingdom and Germany, the same product contained zero added sugars.

The product with the highest sugar content was a Cerelac baby cereal product sold in the Philippines with 7.3 grams of sugar. While children under age 2 are recommended to have zero grams of added sugars in their diet, for reference, children aged 2 to 18 are recommended to have less than 25 grams (about six teaspoons) per day by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

In the Philippines, where the sugar content was the highest, and in other countries—including Nigeria, Senegal, Vietnam and Pakistan—the added sugar content was not listed on Nestlé’s labeling, the investigation found.

Double standard

“There is a double standard here that can’t be justified,” Nigel Rollins, a WHO scientist, told the nonprofit groups. Rollins pointed out that the company does not add sugars to its baby products in Switzerland, where the company is headquartered. Thus, continuing to add it in low-resource settings is “problematic both from a public health and ethical perspective,” he said.

In a report last month, the WHO found that as of 2022, 37 million children under the age of 5 worldwide had overweight. Additionally, over 390 million children ages 5 to 19 had overweight and 160 million had obesity. The prevalence of overweight in children 5 to 19 rose from 8 percent in 1990 to 20 percent in 2022, the United Nations agency noted. Obesity rates in this age group, meanwhile, rose from 2 percent to 8 percent in the same timespan.

Nestlé responded to the investigation with a statement suggesting that the differences in sugar content “depend on several factors, including regulations and availability of local ingredients, which can result in offerings with lower or no-added sugars.” But it argued that these differences do not “compromise the nutritional value of our products for infants and young children.”

Nestlé is a multinational food and drink behemoth with a controversial history of selling baby products in poorer countries. In the 1970s and ’80s, the company came under heavy international fire for aggressively marketing its baby formula to impoverished mothers. Health advocates accused Nestlé of misleading mothers into thinking formula is better than breast milk for their babies, even though leading health organizations recommend exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of life when possible.

Critics accused Nestlé of providing free formula to hospital maternity wards, causing new, low-income mothers to turn to it shortly after birth in the critical window in which breast milk production would otherwise ramp up in response to nursing a newborn. Without nursing in that time, mothers can struggle to lactate and become dependent on formula. Out of the hospital, the powdered formula is no longer free and must be mixed in proper amounts and in sanitary conditions to ensure it is safe and meeting the nutritional needs of the infant, which can be a struggle for poor families.

Nestlé now states that it follows international standards for marketing breast-milk substitutes, despite ongoing boycotts in some countries.

Nestlé baby foods loaded with unhealthy sugars—but only in poorer countries Read More »

concern-grows-as-bird-flu-spreads-further-in-us-cows:-32-herds-in-8-states

Concern grows as bird flu spreads further in US cows: 32 herds in 8 states

Rapidly evolving —

Experts say the US is not sharing as much data on the outbreak as it should.

Greylag geese sit on a field and rest while a cow passes by in the background.

Enlarge / Greylag geese sit on a field and rest while a cow passes by in the background.

Researchers around the world are growing more uneasy with the spread of highly pathogenic avian influenza (H5N1) in US dairy cows as the virus continues to make its way into new herds and states. Several experts say the US is not sharing enough information from the federal investigation into the unexpected and growing outbreak, including genetic information from isolated viruses.

To date, the US Department of Agriculture has tallied 32 affected herds in eight states: Idaho, Kansas, Michigan, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, South Dakota, and Texas. In some cases, the movement of cattle between herds can explain the spread of the virus. But the USDA has not publicly clarified if all the herds are linked in a single outbreak chain or if there is evidence that the virus has spilled over to cows multiple times. Early infections in Texas were linked to dead wild birds (pigeons, blackbirds, and grackles) found on dairy farms. But the USDA reportedly indicated to Stat News that the infections do not appear to be all linked to the Texas cases.

Spread of the virus via cattle movements indicates that there is cow-to-cow transmission occurring, the USDA said. But it’s unclear how the virus is spreading between cows. Given that even the most symptomatic cows show few respiratory symptoms, the USDA speculates that the most likely way it is spreading is via contaminated milking equipment.

Adding to the uncertainty of the virus’s spread, The New York Times on Friday reported that the one herd found infected with H5N1 in North Carolina showed no symptoms of the virus. This raises the possibility that the virus could be silently spreading in unknown numbers of other asymptomatic herds and states. In its most recent FAQ document, the USDA encouraged testing for H5N1 if herds show clinical symptoms, such as lethargy, fever, low milk production, and loose stools. But the Times noted that the agency has begun reimbursing farms for testing asymptomatic cows.

Meanwhile, the USDA also reported that it has evidence that H5N1 from dairy farms has spread back into birds in nearby poultry farms, but how this is happening is also unknown.

Data gaps

All the uncertainty and widespread transmission raises concern about how the virus is evolving to infect mammals and whether it is heading for humans. Last week, the chief scientist for the World Health Organization, Jeremy Farrar, told reporters in Geneva that the spread of the virus in US dairy cows is an “enormous concern,” according to CNN.  “The great concern, of course, is that in doing so and infecting ducks and chickens—but now increasingly mammals—that that virus now evolves and develops the ability to infect humans. And then critically, the ability to go from human-to-human transmission.”

In particular, experts are wary that the dairy cow outbreaks could spill over to nearby pig farms as it’s doing with nearby poultry farms. Pigs can be infected with both bird flu viruses and human flu viruses, making them potential melting pots for new recombinant flu strains.

So far, the USDA says that genetic sequences of H5N1 viruses infecting cows has not revealed any mutations that “would make it more transmissible to humans and between people.” But last Thursday, Stat reported that international experts have faulted the USDA for not sharing more genetic data from its investigation, among other information. Until this weekend, the agency had only shared a few genetic sequences in an international database of viral genome sequences (GISAID).

“A country with capacity like the United States should be able to generate this information within days,” Marion Koopmans, head of the department of viroscience at Erasmus Medical Center in the Dutch city of Rotterdam told Stat last week. “I would expect very fast, very transparent updates, and it’s somewhat amazing not to see that happening.”

On Sunday, facing mounting criticism, the USDA announced the release of 239 genetic sequences to GISAID. It noted it is also adding raw data to a US federal database “in the interest of public transparency and ensuring the scientific community has access to this information as quickly as possible.” The agency said it will continue to make such data available on a rolling basis.

Dr. Rosemary Sifford, the USDA’s chief veterinarian, told the Times, “Please recall that we’ve been engaged in this for less than a month. We are working very hard to generate more information,” she said.

Overall, the USDA and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention continue to consider the risk to the public to be low. Farmworkers and others who have direct contact with infected animals are encouraged to take precautions, however.

While deadly to birds, H5N1 in cows is relatively mild, rarely if ever causing deaths. Milk from sick animals contains high levels of virus, but it is being destroyed. Even if some infected milk makes its way into the milk supply, the Food and Drug Administration is confident that the virus would be killed in the pasteurization process. “Pasteurization has continually proven to inactivate bacteria and viruses, like influenza, in milk,” the agency said in an FAQ Friday. Some experts have called for data confirming this, though.

Concern grows as bird flu spreads further in US cows: 32 herds in 8 states Read More »