(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday, 2/1/23 [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-02-04 News for a dying world 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 and jck. 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. US Renewable Energy Farms Outstrip 99% of Coal Plants Economically Coal in the US is now being economically outmatched by renewables to such an extent that it's more expensive for 99% of the country's coal-fired power plants to keep running than it is to build an entirely new solar or wind energy operation nearby, a new analysis has found. From a report: The plummeting cost of renewable energy, which has been supercharged by last year's Inflation Reduction Act, means that it is cheaper to build an array of solar panels or a cluster of new wind turbines and connect them to the grid than it is to keep operating all of the 210 coal plants in the contiguous US, bar one, according to the study. "Coal is unequivocally more expensive than wind and solar resources, it's just no longer cost competitive with renewables," said Michelle Solomon, a policy analyst at Energy Innovation, which undertook the analysis. "This report certainly challenges the narrative that coal is here to stay." The new analysis, conducted in the wake of the $370bn in tax credits and other support for clean energy passed by Democrats in last summer's Inflation Reduction Act, compared the fuel, running and maintenance cost of America's coal fleet with the building of new solar or wind from scratch in the same utility region. On average, the marginal cost for the coal plants is $36 each megawatt hour, while new solar is about $24 each megawatt hour, or about a third cheaper. Only one coal plant -- Dry Fork in Wyoming -- is cost competitive with the new renewables. "It was a bit surprising to find this," said Solomon. "It shows that not only have renewables dropped in cost, the Inflation Reduction Act is accelerating this trend." What Time Is It On the Moon? Satellite navigation systems for lunar settlements will require local atomic clocks. Scientists are working out what time they will keep. From a report: It's not obvious what form a universal lunar time would take. Clocks on Earth and the Moon naturally tick at different speeds, because of the differing gravitational fields of the two bodies. Official lunar time could be based on a clock system designed to synchronize with UTC, or it could be independent of Earth time. Representatives of space agencies and academic organizations worldwide met in November 2022 to start drafting recommendations on how to define lunar time at the European Space Research and Technology Centre of the European Space Agency (ESA) in Noordwijk, the Netherlands. Decisions must be made soon, says Patrizia Tavella, who leads the time department at the International Bureau of Weights and Measures in Sevres, France. If an official lunar time is not established, space agencies and private companies will come up with their own solutions, she says. "This is why we want to raise an alert now, saying let's work together to take a common decision." The most pressing need for lunar time comes from plans to create a dedicated global satellite navigation system (GNSS) for the Moon, similar to how GPS and other satellite navigation networks enable precise location tracking on Earth. Space agencies plan to install this lunar GNSS from around 2030. ESA approved a lunar satellite navigation project called Moonlight at its ministerial council meeting on 22 and 23 November 2022 in Paris, and NASA established a similar project, called Lunar Communications Relay and Navigation Systems, last January. Until now, Moon missions have pinpointed their locations using radio signals sent to large antennas on Earth at scheduled times. But with dozens of missions planned, "there's just not enough resources to cover everybody," says Joel Parker, an engineer who works on lunar navigation at the Goddard Center. x News that somehow gets lost in the shuffle: Our solar system has 12 more moons than we previously knew, all orbiting Jupiter. That brings its total to 92, the most of any planet circling the sun. https://t.co/Tb7PeOLzBF — Peter Baker (@peterbakernyt) February 3, 2023 Uranus and Neptune missions: A study in advance of the next Planetary Science Decadal Survey The ice giant planets, Uranus and Neptune, represent an important and relatively unexplored class of planet. Most of our detailed information about them comes from fleeting looks by the Voyager 2 spacecraft in the 1980s. Voyager, and ground-based work since then, found that these planets, their satellites, rings, and magnetospheres, challenge our understanding of the formation and evolution of planetary systems. We also now know that Uranus-Neptune size planets are common around other stars. These are some of the reasons ice giant exploration was a high priority in NASA's most recent Planetary Science Decadal Survey. In preparation for the next Decadal Survey, NASA, with ESA participation, conducted a broad study of possible ice giant missions in the 2024–2037 timeframe. This paper summarizes the key results of the study, and addresses questions that have been raised by the science community and in a recent NASA review. Foremost amongst these are questions about the science objectives, the science payload, and the importance of an atmospheric probe. The conclusions of the NASA/ESA study remain valid. In particular, it is a high priority to send an orbiter and atmospheric probe to at least one of the ice giants, with instrumentation to study all components of an ice giant system. Uranus and Neptune are found to be equally compelling as science targets. The two planets are not equivalent, however, and each system has things to teach us the other cannot. An additional mission study is needed to refine plans for future exploration of these worlds. Scientists have discovered a new form of ice that more closely resembles liquid water than any other and may hold the key to understanding this most famous of liquids. The new form of ice is amorphous. Unlike ordinary crystalline ice where the molecules arrange themselves in a regular pattern, in amorphous ice the molecules are in a disorganised form that resembles a liquid. In this paper, published in Science, the team created a new form of amorphous ice in experiment and achieved an atomic-scale model of it in computer simulation. The experiments used a technique called ball-milling, which grinds crystalline ice into small particles using metal balls in a steel jar. Ball-milling is regularly used to make amorphous materials, but it had never been applied to ice. Marine Biologists Identify Three New Nautilus Species Nautiluses are a charismatic group of marine mollusks best known for their rich fossil record. But today they are restricted to a handful of species in two genera (Nautilus and Allonautilus) of the cephalopod family Nautilidae. The three ‘universally’ accepted modern Nautilus species of 21st century taxonomists are Nautilus pompilius (type species), Nautilus macromphalus, and Nautilus stenomphalus. Nautiluses first appeared 500 million years ago during the Cambrian explosion and are distant cousins of squid and cuttlefish. Study links adoption of electric vehicles with less air pollution and improved health A team of researchers from the Keck School of Medicine of USC have now begun to document the actual impact of electric vehicle adoption in the first study to use real-world data to link electric cars, air pollution and health. Leveraging publicly available datasets, the researchers analyzed a "natural experiment" occurring in California as residents in the state rapidly transitioned to electric cars, or light-duty zero emissions vehicles (ZEVs). The results were just published in the journal Science of the Total Environment. The team compared data on total ZEV registration, air pollution levels and asthma-related emergency room visits across the state between 2013 to 2019. As ZEV adoption increased within a given zip code, local air pollution levels and emergency room visits dropped. "When we think about the actions related to climate change, often it's on a global level," said Erika Garcia, PhD, MPH, an assistant professor of population and public health sciences at the Keck School of Medicine and the study's lead author. "But the idea that changes being made at the local level can improve the health of your own community could be a powerful message to the public and to policy makers." x In honor of #WorldWetlandsDay, the vibrant hues of San Francisco’s salty South Bay and one of the country's largest wetlands restoration projects: https://t.co/cn0PFcOo7t 📷 @joSonphoto ✍️ @SkylarWKKnight pic.twitter.com/pY82Z0nuv7 — bioGraphic (@bioGraphic) February 3, 2023 Learning with all your senses: Multimodal enrichment as the optimal learning strategy of the future Neuroscientists have compiled extensive interdisciplinary findings from neuroscience, psychology, computer modelling and education on the topic of 'learning' in a recent review article. The results of the interdisciplinary review reveal the mechanisms the brain uses to achieve improved learning outcome by combining multiple senses or movements in learning. This kind of learning outcome applies to a wide variety of domains, such as letter and vocabulary acquisition, reading, mathematics, music, and spatial orientation. Many educational approaches assume that integrating complementary sensory and motor information into the learning experience can enhance learning, for example gestures help in learning new vocabulary in foreign language classes. In her recent publication, neuroscientist Katharina von Kriegstein from Technische Universität Dresden and Brian Mathias of the University of Aberdeen summarize these methods under the term "multimodal enrichment." This means enrichment with multiple senses and movement. Numerous current scientific studies prove that multimodal enrichment can enhance learning outcomes. Experiments in classrooms show similar results. In the review article, the two researchers compare these findings with cognitive, neuroscience, and computational theories of multimodal enrichment. Recent neuroscience research has found that the positive effects of enriched learning are associated with response in brain regions that serve perception and motor function. For example, hearing a recently learned foreign language word, may elicit activity in motor brain regions if the word was associated with the performance of a congruent gesture during learning. These brain responses are causal to the benefits of multimodal enrichment for learning outcome. Computer algorithms confirm this hypothesis. Just one quality conversation with a friend boosts daily well-being Conversing with a friend just once during the day to catch up, joke around or tell them you're thinking of them can increase your happiness and lower your stress level by day's end. These are among the results of a new study co-authored by University of Kansas professor of Communication Studies and friendship expert Jeffrey Hall. "Quality Conversation Can Increase Daily Well-Being" was published in the journal Communication Research by Hall and co-authors Amanda Holmstrom, Natalie Pennington, Evan Perrault and Daniel Totzkay. The study was informed by and provides further support for Hall's Communicate Bond Belong (CBB) theory of relationships. Hall is the director of KU's Relationships and Technology Lab. An illuminated water droplet creates an 'optical atom' Shining light on a water droplet creates effects analogous to what happens in an atom. This can help us understand how atoms work, write researchers from the University of Gothenburg in a new journal article. If you whisper by the wall in the dome of St Paul's Cathedral in London, you'll discover that the sound bounces off the dome's walls all the way around and is audible on the opposite side. Which is why the Cathedral's dome has been dubbed 'the whispering gallery'. The same effect is achieved when a beam of light is shone into a water droplet. Rays of light bounce off the inner wall of the water droplet over and over again, going around and around inside the droplet. When its circumference is a multiple of the light's wavelength, a resonance phenomenon occurs, just like the sound inside the Cathedral's dome, making the droplet shine brighter. x Pleased to share our paper in @journal_evo revisiting Charles Sibley’s classic species conundrum in hybridizing Pipilo towhees, a case study that influenced cline theory & Mayr's and others' views on the nature of species during the Modern Synthesishttps://t.co/wZ8Kbzzyef pic.twitter.com/1xwOZAP3JU — John McCormack (@LAevolving) February 3, 2023 Australia To Allow Prescription of MDMA and Psilocybin For Medical Use An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: After decades of "demonization", psychiatrists will be able to prescribe MDMA and psilocybin in Australia from July this year. The Therapeutic Goods Administration made the surprise announcement on Friday afternoon. The drugs will only be allowed to be used in a very limited way, and remain otherwise prohibited, but the move was described as a "very welcome step away from what has been decades of demonization" by Dr David Caldicott, a clinical senior lecturer in emergency medicine at Australian National University. 3,4-methylenedioxy-methamphetamine (MDMA) is commonly known as ecstasy, while psilocybin is a psychedelic commonly found in so-called magic mushrooms. Both drugs were used experimentally and therapeutically decades ago, before being criminalized. Specifically authorized psychiatrists will be able to prescribe MDMA for post-traumatic stress disorder, and psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression. Caldicott said it had become "abundantly clear" that a controlled supply of both MDMA and psilocybin "can have dramatic effects on conditions often considered refractory to contemporary treatment" and would particularly benefit returned service men and women from the Australian defense force. "The safe 're-medicalization' of certain historically illicit drugs is a very welcome step away from what has been decades of demonization," he said. "In addition to a clear and evolving therapeutic benefit, it also offers the chance to catch up on the decades of lost opportunity [of] delving into the inner workings of the human mind, abandoned for so long as part of an ill-conceived, ideological "war on drugs.'" Blobs of Human Brain Planted In Rats Offer New Treatment Hope Blobs of human brain tissue have been transplanted into the brains of rats in work that could pave the way for new treatments for devastating brain injuries. The Guardian reports: The groundbreaking study showed that the "human brain organoids" -- sesame seed-sized balls of neurons -- were able to integrate into the rat brain, linking up with their blood supplies and communicating with the rat neurons. The team behind the work suggest that eventually doctors might be able to grow blobs of brain tissue from a patient's own cells in the lab and use them to repair brain injuries caused by stroke or trauma. Chen and colleagues grew human brain organoids in a dish until they were about 1.5mm in diameter. The balls of tissue were then transplanted into the brains of adult rats that had sustained injuries to their visual cortex. Within three months, the grafted organoids had integrated with their host's brain, hooking up with the blood supply, expanding to several times the initial volume and sending out projections that linked up with the rat's neurons, according to the study published in Cell Stem Cell. The scientists did not assess whether the implants improved how well the rats were able to function, but tests showed that the human neurons fired off electrical signals when the rats were exposed to flashing lights. x NEW from NOAA SOS: This dataset shows the tsunami wave caused by the asteroid that hit Earth 66 million years ago. The wave was so impressive because the asteroid is estimated to have been 6+ miles (10+ km) in diameter! Want to learn more? https://t.co/MHCGQ1VDEa#dataviz #Data pic.twitter.com/tbIxp7keoy — NOAA Education (@NOAAeducation) January 30, 2023 Researchers Create Squid-Inspired ‘Liquid Windows’ A team of researchers at the University of Toronto has developed a multilayered fluidic system that can reduce the energy costs of heating, cooling and lighting buildings by optimizing the wavelength, intensity and dispersion of light transmitted through windows. Buildings are the costliest energy sinks on Earth. For their daily operation, which largely entails trying to heat, cool, and light the indoor environment as exterior conditions change, buildings require 32% of the energy and 50% of the electricity consumed globally, corresponding to about 25% of our greenhouse gas emissions. Moreover, the emissions associated with buildings may double or triple by mid-century with increased urbanization. Theoretical Physicists Devise New Path toward High-Energy ‘Quantum Light’ Physicists have developed a novel theory describing a new state of light, which has controllable quantum properties over a broad range of frequencies, up as high as X-ray frequencies. The world we observe around us can be described according to the laws of classical physics, but once we observe things at an atomic scale, the strange world of quantum physics takes over. Imagine a basketball: observing it with the naked eye, the basketball behaves according to the laws of classical physics. But the atoms that make up the basketball behave according to quantum physics instead. “Light is no exception: from sunlight to radio waves, it can mostly be described using classical physics,” said Dr. Andrea Pizzi, a physicist in the Department of Physics at Harvard University and the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge. “But at the micro and nanoscale so-called quantum fluctuations start playing a role and classical physics cannot account for them.” x Citizen scientists and researchers found that we are losing our view of the sky at an astonishing rate of almost 10 percent each year. https://t.co/5J6yi5Au3l — Scientific American (@sciam) January 31, 2023 Mimas Has an Expanding, Young Ocean, New Research Suggests Mimas, a small moon of Saturn, is heavily cratered and lacks the typical characteristics of an ocean-bearing moon, such as the active surface of Enceladus. However, measurements of Mimas, made by NASA’s Cassini mission, are best explained by an ocean under a relatively thick ice shell. In new research, a duo of planetary scientists tried to understand how this ice shell and ocean may have changed with time by modeling the formation of Mimas’ largest impact basin, Herschel. Mimas is the innermost, and smallest (radius = 198.2 km, or 123 miles), regular moon of Saturn. The moon’s surface is heavily cratered, and it is easily identified by the large Herschel impact basin. Tectonic activity on Mimas is sparse, and there is no evidence of past or present volcanism. “In the waning days of NASA’s Cassini mission to Saturn, the spacecraft identified a curious libration, or oscillation, in Mimas’ rotation, which often points to a geologically active body able to support an internal ocean,” said Dr. Alyssa Rhoden, a researcher at Southwest Research Institute. Coffee With Milk Have Anti-Inflammatory Effect, New Study Says [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/4/2148756/-Overnight-News-Digest-Science-Saturday-2-1-23 Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/