Welcome to Overnight News Digest- Saturday Science. Since 2007 the OND has been a regular community feature on Daily Kos, consisting of science 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.
Topics included today:
- Ig Nobel prizes 2024
- What’s at stake if Trump wins the election
- JWST reveals new perspective on Hubble tension
- NASA switches thrusters on Voyager from 24,630,000,000 miles away
- Boeing Starliner returns to earth with even more problems
- Why it’s time to change your relationship with alcohol (and how to do it)
- Prehistoric builders were smarter than we think
- Bacteria helps extract metals from recycled electronics
- Prescribing nature as a cost-effective therapy
- Do mobile phones cause cancer?
- Air dehumidification system developed by NASA in air conditioning would lower energy needs by 50%
New Science
by Marc Abrahams
Ig Nobel prizes 2024: The unexpected science that won this year
Ten unexpected things were honoured at the 34th Annual Ig Nobel prizes today, each so extremely surprising that, in the event’s long tradition, it makes people laugh, then think.
The awards gala happened at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in a lecture hall filled with paper airplanes thrown by audience members respectful of the Ig Nobel tradition of recycling paper by bringing it along and turning it into disposable aircraft.
Peaceful pigeons
This year’s Ig-winning achievements span a wide range of human, botanic and other behaviour, some of it avian.
Before one commits to using live pigeons to guide the flight paths of missiles, one might want to do experiments to learn the feasibility of housing them inside a missile nose cone. In the 1940s, psychologist B. F. Skinner undertook such experiments. He was awarded, posthumously, this year’s Ig Nobel peace prize.
*The name of the award is a pun on the Nobel Prize, which it parodies, and on the word ignoble. Wikipedia
The Guardian
by Bill McKibbon
If Trump wins the election, this is what’s at stake
Here is the biggest thing happening on our planet as we head into the autumn of 2024: the Earth is continuing to heat dramatically. Scientists have said that there’s a better than 90% chance that this year will top 2023 as the warmest ever recorded. And paleoclima-tologists were pretty sure last year was the
hottest in the last 125,000 years. The result is an almost-cliched run of disasters: open Twitter/X anytime for pictures of floods pushing cars through streets somewhere. It is starting to make life on this planet very difficult, and in some places impossible. And it’s on target to get far, far worse.
Here’s the second-biggest thing happening on our planet right now: finally, finally, renewable energy, mostly from the sun and wind, seems to be reaching some sort of takeoff point.
[…]
And here’s the third biggest thing in the months ahead: the American presidential election, which looks as if it is going down to the wire – and which may have the power to determine how high the temperature goes and how fast we turn to clean power
IFL Science
Edited by Maddy Chapman
NASA Switches Thrusters On Voyager From 24,630,000,000 Kilometers Away
After a bumpy few years, we have good news about NASA's Voyager 1 mission to share. NASA has successfully switched thrusters on the aging spacecraft from an impressive 24,630,000,000 kilometers (15,310,000,000 miles) away.
Voyager 1 has traveled further than any human-made object, crossing the heliopause and heading into interstellar space. While doing this, it has continued to send back useful data to Earth, helping us learn about the space between stars outside of our own Solar System. All this while working with just 69.63 kilobytes of memory, and running partly on code written in the archaic computer language Fortran 5.
"The button you press to open the door of your car, that has more compute power than the Voyager spacecrafts do," Voyager project manager Suzanne Dodd explained to NPR. "It's remarkable that they keep flying, and that they've flown for 46-plus years."
QUARTZ
by Owen Bellwood/Jalopnik
It's a good thing NASA sent the Boeing Starliner back to Earth empty because it had even more problems
Boeing’s BA+0.01% first foray into manned space flight has been an unmitigated cock up. Starliner launched to the International Space Station with two astronauts onboard in June and landed back on Earth two months later without them after issues were uncovered with the craft. Now, more problems have surfaced during Starliner’s return, reaffirming NASA’s decision not to trust it with the lives of Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams.
Science Focus
by David Hillier
Why it's time to change your relationship with alcohol (and how to do it)
More of us are thinking 'I should probably drink less.' But what is booze really doing to our bodies? Is abstinence as worthwhile as people say? And what's the best way to change, if not end, our relationship with alcohol?
Live Science
by Ben Turner
One of the universe's biggest paradoxes could be even weirder than we thought, James Webb telescope study reveals
New measurements taken with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have deepened the scientific controversy of the Hubble tension — suggesting it may not exist at all.
For years, astronomers have found that the universe appears to be expanding at different speeds depending on where they look, a conundrum they call the Hubble tension. Some of the measurements agree with our best current understanding of the universe, while others threaten to break it.
When JWST came online in 2022, one team of researchers used the space telescope's unprecedented accuracy
to confirm the tension exists. But according to
the new results from a different team of scientists, the Hubble tension may arise from measurement error and be an illusion after all. Yet even these results are not definitive.
IFL Science
by Maddy Chapman
Ancient Megalith Proves Prehistoric Builders Were Smarter Than We Think
When we consider ancient mega-structures like Stonehenge or the pyramids, it’s easy to experience a sense of cognitive dissonance. Whoever created these places, we think, lived in a time before things like math and engineering; heck, they didn’t even have wheels, as far as we know. And yet, somehow, they were able to build these triumphs of construction: places which can not only outlast just about anything we create today, but were often apparently kitted out with features that put even our modern technological advantages to shame.
There are two ways to resolve this clash of ideas. The first – fun, but not scientifically sound and often at least a little racist – is to claim that aliens did it. The second – illustrated in a recent paper from researchers studying Menga, a prehistoric dolmen in southern Spain – is to conclude that our ancient ancestors were simply quite a lot smarter than we give them credit for.
The Guardian
by Robin McKie
Bacteria helping to extract rare metals from old batteries in boost for green tech
Scientists have formed an unusual new alliance in their fight against climate change. They are using bacteria to help them extract rare metals vital in the development of green technology. Without the help of these microbes, we could run out of raw materials to build turbines, electric cars and solar panels, they say.
The work is being spearheaded by scientists at the University of Edinburgh and aims to use bacteria that can extract lithium, cobalt, manganese and other minerals from old batteries and discarded electronic equipment. These scarce and expensive metals are vital for making electric cars and other devices upon which green technology devices depend, a point stressed by Professor Louise Horsfall, chair of sustainable biotechnology at Edinburgh.
“If we are going to end our dependence on petrochemicals and rely on electricity for our heating, transport and power, then we will become more and more dependent on metals,” said Horsfall. “All those photovoltaics, drones, 3D printing machines, hydrogen fuel cells, wind turbines and motors for electric cars require metals – many of them rare – that are key to their operations.”
The Guardian
by Damien Carrington
‘Better than medication’: prescribing nature works, project shows
A major scheme helping people in England connect with nature led to big improvements in mental health, a report has found.
The prescribing of activities in nature to tackle mental ill health has benefited thousands of people across England, a government-backed project has shown.
More than 8,000 people were helped to take part in activities including nature walks, community gardening, tree planting and wild swimming. It is thought to be the largest such project in the world so far.
The results showed that after taking part in the schemes, people’s feelings of happiness and of life being worthwhile jumped to near national averages, while levels of anxiety fell significantly. The project also found the cost of a green prescription was about £500, making it cost-effective compared with other treatments. Cognitive behavioural therapy costs about £1,000 for 10 sessions.
New Atlas
by Michael Franco
Do mobile phones cause brain cancer? New study has definitive answers
The relationship between mobile phone use and an increased risk of brain cancer is a debate that's been around almost as long as mobile phones themselves. A huge study from the WHO that's just been released should put the question to rest.
In 1993, a Florida man named David Reynard alleged that radiation from cell phone use contributed to his wife's death from brain cancer.
Reynard sued NEC America, the company that made his wife's phone, claiming that the phone "was equipped with an antenna so positioned as to cause exposure to microwave radiation in an excessive and unsafe amount to the portion of the brain where the tumor was found."
[…]
They concluded that even though mobile phone use has skyrocketed in the last 20 years, there has not been a corresponding increase in brain cancers or any other head and neck cancers – even among those who use their cell phones the most and for periods longer than 10 years. The study-of-studies also looked at exposure to the radio waves from cell phone towers and at occupations in which people are subjected to more radio frequency radiation at work and, again, found no link with cancer.
The Cooldown
by Chloe Bryant
Former NASA engineer develops incredible device to revolutionize AC units: 'Will pay for itself within 3 years'
A revolutionary new technology developed by scientists to be used in outer space now aims to help reduce energy usage and costs down here on Earth.
The technology, developed by Helix Earth Technologies, was originally created by company CEO Rawand Rasheed at NASA to filter air on spacecraft.
Called Helix Micra, the device is an air dehumidification system that Rasheed said is six to eight times more efficient than other commercially available
technology. Installed in AC units, it would lower energy needs by
50%.
What's more about the new technology is its ease in scalability for commercial production thanks to its ability to be produced by 3D printers. According to Rasheed, the device can also be made using recycled materials, reducing production costs compared to other commercially available technology by three to five times.
This is an open thread where everyone is welcome, especially night owls and early birds, to share and discuss the science news of the day. Please share your articles and stories in the comments.
September 15th is moving day #2, so I may not be back to comment. We’ll see how it goes… Please talk amongst yourselves.
