Hello again science fans,
Здравствуйте еще раз, любители науки!
(Over 50,000 Bay Area residents speak Russian at home.)
ENVIRONMENT
“You can’t always get what you want,” and you can’t always see what you want. That is thought to be why Brown Pelicans are starving in California. These prehistoric-looking birds hunt for fish near the water’s surface, then plummet out of the sky to trap them in expanded mouths. When the ocean’s surface is choppy, pelicans are perhaps unable to see fish near the surface. It may also be true that fish avoid the top meter of water when it’s choppy. International Bird Rescue takes care of hundreds of starving Brown Pelicans when such water conditions occur. BTW, i insisted that “International” was in the organization’s name when it was founded, and international it has been, responding over 200 times rescuing birds mired in oil spills in 13 different countries. The cute Pelican & Murre logo was also my doing. International Bird Rescue has an interesting early history and relies heavily on public support. (Hint, hint, nudge, nudge)
PALEONTOLOGY
Fossil hunters have found another swamp monster to stalk us in our nightmares.
A human head would easily fit inside its mouth. Fortunately, this tetrapod went extinct over 200 million years ago . This is paleontology, after all.
MEDICINE / HEALTH
New coronavirus vaccines are now available. They have been created to protect against the latest and worst varieties of the disease. Older and more immunocompromised individuals shouldn’t wait. The rest of us might consider waiting until a month before a scheduled social or group travel event, but do not skip this new version.
Every autumn i get another flu shot, not because my immune system has faltered, but because flu viruses keep morphing. Immunologists have long attempted to concoct a single vaccine that will be effective year after year. If you are a lab mouse, that goal appears to have been achieved. A nasal vaccine has proven to be effective against a large number of flu clades – in rats. In case you were wondering, they used a form of AI to conjure up their vaccine.
The Journal of the American Medical Association, JAMA, announced it is open to journal submissions created by AI. “We have no reservations about using AI to generate abstracts or even full articles as long as the final product can be reviewed and edited.” The Journal also noted that AI chatbots show promise in responding to informal patient questions. “Chatbot responses were of fair quality and appeared to exhibit more empathy than some physicians’ answers.”
The World Health Organization has declared mpox to be a PHEIC, a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. This declaration allows the WHO to use an mpox vaccine without further regulatory delay. The clade Ib mpox virus is spreading rapidly in the Democratic Republic of the Congo with an expected 10% fatality rate. At present, mpox is not threatening countries outside of Africa.
Prior to the Flexner Report in 1910, medical education and medical practice in the US was a free-for-all. The Report uncovered many ‘medical schools’ that were thoroughly inadequate, and that many – if not most – treatments and medicines were useless. Snake oils and quack medicine were rampant. The Report recommended many changes that were subsequently implemented; changes that have resulted in rigorous science-based college-affiliated medical schools and medicines that are tested for effectiveness. I suspect that the absence of a similar study in many other countries is one reason why useless medicines and useless treatments persist today outside the US.
SPACE
“Polaris Dawn” or “Billionaire & Friends in Space” doesn’t conjure up quite the same anticipation of excitement as “Flash Gordon and the Monsters of Mongo” but it is pretty ambitious and it is really happening in space this week, not on a movie set. The crew of four – Anna Menon, Scott Poteet, Jared Isaacman, and Sarah Gillis – plan to travel farther from the Earth’s surface than anyone since the Apollo Program a half century ago where they and their SpaceX Dragon capsule will be subjected to the high-energy Van Allen Radiation Belt. They will open the capsule to the vacuum of space (after purging nitrogen from their bodies to avoid the ‘bends’) and float out into the void. ¿What could possibly go wrong?
TUNE IN AGAIN NEXT WEEK FOR ANOTHER THRILLING EPISODE!
Meanwhile back at the ranch International Space Station, Suni and Butch are stranded. NASA decided the Boeing Starliner will return empty to Earth due to thruster irregularities. First, however, computers on the Starliner need to be re-programmed for an autonomous re-entry and landing. Thought was given for Suni and Butch to share a ride back to Earth in a scheduled return of two regular crew members in the SpaceX Dragon Capsule currently docked at the ISS, but there are only two Dragon spacesuits available. The Boeing Starliner spacesuit umbilicals cannot connect to the Dragon Capsule. The umbilicals supply communications, air conditioning, and – in the event of decompression – pressure and oxygen.
TUNE IN AGAIN NEXT WEEK FOR ANOTHER DREARY EPISODE!
The European Space Agency’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, Juice, narrowly missed the Moon and Earth last week – on purpose. Launched in April of 2023, it was using gravity assists to speed it up and send it to Venus – which is sorta the wrong way since its destination is Jupiter’s moons. But put trust in those slide-rule toting scientists. The gravity assist from Venus a year from now will speed up Juice even more, sending it back to Earth for another gravity assist in September 2026. But that’s not all, folks. In 2029 it will get a third gravity assist from Earth during yet another close flyby, and that will give it sufficient velocity to reach Jupiter in July 2031. Well almost. The craft also uses the Oberth effect (named after Hermann Oberth of Transylvania) by firing its thrusters during the gravity assists. Combining gravity assists with Oberth ‘burns’ saves a lot of fuel.
Another group of slide-rule toting scientists have ‘imaged’ the surface of Polaris, the North Star, by using an interferometer array at the Wilson Observatory near Los Angeles. They were not expecting Polaris to look so blotchy, but it is the first Cepheid Variable star to be imaged and perhaps all Cepheids are blotchy. Polaris is about 433 light years away, so its apparent diameter from Earth is smaller than a pinhead on top of the UC Berkeley Campanile as seen from the Farallon Islands. My mind is righteously boggled.
FUN (?) NERDY VIDEOS
Cherry Blossom Chocolates – Show & Tell – Joe Schwarcz – 3 mins
Anti-Matter Helium Detected at the ISS – Sabine Hossenfelder 5.5 mins
Iterative Evolution: Aldabra Rail – Bizarre Beasts – Hank Green – 8 mins
How Cosmic Rays Become So Powerful – PBS Space Time – Matt O’Dowd – 12 mins
X-Ray Telescope with a Stuck Lens Cap – Sixty Symbols – Mike Merrifield – 19 mins
Sounds and Perceptions – Veritaseum – Derek Muller – 23 mins
Latest on the Hubble Tension – Dr. Becky – Becky Smethurst – 27 mins
Gaia, the Billion Star Surveyor – EarthSky – Deborah Byrd & Phil Plait – 29 mins
Engineering the Future: Maritime – 52 mins
Expand your empathy circle, chat with a stranger, and have a great week,
Dave Almandsmith, Bay Area Skeptics
“Here are the most important pieces of advice that I’ve passed on to my children. One, remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Two, never give up work. Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it. Three, if you are lucky enough to find love, remember it is there and don’t throw it away.”
– Stephen Hawking (1942 – 2018) English theoretical physicist