Remains of organic molecules are found in the nucleus of ancient dinosaur cells

• Sneha Mali
 
• September 25, 2021
 
•  Sci/Tech

A team of scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleontherology (IVPP) and the Shandong Tianyu Museum of Nature (STM) have preserved the finest 125 million-year-old dinosaurs in the northeast. China containing nuclei containing organic molecules and chromatin residues. The study was published September 24 in Communications Biology.

A dinosaur named Caudipteryx was a small peacock-shaped omnivore with long tail wings. During the early Cretaceous, they roamed the shores of the shallow lakes of Jehol Biota in Liaoning Province.

“Geological data has been accumulated over the years and it has been shown that fossil defenses in Jehol Biotta were exceptional because the bodies were trapped by fine volcanic ash and were preserved at the cellular level,” said Li Zhiheng, associate professor of IVPP and co-author of the study.

Scientists removed a piece of distal articular cartilage from the right thigh of this specimen, decomposed it, and used various microscopy and chemical methods to analyze it. After the death of the animal, they realized that all the cells had been mineralized by selection. This silicification most likely allows for the best preservation of these cells.

They also discovered two main types of cells: cells that were healthy at the time of the fossil, and healthy cells that were porous and non-fossilized in the process of dying. “It’s possible that these cells were dying before the animals died,” said Alida Baleul, an associate professor at IVPP and co-author of the study.

Cell death is a process that occurs naturally in the lives of all animals. But being able to place fossil cells in a specific place in the cell cycle is very new in paleontology. IVPP scientists have one goal: to improve cellular images in fossils.

Furthermore, the team isolated some cells and stained them with chemicals used in biological laboratories around the world. This purple chemical called hematoxylin is attached to the nuclei of cells. After staining the dinosaur material, a dinosaur cell showed a purple nucleus containing some dark purple threads. This means that a nucleus in a 125 million-year-old dinosaur cell is so well preserved that it retains some of the original bio-molecules and chromatin threads.

Chromatin is made up of tightly packed DNA molecules in the cells of all living things on Earth. The results of this study thus provide preliminary data that suggest that remnants of the original dinosaur DNA can still be preserved. But to test this precisely, the team needs to do a lot more work and use chemical methods that are more sophisticated than the stains they use here.

“Let’s be honest, we’re clearly interested in fossil cell nuclei because most DNA should be there if DNA is protected.” Last year she published another study reporting exceptional molecular and biomolecular protection in dinosaur cartilage cells in Montana. “So, we have good basic data, very exciting data, but we’re starting to understand cellular biochemistry even in older fossils. At this point, you need to do more work.”

The team insists they need to do more analysis and develop new methods to understand the processes that allow biomolecular protection in dinosaur cells, as no one has ever successfully sequenced dinosaur DNA. In the ancient DNA community, sequence methods are used to confirm whether ancient DNA is preserved in fossils. So far, these methods have only worked for young fossils (not more than a million years old), but they have never worked for dinosaur material. Dinosaurs are considered too old to preserve any DNA. However, the chemical data collected by scientists from IVPP and STM suggest otherwise.

Although more data needs to be collected, this study clearly shows that 125 million-year-old fossil dinosaur cells cannot be considered 100% rock. They are not completely “stoned”. Instead, it still contains remnants of organic molecules. Now, it is essential to find out exactly what these molecules are, whether they retain any biological information and DNA remnants.

These dinosaur diseases, which might seem familiar, reveal how they lived and died

Katie Hunt
CNN Digital
Thursday, September 23, 2021 

The lower jaw of SUE the T. rex is pitted with holes that experts believe were the result of a parasitic infection. (Source: Koichi Kamoshida / Getty Images via CNN)

Tyrannosaurus rex battled parasites and got gout from its meat-rich diet. Duck-billed hadrosaurs suffered cancerous tumours, and a towering sauropod in China survived a nasty pus-filled infection from a predator bite.

Dinosaurs, like us, got sick and injured. By detecting these medical conditions in fossils, paleopathologists, experts in ancient disease and injuries, are gaining tantalizing insights into dinosaur behaviour and evolution -- how a dinosaur moved through its world, the relationship between predator and prey, and how dinosaurs of the same species interacted.

Until relatively recently, however, diagnosing multi-million-year-old diseases from fossilized bones was decidedly hit-and-miss.

First off, the fossil record only reveals a small fraction of the creatures that lived in the past, and those that reach us have withstood multiple obstacles over millions of years. What's more, with soft tissue largely missing from fossils, scientists rely on bones for information. And it's often very hard to determine whether deformations in a dinosaur's bone structure were caused by disease or the crush of sediment over time.

Paleontologists can identify strange structures, bone overgrowths, rough surfaces, and holes or porous surfaces in areas where they should not be without the help of special tools. But the application of medical advances like computerized tomography to paleontology have allowed researchers to peer through rock to see what's happening inside fossilized bones.

"It's imperative to have an inner view of the bone," said Filippo Bertozzo, a post-doctoral researcher at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences in Brussels. "If you have doubts whether a bone is deformed by pathology or geological processes, you need to see inside."

"If it's geology at play, you wouldn't see any change in the structure of the cells."

Often it takes a raft of experts in different fields to confirm a diagnosis. Think of an episode of the television series "House" for dinosaurs.

"The study of paleopathologies is more than simply identifying a disease, it is opening a window to learn about interactions with the environment and social behaviour," said Penélope Cruzado-Caballero, a paleontologist at the Research Institute of Palaeobiology and Geology of CONICET, Argentina's National Council for Scientific and Technical Research, and the National University of Río Negro (Argentina).

For example, paleontologists had long been stumped by the unusual domed skulls of Pachycephalosaurs -- small, plant-eating dinosaurs that are bit players in the "Jurassic Park" movie franchise. The discovery of bone lesions resulting from injuries in adults suggested that they used the domes to butt heads -- a bit like big-horned sheep do.

NOT JUST BIG, BUT TOUGH

The most commonly detected pathology in the dinosaur fossil record is bone fractures -- with some dinosaurs apparently surviving very severe trauma that must have left them living in great pain.

Bertozzo has detailed the injuries suffered by one Parasaurolophus walkeri, a dinosaur with a long, curved crest. Its fossil was unearthed in 1921 and has been on display at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto for decades.

For years, paleontologists had thought a V-shape indentation in the dinosaur's spine was part of its natural posture -- perhaps to accommodate its long, dramatic headgear.

A new analysis published in 2020 found that the dent was due to a broken back. The creature also had broken ribs, a deformed pelvis and a dental lesion. Bertozzo believes the broken back was possibly caused by a falling rock or tree, but the dinosaur didn't die of its injuries -- at least not immediately. Bertozzo said it would have lived at least four months, and their analysis suggested the injuries had begun to heal before the creature's death.

Bertozzo believes that some dinosaurs must have been able to overcome and survive massive injuries. He said one hypothesis is that a strong immune system was a survival mechanism for some herbivores, like Hadrosaurs, which didn't have defensive features like armored plates, spiked tails or sharp horns common in other plant-eating species, such as Triceratops.

Dinosaurs also lived with cancer -- in some cases the same form that afflicts humans today. A horned dinosaur called Centrosaurus apertus that lived 76 to 77 million years ago in what's now Alberta, Canada, was diagnosed in a study published in 2020 with osteosarcoma -- an aggressive malignant bone cancer that can affect humans.

Researchers concluded it was an advanced stage of cancer that may have spread throughout the dinosaur's body. But what might have been a death sentence for one dinosaur, another could endure.

Cruzado-Caballero diagnosed the same cancer in Bonapartesaurus, unearthed in Argentinean Patagonia in the 1980s. This dinosaur had a large cauliflower-like overgrowth of bone on its foot but, she said the growth hadn't spread to other parts of the animal's body, and she didn't think it would have seriously affected its day-to-day life. Likely more painful were two fractures in its tail, which healed in an abnormal position and may have been infected while healing, said Cruzado-Caballero, who is also a professor at the University of La Laguna in Tenerife, Spain.

STARVING T. REX

T. rex was the ultimate dinosaur predator, weighing as much as two African elephants, but it could fall victim to the tiniest of foes: parasites.

The lower jaw of SUE the T. rex, the most complete T. rex skeleton ever found, was pitted with smooth-edged holes. Initially experts thought they were bite marks or a bone infection, but researchers ultimately concluded the holes were a result of a parasitic infection called trichomonosis. The condition can also effect the lower jaw of modern birds like pigeons, doves and chickens.


"The parasite effectively eats chunks of the jaw bone. This extremely nasty condition causes severe damage and pain around the mouth, throat and esophagus, making simple things like eating and drinking unpleasant to nearly impossible," said Dean Lomax, a paleontologist at the University of Manchester's Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, in his book, "Locked in Time: Animal Behavior Unearthed in 50 Extraordinary Fossils."

"Once the animal was infected, feeding would have been difficult, and it is highly likely that, as seen in living birds, the mighty tyranosaurs lost considerable weight before eventually starving to death."

While SUE the T. rex, who is on display at Chicago's Field Museum, may have starved to death, paradoxically the dinosaur also suffered another medical problem that in humans is linked with overindulging in food and wine.

Gout is a form of inflammatory arthritis caused by buildup of uric acid, which can erode bones. SUE's right forearm had "gouty lesions," according to a report in Nature. The condition in animals today, including birds and reptiles, can be the result of dehydration or kidney failure. In humans, it's associated with foods that have a high purine content, such as red meat -- something that no doubt made up the bulk of T. rex meals.

COULD DINOSAURS HAVE BEEN ATTACKED BY CORONAVIRUSES?

It's also possible that dinosaurs suffered from respiratory diseases, such as pneumonia, or contagious ones like tuberculosis, although it's unclear whether dinosaurs contracted diseases similar to COVID-19. The oldest suspected case of a respiratory disease of any kind is from a 245-million-year old marine reptile.

"Birds, especially pet birds, do suffer from pulmonary infection. Birds are dinosaurs, and dinosaurs presented, most likely, a birdlike lung system," Bertozzo said. "I would expect dinosaurs to suffer from similar pulmonary infections as in birds. Of course, COVID is a novel disease, we cannot know if something similar happened in the past, so we can't say if dinosaurs suffered from COVID-like diseases."

Bertozzo is building a database to record incidences of trauma and disease across different species of ornithopods -- a family of plant-eating dinosaurs that includes iguanadons, hadrosaurs and duck-billed dinosaurs -- and across different time periods. He hopes it will help answer questions like which group of these dinosaurs was most likely to suffer disease and whether these conditions affected dinosaur behaviour.

"It's a growing field that is going to give us a lot information about the lives of these fascinating creatures," he said.

The tubular crest of Parasaurolophus is on display at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto.

 (Source: Education Images / Universal Images Group Editorial / Getty via CNN

Weatherwatch: the threat to Trident from global heating

Rising sea levels present a hazard to the UK’s nuclear deterrent that could cause a major accident

HMS Vigilant, a Vanguard-class nuclear submarine, docked at HMNB Clyde in Faslane, Scotland. 

Photograph: Danny Lawson/PA

Paul Brown
Sat 25 Sep 2021 

The US has acknowledged that global heating is a significant threat to its defence capability, with 79 military bases, including 23 nuclear installations, subject to sea level rise and frequent flooding.

While the UK has far fewer military bases to worry about, the key Trident nuclear deterrent requires a submarine to be constantly at sea ready for action. A series of coastal sites is needed to keep these boats and their weapons serviced at all times.

In 2010, a UK National Security Strategy acknowledged that sea-level rise was a hazard to this programme that could cause a major accident. In the 11 years since then, nothing seems to have happened to address the problem even though the estimates of future sea level rise and storm surges have become ever more alarming.

The Nuclear Consulting Group, an independent group of academics, has produced a helpful report on the threats to Britain’s nuclear bases in 2050. The maps showing potential danger to vital bases are not based on alarming upper level predictions but the more conservative middle range.

Worst affected by flooding are the naval base at Faslane, which is 25 miles from Glasgow and where the nuclear-armed submarines are based, and the shipyard at Barrow-in-Furness in Cumbria where they are built and fuelled.

 

Record High Temperatures In The Pacific Likely The Reason Behind Last Year’s Massive Hole In Arctic Ozone

New analysis suggests a high chance of it being a regular occurrence in the future.

By Dese Gowda  September 24, 2021 

 

Early last year, an unusually large hole opened up in the ozone layer over the Arctic, encompassing an area of up to 1 million square km, albeit smaller than the Antarctic ozone hole, which is roughly around 20 to 25 million square kilometers in area.

Although the hole closed by springtime, two months after opening up, it left scientists puzzled about the cause behind it.

A new analysis performed by scientists from the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science at Peking University seems to point at record-breaking temperatures in the North Pacific Ocean during winter as the cause behind the unusual occurrence. The analysis published in the journal Advances of Atmospheric Sciences, suggests high chances of it being a regular occurrence in the future.

The researchers ran a series of simulations using satellite data and found high sea surface temperatures during winter in the North Pacific Ocean caused lowered temperatures of the Arctic westerly winds.

These winds blow through the region throughout winter up until spring and can trigger polar cloud formation if their temperatures are cold enough for long periods.

Cloud formation in the stratosphere in the North and South poles plays a key role in severely depletion ozone. Unlike over the Antarctic, the stratospheric vortex in the Arctic is usually too warm for polar stratospheric cloud formation.

The researcher found that during February and March 2020, North Pacific ocean surface temperatures led to a reduction of planetary wave activity, which in turn caused extremely cold and persistent stratospheric polar vortex during the same period.

According to Prof. Yongyun Hu, lead author of the study, the record Arctic ozone loss in spring last year indicates that substances that deplete ozone in present-day are still sufficient to cause springtime depletion. The results of the analysis indicate that ozone loss is most likely to be a recurring phenomenon.

Cover Image: Depletion of zone levels over the Arctic between March and April 2020. Credit: Copernicus/ESA

 

Formation Of Earth And Venus Was A Messier Affair Than Previously Thought

Planets within the inner solar system likely formed after repeated hit-and-run collisions, potentially upending current models of planet formation.

By Dese Gowda  September 24, 2021 

The formation of planets in the inner solar system was messier and complicated than previously thought, according to a new paper.

Planets such as Earth and Venus were previously thought to have formed when smaller rocks, asteroids, and debris, collide and stick together to form a neat, round planet, which further grew as it accumulated more mass from further collisions.

The new research suggests that much of the planets within the inner solar system were likely formed after repeated hit-and-run collisions, potentially upending current models of planet formation.

The paper published in the journal, The Planetary Science focuses on two of the biggest planets within the inner solar system – Earth and Venus and the Earth’s moon. In the paper, the researchers argue that giant impacts are not efficient in merging masses as previously believed by scientists.

They propose a scenario where pre-planetary masses repeatedly crashed into and ricocheted off each other, before colliding with each other again at a later time. Having been slowed down by the first collisions, the objects would be able to stick together better the second time.

According to Erick Asphaug, lead author of the paper and professor at Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, most giant impacts, even relatively “slow” ones, are hit-and-run collisions and won’t lead to colliding masses sticking together. For two planets or rocks to merge, they usually have to slow down first. For instance, it probably took collisions for the moon to form.

The paper suggests that the planets Venus and Earth would have had completely different experiences during their formation, despite being neighbours.

The solar system is a gravity well; the closer a planet is to the sun, the stronger the gravitational pull from the sun experienced by the planet. Hence, when objects move closer to the sun, they are more likely to stay there. Therefore, a young Earth acted as a vanguard to Venus, slowing down and bouncing away bodies colliding with it for the first time, making it more like for them to be absorbed by Venus.

Cover Image: Shutterstock

Ancient impact that formed Earth's moon was likely a one-two punch

Twice the cosmic violence!

By Mike Wall 2 days ago

Earth's moon is thought to have formed when a Mars-sized object, called Theia, slammed into the proto-Earth more than 4.4 billion years ago, blasting out material that later coalesced into a large satellite as depicted in this artist's illustration.

 (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

The gigantic impact that created the moon was actually a one-two punch, a new study suggests.

Scientists think that the moon, our planet's only natural satellite, was born in violence, coalescing from the material blasted into space after a Mars-size body named Theia slammed into the proto-Earth more than 4.4 billion years ago.

But there are some problems with the canonical collision scenario, which invokes a single catastrophic event, the authors of the new study said.

"The standard model for the moon requires a very slow collision, relatively speaking, and it creates a moon that is composed mostly of the impacting planet, not the proto-Earth, which is a major problem since the moon has an isotopic chemistry almost identical to Earth," lead author Erik Asphaug, a professor at the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory (LPL), said in a statement.

Related: How was the moon formed?

The moon is thought to be the aftermath of a giant impact. According to a new theory, there were two giant impacts in a row, separated by 100,000 to 1 million years, involving a Mars-sized body called Theia and proto-Earth. In this image, the proposed hit-and-run collision is simulated in 3D, shown about an hour after impact. A cut-away view shows the iron cores. Theia (or most of it) barely escapes, so a follow-on collision is likely.

 (Image credit: A. Emsenhuber/University of Bern/University of Munich)

Double whammy made the moon

Asphaug and his colleagues performed computer simulations of the long-ago giant impact and came up with what they believe to be a better fit: Theia and the proto-Earth crashed at faster speeds than previously envisioned, producing an initial "hit and run" collision that set the stage for a slower, accretionary encounter between the two battered bodies about 100,000 to 1 million years down the road.

"The double impact mixes things up much more than a single event, which could explain the isotopic similarity of Earth and moon, and also how the second, slow, merging collision would have happened in the first place," Asphaug said.

Hit-and-run collisions weren't restricted to the nascent Earth-moon system in those early days. Indeed, such bouncing smashups were probably about as common as accretionary mergers in the ancient inner solar system, the same research team reports in a second new study.

In the second paper, the scientists modeled giant impacts in the inner solar system, how those collisions affected planet formation and how the orbits of the involved objects evolved over time. They found that Earth likely acted as a sort of shield for Venus, taking the brunt of hit-and-run first impacts. Those initial collisions slowed the impactors down, setting the stage for accretionary mergers with Venus later.

"The prevailing idea has been that it doesn't really matter if planets collide and don't merge right away, because they are going to run into each other again at some point and merge then," Alexandre Emsenhuber, the lead author of the second study, said in the same statement.

"But that is not what we find," said Emsenhuber, who performed the research during a postdoctoral fellowship in Asphaug's lab at LPL and is now at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, Germany. "We find they end up more frequently becoming part of Venus, instead of returning back to Earth. It's easier to go from Earth to Venus than the other way around." (This is because Venus lies closer to the sun, whose powerful gravity draws objects in.)

The results suggest that the compositions of Earth and Venus may differ more than scientists had thought.

"You would think that Earth is made up more of material from the outer system because it is closer to the outer solar system than Venus," Asphaug said. "But actually, with Earth in this vanguard role, it makes it actually more likely for Venus to accrete outer solar system material."

Both new studies — the one led by Asphaug and the one led by Emsenhuber — were published online Thursday (Sept. 24) in The Planetary Science Journal.


Mike Wall is the author of "Out There" (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.

Niskayuna man believes he solved mystery of the universe

By Zachary Matson | September 25, 2021

PHOTOGRAPHER: ERICA MILLER
Paul LaViolette at his home in Niskayuna on Sept. 9.\

Sitting in the top-floor study of his childhood Niskayuna home, Paul LaViolette puzzles over the deepest questions of the universe.

Massive bound volumes of his doctoral thesis in general systems theory, old science journals and a series of volumes of his self-published book line shelves in the house designed by famous GE architect Victor Civkin.

Working through dense calculations and decoding pictures of faraway stars and galaxies, LaViolette has spent decades refining his own theories about the universe. He doesn’t work with massive telescopes or particle accelerators, tools used by enormous teams of scientists across the planet to refine their theories about how the universe originated and how it operates. But he asks the same questions. Where did the universe come from and how did it start? How is matter created? Why does it appear the universe is expanding so quickly?

LaViolette, though, has come up with very different answers to those questions than the mainstream scientists who populate university faculties, government agencies and research laboratories.

“I disproved the Big Bang theory,” LaViolette said in a phone call last month, adding that he recently published a pair of papers this summer in the International Journal of Astrophysics, a peer-reviewed journal, outlining his definitive takedown of what has been considered the definitive scientific model of the origin of the universe.

The first article’s title, “Expanding or Static Universe: Emergence of a New Paradigm,” understates what LaViolette is proposing: scrap the dominant theory of the history of the universe taught in nearly every grade in nearly every school in the country.

The Big Bang theory basically holds that the history of our universe traces back to a single point of energy that exploded into existence and over a long period of time expanded into the universe we know today.

But LaViolette thinks most scientists are looking at the data from the wrong perspective, misunderstanding shifts on the light spectrum as they observe faraway galaxies as evidence of an expanding universe. Rather, he thinks the so-called “redshift” most scientists point to as evidence of an expanding universe is just a sign of the loss of energy that photons from distant galaxies have as they travel through space. That theory of the redshift, known as the “tired light” theory, has been around for decades. But LaViolette has repurposed it to demonstrate that a static universe, one that is not expanding as is commonly understood, makes a simpler explanation of numerous astronomical phenomena. His paper presents a series of cosmology tests, used to test different theories of the universe against various data sets, and argues that a static model of the universe bests an expanding model of the universe on all of the tests he presents — unless various assumptions are added into the models about anything from the angles of galaxies to factors about their distance. Even then, LaViolette argues, assumptions made to improve the performance of a traditional expanding-universe model on one test worsen the theory’s performance on other tests.

“In overview, it is concluded that a static universe cosmology must be sought to explain the origin of the universe,” he declared in the paper’s abstract.

His theory

LaViolette, now in his 70s, grew up in Niskayuna, where his parents worked in the area’s scientific research industry, including at Knolls labs. After two years of high school in Niskayuna, his family moved to Greece. He studied at Johns Hopkins and University of Chicago, and worked at the Harvard School of Public Health. During the Vietnam era, he conducted research into ventilation systems used on masks. He earned a patent on new mask technology in 1973, but said he was unable to gain traction as he spent a few years trying to sell his idea — he couldn’t induce the wide-scale adoption he had hoped for.

“Because they used to make [masks] a certain way, they didn’t want to change,” he said.

He eventually moved to Portland, Oregon, to study at the country’s only doctoral program in general systems theory at the time. As he worked on his tome of a dissertation, LaViolette started to think of the universe in terms of an open system, one where matter could effectively generate out of itself, especially in the most volatile parts of the universe.

“It was the longest Ph.D. in the history of the program, and it still is,” he said of his dissertation. “They bring it out to intimidate people.”

Since then he has continued to develop and fine-tune his arguments against an expanding-universe model, hoping his ideas would gain traction.

In an article titled “Is the Universe Really Expanding?” published in 1985, LaViolette relies on a smaller set of cosmology tests and data than his most recent papers to build a case that a static-universe model can offer a better explanation than the Big Bang.

“I thought that one had disproved Big Bang,” he said of the earlier paper.

The theory, though, has proved stubbornly resistant to its demise. As scientists collect more and more data about the universe, they have fine-tuned their own models, theories and equations — but major holes and uncertainty still persist (no model has yet tied together large-scale and subatomic theories of physics, for example).

If mainstream science ever does adopt LaViolette’s theory of the universe, it will spell doom for many fundamental tenets of physics and astronomy. No black holes, he said. No quantum mechanics (which helps explain physics at the scale of atoms and subatomic particles). No Einstein’s theory of general relativity (which helps explain gravitational physics at a large scale).

“You have to throw it out,” he said. “Even the ages of stars change.”

He has also inched toward his own novel cosmology — a broad theory of the origin of the universe — developed over decades called “subquantum kinetics.” He has written numerous editions of a book on the topic. The model, which replaces the void left by the destruction wrought by disproving the Big Bang theory, predicts that a cosmic ether at the subatomic level is capable of producing energy fluctuations that in some scenarios can nucleate a subatomic particle. He calls it a continuous-creation theory, where matter is constantly being created within a static universe.

“Matter produces more matter — it’s like biological reproduction in a way,” he said.

LaViolette argues that most scientists stubbornly adhere to the law of energy conservation — that the total amount of energy in a system remains constant — and should instead accept a model where new energy can emerge.

“They [mainstream scientists] believe in taking the first law of thermodynamics and applying it down to the minutest detail,” he said. “The whole thing is based on faith that energy is conserved so rigorously.”

He said mainstream scientists are often clouded by their beliefs in their own models and create theoretical assumptions that ensure those models work. Using an unflattering analogy to tree monkeys, he explained that scientists will hold fast to the Big Bang theory until an alternative gains broader acceptance — fearing the metaphorical limb.

“They’ve already assumed their model is correct. They don’t want to admit another way of looking at things,” he said. “Physicists, they are like monkeys clinging to a tree. Unless they see another tree to jump to, they won’t.”

‘Huge Unknowns’

Heidi Jo Newberg, an astrophysicist at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute known for her work understanding the structure of the Milky Way galaxy, earth’s home galaxy, said the broader field often hears from out-of-the-box thinkers with a hodgepodge of their own theories. She said the ideas fall on a wide spectrum of seriousness and rigor.

“I regularly get books and manuscripts from people all of the time, and they range from people who are just crazy, have crazy, crazy things, to people who are very knowledgeable and have a really good sense of science and terminology and the fields they are in,” she said in an interview.

While Newberg had not studied LaViolette’s recent papers and did not offer direct support or rebuttal of his theory, she noted that it was published in a revered journal and appeared to be scientifically rigorous.

“It looks to me like this is on the more knowledgeable side of it,” she said.

Newberg explained that the scientific field’s dominant understanding of the origin of the universe is both highly detailed and supported by vast data, while also containing huge holes filled by yet-to-be-proven explanations.

“There are a lot of things we think we do know and some of them are really amazing, but there is a huge amount, almost an embarrassing amount, we don’t understand about our standard model,” she said.

The standard model — the framework broadly accepted by scientists and taught at different academic levels — holds that our universe expanded out of an “infinitely dense source point,” Newberg said, expanding at fluctuating rates over vast amounts of time as gravitational forces pulled together galaxies and ever-bigger astronomical structures.

Scientists have accumulated enormous quantities of data on the size and scale of different formations in the universe. The intergalactic distances light must travel to be observed by satellites and telescopes offers a glimpse of stars as they existed billions of years ago.

“We have a kind of working understanding of the history of the universe that explains everything that we see,” she said. “In the last few decades, we have been in a really, really strong period for constraining the universe and how it’s evolved.”

While much of the data lends further support to the standard model and further refines scientific understanding of different dimensions of that model, the explanations underpinning the standard model rely on some theoretical patches to cover enormous gaps of knowledge.

For the standard model to work, for instance, scientists posit the existence of so-called “dark matter,” which accounts for the majority of the matter in the universe and helps explain various observations and patterns in astronomy.

But one big problem remains for dark matter theorists: After decades of theorizing and building highly tuned detectors aimed at identifying an actual dark matter particle, scientists have still come up short in doing so.

“People have been looking for 30 years. We think eventually someone will find this,” Newberg said, noting that the theoretical presence of dark matter helps tie together numerous theories around how things work on a large scale.

“There are very big pieces that are notional,” she said of the dominant cosmological model. “Dark matter is notional, but when you put it in everything works.”

For LaViolette, the holes in the standard model bolster his theory that it doesn’t actually hold together without the “ad-hoc assumptions” he said scientists plug into their equations to make their theories work. He argues that scientists at mainstream institutions are too wedded to their theories to accept an alternative model — or allow consideration of paradigm-shifting ideas.

Newberg countered that scientists broadly are independently minded fact-finders who regularly contest one another’s theories, ideas, data and approaches, forcing further refinement and defense of their ideas on a regular basis. “I think the science establishment isn’t so monolithic as people think,” she said. “We are all individuals and we argue all the time. In my work, I’m constantly challenged by people who have all the data that is available and make sure what I do is consistent with what we know.”

Newberg said it is possible that cosmology may be more susceptible to a dramatic paradigm shift because of the large unknowns and vast space and time at play. The mystique and allure of questions about the universe and its history serve as a further accelerant that draws contrarian thinkers to propose ideas and theories that counter the dominant model. She said she is working with an artist-inventor who proposed to her an alternative idea for a space telescope.

“Where you have a big problem that is very exciting and interesting, and has such huge unknowns, that’s going to be a big draw for people that are really interesting … and in some ways, there is an opportunity for someone to come with an idea from outside the field that changes everything,” she said.

She noted that over the years various scientists have proffered alternative theories to different components of the standard model, but that they don’t hold up against a deluge of observational data the same way theories attached to the standard expanding-universe model do. An alternative theory might explain one phenomenon but not another. Among most scientists, though, there is no leading competitor to the Big Bang theory, she said.

“I think there is an opportunity to come up with other versions of cosmology, but it’s challenging to fit all of the data,” she said. “It’s easy to come up with something that is consistent with some things but not everything.”

For his part, LaViolette isn’t waiting for the rest of science to catch up, working on a new edition to his book, “Subquantum Kinetics: A Systems Approach to Physics and Cosmology,” and taking comfort in his confidence that science will eventually follow the path he has tried to lay out. Whether or not he’s around to see the day that happens is another question.

“I totally believe this is the way physics will go in the future,” he said.

Civkin, Victor | Queens Modern

https://queensmodern.com/qmarchitects/civkin-victor

Victor Civkin, the synagogue’s architect was not particularly well-known especially in New York. However he also designed a temple using similar materials in Fairfield, Connecticut, as well as numerous residential structures in southwest Connecticut. Search Queens Modern. Search for: Search . Architects. Award Categories. Current Status. Neighborhoods. Typologies. Year Awarded. Apply filter ...

Missing:

 

• GE architect

Must include:

 

• GE architect

GE architect’s modernist designs in Schenectady County ...

https://blog.timesunion.com/business/ge-architects-modernist-designs...

2012-05-20 · GE architect’s modernist designs in Schenectady County By Eric Anderson on May 20, 2012 at 10:48 AM A rchitect Victor Civkin launched his career in the kitchen.

Missing:

 

• Victor Civkin.

Must include:

 

• Victor Civkin.

Victor Civkin | 06880

https://06880danwoog.com/tag/victor-civkin

2010-01-29 · But back to that Victor Civkin house on High Point. A Russian refugee, he designed 900 projects independently — residences, stores, theaters, synagogues, office buildings, restaurants, community centers — and hundreds more for GE, including the 1939 World’s Fair GE Pavilions, FDR’s White House kitchens, and futuristic model homes. The guy was no slouch. But that house on High …

Missing:

 

• Victor Civkin.

Must include:

 

• Victor Civkin.

Earth glows mystical green in epic aurora image from the International Space Station

A full moon, an aurora and Earth come together in a mystical moment seen from space.

Amanda Kooser
Sept. 26, 2021 

ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet captured a stunner of a view of an aurora during a full moon.ESA/NASA/Thomas Pesquet

I've seen a lot of photos taken from the International Space Station of auroras floating over Earth in magical waves of glowing light. They have all been worthy of a moment of quiet reflection, but a fresh image from European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet has left me in awe.

Pesquet is currently on board the ISS, circling around in orbit and capturing some fine views of our planet. He called this new aurora image "special as it is so bright" in a tweet on Friday. "It is the full moon lighting up the shadow side of Earth, almost like daylight," he explained.



The ISS image comes from August. Pesquet has been in residence on the ISS since April and is scheduled to return to Earth sometime in November. He has put his space photography skills to good use, recently wowing us with a photo of city lights on Earth mirrored by stars in the darkness.

Auroras are also known as the northern lights or southern lights. "The dancing lights of the aurora provide spectacular views from the ground, and also capture the imaginations of scientists who study incoming energy and particles from the sun," NASA has said.

But I'm here for the drop-my-jaw-to-the-floor beauty of Pesquet's image. For the way the clouds swirl and Earth's blue waters peek out from below. For the glowing green radiance reminding me some magic is real.

'Worst crop since ‘88': Sask. farmers facing tough harvest

Tyler Barrow

Video Journalist CTV News Saskatoon

Sunday, September 26, 2021


Tough harvest in Sask.

SASKATOON -- After scorching temperatures this past summer, farmers are wrapping up their harvest with the majority of them facing lower than expected yields.

Kevin Hursh farms northeast of Swift Current and said he expects this year's drought to have a huge impact on his crop.

“This is the worst crop since 1988 and in many ways this was a worse year than 1988," Hursh said.

Hursh said the extreme heat played a significant role in his reduced yield. His farm was short on several of their contracts.

"You contract the first 10 bushels per acre at a price and you think 'well if we produce a half or a third, that’s safe,'" Hursh said. "In some cases, we were less than that, and we’re actually buying back some of the contracts to have seed for next year on a couple of contracts."

The Agriculture Producers Association of Saskatchewan (APAS) says 75 per cent of its producers have completed their 2021 harvest, with the remaining wrapping up over the next few days. The overwhelming majority of its members are reporting below-average yields.

"There are areas of the province where yields were 10-15 per cent of average and in some cases the crops were not even worth harvesting," said APAS vice president Bill Prybylski. "Overall average, we’re probably looking at 30-40 per cent decrease in yields provincewide."

Several of those members are looking at significant penalties for not being able to meet the requirements for their contracts, Prybylski said.

For producers like Hursh, the pain won’t end at the end of the 2021. He tells CTV News he's expecting to face higher costs down the road.

"Very high fertilizer, seed prices will be very high going into next year. When you look at very little soil moisture and the large investment you’ll need to make into growing next year's crop, that becomes worrisome," Hursh said.

An AgriRecovery was launched a few weeks ago to help livestock producers as well as modifications to the AgraStability program which Prybylski says will help a few producers through the challenging time.

"It’s going to take a coordinated effort from all levels of government and the industry to help producers get through this.”

#FIGHTFOR15

Sask minimum hourly wage to increase by 36 cents Oct 1.

Josh Lynn

Digital News Editor CTV News Saskatoon
Published Friday, September 24, 2021 

A grocery store worker wears a protective face mask and gloves uses a spray bottle to clean the work space and plexiglass divider in downtown Vancouver Wednesday, April 29, 2020. 

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward


SASKATOON -- As of Oct. 1, Saskatchewan's previously announced minimum wage increase will come into effect — guaranteeing workers 36 cents more an hour.

The province's minimum hourly wage will rise from $11.45 to $11.81.

Based on a 40-hour workweek, workers will earn an additional $14.40 weekly, before taxes.

Once the increase comes into effect, Saskatchewan will no longer have the lowest minimum hourly wage in Canada.

New Brunswick will land at the bottom of the list with its rate of $11.75.

Saskatchewan will rank second-lowest among provinces and territories.

According to the Saskatchewan government, the wage is calculated using a formula tied to Canada's Consumer Price Index and the province's hourly average wage.

British Columbia ranks highest among provinces with its $15.20 minimum wage.

Neighbouring Alberta and Manitoba sit at $15.00 and $11.90 respectively.

Manitoba's minimum wage will increase on Oct. 1 by 5 cents to $11.95.

Saskatchewan's minimum wage has increased 13 times since 2007 with a total increase of 48 per cent during that time, according to the provincial government.

The highest minimum wage rate in Canada can be found in Nunavut where it is set at $16.00 hourly.

Robbie the robot is at your service at two Vancouver Island restaurants

Robbie greets customers at the front and will escort them to their tables.

Author of the article: Carla Wilson • Victoria Times Colonist

Publishing date: Sep 25, 2021 • 

Robbie the robot delivers food to tables at Mantra restaurant on Fort Street in Victoria. 

PHOTO BY DARREN STONE, TIMES COLONIST /PNG

Robots with cat-like faces are pitching in at two Vancouver Island restaurants to deliver food and drinks to customers at a time when the hospitality sector is desperate for staff.

Customers are enchanted by the devices, which can be programmed to carry out a multitude of tasks. They sing happy birthday — with multi-coloured lights flashing — and will greet customers.

The robot is cute. The ­BellaBot model has big round eyes, a smiling mouth and will change expressions. Move close to it and the robot moves automatically to avoid a collision.

Restaurants appreciate the robots’ efficiency because they reduce the number of trips staff make to and from the kitchen.

Clair Zhang, co-owner of Nanaimo’s Driftwood Restaurant, 4711 Rutherford St., said Friday that Bella Holt (the nickname for the robot) is “really useful.”

The robots also function as marketing tools for businesses as they emerge from pandemic restrictions and want to fill their seats.

Bella is mainly used to ferry take-out orders from the kitchen to customers at the front door of the Driftwood restaurant. Packaged meals are carried on the robot’s shelves.

Driftwood obtained Bella in the summer under a three-year lease-to-own program with Edmonton supplier GreenCo Robots, which imports them from manufacturers in China.

At Mantra, 1015 Fort St., owner Dharmendar Sohal, said he bought the robot because the restaurant is short-staffed. “This is a good option for us. … It’s a good helping hand.”

Customers are happy when they see Robbie the robot and enjoy interacting with it, especially youngsters, he said. When children pet the robot, it smiles, its eyes move and it meows.

Sohal will likely get a second robot for Mantra’s other location at 3480 Tillicum Rd.

He expects a new version, able to take orders, will be available soon.

Fort Street Mantra manager Dharna Sohal said Robbie is bringing in a lot of new customers. They share videos of the robot in action as it delivers food and drinks to tables and they tell their families about it.

“When we are busy it is like an extension of me. I can do two things at the same time,” Dharna Sohal said.

It is programmed to know tables by number. Its sounds and volume can be changed. Robbie greets customers at the front and will escort them to their tables.

The robot is charged overnight and can operate for 12 hours on its battery.

When Robbie quietly rolled up to Ian Reid’s table, it was easy to understand what to do. An order of naan bread sat on the top shelf, which lit up.

“You just pick your item off the shelf and then you push a button on its face that says ‘done.’ Then the eyes come back up, it smiles and off it goes.”

The “face” will disappear at times, depending on what it is doing.

Liang Yu, owner of GreenCo Robots, said he’s sent about 30 BellaBot robots across Canada and has a waiting list for 10 more. “There’s definitely a good demand in the market.”

The first in B.C. went into service in a Richmond hot pot restaurant.

Depending on the model, robots cost a little less than $20,000 and up to $30,00.

The lease-to-own program costs less than $1,000 per month for three years, he said.

Robots roll along without bumping into people or furniture by using location and mapping technology.

They can be used for events such as business mixtures because robots can roll around a room carrying food and drinks. A robot will stop whenever someone touches it, Yu said.

A study of one restaurant robot found it made about 500 trips in one day and delivered about 750 meals, Yu said.

cjwilson@timescolonist.com