Astronomers may have detected a ‘dark’ free-floating black hole

Gravitational microlensing turns up black hole candidate, one of 200 million in the galaxy

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - BERKELEY

 

IMAGE: HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE IMAGE OF A DISTANT STAR THAT WAS BRIGHTENED AND DISTORTED BY AN INVISIBLE BUT VERY COMPACT AND HEAVY OBJECT BETWEEN IT AND EARTH. THE COMPACT OBJECT — ESTIMATED BY UC BERKELEY ASTRONOMERS TO BE BETWEEN 1.6 AND 4.4 TIMES THE MASS OF OUR SUN — COULD BE A FREE-FLOATING BLACK HOLE, ONE OF PERHAPS 200 MILLION IN THE MILKY WAY GALAXY. view more 

CREDIT: IMAGE COURTESY OF STSCI/NASA/ESA

If, as astronomers believe, the death of large stars leave behind black holes, there should be hundreds of millions of them scattered throughout the Milky Way galaxy. The problem is, isolated black holes are invisible.

Now, a team led by University of California, Berkeley, astronomers has for the first time discovered what may be a free-floating black hole by observing the brightening of a more distant star as its light was distorted by the object's strong gravitational field — so-called gravitational microlensing.

The team, led by graduate student Casey Lam and Jessica Lu, a UC Berkeley associate professor of astronomy, estimates that the mass of the invisible compact object is between 1.6 and 4.4 times that of the sun. Because astronomers think that the leftover remnant of a dead star must be heavier than 2.2 solar masses in order to collapse to a black hole, the UC Berkeley researchers caution that the object could be a neutron star instead of a black hole. Neutron stars are also dense, highly compact objects, but their gravity is balanced by internal neutron pressure, which prevents further collapse to a black hole.

Whether a black hole or a neutron star, the object is the first dark stellar remnant — a stellar “ghost” — discovered wandering through the galaxy unpaired with another star.

"This is the first free-floating black hole or neutron star discovered with gravitational microlensing," Lu said. "With microlensing, we're able to probe these lonely, compact objects and weigh them. I think we have opened a new window onto these dark objects, which can’t be seen any other way."

Determining how many of these compact objects populate the Milky Way galaxy will help astronomers understand the evolution of stars — in particular, how they die — and of our galaxy, and perhaps reveal whether any of the unseen black holes are primordial black holes, which some cosmologists think were produced in large quantities during the Big Bang.

The analysis by Lam, Lu and their international team has been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. The analysis includes four other microlensing events that the team concluded were not caused by a black hole, though two were likely caused by a white dwarf or a neutron star. The team also concluded that the likely population of black holes in the galaxy is 200 million — about what most theorists predicted.

Same data, different conclusions

Notably, a competing team from the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore analyzed the same microlensing event and claims that the mass of the compact object is closer to 7.1 solar masses and indisputably a black hole. A paper describing the analysis by the STScI team, led by Kailash Sahu, has been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal.

Both teams used the same data: photometric measurements of the distant star's brightening as its light was distorted or "lensed" by the super-compact object, and astrometric measurements of the shifting of the distant star's location in the sky as a result of the gravitational distortion by the lensing object. The photometric data came from two microlensing surveys: the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE), which employs a 1.3-meter telescope in Chile operated by Warsaw University, and the Microlensing Observations in Astrophysics (MOA) experiment, which is mounted on a 1.8-meter telescope in New Zealand operated by Osaka University. The astrometric data came from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. STScI manages the science program for the telescope and conducts its science operations.

Because both microlensing surveys caught the same object, it has two names: MOA-2011-BLG-191 and OGLE-2011-BLG-0462, or OB110462, for short.

While surveys like these discover about 2,000 stars brightened by microlensing each year in the Milky Way galaxy, the addition of astrometric data is what allowed the two teams to determine the mass of the compact object and its distance from Earth. The UC Berkeley-led team estimated that it lies between 2,280 and 6,260 light years (700-1920 parsecs) away, in the direction of the center of the Milky Way Galaxy and near the large bulge that surrounds the galaxy's central massive black hole.

The STScI group estimated that it lies about 5,153 light years (1,580 parsecs) away.

Looking for a needle in a haystack

Lu and Lam first became interested in the object in 2020 after the STScI team tentatively concluded that five microlensing events observed by Hubble — all of which lasted for more than 100 days, and thus could have been black holes — might not be caused by compact objects after all.

Lu, who has been looking for free-floating black holes since 2008, thought the data would help her better estimate their abundance in the galaxy, which has been roughly estimated at between 10 million and 1 billion. To date, star-sized black holes have been found only as part of binary star systems. Black holes in binaries are seen either in X-rays, produced when material from the star falls onto the black hole, or by recent gravitational wave detectors, which are sensitive to mergers of two or more black holes. But these events are rare.

"Casey and I saw the data and we got really interested. We said, 'Wow, no black holes. That's amazing,' even though there should have been," Lu said. "And so, we started looking at the data. If there were really no black holes in the data, then this wouldn’t match our model for how many black holes there should be in the Milky Way. Something would have to change in our understanding of black holes — either their number or how fast they move or their masses.”

When Lam analyzed the photometry and astrometry for the five microlensing events, she was surprised that one, OB110462, had the characteristics of a compact object: The lensing object seemed dark, and thus not a star; the stellar brightening lasted a long time, nearly 300 days; and the distortion of the background star's position also was long-lasting.

The length of the lensing event was the main tipoff, Lam said. In 2020, she showed that the best way to search for black hole microlenses was to look for very long events. Only 1% of detectable microlensing events are likely to be from black holes, she said, so looking at all events would be like searching for a needle in a haystack. But, Lam calculated, about 40% of microlensing events that last more than 120 days are likely to be black holes.

"How long the brightening event lasts is a hint of how massive the foreground lens bending the light of the background star is," Lam said. "Long events are more likely due to black holes. It's not a guarantee, though, because the duration of the brightening episode not only depends on how massive the foreground lens is, but also on how fast the foreground lens and background star are moving relative to each other. However, by also getting measurements of the apparent position of the background star, we can confirm whether the foreground lens really is a black hole."

According to Lu, the gravitational influence of OB110462 on the light of the background star was amazingly long. It took about one year for the star to brighten to its peak in 2011, then about a year to dim back to normal.

More data will distinguish black hole from neutron star

To confirm that OB110462 was caused by a super-compact object, Lu and Lam asked for more astrometric data from Hubble, some of which arrived last October. That new data showed that the change in position of the star as a result of the gravitational field of the lens is still observable 10 years after the event. Further Hubble observations of the microlens are tentatively scheduled for fall 2022.

Analysis of the new data confirmed that OB110462 was likely a black hole or neutron star.

Lu and Lam suspect that the differing conclusions of the two teams are due to the fact that the astrometric and photometric data give different measures of the relative motions of the foreground and background objects. The astrometric analysis also differs between the two teams. The UC Berkeley-led team argues that it is not yet possible to distinguish whether the object is a black hole or a neutron star, but they hope to resolve the discrepancy with more Hubble data and improved analysis in the future.

"As much as we would like to say it is definitively a black hole, we must report all allowed solutions. This includes both lower mass black holes and possibly even a neutron star," Lu said.

"If you can't believe the light curve, the brightness, then that says something important. If you don't believe the position versus time, that tells you something important," Lam said. "So, if one of them is wrong, we have to understand why. Or the other possibility is that what we measure in both data sets is correct, but our model is incorrect. The photometry and astrometry data arise from the same physical process, which means the brightness and position must be consistent with each other. So, there's something missing there. "

Both teams also estimated the velocity of the super-compact lensing object. The Lu/Lam team found a relatively sedate speed, less than 30 kilometers per second. The STScI team found an unusually large velocity, 45 km/s, which it interpreted as the result of an extra kick that the purported black hole got from the supernova that generated it.

Lu interprets her team's low velocity estimate as potentially supporting a new theory that black holes are not the result of supernovas — the reigning assumption today — but instead come from failed supernovas that don't make a bright splash in the universe or give the resulting black hole a kick.

The work of Lu and Lam is supported by the National Science Foundation (1909641) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NNG16PJ26C, NASA FINESST 80NSSC21K2043).

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JOURNAL

The Astrophysical Journal Letters

DOI

10.48550/arXiv.2202.01903 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

Women in space analogues demonstrate more sustainable leadership

New study from Inga Popovaitė, a sociologist at Kaunas University of Technology (KTU) in Lithuania, suggests that women may be better suited for long-term space missions.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

KAUNAS UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY

 

IMAGE: KTU RESEARCHER INGA POPOVAITE AT MDRS view more 

CREDIT: INGA POPOVAITĖ

A new study based on Mars Desert Research Station commanders’ reports reveals differences in female and male leadership behaviour. Although both genders are task-focused, women tend to be more positive. The genders also differ in their approach toward their team – while men focus on accomplishments, women emphasise mutual support. According to the author of the study, Inga Popovaitė, a sociologist at Kaunas University of Technology (KTU) in Lithuania, the findings suggest that women may be better suited for long-term space missions.

According to the researcher, as of 2021, only three women have served as commanders in the International Space Station during two decades of its operations. Although the space is becoming more diverse, little is known about gender differences in leadership in isolated, confined, and extreme environments.

“In ten-to-twenty years when the missions to Mars start, it will be mixed-gender groups that will be sent there. Also, a female astronaut is preparing for a flight to the Moon in a few years. However, there is still a lack of data on women in space due to their low participance in both polar expeditions and space analogues. The dynamics of mixed groups are compared with that of male groups,” says Popovaitė, a researcher at KTU Civil Society and Sustainability research group.

Aiming to contribute to the small body of literature on the topic, she investigated potential gender differences in leadership in space analogue environments. For her study, Popovaitė was using commander reports from the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS), a space analogue facility in Utah. Space analogues share some characteristics with spaceflight. Such places may exist for other purposes (for example, the Antarctic research stations) or be specifically built to replicate parts of the spaceflight experience.

Leaders of both genders are task-focused, but women are more supportive

In her study, Popovaitė analysed the MDRS reports from 2009 to 2016. In total, 824 commander reports with an average length of 348 words (2008 characters) each were analysed; 277 of them were written by female authors and 541 – by the male. There were 27 women commanders and 49 men commanders during that time in MDRS.

After conducting several types of analysis – computational sentiment analysis, qualitative study of the reports’ content and word frequency calculations – the KTU researcher detected certain differences in female and male commanders’ communication. Firstly, women’s reports had significantly higher positive sentiment scores and significantly lower negative sentiment scores. Secondly, although both female and male commanders demonstrated task-oriented leadership behaviour, women commanders discussed their crew members more frequently; moreover, in such discussions, male commanders focused on team spirit, loyalty and accomplishments, and women emphasised mutual support, motivation and a positive environment. Thirdly, the findings revealed that female commanders tend to use less specific words while talking about their daily activities.

“While it is traditionally considered that male leaders are task-oriented and women are more sociable leaders, my research has shown that both male and female commanders were equally focused on task completion. The only difference between them was that women more frequently encouraged their team with positive supportive messages,” says Popovaitė.

According to the KTU researcher, her findings are in line with theory, which claims that women are more sociable, communal leaders than men. Also, it mirrors previous research evidence that male and female leaders rarely differ in task-oriented behaviour.

“Feminine” leadership more sustainable in space missions

While commenting on her discoveries, Popovaitė reminds that gender and leadership are social roles with potentially conflicting behavioural expectations – leadership traits are culturally perceived as aligned with masculine, and not feminine, traits. Women leaders are socially encouraged to show more positive feelings towards others and avoid showing negative emotions, such as anger.

However, this aspect, characteristic of “feminine” leadership, might be beneficial in extreme situations. Space analogues are more stressful due to long-term isolation, confinement, and limited resources; and any interpersonal conflict can jeopardise team success. Social scientists agree that a leader in such an environment should possess both agentic and communal skills, i.e. should be both task and people-oriented.

“Participation in a simulated space mission is not just about adventure, excitement and discoveries. During the mission, the crew is mainly performing mundane tasks: making food, washing dishes, and tidying the environment. In these environments, people need to survive for prolonged periods without the emotional and psychological support of their family and friends. That’s why a leader, who cares about the emotional needs of their team, becomes more sustainable, especially in the later stages of the mission,” says Popovaitė.

Therefore, the researcher suggests that women might be better suited for long term space missions than men. However, more research on the topic is needed.

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JOURNAL

Acta Astronautica

DOI

10.1016/j.actaastro.2022.03.027 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Gender and leadership in space analogs: A study of MDRS commanders’ reports

How the first biomolecules could have been formed

International team led by researchers from the University of Jena, Germany shows that the first biologically relevant compounds could have originated on Earth's surface

Peer-Reviewed Publication

FRIEDRICH-SCHILLER-UNIVERSITAET JENA

 

IMAGE: PROF. WOLFGANG WEIGAND (L.) FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF JENA DISCUSSES WITH HIS COLLEAGUE DR MARIO GROSCH VIA ZOOM. view more 

CREDIT: (IMAGE: ANNE GÜNTHER/UNIVERSITY OF JENA)

(Jena, Germany) The chemical precursors of present-day biomolecules could have formed not only in the deep sea at hydrothermal vents, but also in warm ponds on the Earth's surface. The chemical reactions that may have occurred in this “primordial soup” have now been reproduced in experiments by an international team led by researchers of Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany. They even found that one of the nucleobases, which represent the code of our genetic material, could have originated from the surface of our planet.

 

The Earth is around 4.6 billion years old and was not always a place that was hospitable to life. In the first hundred million years, our planet's atmosphere consisted primarily of nitrogen, carbon dioxide, methane, hydrogen sulphide and hydrogen cyanide, also known as hydrocyanic acid. Free oxygen did not exist. Under these conditions, iron sulphide, which is transformed into iron oxide when exposed to oxygen, is stable. On the surface of iron sulphide, however, biologically important reactions can take place, similar to those that occur in certain iron and sulphur-based enzymes, such as nitrogenases and hydrogenases.

 

An accidental rediscovery made it possible

 

“We asked ourselves: what happens when iron sulphide in this primordial atmosphere comes into contact with hydrocyanic acid?” explains Prof. Wolfgang Weigand from the Institute of Inorganic and Analytical Chemistry at the University of Jena. “It was helpful to us that we had accidentally discovered a particularly reactive form of iron sulphide in a successful collaboration with my colleague Prof. Christian Robl. This form had already been discovered twice in history, and on each occasion it was forgotten again: once in 1700 and again in the 1920s. So to speak, the two doctoral students at the time, Robert Bolney and Mario Grosch, discovered it for the third time,” he adds. The two chemists observed in the laboratory that when iron powder is stirred with sulphur in water and slightly heated, after a certain time, iron sulphide is formed as mackinawite in an explosive reaction. This mineral served as a catalyst in the “primordial soup” experiment.

 

A letter of the genetic code may have been created in this way

 

“We added potassium cyanide, phosphoric acid and water to the iron sulphide in a nitrogen atmosphere and heated the mixture to 80 degrees Celsius. The phosphoric acid converts the potassium cyanide into hydrocyanic acid. We then took gas samples from the atmosphere of the respective vessels and analysed them,” explains Weigand. The researchers found substances that may have served as chemical precursors for today's biomolecules.

 

In the scientific journal ChemSystemsChem, the team confirms, among other things, the discovery of thiols, which occur as lipids in cell membranes, as well as acetaldehyde, which is needed as a precursor for DNA building blocks (called nucleosides). “It was particularly exciting that under these mild conditions we were even able to detect adenine, a nucleobase that is one of the five letters of the genetic code,” Weigand adds with enthusiasm.

 

By means of isotope labelling, the team was able to prove that the cyanide indeed provided the carbon for the molecules they found. Weigand explains: “In this experiment, the potassium cyanide did not contain the isotope carbon-12, which is the isotope that accounts for 98.9 per cent of carbon naturally occurring in the environment. Instead, it was the heavier – and also stable – isotope carbon-13. It was this isotope that we found in the reaction products. In this way, we were able to prove unequivocally that the carbon atoms in the molecules we found really came from the isotope-labelled potassium cyanide.”

 

Decades of imagination and patience

 

Weigand is particularly grateful for the cooperation of the entire international team: “You really need imagination and patience for such work,” he says. “And Robert Bolney and Mario Grosch have proven that. The cooperation with our colleagues at the University of California, Irvine and at LMU Munich was also exemplary.”

 

The importance of imagination and especially patience in science is exemplified by Wolfgang Weigand himself. Because in 2003, he received the Thuringian Research Prize together with Prof. Günter Kreisel from the University of Jena and Dr Willi Brand from the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry Jena for his paper “A possible prebiotic formation of ammonia from molecular nitrogen on iron sulphide surfaces”.

 

Now – almost 20 years later – Weigand has also been able to show that the first carbon compounds, from which life later grew, could have formed under these conditions from cyanide on the Earth's surface.

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JOURNAL

ChemSystemsChem

DOI

10.1002/syst.202200010 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Mackinawite supported reduction of C1 substrates intoprebiotically relevant precursors

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

 10-JUN-2022

Amsterdam physicists build an atom laser that can stay on forever

Eternal matter waves

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITEIT VAN AMSTERDAM

 

IMAGE: THE CENTRAL PART OF THE EXPERIMENT IN WHICH THE COHERENT MATTER WAVES ARE CREATED. FRESH ATOMS (BLUE) FALL IN AND MAKE THEIR WAY TO THE BOSE-EINSTEIN CONDENSATE IN THE CENTER. IN REALITY, THE ATOMS ARE NOT VISIBLE TO THE NAKED EYE. IMAGE PROCESSING BY SCIXEL. view more 

CREDIT: UVA

Imagining our everyday life without lasers is difficult. We use lasers in printers, CD players, pointers, measuring devices, and so on. What makes lasers so special is that they use coherent waves of light: all the light inside a laser vibrates completely in sync. Meanwhile, quantum mechanics tells us that particles like atoms should also be thought of as waves. As a result, we can build ‘atom lasers’ containing coherent waves of matter. But can we make these matter waves last, so that they may be used in applications? In research that was published in Nature this week, a team of Amsterdam physicists shows that the answer to this question is affirmative.

Getting bosons to march in sync

The concept that underlies the atom laser is the so-called Bose-Einstein Condensate, or BEC for short. Elementary particles in nature occur in two types: fermions and bosons. Fermions are particles like electrons and quarks – the building blocks of the matter that we are made of. Bosons are very different in nature: they are not hard like fermions, but soft: for example, they can move through one another without a problem. The best-known example of a boson is the photon, the smallest possible quantity of light. But matter particles can also combine to form bosons – in fact, entire atoms can behave just like particles of light. What makes bosons so special is that they can all be in the exact same state at the exact same time, or phrased in more technical terms: they can ‘condense’ into a coherent wave. When this type of condensation happens for matter particles, physicists call the resulting substance a Bose-Einstein Condensate.

In everyday life, we are not at all familiar with these condensates. The reason: it is very difficult to get atoms to all behave as one. The culprit destroying the synchronicity is temperature: when a substance heats up, the constituent particles start to jiggle around, and it becomes virtually impossible to get them to behave as one. Only at extremely low temperatures, about a millionth of a degree above absolute zero (about 273 degrees below zero on the Celsius scale), is there a chance of forming the coherent matter waves of a BEC.

Fleeting bursts

A quarter of a century ago, the first Bose-Einstein Condensates were created in physics labs. This opened up the possibility to build atom lasers – devices that literally output beams of matter – but these devices were only able to function for a very short time. The lasers could produce pulses of matter waves, but after sending out such a pulse, a new BEC had to be created before the next pulse could be sent out. For a first step towards an atom laser, this was still not bad. In fact, ordinary, optical lasers were also made in a pulsed variant before physicists were able to create continuous lasers. But while the developments for optical lasers had gone very fast, the first continuous laser being produced within six months after its pulsed counterpart, for atom lasers the continuous version remained elusive for more than 25 years.

It was clear what the problem was: BECs are very fragile, and are rapidly destroyed when light falls on them. Yet the presence of light is crucial in forming the condensate: to cool a substance down to a millionth of a degree, one needs to cool down its atoms using laser light. As a result, BECs were restricted to fleeting bursts, with no way to coherently sustain them.

A Christmas present

A team of physicists from the University of Amsterdam has now managed to solve the difficult problem of creating a continuous Bose-Einstein Condensate. Florian Schreck, the team leader, explains what the trick was. “In previous experiments, the gradual cooling of atoms was all done in one place. In our setup, we decided to spread the cooling steps not over time, but in space: we make the atoms move while they progress through consecutive cooling steps. In the end, ultracold atoms arrive at the heart of the experiment, where they can be used to form coherent matter waves in a BEC. But while these atoms are being used, new atoms are already on their way to replenish the BEC. In this way we can keep the process going – essentially forever.”

While the underlying idea was relatively simple, carrying it out was certainly not. Chun-Chia Chen, first author of the publication in Nature, recalls: “Already in 2012, the team – then still in Innsbruck – realized a technique that allowed a BEC to be protected from laser cooling light, enabling for the first time laser cooling all the way down to the degenerate state needed for coherent waves. While this was a critical first step towards the long-held challenge of constructing a continuous atom laser, it was also clear that a dedicated machine would be needed to take it further. On moving to Amsterdam in 2013, we began with a leap of faith, borrowed funds, an empty room and a team entirely funded by personal grants. Six years later, in the early hours of Christmas morning 2019, the experiment was finally on the verge of working. We had the idea of adding an extra laser beam to solve a last technical difficulty, and instantly every image we took showed a BEC, the first continuous-wave BEC.”

Having tackled the long-standing open problem of creating a continuous Bose-Einstein Condensate, the researchers have now set their minds on the next goal: using the laser to create a stable output beam of matter. Once their lasers can not only operate forever but can also produce stable beams, nothing stands in the way of technical applications anymore, and matter lasers may start to play an equally important role in technology as ordinary lasers currently do.

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JOURNAL

Nature

DOI

10.1038/s41586-022-04731-z 

ARTICLE TITLE

Continuous Bose–Einstein condensation

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

8-Jun-2022

University researchers help efforts to tackle one of UK’s biggest killers

Researchers from Staffordshire University’s Centre for Crime, Justice and Security are currently leading two projects to help tackle speeding and improve support for victims of road traffic collisions.

Business Announcement

STAFFORDSHIRE UNIVERSITY

Researchers from Staffordshire University’s Centre for Crime, Justice and Security are currently leading two projects to help tackle speeding and improve support for victims of road traffic collisions.

Department for Transport reporting shows that 1,752 people died on UK roads in 2019, which is more than twice the number of deaths from homicides and terrorism combined. A further 25,945 people were seriously injured.

Lecturer in Policing Dr Leanne Savigar-Shaw and Associate Professor Jo Turner are working with the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner (OPCC) for Warwickshire to understand the needs of victims and survivors of road traffic collisions and how those needs align with current provisions.

Dr Savigar-Shaw explained: “The impact of road traffic collisions can be substantial and yet there is no clear definition of who is considered a ‘victim’ of a road traffic collision and what support they are being offered. Fatal and most serious injury crashes have long term consequences impacting on physical health, mental health and economic disadvantage for many involved. The emotional strain left on those who find themselves in a bereaved or caring capacity can be immense.

“This project will explore experiences and perceptions of road victim support currently being offered to understand its role in supporting victims of road traffic collisions and we will use this evidence to inform recommendations for future provision.”

The research will involve interviews with victims and survivors, focus groups with stakeholders, analysis of vehicle collision data, and freedom of information requests.

The OPPC in Warwickshire is currently commissioning a service from the road safety charity BRAKE to provide an Independent Roads Victim Advocate service. This new research will help understand the scale and need for a future commissioned service.

Dr Savigar-Shaw said: “Already, we are finding that there is an inconsistency in the level and type of provision between geographical areas. The research has raised important questions about who is, and indeed should be, defined as a ‘victim’ of a road traffic collision and therefore be eligible for road victim support and also who should be funding this service given that the ‘victims’ are not necessarily victims of crime. So, those are the big questions that we will attempt to explore.”

Dr Savigar-Shaw has also joined forces with police in Gloucestershire to evaluate the impact of the popular Community Speedwatch (CSW) programme, which allows volunteers to monitor vehicle speeds in local communities.

She said: “Inappropriate speed plays a key role in collisions and deaths on Great Britain’s roads and is a common complaint to police from local communities. CSW is attractive as it offers communities a tool for policing this road safety concern. However, its use is not currently well-informed by evidence.

“This project will provide the first rigorous evaluation of CSW. We will review average speed data to understand whether it actually reduces speeding, but we will also carry out interviews to understand its impacts on member groups, offenders and wider communities.”

In particular, the project will consider the role of technology in supporting CSW practice.  Police in Gloucestershire are trialling the use of CSW speed cameras that would be owned by the community and this research will begin to explore how this compares to the physical presence of volunteers.

Dr Savigar-Shaw added: “Volunteers are a real visible deterrent, but they are not there at times when statistically people are more likely to speed whereas the camera will be there all the time. On the other hand, the physical presence of volunteers may influence their own sense of doing something about the problem of speeding, as well as influencing wider community perceptions of safety.

“It will be interesting to see what comes out of the data and this will help us understand which CSW activity may be most beneficial for communities and inform future funding and activity.”

Visit the Centre for Crime, Justice and Security webpages to find out more about their work and how you can get involved or see more on Staffordshire University’s YouTube channel

Drumming improves behaviour and brain function in autistic adolescents, scientists reveal

Drumming for 90 minutes each week helps autistic children overcome hyperactivity and attention deficit difficulties

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF CHICHESTER

 

IMAGE: CHILDREN INVOLVED IN THE STUDY, ALL AGED BETWEEN 16 AND 20, UNDERTOOK DRUMMING ASSESSMENTS FOLLOWED BY MRI SCANS view more 

CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF CHICHESTER

• Drumming for 90 minutes each week helps autistic children overcome hyperactivity and attention deficit difficulties, report finds
• Learning musical patterns with tempo, volume and timing tunes brain connectivity in regions responsible for inhibitory control, action-outcome monitoring and self-regulation
• Scientists will use the novel findings to shape future studies in areas such as emotional and behavioural difficulties, attention deficit, stroke, and dementia

 

DRUMMING for just 90 minutes each week can improve the life quality of young people diagnosed with autism, a new study has revealed.

Scientists found that learning to play the instrument tuned brain networks in autistic adolescents in as little as eight weeks.

The study was undertaken by experts from the universities of Chichester, King’s College London, Hartpury, and Essex working under their collective group the Clem Burke Drumming Project, named after its co-founding member and famed Blondie musician.

Co-author Marcus Smith, a Professor of Applied Sport and Exercise Science at Chichester, said: “These findings provide direct evidence that learning to drum leads to positive changes in brain function and behaviour among autistic adolescents. We are now sharing our results with education providers in special and mainstream UK schools who are responsible for the physical and mental development of vulnerable people.”

Autism is a lifelong neurodevelopmental condition characterised by poor social skills and interactions as well as restricted and repetitive interests and activities.

As part of the study, a group of participants with no drumming experience were given two 45-minute lessons each week across a two-month period. Each volunteer, aged between 16 and 20 years old, undertook a drumming assessment and MRI scan before and after the intervention, while their guardians were asked by the researchers about recent behavioural difficulties.

Results showed that participants who improved their drumming skills showed fewer signs of hyperactivity, inattention and repetitive behaviours and demonstrated better control of their emotions. MRI scans also revealed changes to their brain function which, according to the study, were linked to overall behaviour.

Prof Steve Draper, Academic Dean at Hartpury University and report co-author, said the paper represents a landmark moment as the scientific team begins, through advanced imaging, to understand why drumming is such a profound stimulus.

He added: “Over a number of years we have been made aware of cases of drumming benefitting individuals with autism spectrum disorder, or ASD, and have subsequently worked with a number of individuals, schools and projects where we have seen first-hand the effects.”

Researchers leading the study, which was published in renowned PNAS neuroscience journal the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that, following drum training, adolescents had improved synchronicity between brain regions responsible for inhibitory control, which prevents impulsivity.

This, according to Reader in Exercise Psychology and co-author Dr Ruth Lowry from the University of Essex, highlights the central role of the prefrontal cortex in regulating motor impulsivity.

She added: “The paper provides us with the first evidence of neurological adaptations from learning to play the drums, specifically for adolescents with an ASD diagnosis. This study endorses the changes we have measured and the observations of teachers and parents towards improvements to social skills, inhibitory control and attention.”

The project, which was funded by the Waterloo Foundation charity, is the latest study by the Clem Burke Drumming Project that has, for the last decade, investigated how drumming can impact brain development.

Renowned imaging scientist Prof Steven Williams from King’s College London, associate of the Clem Burke project, added: “Drumming not only improves the ability to delay the onset of motor responses in autistic adolescents but also reduces hyperactivity and attentional difficulties. Complementary functional imaging allowed us to visualise changes in brain circuits responsible for self-regulation and motor impulsivity.”

Lead author Marie-Stephanie Cahart, a doctoral candidate from King’s College London, said: “This study not only revealed an improvement in behavioural outcomes in autistic adolescents following drum training, but also sheds light on associated changes in brain function. Increased synchronized activity was observed between brain regions that support mental wellbeing and help navigate social relationships.”

The paper is available in open access at https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2106244119.

Scientists from the Clem Burke Drumming Project will be speaking about the study at a conference on Wednesday 13 July, hosted at the University of Chichester, with free tickets available at thesciencebehindthesticks.eventbrite.co.uk.

The team also intend to expand their drumming research and are looking to collaborate with schools or organisations working with people with ADHD, dyspraxia, dementia, and traumatic brain injury, and can be contacted at clemburkedrummingproject.org.

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JOURNAL

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI

10.1073/pnas.210624411 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

The effect of learning to drum on behavior and brain function in autistic adolescents

Keith Moon's Drum Set Explosion!! (My Generation)

In 1967, on "The Smothers Bros Comedy Hour Show" The Who preformed a set of songs on the show. At the end, Keith Moon blew up his drum set and took a piece of his hi-hat to the arm, while Pete Townshend was permanently left partially deaf in one ear. 

The Earth moves far under our feet: A new study shows the inner core oscillates

USC Dornsife scientists identify a six-year cycle of super- and sub-rotation that affected the length of a day based on their analysis of seismic data

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

 

IMAGE: USC RESEARCHERS IDENTIFIED A SIX-YEAR CYCLE OF SUPER- AND SUB-ROTATION IN THE EARTH'S INNER CORE, CONTRADICTING PREVIOUSLY ACCEPTED MODELS THAT SUGGESTED IT CONSISTENTLY ROTATES AT A FASTER RATE THAN THE PLANET’S SURFACE. view more 

CREDIT: EDWARD SOTELO/USC

USC scientists have found evidence that the Earth’s inner core oscillates, contradicting previously accepted models that suggested it consistently rotates at a faster rate than the planet’s surface.

Their study, published today in Science Advances, shows that the inner core changed direction in the six-year period from 1969-74, according to the analysis of seismic data. The scientists say their model of inner core movement also explains the variation in the length of day, which has been shown to oscillate persistently for the past several decades.

“From our findings, we can see the Earth’s surface shifts compared to its inner core, as people have asserted for 20 years,” said John E. Vidale, co-author of the study and Dean’s Professor of Earth Sciences at USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. “However, our latest observations show that the inner core spun slightly slower from 1969-71 and then moved the other direction from 1971-74. We also note that the length of day grew and shrank as would be predicted.

“The coincidence of those two observations makes oscillation the likely interpretation.”

Analysis of atomic tests pinpoints rotation rate and direction

Our understanding of the inner core has expanded dramatically in the past 30 years. The inner core — a hot, dense ball of solid iron the size of Pluto — has been shown to move and/or change over decades. It’s also impossible to observe directly, meaning researchers struggle through indirect measurements to explain the pattern, speed and cause of the movement and changes.

Research published in 1996 was the first to propose the inner core rotates faster than the rest of the planet — also known as super-rotation — at roughly 1 degree per year. Subsequent findings from Vidale reinforced the idea that the inner core super-rotates, albeit at a slower rate.

Utilizing data from the Large Aperture Seismic Array (LASA), a U.S. Air Force facility in Montana, researcher Wei Wang and Vidale found the inner core rotated slower than previously predicted, approximately 0.1 degrees per year. The study analyzed waves generated from Soviet underground nuclear bomb tests from 1971-74 in the Arctic archipelago Novaya Zemlya using a novel beamforming technique developed by Vidale.

The new findings emerged when Wang and Vidale applied the same methodology to a pair of earlier atomic tests beneath Amchitka Island at the tip of the Alaskan archipelago — Milrow in 1969 and Cannikin in 1971. Measuring the compressional waves resulting from the nuclear explosions, they discovered the inner core had reversed direction, sub-rotating at least a tenth of a degree per year.

This latest study marked the first time the well-known six-year oscillation had been indicated through direct seismological observation.

“The idea the inner core oscillates was a model that was out there, but the community has been split on whether it was viable,” Vidale says. “We went into this expecting to see the same rotation direction and rate in the earlier pair of atomic tests, but instead we saw the opposite. We were quite surprised to find that it was moving in the other direction.”

Future research to dig deeper into why inner core formed

Vidale and Wang both noted future research would depend on finding sufficiently precise observations to compare against these results. By using seismological data from atomic tests in previous studies, they have been able to pinpoint the exact location and time of the very simple seismic event, says Wang. However, the Montana LASA closed in 1978 and the era of U.S. underground atomic testing is over, meaning that the researchers would need to rely on comparatively imprecise earthquake data, even with recent advances in instrumentation.

The study does support the speculation that the inner core oscillates based on variations in the length of day — plus or minus 0.2 seconds over six years — and geomagnetic fields, both of which match the theory in both amplitude and phase. Vidale says the findings provide a compelling theory for many questions posed by the research community.

“The inner core is not fixed — it’s moving under our feet, and it seems to going back and forth a couple of kilometers every six years,” Vidale said. “One of the questions we tried to answer is, does the inner core progressively move or is it mostly locked compared to everything else in the long term? We're trying to understand how the inner core formed and how it moves over time — this is an important step in better understanding this process.”

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JOURNAL

Science Advances

DOI

10.1126/sciadv.abm9916 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Computational simulation/modeling

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Seismological observation of Earth’s oscillating inner core

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

10-Jun-2022

Ningaloo corals are ill-equipped to handle future climate change

Peer-Reviewed Publication

CURTIN UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: LEAD RESEARCHER PHD STUDENT ARNE ADAM view more 

CREDIT: CURTIN UNIVERSITY

The relatively pristine coral populations of WA’s inshore Kimberley region are better equipped to survive ocean warming than the World Heritage-listed Ningaloo Marine Park, according to a new Curtin University study.

Despite previous research predicting coral species would move south to cooler waters to protect themselves, the new study – published in Molecular Ecology – has found this may not hold true on the West Coast of Australia.

The new study, which investigated coral population connectivity and adaptive capacity, has found corals growing in different reef systems in north-western Australia are genetically isolated from each other.

The findings were based on the genetic data of a reef-building coral, Acropora digitifera, sampled from five well-known reef systems. The study sought to find out how connected these reef systems are, and how resilient this coral is to different future climate scenarios in different regions.

Lead researcher PhD student Arne Adam, from the Curtin School of Molecular and Life Sciences, said climate change had caused widespread loss of species biodiversity and ecosystem productivity across the globe, particularly on tropical coral reefs. He said the results suggest corals from northern reefs in WA are isolated from each other, meaning that corals may not be able to move to more southern reef regions.

“Having segregated reefs means that it’s hard for the corals to move between the regions. If corals at one reef die out, it is unlikely that this reef will be rescued by newcomer corals from neighbouring reefs,” Mr Adam said.

Mr Adam said that previous research had indicated that southern regions would become hotspots for coral biodiversity in the future, however based on this data, it is unknown if corals at southern regions have the genetic adaptations needed to survive the effects of a rapidly warming ocean.

“We found corals growing in northern reef regions such as the inshore Kimberley – including Adele Island and Beagle Reef – are better adapted to handle future ocean warming, whilst the coral community at Ningaloo Reef is in danger of losing diversity because they are not well-equipped to survive a warming ocean,” Mr Adam said.

Senior researcher Dr Zoe Richards, also from the School of Molecular and Life Sciences, said the results supported the notion that reef systems in WA were both geographically isolated and highly adapted to the current local environmental conditions.

“For the Ningaloo Reef system, this combination of traits could spell disaster under extreme future climate scenarios,” Dr Richards said.

“This study helps to predict which coral communities may be resilient or vulnerable to future climate change, and that information is important for cost-effective conservation planning.”

The study included data from Ashmore Reef, the Rowley Shoals, the inshore Kimberley, and reefs within the Ningaloo Coast World Heritage Area. It was a collaborative study with scientists at the Australian Marine Science Institute in Perth (AIMS). This research was funded by the Australian Research Council, Curtin University and the PhD Science Industry Scholarship.

Woodside Energy and the Northwest Shoals to Shore Research Program, supported by Santos Ltd, funded offshore fieldwork for this project. Data was analysed and interpreted with funding support to Mr Adam through the Woodside Coral Reef Research Fellowship.

The full paper, titled ‘Population connectivity and genetic offset in the spawning coral Acropora digitifera in Western Australia’, is available here.

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JOURNAL

Molecular Ecology

DOI

10.1111/mec.16498 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Randomized controlled/clinical trial

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Population connectivity and genetic offset in the spawning coral Acropora digitifera in Western Australia’

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

10-Jun-2022