SPEAKING OF SCIENCE FICTION

World's First Nuclear Fusion Power Plant Wants to Equal Fossil Fuel Output
Jess Thomson - Yesterday 

The world's first nuclear fusion power plant is planned to be built in North Nottinghamshire in the U.K., and hopes to match fossil fuel power plants in terms of energy output.


Stock image of atoms colliding. Nuclear fusion, which involves colliding hydrogen atoms at high speeds, may be commercially used in the U.K. by 2040.© iStock / Getty Images Plus

According to ITV news, the site will be the first in the world to use fusion reactions to generate electricity commercially. It is due to begin construction in the early 2030s and be fully operational by roughly 2040.

Nuclear fusion involves heavy hydrogen atoms colliding with enough force that they fuse together to form a helium atom, releasing large amounts of energy as a byproduct. This is the process that powers the sun and other stars, converting mass to energy with great efficiency. This chain reaction requires a high amount of energy to get started, but once "ignition" is achieved, the reaction becomes self-sustaining. In a world first, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's National Ignition Facility established ignition in a 2021 breakthrough.

However, nuclear fusion hasn't been developed to the point where it can be used as a major source of energy generation, as there are many hurdles on the path to achieving the technology's full potential.

"The UKAEA [U.K. Atomic Energy Authority] has set itself the target of having the STEP plant operational around 2040. Its purpose is to prove that a fusion reaction can be sustained, and that more power can be exported onto the electricity grid than it takes to make the fusion process work. Alongside this it will explore efficiencies and learnings in the plant construction and operation process," professor Martin Freer, director of the Birmingham Energy Institute and the Energy Research Accelerator, told Newsweek.

"The idea is that this combination will mean STEP is a bridge to commercial fusion plants. A lot needs to be done to demonstrate this is possible, but many breakthroughs and advances have been taking place in the fusion sector in recent years, not just in the U.K. but all around the world."

If successful, the fusion plant may be able to generate huge amounts of electricity, rivaling the output of fossil fuel power plants like coal and gas, and also wind power.

"The design of the plant and specific power output isn't yet determined, but the UKAEA have indicated it might be in the range of 100MW (roughly enough to power 100,000 homes) but the ambition is that subsequent commercial plants would have much higher outputs than that, potentially equivalent to fossil fuel or nuclear plants or offshore wind farms," Freer said. "It's likely that this prototype will not run constantly as it will be used to explore different ways of operating to find the most effective set up for future commercial plants."

Problems facing the field of nuclear fusion research include the issues involved with holding the intense temperatures of the plasma inside the reactor.

"It's a problem because the plasma is very, very hot, and all the energy that you put in, to heat this plasma to the 150 million degrees has to come out either as radiation or as the energy conduction, basically," Fernanda Rimini. senior manager of fusion experiment Joint European Torus, previously told Newsweek. "The walls of the machine in the experiment, in our case, are made of metal, and this metal comes in and kind of pollutes our plasma."

If perfected, nuclear fusion may be able to help tackle the climate crisis. Other than being able to generate large amounts of, one hugely beneficial advantage of fusion power is that it only requires hydrogen as fuel rather than the finite supply of fossil fuels, and also does not produce greenhouse gasses as emissions, nor any radioactive byproducts like nuclear fission power plants.

"In addition there is no radioactive 'spent fuel' to deal with as there is with nuclear fission, and the main byproduct of fusion is helium—an inert, non-toxic non-greenhouse gas," said Freer.

It is also fundamentally safer than nuclear fission. According to Freer, there are many features of design and operations that you need for nuclear fission that you just don't need in fusion.

"There is no chain reaction to control, and if the fusion process stops, the 'plasma' of superheated gas breaks down and there is no hot 'reactor' or fuel left to deal with," Freer said. "Basically a fusion process is very difficult to sustain (famously so!) and if any disturbance occurs, the plasma cools within seconds and the reaction stops."

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"Sanction Addis Over Tigray!" - HRW

19 October 2022
Agence France-Presse

A year-old child is treated for malnutrition at the Ayder Referral Hospital in Mekele, in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia Tuesday, Oct. 4, 2022.

ADDIS ABABA —

NGO Human Rights Watch called Wednesday for targeted sanctions and an arms embargo against Ethiopia to help protect civilians as the country's brutal war in Tigray intensifies.

HRW said the stories emerging from the conflict zones were "terrifying."

"The attacks have resulted in untold civilian casualties, including aid workers delivering food, property destruction, and large-scale displacement," its regional director, Laetitia Bader, said.

"The US and EU, as well as the Security Council, should use the appropriate tools, including targeted sanctions and an arms embargo, to protect civilians at risk," she said.

The government said it had avoided fighting in urban areas in its latest offensive, and would investigate any loss of civilian life.

But there are growing fears that civilians in cities and towns retaken by pro-government forces could be at risk of atrocities as occurred during the earlier stages of the nearly two-year war.

Amnesty International said that Eritrean forces at the start of the conflict in November 2020 massacred hundreds of civilians in the ancient city of Axum, where their forces are currently on the march.

US aid chief Samantha Power on Sunday said "the potential for further widespread atrocities" was alarming and "the staggering human cost of this conflict should shock the world's conscience."

In March, the Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia, a UN-created body, said it had found widespread violations against civilians by all sides to the conflict.

They listed a long line of horrific violations, from extrajudicial killings to intentional starvation and rape and sexual violence perpetrated on a "staggering scale".

Untold numbers of civilians have been killed since the war began, an estimated two million people driven from their homes, while millions more are in need of aid, according to UN figures.

HRW calls for sanctions on Ethiopia to protect civilians

Wed, October 19, 2022 


Human Rights Watch called Wednesday for targeted sanctions and an arms embargo against Ethiopia to help protect civilians as the country's brutal war in Tigray intensifies.

Addis Ababa on Tuesday said it had captured three towns in the northern region, where fighting between pro-government forces and rebels has raged since August after a truce collapsed.

International concern is growing for those caught in the crossfire, with the UN describing the situation as spiralling out of control and inflicting an "utterly staggering" toll on civilians.

HRW said the stories emerging from the conflict zones were "terrifying."

"The attacks have resulted in untold civilian casualties, including aid workers delivering food, property destruction, and large-scale displacement," its regional director, Laetitia Bader, said in a briefing note.

Ethiopia, not just its ally Eritrea, should be subject to global sanctions over its conduct in the conflict, Bader said.

"The US and EU, as well as the Security Council, should use the appropriate tools, including targeted sanctions and an arms embargo, to protect civilians at risk," she said.

"The suffering of civilians in Ethiopia should no longer be tolerated in the name of political expediency."

The International Rescue Committee (IC) said a staff member was among three civilians killed in an attack last Friday in Shire, a city of 100,000 that was captured by Ethiopian and Eritrean forces after a sustained bombardment.

Witnesses described civilian casualties during days of aerial assaults over the city.

The government said it had avoided fighting in urban areas in its latest offensive, and would investigate any loss of civilian life.

But there are growing fears that civilians in cities and towns retaken by pro-government forces could be at risk of atrocities as occurred during the earlier stages of the nearly two-year war.

The advance of Ethiopian and Eritrean forces through Tigray in late 2020 and early 2021 was followed by mass murder, rape and other crimes documented by UN investigators and rights groups.

Amnesty International said that Eritrean forces at the start of the conflict in November 2020 massacred hundreds of civilians in the ancient city of Axum, where their forces are currently on the march.

US aid chief Samantha Power on Sunday said "the potential for further widespread atrocities" was alarming and "the staggering human cost of this conflict should shock the world's conscience".

In March, the Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia, a UN-created body, said it had found widespread violations against civilians by all sides to the conflict.

They listed a long line of horrific violations, from extrajudicial killings to intentional starvation and rape and sexual violence perpetrated on a "staggering scale".

Untold numbers of civilians have been killed since the war began, an estimated two million people driven from their homes, while millions more are in need of aid, according to UN figures.

ayv-np/ri

 

Ancient carvings discovered at iconic Iraq monument

• AFP
•  October 19, 2022

An Iraqi worker excavates a carving at the Mashki Gate, one of the monumental gates to the ancient Assyrian city of Nineveh

Mosul – When Islamic State group fighters bulldozed the ancient monumental Mashki gate in the Iraqi city of Mosul in 2016, it was part of the extremists’ systematic destruction of cultural heritage.

Now, US and Iraqi archaeologists working to reconstruct the site have unearthed extraordinary 2,700-year-old rock carvings among the ruins.

They include eight finely made marble bas-relief carvings depicting war scenes from the rule of the Assyrian kings in the ancient city of Nineveh, a local Iraqi official said Wednesday.

Discovered last week, the detailed carvings show a soldier drawing back a bow in preparation to fire an arrow, as well as finely chiselled vine leaves and palms.

The grey stone carvings date to the rule of King Sennacherib, in power from 705-681 BC, according to a statement from the Iraqi Council of Antiquities and Heritage.

Sennacherib was responsible for expanding Nineveh as the Assyrians’ imperial capital and largest city — siting on a major crossroads between the Mediterranean and the Iranian plateau — including constructing a magnificent palace.

Fadel Mohammed Khodr, head of the Iraqi archaeological team working to restore the site, said the carvings were likely taken from Sennacherib’s palace and used as construction material for the gate.

“We believe that these carvings were moved from the palace of Sennacherib and reused by the grandson of the king, to renovate the gate of Mashki and to enlarge the guard room”, Khodr said.

– ‘Iconic’ –

When they were used in the gate, the area of the carvings poking out above ground was erased.

“Only the part buried underground has retained its carvings,” Khodr added.

ALIPH, the Swiss-based International Alliance for the Protection of Heritage in Conflict Areas, said the Mashki gate had been an “exceptional building”.

IS targeted the fortified gate, which had been restored in the 1970s, because it was an “iconic part of Mosul’s skyline, a symbol of the city’s long history”, it added.

ALIPH is supporting the reconstruction of the Mashki Gate by a team of archaeologists from Iraq’s Mosul University alongside US experts from the University of Pennsylvania.

The restoration project, which is being carried out in collaboration with Iraqi antiquities authorities, aims to turn the damaged monument into an educational centre on Nineveh’s history.

Iraq was the birthplace of some of the world’s earliest cities.

It was also home to Sumerians and Babylonians, and to among humankind’s first examples of writing.

But in the past decades, Iraq has been the target of artifacts smuggling. Looters decimated the country’s ancient past, including after the 2003 US-led invasion.

Then, from 2014 and 2017, the Islamic State group demolished pre-Islamic treasures with bulldozers, pickaxes and explosives. They also used smuggling to finance their operations.

Iraqi forces supported by an international coalition recaptured Mosul, the extremists’ former bastion, in 2017.

'People want the truth': Protests paralyze Tunisian town after migrant deaths

A southern Tunisian coastal town was paralysed by protests on Tuesday amid growing anger over the fate of people who drowned in a migrant shipwreck last month, with some buried in unmarked graves. The powerful UGTT labour union called a general strike in Zarzis on Tuesday, bringing to a head days of smaller protests to demand authorities do more to find missing bodies and improve living conditions.

French govt under pressure on immigration after girl's killing

Police have determined that the main suspect had a history of psychiatric disorders

AFP - 

France's government acknowledged Wednesday that it had to "do better" on illegal immigration after it emerged that an Algerian woman charged with the murder of a 12-year-old girl had been ordered to leave the country.

© STRINGER

The brutalised body of the victim, identified only as "Lola" under French law, was found in a plastic box after going missing in northeast Paris last week.

A 24-year-old woman from Algeria was quickly identified as the main suspect and detained. Police have determined she had a history of psychiatric disorders.

Investigators also learned that the woman had overstayed a student visa, and in August had received notice to leave France within 30 days.

Conservative and far-right parties have seized on the murder to accuse President Emmanuel Macron's government of failing to enforce immigration laws, saying strict application of deportation orders could have avoided the murder. BULLSHIT

"The government must be summoned to correct its mistakes," Le Figaro newspaper wrote in a front-page editorial Wednesday.

The president's allies however have denounced what they call a callous attempt to exploit a tragedy to score political points. Macron met the girl's parents on Tuesday to express his condolences and support.

- 'Political exploitation' -

Government spokesman Olivier Veran conceded on Wednesday that the enforcement of orders to quit French territory was not "satisfactory".

"We're working tirelessly to make sure deportations are carried out," Veran said after a cabinet meeting, but "obviously we must do better".

A French Senate report this year found that while 143,226 deportation orders were issued in 2021, only 9.3 percent were carried out, down from 15.6 percent in 2019.

"This is not the time for a political trial, for political exploitation, as we've seen over the past few days -- this is the wish of the family," Veran said, referring to Lola's parents.

"Above all they do not want anyone taking political advantage" of the crime, Mayor Gerard Ogiez of Fouquereuil, a village in northern France where the parents have sought refuge, told Le Parisien daily.

Far-right lawmakers have called for a rally to honour Lola on Thursday, after officials called off a silent march that had been planned for Wednesday.

"You won't be able to dismiss this issue with claims of exploitation," Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Rally said in parliament on Tuesday.

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Methane in Turkey mine was below critical level: Erdogan

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2022

AUTHOR: AFP

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Wednesday that the methane level in a mine in northwest Turkey was below the critical threshold before an explosion killed 41 people last week.. Under Turkish law, mines are supposed to evacuate workers when the level of methane in the air reaches two percent in the tunnels.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Wednesday that the methane level in a mine in northwest Turkey was below the critical threshold before an explosion killed 41 people last week.

The blast ripped through the mine near the small coal town of Amasra on Turkey's Black Sea coast shortly before sunset on Friday.

"According to measurements before the accident, the current was cut in the mine because of a methane level that reached 1.5 percent at 18:05 (15:05 GMT)", or 10 minutes before the explosion, Erdogan told MPs belonging to his AKP Party.

"For methane to explode, its level in the air must reach at least five percent," Erdogan said.

"We do not know yet how the explosion could have occurred despite all the precautions taken," the president said. Erdogan visited the site of the disaster on Saturday.

Under Turkish law, mines are supposed to evacuate workers when the level of methane in the air reaches two percent in the tunnels.

Relatives of the dead told AFP and Turkish media that miners had complained of the smell of gas in the mine for about 10 days before the explosion.

"Everything that can be said will be speculation until we have a definitive accident report," the head of state said.

- Opposition outcry -

The opposition has accused the government of failing to take the necessary measures to prevent the disaster.

"Mine accidents can happen anywhere in the world," Erdogan said, alluding to an accident where 1,099 people had died in France. He did not specify that the Courrieres disaster happened in 1906.

"What century are we in?" opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu asked Saturday. "Why are mining accidents always happening in Turkey?" 

Turkey suffered its deadliest coal mining disaster in 2014 when 301 workers died in a blast and ensuing fire that brought down a mining shaft in the western town of Soma.

Five mine managers were found guilty of negligence and handed jail terms of up to 22 years.

Turkey's Supreme Court of Accounts said in its reports in 2019 and 2020 that there were irregularities in the Amasra mine, according to Turkish media.

Erdogan vowed Saturday that "nobody will be spared" if the accident report determines who is responsible.

But he also repeated his conviction that such accidents were a result of fate.

"If there are guilty people, they will be punished. But in doing this, we submit to fate, to the will of God. It's indispensable for Muslims," he said.

bg/lc/jj

© Agence France-Presse

French workers end strike at one Total Energies refinery as others continue on

NEWS WIRES
Wed, 19 October 2022

© Caroline Pailliez, Reuters

Workers voted to end a strike at one of TotalEnergies' French refineries on Wednesday, bolstering the government's hopes the supply situation at petrol stations around the country will rapidly improve.

A CGT union representative told Reuters industrial action was continuing at three other TotalEnergies' French refineries – La Mede, Feyzin and Normandy – as well as at the Dunkirk fuel storage site.

But, with an eye on the autumn school break that starts at the end of the week, members of the French government, who forced some fuel depot staff to return to work earlier this week, repeated that a back to normal situation was within reach.

TotalEnergies has been hit by strikes at its refinery sites in France for nearly a month, as workers seek higher salary increases they say would better reflect rising inflation.

The protests have disrupted the supply of petrol to service stations, leading to long lines of motorists queuing to fill up cars and causing general public anger.

Government spokesperson Olivier Veran said earlier the number of French petrol stations facing supply problems due to the strike was now down to 21% versus almost a third over the week-end.

"We are doing everything we can to get back to a normal situation. The way things are evolving these last days suggest that may happen soon," he told reporters after the weekly cabinet meeting.

Energy Transition Minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher also pointed at signs of a general improvement in the supply of petrol to service stations in the country but said the situation in the Paris/Ile-de-France area remained difficult.

(REUTERS)

RIGHT WING 

NZ Opposition Doesn’t Want RBNZ’s Orr Reappointed for Five Years

LIKE PIERRE POLIEVRE IN CANADA


Tracy Withers
Mon, October 17, 2022 

(Bloomberg) -- New Zealand’s main opposition National Party doesn’t want the government to reappoint Reserve Bank Governor Adrian Orr for another five-year term, preferring a 12-month extension until after the 2023 election.

That would mean the next governor could be appointed by a new government rather than by the current administration, National Party Leader Christopher Luxon suggested in an interview with NewstalkZB radio on Tuesday. Orr’s first term expires in March 2023.

National has been critical of the RBNZ’s quantitative easing program during the Covid-19 pandemic, which it says over-stimulated the economy and contributed to surging inflation and a sharp increase in borrowing costs. National is currently ahead of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s Labour Party in opinion polls.

Asked if he would be unhappy to become prime minister with Orr in place for another five years, Luxon said: “Yes we would.”

He said his advice to Finance Minister Grant Robertson would be to extend Orr’s term by just 12 months, citing the precedent of the last time a governor’s term came due close to an election.

In 2017, the then National government named deputy RBNZ governor Grant Spencer to a six-month caretaker role as chief when Graeme Wheeler’s term ended just days after an election. The new Labour-led government then appointed Orr, who started in March 2018.

Luxon told NewstalkZB that he remains committed to seeking a comprehensive review of what happened with monetary policy during the pandemic, saying such an examination is “entirely appropriate.”

He has said he would remove the RBNZ’s dual mandate and return its focus to inflation fighting if National takes power.

Are flat-earthers being serious?

Stephanie Pappas
Mon, October 17, 2022


Of all the conspiracy theories that litter the Internet, the flat Earth conspiracy is quite possibly the most curious. After all, the ancient Greeks figured out the planet's shape (and even its circumference) in the third century B.C.

But a fringe society founded in the 1950s, dedicated to insisting that the Earth is flat, has given rise to a modern ground of flat Earth adherents. These believers claim that the Earth is a flat disc, and that evidence that it is round — say, pictures taken from space — are an elaborate hoax involving multiple governments. Opinions differ on exactly how the flat Earth works, with believers concocting elaborate versions of physics and creative interpretations of the solar system to make their theories work.

No one knows how many flat Earth believers are out there. According to Smithsonian Magazine, membership in the Flat Earth Society, founded in 1956, once reached 3,500 people. Today, the society claims more than 500 members on its roster. But some believers want nothing to do with the Flat Earth Society, according to a 2019 CNN article, with some attendees of the Flat Earth International Conference in Dallas that year telling the news agency that the organization is a government-sponsored front designed to make Flat Earthers look bad. (The Flat Earth Society responded to this by telling CNN, "We are not a government-controlled body. We're an organization of Flat Earth theorists that long predates most of the FEIC newcomers to the scene.")

Who are flat-earthers?

As the Flat Earth Society/Flat Earth International Conference schism reveals, flat-earthers are not a monolithic group. The current president of the Flat Earth Society, Daniel Shenton, is a Londoner who now lives in Hong Kong. Robbie Davidson, who organizes the annual Flat Earth International Conferences, is a Canadian who espouses a Biblical worldview and opposes what he calls "scientism."

A 2017 national poll by Public Policy Polling found that only 1% of Americans believed the Earth was flat, with an additional 6% saying they weren't sure. There was very little evidence of differences in this belief by political affiliation, with any differences between Trump voters, Clinton voters and third-party voters falling within the poll's margin of error of 3.2%.

A 2018 article in the Colorado Sun on a flat Earth convention in Denver found that many attendees believed a whole suite of conspiracy theories, such as that all politicians are actors and that powerful shadowy forces control the world.

Flat-earthers occasionally get a boost from celebrity believers. For instance, on Jan. 25, 2016, rapper-singer Bobby Ray Simmons Jr. (known as B.o.B) released a track called "Flatline" in which he disses astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, after the two had a Twitter battle over the spherical-ness of the planet. B.o.B is convinced Earth is flat. A day earlier, the rapper tweeted: "No matter how high in elevation you are... the horizon is always eye level ... sorry cadets... I didn't wanna believe it either." In 2018, NBA player Kyrie Irving had to apologize after causing a media controversy by speculating that the Earth was flat on a 2017 podcast.

Flat Earth map

This flat Earth map drawn by Orlando Ferguson in 1893 is also considered the Bible Map of the World. (Image credit: CalimaX / Alamy)

The leading flat-earther theory holds that Earth is a disc with the Arctic Circle in the center and Antarctica, a 150-foot-tall (45 meters) wall of ice, around the rim. NASA employees, they say, guard this ice wall to prevent people from climbing over and falling off the disc. (In keeping with their skepticism of NASA, known flat-earther conspiracy theorist Nathan Thompson approached a man he said was a NASA employee in a Starbucks in mid-May 2017. In a YouTube video of the exchange, Thompson, founder of the Official Flat Earth and Globe Discussion page, shouted that he had proof the Earth is flat — apparently saying an astronaut drowning was that proof — and that NASA is "lying.")

Furthermore, Earth's gravity is an illusion, they say. Objects do not accelerate downward; instead, the disc of Earth accelerates upward at 32 feet per second squared (9.8 meters per second squared), driven up by a mysterious force called dark energy. Currently, there is disagreement among flat-earthers about whether or not Einstein's theory of relativity permits Earth to accelerate upward indefinitely without the planet eventually surpassing the speed of light. (Einstein's laws apparently still hold in this alternate version of reality.)

As for what lies underneath the disc of Earth, this is unknown, but most flat-earthers believe it is composed of "rocks."

It's worth noting that all of the above is completely contentious even within the flat Earth community. "None of us believe that we're a flying pancake in space," Davidson told CNN in the 2019 article. At the Flat Earth International Conferences, it's more common to believe that space simply does not exist at all and the disc of the Earth sits still, he said. One speaker at the 2018 FEIC even argued that Earth is neither a sphere nor a disc, but instead is shaped like a diamond, according to The Guardian.
Do flat-earthers think the moon is flat?

Earth's shadow partially covers the moon as viewed from the ISS

Flat Earth opinions about the moon vary. Some think that while Earth is flat, the moon and sun are spheres, Live Science's sister site Space.com reported. In this vision of the solar system, Earth's day and night cycle is explained by positing that the sun and moon are spheres measuring 32 miles (51 kilometers) that move in circles 3,000 miles (4,828 km) above the plane of the Earth. (Stars, they say, move in a plane 3,100 miles up.) Like spotlights, these celestial spheres illuminate different portions of the planet over a 24-hour cycle. Flat-earthers believe there must also be an invisible "antimoon" that obscures the moon during lunar eclipses.

On YouTube, there are videos pointing to shadows in pictures of the moon and arguing that the moon is transparent, and thus just a light. One speaker at the 2018 conference attended by a Guardian reporter made a case for the moon as a projection.
What is the Zetetic Method?

If flat-earthers seem hard to dissuade based on standard scientific evidence, there's a reason for that: flat Earth theorizing follows from a mode of thought called the "Zetetic Method." The Zetetic Method is an alternative to the scientific method, developed by a 19th-century flat-earther, in which sensory observations reign supreme.

"Broadly, the method places a lot of emphasis on reconciling empiricism and rationalism, and making logical deductions based on empirical data," Flat Earth Society vice president Michael Wilmore, an Irishman, told Live Science in 2017.

Our world would get weird fast on a flat Earth. Navigation could get trickier, as GPS satellites wouldn't work on a flat Earth; And what about gravity? You’d expect that to change, and if gravity instead pulled toward the planet’s center, you’d have oddly slanted trees and even sideways rain. With no gravity, Earth would not be able to hold onto an atmosphere and skies would likely turn black. (Image credit: How It Works)

In Zetetic astronomy, the perception that Earth is flat leads to the deduction that it must actually be flat; the antimoon, NASA conspiracy and all the rest are just rationalizations for how that might work in practice.

Those details make the flat-earthers' theory so elaborately absurd it sounds like a joke, but many of its supporters genuinely consider it a more plausible model of astronomy than the one found in textbooks. In short, they aren't kidding.

"The question of belief and sincerity is one that comes up a lot," Wilmore said. "If I had to guess, I would probably say that at least some of our members see the Flat Earth Society and Flat Earth Theory as a kind of epistemological exercise, whether as a critique of the scientific method or as a kind of 'solipsism for beginners.' There are also probably some who thought the certificate would be kind of funny to have on their wall. That being said, I know many members personally, and I am fully convinced of their belief."

Wilmore counts himself among the true believers. "My own convictions are a result of philosophical introspection and a considerable body of data that I have personally observed, and which I am still compiling," he said.

Wilmore and the society's president Shenton both think the evidence for global warming is strong, despite much of this evidence coming from satellite data gathered by NASA, the kingpin of the "round Earth conspiracy." They also accept evolution and most other mainstream tenets o
How we know the Earth is NOT flat?

On July 30, 2021, Shenzhou 12 astronaut Tang Hongbo photographed the spectacular scenery of thousands of lights in North Africa, clearly showing the curvature of Earth. (Image credit: Tang Hongbo/China Manned Space Engineering Office)

Despite the claims from flat-earthers, there are plenty of ways to know that the world is round. One quick option is to check out NASA's image library, which is chock-full of nice, curvy pictures of the globe taken from the International Space Station. If NASA is hoaxing everyone, they're committed to the bit.

Don't trust NASA? The Russians also snap pictures of the round Earth, Space.com reported. So does Japan's space agency. And China's.

For the flat-earther convinced that all these countries put aside their political tensions in order to maintain the fiction of a spherical Earth, there are also ways to check on the planet's shape with one's own eyes. One of the simplest is to go to a harbor and watch the ships depart. As a ship disappears over the horizon, the bottom of the ship will go first, followed gradually by the mast.

Related: 8 ways life would get weird on a flat Earth

You can also take a page out of the ancient Greeks' book. Ancient Hellenistic philosophers figured out that the world had to be a globe based on a few observations. One was that the stars aren't the same in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres: From opposite halves of the Earth, you're clearly looking out at different quadrants of space. Another was that Earth's shadow on the moon's surface during lunar eclipses is curved.

Two images of the night sky in the northern and southern hemispheres.

The Greeks even figured out how to calculate an approximate circumference of the Earth with no fancier tools than a stick and the light of the sun. By measuring the angle of a shadow cast by the sun at the same time and day in two cities a known distance apart, the philosopher Eratosthenes was able to calculate that the planet's circumference was between 24,000 and about 29,000 miles (38,600 and 46,670 kilometers). (It's actually 24,900 miles.) The very fact that the angle of the sun differs on different parts of the planet indicates that we're all sitting on a globe.

Conspiracy theory psychology

A man in a tinfoil hat hunches over a laptop

As inconceivable as their belief system seems, it doesn't really surprise experts. Karen Douglas, a psychologist at the University of Kent in the United Kingdom who studies the psychology of conspiracy theories, says flat-earthers' beliefs cohere with those of other conspiracy theorists she has studied.

"It seems to me that these people do generally believe that the Earth is flat. I'm not seeing anything that sounds as if they're just putting that idea out there for any other reason," Douglas told Live Science.

She said all conspiracy theories share a basic thrust: They present an alternative theory about an important issue or event, and construct an (often) vague explanation for why someone is covering up that "true" version of events. "One of the major points of appeal is that they explain a big event but often without going into details," she said. "A lot of the power lies in the fact that they are vague."

The self-assured way in which conspiracy theorists stick to their story imbues that story with special appeal. After all, flat-earthers are more adamant that the Earth is flat than most people are that the Earth is round (probably because the rest of us feel we have nothing to prove). "If you're faced with a minority viewpoint that is put forth in an intelligent, seemingly well-informed way, and when the proponents don't deviate from these strong opinions they have, they can be very influential. We call that minority influence," Douglas said.

RELATED MYSTERIES

—Where did Earth's water come from?

—What's the world's largest continent?

—Why does Earth have an atmosphere?

In a study published online March 5, 2014, in the American Journal of Political Science, Eric Oliver and Tom Wood, political scientists at the University of Chicago, found that about half of Americans endorse at least one conspiracy theory, from the notion that 9/11 was an inside job to the JFK conspiracy. "Many people are willing to believe many ideas that are directly in contradiction to a dominant cultural narrative," Oliver told Live Science. He says conspiratorial belief stems from a human tendency to perceive unseen forces at work, known as magical thinking.

However, flat-earthers don't fit entirely snugly in this general picture. Most conspiracy theorists adopt many fringe theories, even ones that contradict each other. Meanwhile, flat-earthers' only hang-up is the shape of the Earth. "If they were like other conspiracy theorists, they should be exhibiting a tendency toward a lot of magical thinking, such as believing in UFOs, ESP, ghosts the Devil, or other unseen, intentional forces," Oliver wrote in an email. "It doesn't sound like they do, which makes them very anomalous relative to most Americans who believe in conspiracy theories."

Editor's Note: This article was first published on Oct. 26, 2012, and updated by Stephanie Pappas on Dec. 16, 2021 and Oct. 17, 2022.

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Record measurement of universe suggests 'something is fishy'

Issued on: 19/10/2022 - 

Astrophysicists measured the light for exploding stars called supernovae to arrive at the most precise limits yet for the universe's composition 

Handout NASA/AFP
3 min

Paris (AFP) – The most precise measurements ever made of the universe's composition and how fast it is expanding suggest "something is fishy" in our understanding of the cosmos, the astrophysicist who led the research said Wednesday.

The comprehensive new study published in The Astrophysical Journal further confirmed that there is a significant discrepancy between two different ways to estimate the speed at which the universe is expanding.

The study said that around five percent of the universe is made up of what we might think of as normal matter, while the rest is dark matter and dark energy -- both of which remain shrouded in mystery.

Dark energy, a hypothetical force causing the universe to expand at an ever-increasing rate, makes up 66.2 percent of the cosmos, according to the study published in The Astrophysical Journal.

The remaining 33.8 percent is a combination of matter and dark matter, which is also unknown but may consist of some as-yet-undiscovered subatomic particle.

To arrive at the most precise limits yet put on what our universe is made up of, an international team of researchers observed exploding stars called supernovae.

They analysed the light from 1,550 different supernovae, ranging from close to home to more than 10 billion lights year away, back when the universe was a quarter of its current age.

"We can compare them and see how the universe is behaving and evolving over time," said Dillon Brout of the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and lead author of the study, called Pantheon+.

Two decades of analysis

The study updated the data from the Pantheon project a couple of years ago, stamping out possible problems and nailing down more precise calculations.

"This latest Pantheon+ analysis is a culmination of more than two decades' worth of diligent efforts by observers and theorists worldwide in deciphering the essence of the cosmos," US astrophysicist Adam Reiss, 2011's physics Nobel winner, said in a statement.

It was by observing supernovae back in the late 1990s that Reiss and other scientists discovered the universe was not only expanding but also doing so at an increasing rate, meaning galaxies are racing away from each other.

"It was like if you threw a ball up, and instead of the ball coming down, it shot up and kept accelerating," Brout said of the surprise of that discovery.

Pantheon+ also pooled data with the SH0ES supernova collaboration to find what is believed to be the most accurate measurement for how rapidly the universe is expanding.

They estimated the universe is currently expanding 73.4 kilometres a second every megaparsec, or 3.26 million light years. That works out to be around 255,000 kilometres (160,000 miles) per hour, according to a Harvard-Smithsonian statement.

But there's a problem.

- The Hubble tension -

Measuring cosmic microwave background radiation, which can look much farther back in time to around 300,000 years after the Big Bang, suggests the universe is expanding at a significantly slower rate -- around 67 kilometres per megaparsec.

This discrepancy has been called the Hubble tension, after US astronomer Edwin Hubble.

The Pantheon+ results have raised the certainty of the Hubble tension above what is known as the five sigma threshold, which means the discrepancy "can no longer be attributed to luck", Brout said.

"It certainly indicates that potentially something is fishy with our understanding of the universe," Brout told AFP.

Some possible, unverified theories for the discrepancy could include another kind of dark energy in the very early universe, primordial magnetic fields, or even that the Milky Way sits in a cosmic void, potentially slowing it down.

But for now, Brout said that "we, as scientists thrive on not understanding everything.

"There's still potentially a major revolution in our understanding, coming potentially in our lifetimes," he added.

© 2022 AFP