NORTHERN IRELAND

Lough Neagh: Pollution putting livelihoods and lake at risk

Richard O'Reilly - BBC News NI
Sat, August 12, 2023 

Mick Hagan said he believed the lough was dying through the presence of sewage and slurry


Livelihoods - and even the viability of the lake itself - are at risk from the level of pollution in Lough Neagh, angling groups and politicians have warned.

It comes after a number of blue-green algae blooms over the summer in waters in and around Northern Ireland.

It has led to some bathing bans and warning signs being erected at popular tourist sites.

Lough Neagh is the largest body of fresh water in the British Isles.

In February, anglers in Country Antrim said they were worried about a major fish kill on the Crumlin River, which flows into Lough Neagh after reports of slurry polluting the water.

One angler at Ballyronan told BBC News NI that nobody is taking responsibility for the pollution of the rivers that flow into Lough Neagh, where commercial eel fishing has been important to the local economy.

Mick Hagan, secretary of one of the angling clubs on the Ballinderry River, has lived on the lough shore his whole life.

Blue green algae has been present at the lough and the waters around Northern Ireland in recent months

"The Ballinderry River gets heavily polluted from excess slurry run-offs, agricultural run-offs and factories," he said.

"The amount of slurry and raw sewage being pumped into Lough Neagh, it's just accumulating a huge amount of nutrients. From what I can see, the lough's dying.

"Lough Neagh has provided for generations. People's livelihoods are at stake. The numerous angling clubs, boating and other organisations will collapse if this isn't sorted."

The Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (Daera) has previously said that algae blooms can occur when there is abundant sunlight, still or slow-flowing water and sufficient levels of nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus.

However, ownership of Lough Neagh is the responsibility of no single department or group.

The Earl of Shaftesbury is said to own the banks and bed of the lough, but not the water itself.

'Passing the buck'

Tom McElhone is vice-chair of the community centre at Ballyronan Marina where signs warning of algae in the water can be seen.

Tom McElhone said he had lived on the shores of the lough for 60 years

He has lived on the shores of Lough Neagh for 60 years and said the numerous reports of algae is a symptom of a heavily polluted body of water.

"Our population of fish has collapsed. We've lost Lough Neagh eels," he said.

"It's all because of no management. You see a foot of this glar [algae] clogging marinas and fishing quays all around the lough."

SDLP councillor in Mid Ulster Malachi Quinn said reports have found the water quality in Lough Neagh is poor and it would take more than 20 years to improve it.

"First of all we need to get somebody to take responsibility for the lough and to look after it. There's a lot of passing the buck going on," said Mr Quinn.

"The issue is getting worse and worse every year, and quite frankly I think the lough is going to be destroyed."

Daera told BBC News NI it has a range of programmes to improve water quality and was working with partners and stakeholders.

"Whilst it is recognised that significant pieces of work are progressing, improvements in water quality will take a considerable period of sustained effort over many years, and Daera and the Northern Ireland Environment Agency cannot deliver this on their own."

The statement added: "Farmers and pet owners should ensure that animals do not have access to water that appears to be subject to a bloom, as the algae can potentially produce toxins that may be fatal to livestock/pets."

BBC News NI has also contacted NI Water and the Earl of Shaftesbury for comment.

Forget AI. For a moment Silicon Valley was obsessed with floating rocks.

Gerrit De Vynck, (c) 2023, The Washington Post
Fri, August 11, 2023

Forget AI. For a moment Silicon Valley was obsessed with floating rocks.

SAN FRANCISCO - Late last month, a group of unknown South Korean researchers claimed to have found one of science's holy grails - a material capable of conducting electricity without losing any energy that was stable at room temperature. Grainy videos of a small floating rock - one of the signature signs that a material may have superconducting properties - ricocheted around the internet.

A hubbub immediately erupted in Silicon Valley, where investors, tech executives and entrepreneurs - still hyping artificial intelligence - were enthralled with the idea that the potential breakthrough could become the first revolutionary leap forward in tech in years. A so-called room-temperature superconductor could make possible sci-fi-like ideas such as levitating trains, as well as more practical ones related to perfectly efficient energy storage.

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The topic was so hot that the leaders of influential tech start-up incubator Y Combinator sent out a request to graduates of their program asking whether anyone had experience in materials science, according to a person familiar with the private forum, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share private discussions. The post triggered hundreds of replies debating whether the South Korean discovery was legitimate or not.

Already, many scientists believe it was a false alarm, and the material, known as LK-99, might just be a type of magnet, though studies are ongoing. But the episode revealed the intense appetite in Silicon Valley for finding the next big thing after years of hand-wringing that the tech world has lost its ability to come up with big, world-changing innovations, instead channeling all its money and energy into building new variations of social media apps and business software.

"The market right now is very much in this shoot first, think later mind-set," said Bryan Offutt, a venture capitalist at Index Ventures. "If you're wrong no one will remember, but if you're right you're forward thinking."

Silicon Valley's boom and bust cycles have been rolling for decades. The dot-com crash of the early 2000s wiped out a swath of companies that had tried to capitalize on hype around the early internet, but also set the stage for the next wave of tech investment. Since then, innovations such as cloud storage and the smartphone have allowed thousands of start-ups to thrive, shifted much of society onto the internet and made Big Tech companies like Google, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft into some of the most powerful organizations in history.

(Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post. Interim CEO Patty Stonesifer sits on Amazon's board.)

But many tech leaders are nervous that the current focus on consumer and business software has led to stagnation. A decade ago, investors prophesied that self-driving cars would take over the roads by the mid-2020s - but they are still firmly in the testing phase, despite billions of dollars of investment. Cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology have had multiple hype cycles of their own, but have yet to fundamentally change any industry, besides crime and money laundering. Tech meant to help mitigate climate change, like carbon capture and storage, has lagged without major advances in years.

Meanwhile, Big Tech companies used their huge cash hoards to snap up smaller competitors, with antitrust regulators only recently beginning to clamp down on consolidation. Over the last year, as higher interest rates have cut into the amount of venture capital and slowing growth has caused companies to pull back spending, a massive wave of layoffs has swept the industry, and companies such as Google that previously said they'd invest some of their profits in big, risky ideas have turned away from such "moonshots."

Since the launch of ChatGPT last November, AI has captivated the industry, with Big Tech companies and start-ups alike doubling down on the field, heralding it as the next wave of massive growth. But AI is expensive and complicated to develop, and already there are signs that growth is slipping, such as the number of people using ChatGPT every month dropping.

Materials science has helped make tech faster and better for years, from the computer chip to fiber optic cables. Scientists say the field will lead to the next wave of breakthroughs, be it room-temperature superconductors or materials that lead to working quantum computers - which can theoretically operate many times faster than regular computers.

The idea in recent weeks that a mystery material cooked up in an anonymous lab could usher in a world torn from the pages of a sci-fi novel was too irresistible to ignore for many.

"This is the first time in a very long time that I've seen so many people share a unified voice about optimism about an abundant future, optimism about a big breakthrough rather than get on social media to share a voice about fear and anger," tech entrepreneur David Friedberg said on the "All-In" podcast.

Room-temperature superconductors would be especially relevant to the tech industry right now, which is busy burning billions of dollars on new computer chips and the energy costs to run them to train the AI models behind tools like ChatGPT and Google's Bard. For years, computer chips have gotten smaller and more efficient, but that progress has run up against the limits of the physical world as transistors get so small some are now just one atom thick.

Sinéad Griffin, a physicist and quantum materials researcher at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, started getting a flurry of emails and texts from colleagues and friends the day the paper first appeared. Claims about room-temperature superconductors are fairly common, but this one intrigued her because it was clear the South Korean researchers had been thinking about their work for a long time, she said.

Griffin and her team soon modeled LK-99 using super computers, showing that it had some features that resembled high-temperature superconductors. She posted the paper online, and suddenly the number of accounts following her on Twitter, which was recently renamed X, skyrocketed.

Venture capitalists, tech executives and entrepreneurs sent her emails asking for investment advice and offering paid consulting positions and full-time jobs, she said. Her paper was discussed by hundreds of people on Reddit threads. Much of what people were saying was inaccurate.

"The hype can be damaging," Griffin said. "That was definitely a huge downside. The upside is people are paying attention to this critical part of science that all of the tech industry depends on."

Big Tech companies such as Google, Microsoft and Amazon have spent billions over the past decade on AI research, helping create the breakthroughs that led to generative AI tools like chatbots and image generators. But materials science gets less attention, even though it's a field that underpins much of modern technology.

"Working in this field and in materials research in general, I'm aware of the silent fingerprint that innovations in material have over every aspect of our lives," said Inna Vishik, an associate professor and quantum materials researcher at the University of California at Davis Department of Physics and Astronomy.

Some of Silicon Valley's most powerful leaders have a background in materials science. Google CEO Sundar Pichai did his undergrad in metallurgical engineering and has a masters of science from Stanford University's materials science department. In 1995, Tesla founder Elon Musk was accepted into a doctoral program, also at Stanford, but dropped out two days after it started to pursue his career as an entrepreneur.

"Take Materials Science 101. You won't regret it," Musk tweeted last September.

For decades, scientists generally agreed that superconductivity could occur only at extremely low temperatures, making it impractical for real-life applications. But in 1986, German and Swiss physicists found materials that could be superconductive at temperatures high enough to be cooled by liquid nitrogen, a relatively cheap way of lowering an object's temperature.

The breakthrough led to an explosion of excitement very similar to the one that happened this month. Time Magazine's cover story on May 11, 1987, celebrated the "superconductivity revolution," complete with a futuristic-looking car plugged into a wall charger. The 1987 gathering of the American Physical Society was so charged with hype and public interest that it's still remembered as the "Woodstock of physics," after the famous 1969 music festival.

The researchers behind the discovery won the 1987 Nobel Prize for physics just 19 months after submitting their paper on the topic, the shortest time ever from a discovery to winning the prize.

"If you think there's a lot of hype right now, it's nothing compared to back then," Vishik said.

People coaxed AI into saying 9+10=21 and giving instructions for spying — it shows how these systems are prone to flaws and bias

Kai Xiang Teo
Sun, August 13, 2023


Participants at a hacking conference tricked AI into producing factual errors and bad math.

They wanted to show this technology is prone to bias. One participant said she was especially concerned about racism.

AI experts have been sounding the alarm about the dangers of AI bias for years.

A group of hackers gathered over the weekend at the Def Con hacking conference in Las Vegas to test whether AI developed by companies — such as OpenAI and Google — could make mistakes and are prone to bias, Bloomberg reported Sunday.

And they found at least one bizarre bad math problem, among other factual errors.

As part of a public contest for hackers, Kennedy Mays, a 21-year-old student from Savannah, Georgia, tricked an AI model into claiming that nine plus 10 equals 21.

She achieved this by getting the AI to do so as an "inside joke" before the AI eventually stopped offering any justification for the incorrect calculation.

A Bloomberg reporter participating in the event tricked an AI model into giving instructions for spying after a single prompt, eventually leading the model to suggest how the US government could spy on a human rights activist.

Another participant got an AI model to falsely claim Barack Obama was born in Kenya — a baseless conspiracy theory popularized by right-wing figures.

An undisclosed number of participants received 50 minutes each per attempt with an unidentified AI model from one of the participating AI companies, according to VentureBeat and Bloomberg. The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy helped in organizing the event.

Mays told Bloomberg she was most concerned about AI's bias towards race, saying that the model endorsed hateful and discriminatory speech after being asked to consider the First Amendment from the viewpoint of a member of the Ku Klux Klan.

An OpenAI spokesperson told VentureBeat on Thursday that "red-teaming," or challenging one's systems through an adversarial approach, was critical for the company as it allows for "valuable feedback that can make our models stronger and safer" and "different perspectives and more voices to help guide the development of AI."

These errors aren't a one-off concern. AI experts have been sounding the alarm on bias and inaccuracy in AI models, despite AI making headlines for acing law school exams and the SATs. In one instance, tech news site CNET was forced to make corrections after its AI-written articles made numerous basic math errors.

And the consequences of these errors can be far-reaching. For instance, Amazon shut down its AI recruitment tool as it discriminated against female applicants, Insider reported in 2018.

Def Con and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Insider, sent outside regular business hours.

Why Venus is now a slim crescent and will disappear from the evening sky this weekend

Jamie Carter
Fri, August 11, 2023

Venus as a razor-thin crescent as it nears inferior conjunction with the sun.

You may have noticed in recent weeks that the planet Venus has slipped from the post-sunset sky, slimming into a crescent shape as it drops from view. Its reign as the bright "Evening Star" in 2023 is over, as a relatively rare celestial phenomenon takes shape.

On Aug. 13, Venus will appear to be between Earth and the sun, which astronomers describe as being at inferior conjunction. It's purely a line-of-sight phenomenon, and from Earth's point of view it can only happen to two planets in the solar system — Mercury and Venus — both of which are inferior planets, which means they are closer to the sun than Earth. The outer planets, which lie farther from the sun than Earth, are called superior planets by astronomers.

Another way of understanding Venus at inferior conjunction is to think of it as in its "new" phase, much as a new moon sits between Earth and the sun. Just like a new moon, Venus at inferior conjunction will be virtually invisible to us on Earth. On Aug. 13, the planet will be completely lost in the sun's glare and impossible to observe. This phenomenon happens once every 19 months, according to EarthSky, because Venus' orbit around the sun takes just 225 days (compared with Earth's 365).

As Venus has been approaching inferior conjunction, it's been thinning to a slim crescent, just as the moon becomes a waning crescent on its way to becoming a new moon. Appearing closer to the sun with each passing day, Venus has been sinking lower to the horizon in the post-sunset western sky. As well as losing latitude, it's also been losing light. As the angle between it and the sun has been reducing, on Earth we've been able to see less and less sunlight reflected from Venus.

Venus won't appear to cross the sun's disk on Aug. 13, instead passing just 7.7 degrees to its south and be just 0.9% illuminated, according to BBC Sky At Night magazine. The moment when the planet appears to pass across the disk of the sun as seen from Earth is called a transit of Venus, which last happened on June 5 to 6, 2012. A transit won't happen again until Dec. 10 to 11, 2117.

— The 'man in the moon' may be hundreds of millions of years older than we thought

Venus' trip into the sun's glare will be brief. Venus and Earth are in an 8:13 resonance, so from Earth's point of view, Venus orbits the sun 13 times in every eight Earth years, according to The Planetary Society. A week or two after its inferior conjunction, Venus will have moved sufficiently away from the sun's glare to emerge into the dawn sky and begin its appearance as the "Morning Star". It will reach its highest point in the sky on Oct. 23 as it appears 46.4 degrees west of the sun, according to Astro Pixels. That farthest point from the sun is called its greatest elongation west.

Venus reached superior conjunction (appearing to go behind the sun) on June 4, 2024, achieving its greatest elongation east in the post-sunset sky on Jan. 10, 2025, according to Timeanddate.com.

If you're looking to photograph Venus, the upcoming Perseid meteor shower or the night sky in general, don't miss our guide on how to photograph meteor showers, as well as our best cameras for astrophotography and best lenses for astrophotography.

This story was provided by Livescience.

THE MORNING STAR IS THE EVENING STAR

Instruments for NASA's VERITAS Venus mission get a test in Iceland (photos)

Stefanie Waldek
Fri, August 11, 2023 

a drone alights on the hand of a man standing in the middle of a black lava field with mountains in the background


NASA's VERITAS Venus mission might be on hold, but team members continue to test out its gear here on Earth.

The German Aerospace Center (known by the German acronym DLR), a VERITAS mission partner, is conducting field tests in Iceland this summer, using its airborne F-SAR radar sensor and an infrared imager called V-EMulator to study lava flows. As Venus is expected to have a volcanic surface, the volcanic landscapes of Iceland serve as a strong analog for what VERITAS might find on our neighboring planet.

"Characterizing and measuring the extent and type of volcanic and tectonic processes on Venus is key to understanding the evolution of the surface of Venus and rocky planets in general," Sue Smrekar, the principal investigator for VERITAS at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California, said in a statement.

Related: Here's every successful Venus mission humanity has ever launched

two people stand on a black lava field with a white insrument on a black tripod

During two weeks of field operations, scientists and researchers from DLR and JPL will use the F-SAR radar system mounted on DLR's Dornier 228-212 aircraft to collect imaging data from Iceland's surface. Simultaneously, teams are collecting data and samples on the ground for laboratory analysis to supplement the radar data.

DLR is also testing V-EMulator, a prototype for the eventual Venus Emissivity Mapper that will be installed on VERITAS (whose name is short for "Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography And Spectroscopy").

"This will be of tremendous help to us in characterizing the mineralogical composition and origin of the major geologic terrains on the Venusian surface when VEM delivers 'true' Venus data during the mission phase," Solmaz Adeli, of DLR's Institute of Planetary Research, said in the same statement.

radar image of a lava field, featuring greenish patches of fresher lava against a dark background of older deposits.

RELATED STORIES:

— Problems with NASA asteroid mission Psyche delay Venus probe's launch to 2031

— NASA Venus mission VERITAS becomes collateral damage amid budget pressures

— Venus may have supported life billions of years ago

NASA intended VERITAS to launch in 2027, but due to institutional troubles at JPL, among other issues, the mission has been delayed indefinitely. It is expected that VERITAS might launch in the early 2030s, though mission funding has been reduced and further delays might occur.

The agency is also developing another Venus mission, called DAVINCI ("Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging"), which is scheduled to reach the planet in the early 2030s. Europe's EnVision probe, another Venus effort, is expected to get off the ground in that same general time frame as well.

As these three missions show, scientific interest in the second planet from the sun has surged over the past few years. Researchers increasingly view Venus as a possible abode for life, both in the ancient past and in the present day. Life as we know it cannot exist on the planet's scorching-hot surface today, but conditions about 30 miles (50 kilometers) up in the clouds are much more Earth-like.

The largest known asteroid impact structure on Earth is buried in southeast Australia, new evidence suggests

Andrew Glikson

Sat, August 12, 2023 

An artist's depiction of an asteroid hitting Earth.

This article was originally published at The Conversation. 

In recent research published by myself and my colleague Tony Yeates in the journal Tectonophysics, we investigate what we believe – based on many years of experience in asteroid impact research – is the world's largest known impact structure, buried deep in the earth in southern New South Wales.

The Deniliquin structure, yet to be further tested by drilling, spans up to 520 kilometers in diameter. This exceeds the size of the near-300-km-wide Vredefort impact structure in South Africa, which to date has been considered the world's largest.

Related: 10 Earth impact craters you must see

Hidden traces of Earth's early history

The history of Earth's bombardment by asteroids is largely concealed. There are a few reasons for this. The first is erosion: the process by which gravity, wind and water slowly wear away land materials through time.

When an asteroid strikes, it creates a crater with an uplifted core. This is similar to how a drop of water splashes upward from a transient crater when you drop a pebble in a pool.

This central uplifted dome is a key characteristic of large impact structures. However, it can erode over thousands to millions of years, making the structure difficult to identify.

Structures can also be buried by sediment through time. Or they might disappear as a result of subduction, wherein tectonic plates can collide and slide below one another into Earth's mantle layer.

Nonetheless, new geophysical discoveries are unearthing signatures of impact structures formed by asteroids that may have reached tens of kilometers across – heralding a paradigm shift in our understanding of how Earth evolved over eons. These include pioneering discoveries of impact "ejecta," which are the materials thrown out of a crater during an impact.

Researchers think the oldest layers of these ejecta, found in sediments in early terrains around the world, might signify the tail end of the Late Heavy Bombardment of Earth. The latest evidence suggests Earth and the other planets in the Solar System were subject to intense asteroid bombardments until about 3.2 billion years ago, and sporadically since.

Some large impacts are correlated with mass extinction events. For example, the Alvarez hypothesis, named after father and son scientists Luis and Walter Alvarez, explains how non-avian dinosaurs were wiped out as a result of a large asteroid strike some 66 million years ago.

Uncovering the Deniliquin structure

The Australian continent and its predecessor continent, Gondwana, have been the target of numerous asteroid impacts. These have resulted in at least 38 confirmed and 43 potential impact structures, ranging from relatively small craters to large and completely buried structures.

Map of the country Australia with red, green and yellow dots showing circular formations

As you'll recall with the pool and pebble analogy, when a large asteroid hits Earth, the underlying crust responds with a transient elastic rebound that produces a central dome.

Such domes, which can slowly erode and/or become buried through time, may be all that’s preserved from the original impact structure. They represent the deep-seated "root zone" of an impact. Famous examples are found in the Vredefort impact structure and the 170-km-wide Chicxulub crater in Mexico. The latter represents the impact that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs.

Between 1995 and 2000, Tony Yeates suggested magnetic patterns beneath the Murray Basin in New South Wales likely represented a massive, buried impact structure. An analysis of the region's updated geophysical data between 2015 and 2020 confirmed the existence of a 520 km diameter structure with a seismically defined dome at its centre.

The Deniliquin structure has all the features that would be expected from a large-scale impact structure. For instance, magnetic readings of the area reveal a symmetrical rippling pattern in the crust around the structure's core. This was likely produced during the impact as extremely high temperatures created intense magnetic forces.

A central low magnetic zone corresponds to 30-km-deep deformation above a seismically defined mantle dome. The top of this dome is about 10km shallower than the top of the regional mantle.

Magnetic measurements also show evidence of "radial faults": fractures that radiate from the center of a large impact structure. This is further accompanied by small magnetic anomalies which may represent igneous "dikes," which are sheets of magma injected into fractures in a pre-existing body of rock.

map of an asteroid impact structure with radial lines

Radial faults, and igneous sheets of rocks that form within them, are typical of large impact structures and can be found in the Vredefort structure and the Sudbury impact structure in Canada.

Currently, the bulk of the evidence for the Deniliquin impact is based on geophysical data obtained from the surface. For proof of impact, we'll need to collect physical evidence of shock, which can only come from drilling deep into the structure.

When did the Deniliquin impact happen?

The Deniliquin structure was likely located on the eastern part of the Gondwana continent, prior to it splitting off into several continents (including the Australian continent) much later.

The Deniliquin structure was likely created in eastern Gondwana during the Late Ordovician.

Related stories:

— Asteroid impact, not volcanic activity, killed the dinosaurs, study finds
— Fiery meteor that doomed the dinosaurs struck at 'deadliest possible' angle
— How did birds survive the dinosaur-killing asteroid?

The impact that caused it may have occurred during what’s known as the Late Ordovician mass extinction event. Specifically, I think it may have triggered what’s called the Hirnantian glaciation stage, which lasted between 445.2 and 443.8 million years ago, and is also defined as the Ordovician-Silurian extinction event.

This huge glaciation and mass extinction event eliminated about 85% of the planet’s species. It was more than double the scale of the Chicxulub impact that killed off the dinosaurs.

It is also possible the Deniliquin structure is older than the Hirnantian event, and may be of an early Cambrian origin (about 514 million years ago). The next step will be to gather samples to determine the structure’s exact age. This will require drilling a deep hole into its magnetic centre and dating the extracted material.

It's hoped further studies of the Deniliquin impact structure will shed new light on the nature of early Paleozoic Earth.

Acknowledgment: I'd like to thank my colleague Tony Yeates, who originated the view of the Deniliquin multi-ring structure as an impact structure – and who was instrumental to this work.

This story originally appeared on The Conversation.

Virgin Galactic’s first space tourists had a ‘surreal experience’

Ashley Strickland, CNN
Sat, August 12, 2023 

Space tourists (from left) Jon Goodwin, Anastatia Mayers and her mother, Keisha Schahaff, pose for photos ahead of their Thursday flight. 

- Andres Leighton/AP

The dreams we have as children often stick with us for the rest of our lives.

And if your dream involved venturing to the stars, space tourism has opened up another avenue for those who didn’t study to become astronauts — albeit at a hefty price.

Those who have been willing to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for a ticket to ride to the edge of space have also endured a lengthy wait, and for most of them it’s not over yet.

Billionaire Richard Branson founded Virgin Galactic in 2004, and it built up a backlog of 800 paying passengers. After years of missed deadlines, the company finally started delivering on its long-promised journeys with an inaugural commercial launch in June funded by the Italian air force.

Now, three more space travelers have a cosmic tale to tell.

Defying gravity

Virgin Galactic’s rocket-powered space plane carried its first group of tourists on a brief trip Thursday.

The lucky trio included the first Olympian and mother-daughter duo to travel to space.

Entrepreneur and health and wellness coach Keisha Schahaff and her daughter Anastatia Mayers were the first space travelers from Antigua. They were joined by Jon Goodwin, who competed as a canoeist in the 1972 Munich Summer Games and became the second person with Parkinson’s disease to travel to space.

Mayers said she was “starstruck” by the experience of glimpsing Earth, and Goodwin described the hour-long journey as “a completely surreal experience.”

Separately, Russia and India are in a lunar space race to see which of their respective uncrewed spacecraft will land on the moon first in a couple of weeks.

Virgin Galactic's first space tourists finally soar, an Olympian and a mother-daughter duo

SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN and MARCIA DUNN
Updated Thu, August 10, 2023 

TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES, N.M. (AP) — Virgin Galactic rocketed to the edge of space with its first tourists Thursday, a former British Olympian who bought his ticket 18 years ago and a mother-daughter duo from the Caribbean.

The space plane glided back to a runway landing at Spaceport America in the New Mexico desert, after a brief flight that gave passengers a few minutes of weightlessness.

This first private customer flight had been delayed for years; its success means Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic can now start offering monthly rides, joining Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin and Elon Musk's SpaceX in the space tourism business.

“That was by far the most awesome thing I’ve ever done in my life,” said Jon Goodwin, who competed in canoeing in the 1972 Olympics.

Goodwin, 80, was among the first to buy a Virgin Galactic ticket in 2005 and feared, after later being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, that he’d be out of luck. Since then he’s climbed Mount Kilimanjaro and cycled back down, and said he hopes his spaceflight shows others with Parkinson’s and other illnesses that ”it doesn’t stop you doing things.”

Ticket prices were $200,000 when Goodwin signed up. The cost is now $450,000.

He was joined on the flight by sweepstakes winner Keisha Schahaff, 46, a health coach from Antigua, and her daughter, Anastatia Mayers, 18, a student at Scotland's University of Aberdeen. They high-fived and pumped their fists as the spaceport crowd cheered their return.

"A childhood dream has come true,” said Schahaff, who took pink Antiguan sand up with her. Added her daughter: “I have no words. The only thought I had the whole time was ‘Wow!’ ”

With the company's astronaut trainer and one of the two pilots, it marked the first time women outnumbered men on a spaceflight, four to two.

Cheers erupted from families and friends watching below when the craft’s rocket motor fired after it was released from the twin-fuselage aircraft that had carried it aloft. The rocket ship’s portion of the flight lasted about 15 minutes and it reached 55 miles (88 kilometers) high.

It was Virgin Galactic's seventh trip to space since 2018, but the first with a ticket-holder. Branson, the company's founder, hopped on board for the first full-size crew ride in 2021. Italian military and government researchers soared in June on the first commercial flight. About 800 people are currently on Virgin Galactic’s waiting list, according to the company.

In contrast to Virgin Galactic’s plane-launched rocket ship, the capsules used by SpaceX and Blue Origin are fully automated and parachute back down.

Like Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin aims for the fringes of space, quick ups-and-downs from West Texas. Blue Origin has launched 31 people so far, but flights are on hold following a rocket crash last fall. The capsule, carrying experiments but no passengers, landed intact.

SpaceX, is the only private company flying customers all the way to orbit, charging a much heftier price, too: tens of millions of dollars per seat. It’s already flown three private crews. NASA is its biggest customer, relying on SpaceX to ferry its astronauts to and from the International Space Station. since 2020.

People have been taking on adventure travel for decades, the risks underscored by the recent implosion of the Titan submersible that killed five passengers on their way down to view the Titanic wreckage. Virgin Galactic suffered its own casualty in 2014 when its rocket plane broke apart during a test flight, killing one pilot. Yet space tourists are still lining up, ever since the first one rocketed into orbit in 2001 with the Russians.

Branson, who lives in the British Virgin Islands, watched Thursday's flight from a party in Antigua. He was joined by the country's prime minister, as well as Schahaff's mother and other relatives.

"Welcome to the club,” he told the new spacefliers via X, formerly Twitter.

Several months ago, Branson held a virtual lottery to establish a pecking order for the company's first 50 customers — dubbed the Founding Astronauts. Virgin Galactic said the group agreed Goodwin would go first, given his age and his Parkinson’s.

___

This story has been updated to correct introductory price to $200,000, not $250,000.

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Dunn reported from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

'Quantum superchemistry' observed for the 1st time ever

Stephanie Pappas
Sun, August 13, 2023 

Illustration of atomic orb.

For the first time, researchers have observed "quantum superchemistry" in the lab.

Long theorized but never before seen, quantum superchemistry is a phenomenon in which atoms or molecules in the same quantum state chemically react more rapidly than do atoms or molecules that are in different quantum states. A quantum state is a set of characteristics of a quantum particle, such as spin (angular momentum) or energy level.

To observe this new super-charged chemistry, researchers had to coax not just atoms, but entire molecules, into the same quantum state. When they did, however, they saw that the chemical reactions occurred collectively, rather than individually. And the more atoms were involved, meaning the greater the density of the atoms, the quicker the chemical reactions went.

"What we saw lined up with the theoretical predictions," Cheng Chin, a professor of physics at the University of Chicago who led the research, said in a statement. "This has been a scientific goal for 20 years, so it's a very exciting era."

Related: What is quantum entanglement?

"What we saw lined up with the theoretical predictions," Cheng Chin, a professor of physics at the University of Chicago who led the research, said in a statement. "This has been a scientific goal for 20 years, so it's a very exciting era."

The team reported their findings July 24 in the journal Nature Physics. They observed the quantum superchemistry in cesium atoms that paired up to form molecules. First, they cooled cesium gas to near absolute zero, the point at which all motion ceases. In this chilled state, they could ease each cesium atom into the same quantum state. They then altered the surrounding magnetic field to kick off the chemical bonding of the atoms.

These atoms reacted more quickly together to form two-atom cesium molecules than when the researchers conducted the experiment in normal, non-super-cooled gas. The resulting molecules also shared the same quantum state, at least over several milliseconds, after which the atoms and molecules start to decay, no longer oscillating together.

"[W]ith this technique, you can steer the molecules into an identical state," Chin said.

The researchers found that though the end result of the reaction was a two-atom molecule, three atoms were actually involved, with a spare atom interacting with the two bonding atoms in a way that facilitated the reaction.

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This could be useful for applications in quantum chemistry and quantum computing, as molecules in the same quantum state share physical and chemical properties. The experiments are part of the field of ultracold chemistry, which aims to gain incredibly detailed control over chemical reactions by taking advantage of the quantum interactions that occur in these cold states. Ultracold particles could be used as qubits, or the quantum bits that carry information in quantum computing, for example.

The study used only simple molecules, so the next goal is to attempt to create quantum superchemistry with more complex molecules, Chin said.

"How far we can push our understanding and our knowledge of quantum engineering, into more complicated molecules, is a major research direction in this scientific community," he said.

This article was provided by Live Science.

Could white holes actually exist?
Paul Sutter
Sun, August 13, 2023 

graphic illustration showing a black hole above and a white hole below.

Black holes seem to get all the attention. But what about their mirror twins, white holes? Do they exist? And, if so, where are they?

To understand the nature of white holes, first we have to examine the much more familiar black holes. Black holes are regions of complete gravitational collapse, where gravity has overwhelmed all other forces in the universe and compressed a clump of material all the way down to an infinitely tiny point known as a singularity. Surrounding that singularity is an event horizon, which is not a physical, solid boundary, but simply the border around a singularity where the gravity is so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape.

We know how the universe forms black holes. When a massive star dies, its immense weight crushes onto its core, triggering the creation of a black hole. Any matter or radiation that wanders too close to the black hole gets trapped by the strong gravity and pulled beneath the event horizon to its ultimate doom.

Related: What happens at the center of a black hole?

We understand this process of black hole formation, and how black holes interact with their environments, through Einstein's theory of general relativity. To arrive at the concept of a white hole, we have to recognize that general relativity doesn't care about the flow of time. The equations are time-symmetric, meaning the math works perfectly fine running forward or backward in time.

So if we were to take a movie of the formation of a black hole and run it in reverse, we would find an object streaming radiation and particles. Eventually, it would explode, leaving behind a massive star. This is a white hole, and according to general relativity, this scenario is perfectly fine.

White holes would be even stranger than black holes. They would still have singularities at their centers and event horizons at their borders. They would still be massive, gravitating objects. But any material that entered a white hole would immediately get ejected at a speed greater than that of light, causing the white glow to shine ferociously. Anything on the outside of a white hole would never be able to get inside it, because it would have to travel faster than the speed of light to cross inward through the event horizon.

But if white holes are allowed by the math of general relativity, then why don't we suspect that they exist in the real universe? The answer is that general relativity is not the only word on the cosmos. There are other branches of physics that tell us about the inner workings of the universe, like our theories of electromagnetism and thermodynamics.

Within thermodynamics, there is the concept of entropy, which is, very roughly speaking, a measure of the disorder in a system. The second law of thermodynamics tells us that the entropy of closed systems can only go up. In other words, disorder always increases.

As an example, say you throw a piano into a wood chipper. Out comes a bunch of pulverized debris. Disorder in the system has increased, and the second law of thermodynamics has been satisfied. But if you throw a bunch of random pieces into that same wood chipper, you won't get a fully formed piano out of it, because that would cause disorder to decrease. (Highly ordered systems, like life, can arise on Earth — but they come at the cost of increased entropy within the sun. You're still not getting pianos out of wood chippers, no matter how you construct your system.)

We can't simply run the process of black hole formation in reverse and get a white hole, because that would cause entropy to decrease — stars don't miraculously appear out of gigantic cosmic explosions. So, while general relativity is agnostic about the reality of white holes, thermodynamics gives the concept a hard no.

The only way to form a white hole would be to have some exotic process operating in the early universe that baked the existence of a white hole into the fabric of space-time itself. That way, the white hole formation process would bypass the trouble with decreasing the entropy — the white hole would simply be there, existing, since the beginning of time.

a fuzzy donut shape with a dark center and blurry orange ring.

The Event Horizon Telescope, a planet-scale array of eight ground-based radio telescopes forged through international collaboration, captured this image of the supermassive black hole in the center of the galaxy M87 and its shadow. Here M87 is viewed in polarized light. (Image credit: EHT Collaboration)


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Unfortunately, white holes would also be fantastically unstable. They would still gravitate and pull material toward them, but nothing would be able to cross the event horizons. As soon as anything, even a single photon (particle of light) approached a white hole, it would be doomed. If the particle approached the event horizon, it would not be able to cross it, sending the energy of the system skyrocketing. Eventually, the particle would have so much energy that it would trigger the collapse of the white hole into a black hole, ending its existence.

So, as fun and mind-bending as white holes appear to be, they do not seem to be features of the real universe — just ghosts haunting the mathematics of general relativity.

REWILDING

UK
Kettering 'unloved' meadow transformed into wildlife haven

Alex Pope - BBC News, Northamptonshire
Sun, August 13, 2023 

Slade Brook has been re-aligned to flow into the River Ise in Kettering


An "unloved, unutilised and inaccessible" flood meadow has been reconnected to a river to become a wildlife haven.

Nene Rivers Trust said the Slade Brook, on land owned by Wicksteed Park in Kettering, Northamptonshire, now flowed to the River Ise.

Viktor Tzikas, from the charity, said land once with "no value" would become a wetland full of biodiversity.

Wicksteed Park said the area had been "transformed" and was now accessible.

Lewis Mitchell, Wicksteed's park ranger, stood on the South Meadow after the reconnection work was completed

Mr Tzikas said its £150,000 flagship project to South Meadow, which started in September, had been completed.

"It was one of the biggest schemes we've worked on in recent years. We're very proud," he said.


"We now hope it will create a more diverse habitat for fish, birds and vegetation - a wetland full of biodiversity and a wildlife haven.

"It was unmanaged land with no value. It was taken on by Wicksteed Park, who didn't know what they could do with it, so they approached us and the Environment Agency, asked for advice and it then snowballed."

During the project, gravel was put in the River Ise to speed up its flow

He said the meadow used to be connected to the River Ise until it was realigned for a railway line in the late 1800s.

It could never be built on, but now could "be brought back to its most natural use", he said.

Building work started in September and went on for several months

Mr Tzikas said the site would work as another flood defence as it could store more water and take the pressure off the area upstream.

Robert Hunt, director of Wicksteed Park, said: "After many years of neglect the park, working alongside many partners, we've worked to reinstate many of the historic landscape features within the estate."

He said the meadow, once owned by the now defunct Kettering Borough Council, was handed over to the park.

"It's an uplifting example of collaboration and environmental stewardship that has transformed a practically unloved, unutilised and inaccessible piece of wasteland into a vibrant and open habitat for wildlife and the public."

Water can now flow from the Slade Brook straight into the River Ise, as it did hundreds of years ago

He added it would now be a "place that nobody walks to become a place to visit".

Follow East of England news on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Got a story? Email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp us on 0800 169 1830

UK

Endangered lapwing returns to County Down bog

BBC
Mon, August 14, 2023 

An endangered bird has returned to a County Down bog thanks to conservation efforts.

For the first time in years, two breeding pairs of lapwings have been spotted at Lecale Fens special area of conservation, just outside Downpatrick.

The bird is red-listed on the Birds of Conservation Concern in Ireland and is a Northern Ireland priority species.

The breakthrough comes after efforts by Ulster Wildlife working with local farmer John Crea.

The number of lapwings has declined over the last 40 years due to the loss of wetland habitat and changes in farming practices.

The bird requires a range of habitats to breed, preferring boggy open areas with bare ground or short vegetation, avoiding areas of dense cover.

Innovative solutions

Since 2018, Ulster Wildlife has been working with specialist contractors and the farmer to eliminate invasive species and scrub, such as rhododendron, from Lecale Fens, using amphibious machinery.

Simon Gray, peatland conservation officer with Ulster Wildlife, said conservation efforts have been ongoing for five years.

"In the past, this area was managed by grazing or burning to stop scrub taking over and drying out the fen, but given climate concerns associated with peat burning and risks to livestock from deep water we had to come up with new and innovative solutions," he said.

"Five years later and we're thrilled to see our restoration efforts reap rewards for biodiversity, with Lecale Fens moving towards a healthy condition again."

Mr Gray said the changes would have a knock-on effect for other wildlife such as dragonflies, snipe and silver hook moth.

Mr Crea said he was delighted to see the lapwing back on his farm.

"It's brilliant to see these birds doing so well and we hope they come back again next year to breed," he said.

Ulster Wildlife is working with landowners across Northern Ireland to restore designated peatland sites along with large-scale peatland areas in need of restoration.

The aim is to help bring back the rich diversity of species these sites once supported, as well as the host of benefits peatlands provide from flood prevention to carbon sequestration.

Mr Gray added: "With over 75% of land in Northern Ireland farmed, it is vital that farmers and landowners are properly supported to help restore nature on a landscape scale with peatland sites, such as this, playing a vital role in helping to tackle the nature and climate crisis."

UK

Preston farmer's battery plant plan approved

BBC
Mon, August 14, 2023 

A Lancashire farmer's field is to be turned into a battery plant to store renewable energy until it is needed by the national grid.

Sixty four storage units will be built on rural land off Green Lane in Barton, Preston, near the M6.

They will enable power generated from wind and solar to be saved for periods of high demand.

City councillors approved the "novel" plans although a planning officer said there was a potential risk of fire.

There were no comments submitted to the authority in response to the proposed development, situated to the north of Mount Pleasant Farm, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

The meeting heard the technology involved was "novel" and council planning case officer Jonathan Evans said there was "the potential risk of fire".

Two voted against the plans.

Harry Landless, Conservative councillor for Preston Rural East, described the proposals as a "doomsday scenario" and predicted a "proliferation of these [sites] all over our countryside".

Fellow Tory councillor Stephen Thompson for Preston Rural North added an industrial site in open countryside "shouldn't be allowed" and also expressed concern over what he said was technology that was "very early on" in its development.

In documents submitted by Baron Battery Storage, the company said it was a "sustainable development" and the risk of major accidents was "very low" and there was "no risk to human health" as a result of its plans.

Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service recommended Baron Battery Storage produce a risk reduction strategy and Preston planning committee was told the resultant document was considered by the fire brigade to be "satisfactory".

National Highways initially placed a holding objection on the plans in part because of the potential impact of a fire on the M6.

After the applicant engaged with roads bosses and produced a fire safety strategy it withdrew its objection subject to the submission of an emergency response plan.