Astronomers discover newborn galaxies with the James Webb Space Telescope

by Niels Bohr Institute

A look through time with the James Webb Space Telescope. The big galaxy in the

 foreground is named LEDA 2046648, and is seen just over a billion years back in time, 

while most of the others lie even farther away, and hence are seen even further back in 

time. 

Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, A. Martel

With the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers are now able to peer so far back in time that we are approaching the epoch where we think that the first galaxies were created. Throughout most of the history of the universe, galaxies seemingly tend to follow a tight relation between how many stars they have formed, and how many heavy elements they have formed.

But for the first time we now see signs that this relation between the amount of stars and elements does not hold for the earliest galaxies. The reason is likely that these galaxies simply are in the process of being created, and have not yet had the time to create the heavy elements.

The universe is teeming with galaxies—immense collections of stars and gas—and as we peer deep into the cosmos, we see them near and far. Because the light has spent more time reaching us, the farther away a galaxy is, we are essentially looking back through time, allowing us to construct a visual narrative of their evolution throughout the history of the universe.

Observations have shown us that galaxies through the last 12 billion years—that is, 5/6 of the age of the universe—have been living their life in a form of equilibrium: There appears to be a fundamental, tight relation between on one hand how many stars they have formed, and on the other hand how many heavy elements they have formed. In this context, "heavy elements," means everything heavier than hydrogen and helium.

This relation makes sense, because the universe consisted originally only of these two lightest elements. All heavier elements, such as carbon, oxygen, and iron, was created later by the stars.

Imaging and spectroscopic data of CEERS-z7382. a, False-color JWST/NIRCam

 red-green-blue image centered on the example galaxy (blue: F150W, 1.5 μm; green: 

F277W, 2.8 μm; red: F444W, 4.4 μm). The image scale and corresponding physical size at 

z = 7.8328 is marked. b, Full NIRSpec prism spectrum covering 0.7 μm to 5.2 μm (cyan) 

and associated 1σ error spectrum (gray). c, Detail of the spectral region covering the 

nebular emission lines from the [O III] λλ4960, 5008 doublet and Hβ. The local best-fit line

 and continuum model is shown by the black curve. 

Credit: Nature Astronomy (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41550-023-02078-7

James Webb peers deeper

The very first galaxies should therefore be "unpolluted" by heavy elements. But until recently we haven't been able to look so far back in time. In addition to being far away, the reason is that the longer light travels through space, the redder it becomes. For the most distant galaxies you have to look all the way into the infrared part of the spectrum, and only with the launch of James Webb did we have a telescope big and sensitive enough to see so far.

And the space telescope did not disappoint: Several has James Webb broken its own record for the most distant galaxy, and now it finally seems that we are reaching the epoch where some of the very first galaxies were created.

In a new study, published Sept. 21 in the journal Nature Astronomy, a team of astronomers from the Danish research center Cosmic Dawn Center at the Niels Bohr Institute and DTU Space in Copenhagen, has discovered what seems indeed to be some of the very first galaxies which are still in the process of being formed.

"Until recently it has been near-impossible to study how the first galaxies are formed in the early universe, since we simply haven't had the adequate instrumentation. This has now changed completely with the launch of James Webb," says Kasper Elm Heintz, leader of the study and assistant professor at the Cosmic Dawn Center.

This plot shows the observed galaxies in an "element-stellar mass diagram": The farther to

 the right a galaxy is, the more massive it is, and the farther up, the more heavy elements 

it contains. The gray icons represent galaxies in the present-day universe, while the red 

the new observations of early galaxies. These clearly have much less heavy elements than

 later galaxies, but agree roughly with theoretical predictions, indicated by the blue band. 

Credit: Kasper Elm Heintz, Peter Laursen. Credit: Nature Astronomy (2023). 

DOI: 10.1038/s41550-023-02078-7

Fundamental relation breaks down

The relationship between the total stellar mass of the galaxy and the amount of heavy elements is a bit more complex than that. How fast the galaxy produces new stars also has something to say. But if you correct for that, you get a beautiful, linear relationship: The more massive the galaxy, the more heavy elements.

But this relation is now being challenged by the latest observations.

"When we analyzed the light from 16 of these first galaxies, we saw that they had significantly less heavy elements, compared to what you'd expect from their stellar masses and the amount of new stars they produced," says Kasper Elm Heintz.

In fact the galaxies turned out to have, on average, four times less amounts of heavy elements that in the later universe. These results are in stark contrast to the current model where galaxies evolve in a form of equilibrium throughout most of the history of the universe.

Predicted by theories

The result is not entirely surprising though. Theoretical models of galaxy formation, based on detailed computer programs, do predict something similar. But now we've seen it.

The explanation, as proposed by the authors in the article, is simply that we are witnessing galaxies in the process of being created. Gravity has gathered the first clumps of gas, which have begun to form stars.

If the galaxies then lived their lives undisturbed, the stars would quickly enrich them with heavy elements. But in between the galaxies at that time were large amounts of fresh, unpolluted gas, streaming down to the galaxies faster than the stars can keep up.

"The result gives us the first insight into the earliest stages of galaxy formation which appear to be more intimately connected with the gas in between the galaxies than we thought.

"This is one of the first James Webb observations on this topic, so we're still waiting to see what the larger, more comprehensive observations that are currently being carried out can tell us.

"There is no doubt that we will shortly have a much clearer understanding of how galaxies and the first structures began their formation during the first billion years after the Big Bang," Kasper Elm Heintz concludes.

More information: Kasper E. Heintz et al, Dilution of chemical enrichment in galaxies 600 Myr after the Big Bang, Nature Astronomy (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41550-023-02078-7

Journal information: Nature Astronomy 

Provided by Niels Bohr Institute Study reveals cosmic surprises about star formation from the dawn of time

 

Earth's crust, tectonic plates gradually formed, geoscientists find

by David Kubarek, Pennsylvania State University

Research led by Jesse Reimink, assistant professor of geosciences at Penn State, 

suggests that the Earth's crust continued a slow process of reworking for billions of years,

 rather than rapidly slowing its growth some 3 billion years ago. The work contradicts 

existing theories that suggest the rapid formation of tectonic plates earlier in Earth's 

history, Reimink said. 

Credit: Pennsylvania State University

The Earth's crust continued a slow process of reworking for billions of years, rather than rapidly slowing its growth some 3 billion years ago, according to a Penn State-led research team. The new finding contradicts existing theories that suggest the rapid formation of tectonic plates earlier in Earth's history, researchers said.

They published the research in Geochemical Perspectives Letters.

The work may help answer a fundamental question about our planet and could hold clues as to the formation of other planets, according to lead author Jesse Reimink, assistant professor of geosciences.

"The dominating theory points to an inflection point some 3 billion years ago, implying we had a stagnant lid planet with no tectonic activity before a sudden shift to tectonic plates," Reimink said. "We've shown that's not the case."

To chart the formulation of the Earth's crust—or the crustal growth curve—researchers turned to more than 600,000 samples comprising the Earth's rock records database. Researchers across the globe—including at Penn State—have analyzed each rock sample in the record to determine geochemical contents and age. Researchers chose the rock records over mineral samples, which informed the theory of a more sudden formation, because they said the rock record is more sensitive and less prone to bias on those time scales.

Knowing that the reliability of the mineral record decreases through time, researchers recreated the crustal growth curve using the rock records. To do that, they developed a unique method for determining how igneous rocks dating to millions of years ago were reworked and reformed over time: experimentally demonstrating how the same rock could change in different ways over time.

Rocks can be reformed a number of ways, such as weathering into sediments or being remelted in the mantle, so researchers used this experimental data to inform novel mathematical tools capable of analyzing the rock records and working out the differences in sample changes.

"We calculated how much reworking has happened by looking at the composition of igneous rocks in a new way that teases out the proportion of sediments," Reimink said.

They used these calculations to calibrate the reworking documented in the rock records. Then, researchers calculated Earth's crustal growth curve using the new understanding of how the rocks were reformed. They compared the newly calculated curve to the rate of growth gleaned from mineral records by other experts.

Reimink and his team's work indicates the Earth's crust follows the path of the mantle—the layer on which the crust sits—suggesting a correlation between the two. It's not the first time geoscientists have suggested a more gradual crustal growth, Reimink said; however, it's the first time the rock record has been used to back it up.

"Our crustal growth curve matches the mantle record of growth, so it seems like those two signals are overlapping in a way that they did not when using the mineral record to create the crustal growth curve," Reimink said.

Reimink cautioned that the research improves on what researchers understand, but it's not the be-all and the end-all for crustal growth research. There are simply too few data points to speak to the vast time and space of the Earth's crust. However, Reimink said, further analyzing the existing data points may help inform investigations of other planets. Venus, for example, has no tectonic plates and could be a modern day example of early Earth.

"When did Earth and Venus become different?" Reimink asked. "And why did they become different? This crustal growth rate plays into that a lot. It tells the how, what and why of how planets evolved on different trajectories."

More information: J.R. Reimink et al, A whole-lithosphere view of continental growth, Geochemical Perspectives Letters (2023). DOI: 10.7185/geochemlet.2324

Provided by Pennsylvania State University 

Geoscientists use zircon to trace origin of Earth's continents

 

Experimental garden study uses AI to show how plants respond to environmental changes

by Barbara Simpson, University of Zurich

Credit: UZH

Artificial intelligence (AI) can help plant scientists collect and analyze unprecedented volumes of data, which would not be possible using conventional methods. Researchers at the University of Zurich (UZH) have now used big data, machine learning and field observations in the university's experimental garden to show how plants respond to changes in the environment.

Climate change is making it increasingly important to know how plants can survive and thrive in a changing environment. Conventional experiments in the lab have shown that plants accumulate pigments in response to environmental factors. To date, such measurements were made by taking samples, which required a part of the plant to be removed and thus damaged.

"This labor-intensive method isn't viable when thousands or millions of samples are needed. Moreover, taking repeated samples damages the plants, which in turn affects observations of how plants respond to environmental factors. There hasn't been a suitable method for the long-term observation of individual plants within an ecosystem," says Reiko Akiyama, first author of the study.

With the support of UZH's University Research Priority Program (URPP) "Evolution in Action," a team of researchers has now developed a method that enables scientists to observe plants in nature with great precision. PlantServation is a method that incorporates robust image-acquisition hardware and deep learning-based software to analyze field images, and it works in any kind of weather. The research has been published in Nature Communications.

Millions of images support evolutionary hypothesis of robustness

Using PlantServation, the researchers collected (top-view) images of Arabidopsis plants on the experimental plots of UZH's Irchel Campus across three field seasons (lasting five months from fall to spring) and then analyzed the more than four million images using machine learning.

The data recorded the species-specific accumulation of a plant pigment called "anthocyanin" as a response to seasonal and annual fluctuations in temperature, light intensity and precipitation.

PlantServation also enabled the scientists to experimentally replicate what happens after the natural speciation of a hybrid polyploid species. These species develop from a duplication of the entire genome of their ancestors, a common type of species diversification in plants. Many wild and cultivated plants such as wheat and coffee originated in this way.

In the current study, the anthocyanin content of the hybrid polyploid species A. kamchatica resembled that of its two ancestors: from fall to winter its anthocyanin content was similar to that of the ancestor species originating from a warm region, and from winter to spring it resembled the other species from a colder region.

"The results of the study thus confirm that these hybrid polyploids combine the environmental responses of their progenitors, which supports a long-standing hypothesis about the evolution of polyploids," says Rie Shimizu-Inatsugi, one of the study's two corresponding authors.

PlantServation was developed in the experimental garden at UZH's Irchel Campus.

"It was crucial for us to be able to use the garden on Irchel Campus to develop PlantServation's hardware and software, but its application goes even further: when combined with solar power, its hardware can be used even in remote sites," says Kentaro Shimizu, corresponding author and co-director of the URPP Evolution in Action.

"With its economical and robust hardware and open-source software, PlantServation paves the way for many more future biodiversity studies that use AI to investigate plants other than Arabidopsis—from crops such as wheat to wild plants that play a key role for the environment."

More information: Reiko Akiyama et al, Seasonal pigment fluctuation in diploid and polyploid Arabidopsis revealed by machine learning-based phenotyping method PlantServation, Nature Communications (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-41260-3

Journal information: Nature Communications 

Provided by University of Zurich 

Genome duplication drives evolution of species

 

Is there more to palm oil than deforestation?

by University of Göttingen

Palm oil fresh fruit bunches. Credit: Sophie-Dorothe Lieke

Palm oil is the world's most produced and consumed vegetable oil and everyone knows that its production can damage the environment. But do consumers have the full picture? In fact, replacing palm oil with rapeseed oil would require a four to five-fold increase in the amount of land needed.

Research led by the University of Göttingen investigated the attitudes, beliefs and understanding about palm oil of the general public in Germany, and how this links to land use. The researchers show that people find it hard to know the consequences of their buying choices, even when extra information is supplied. The results were published in Sustainable Production and Consumption.

For this study, researchers first conducted an in-depth literature review on the effects of "indirect land use change" to assess the effects of switching from palm oil production. "Indirect land use change" refers to the effects on the environment due to land use change resulting from the increased demand for certain agricultural crops or biofuels. They then conducted an online survey on a sample of 1,247 people in the German population.

Among other issues, questions covered the overall importance of palm oil in the food industry and explored how people felt about the "free from palm oil" claim compared to a certification label, the consequences of land use change and comparisons with using other vegetable oils. They then measured the effect of providing consumers with extra information in the form of two separate infographics: one on palm oil generally and the other on indirect land use change specifically.

Bottles and bags of palm oil often found in Indonesian corner stores and supermarkets. Credit: Sophie-Dorothe Lieke

The results showed that product information and labeling can produce a confusing and misleading picture for consumers. The provision of extra information influenced responses but the effect was small. Customers were attracted to the "free from palm oil" label.

They showed more trust towards it and perceived it as superior from both health and environmental perspectives, even if for the latter sustainably produced palm oil might be a more environmentally-friendly option. After receiving the additional information, many consumers were still skeptical about the potential benefits of sustainably produced palm oil in comparison with other vegetable oils such as soybean, sunflower and rapeseed oil.

Findings from this study are important as they provide insights into how consumers can be encouraged to grapple with complex and often controversial food choices. "Consumers have limited time to weigh up the social, environmental or health attributes of products," says Sophie-Dorothe Lieke from Göttingen University's Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development.

Lieke adds, "Our research shows that many find the information overwhelming and want clear, reliable guidance. This could be in the form of introducing an 'eco-label' which would not only pick up differences in production systems but also help guide shoppers in making more informed decisions about the environmental impact their purchases have."

More information: Sophie-Dorothe Lieke et al, Can consumers understand that there is more to palm oil than deforestation?, Sustainable Production and Consumption (2023). DOI: 10.1016/j.spc.2023.05.037

Provided by University of Göttingen Sustainable palm oil? How environmental protection and poverty reduction can be reconciled

Researchers call for change to Irish schoolyards to support children's play

by University College Cork

Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain

Researchers are calling for increased attention to the design of schoolyards and provision of diverse spaces for play in primary schools, to address issues of exclusion, bullying and racism in Irish schoolyards.

A study led by University College Cork (UCC) researchers has found that the limited attention given to children's right to play in school policies and practices contradicts with inclusive school ideals and government commitments to children's rights. The study has been published in the Journal of Occupational Therapy, Schools, & Early Intervention

More than half a million children share schoolyards in over 3000 Irish primary schools for a mandated, supervised breaktime that is more than 10% of each school day.

Over a three-year period, the multi-study research project investigated play in Irish schoolyards as central to the production of intersectional inequities central to exclusion particularly for disabled and minoritized children.

Teachers cited challenges and tensions in creating conditions for play in schoolyards including limited policy and practice guidance, contradictory expectations and litigation fears and the need to negotiate diverse individual and collective interests, prioritizing safety and an absence of conflict.

Michelle Bergin, occupational therapist and Ph.D. Student at UCC, will present the research at the Futures Research Conference at UCC's College of Medicine and Health today Thursday, 21 September.

Irish schoolyards were described as hard surfaced, restrictive, empty spaces with few, often broken objects and limited access to natural areas.

The study found that working with children and teachers to understand each particular context and identify possibilities for change is central when planning schoolyards that will increase play choice and inclusion in schoolyards.

Michelle Bergin said, "Children described football, tag, fighting and sustaining friendships as routine. They said that exclusion happened within play linked to social and spatial restrictions for example racism identified as a significant barrier to Irish Traveler children's play."

Researchers are calling on the government to harness the new Policy Framework for Children and Young People 2023–2028 (DCEDIY, 2022) which forefronts children's rights and integrated policy and practices to review how to integrate school breaktimes in inclusive, intercultural, and sustainable school policies and provide time, funding and guidance to schools towards enacting these policies.

This will require dialog regarding the provision of play rights but also clarity on funding, practice guidelines and the challenges of litigation fears, racism, bullying and exclusion in schoolyards.

"Our research calls for greater consideration of the transformative potential of play to contribute to more equitable, inclusive and sustainable futures. Our study highlights that play in Irish schoolyards is fundamental to children's social lives, identities, friendships and experience of fun and offers possibilities to create connections of care and solidarity," Michelle Bergin said.

Professor John Cryan, Vice President for Research and Innovation at UCC, said, "This extensive study highlights the essential need to make the school playground environment a more inclusive, fair and equal environment for all children. UCC has a long track record of research involving children across a variety of disciplines and themes.'

"In the coming months, we will launch UCC Futures Children, and along with this research in Future Medicines, children's health, well-being and their rights will continue to be at the forefront of research at UCC."

More information: Michelle Bergin et al, Irish Schoolyards: Teacher's Experiences of Their Practices and Children's Play-"It's Not as Straight Forward as We Think", Journal of Occupational Therapy, Schools, & Early Intervention (2023). DOI: 10.1080/19411243.2023.2192201

Provided by University College Cork What happens on the schoolyard? Sensors on clothing reveal painful patterns

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https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1211610.pdf

Homo Ludens: A Renewed Reading • - ERIC 

The author discusses Johan Huizinga's Homo Ludens and the animating mood that it calls the “play spirit.” He argues that these styles of playful-.

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Homo Ludens : a study of the play element in culture - Inter... 

Jun 6, 2023 ... Homo Ludens : a study of the play element in culture. by: Huizinga ... PDF download · download 1 file · SINGLE PAGE ORIGINAL JP2 TAR download.

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Homo Ludens A Study of the Play-Element m Culture, by. Johan Hulzmga. IN PREPARATION. Paths zn Utopa, by Martln Buber. Attack Upon Chrtstendom, by Soren ...

 

Ashes of orca Tokitae finally home after her death last month in Miami

by Lynda V. Mapes, The Seattle Times

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Tokitae the orca has come home.

Not to swim in her Salish Sea, but for her ashes to be scattered there, in a private ceremony by members of the Lummi Nation, who regard her as a relative.

Sk'aliCh'elh-tenaut, as she was named by the Lummi, will be returned to her home waters Saturday.

On Wednesday, Raynell Morris, a Lummi elder, boarded a Learjet at a private airport in Georgia, the state where the necropsy and cremation of the whale took place, to fly the whale home to Bellingham International Airport. "I am just so happy she is home," Morris said. "So happy."

The orca's ashes are in a white wooden cedar box, about 4 feet long, 20 inches tall and 12 inches across and weighing about 300 pounds, Morris said. An artist painted an image of her actual tail on the top, with the name Toki, short for Tokitae. A shroud also wraps the coffin, with her traditional name, Sk'aliCh'elh-tenaut. It is made from a flag that was flown from a boat over a possible sanctuary site for her and also the area where she was captured.

Before the orca's remains were transported, Morris brushed her box off with cedar boughs, brought from home, to cleanse any negativity, with the crematory asked to later burn the branches, Morris said.

Morris sang and drummed for the orca Thursday and will do so again Friday, she said. On Saturday, Morris and other Lummi tribal members will hold a sacred water ceremony for her as her ashes—all of them—are returned to the orca's home waters by tribal members aboard a Lummi police boat. The ceremony will be private.

Morris was charged by the late Bill James, Lummi traditional chief, with bringing the whale back home. Morris said she has made more than a half dozen trips to where the whale was kept in captivity at the Miami Seaquarium to do ceremony for her, in preparation for and to help bring about her return.

Their relationship transformed over that time, to the last visit in which the orca even turned and splashed her, apparently just for fun, Morris said. "My cedar hat was dripping; I laughed and thanked her." Her work with the orca has been guided by tribal ancestors all along, Morris said, and they will continue to guide it until the orca's ashes are in the sea.

"Then, and only then, will the work be done," Morris said.

The orca's captor, Ted Griffin, sold her to the Miami Seaquarium where she lived until her death Aug. 18. She was immediately after her death taken to the University of Georgia where her remains underwent an extensive autopsy. Results on her cause of death have not yet been released.

A public gathering is being planned to honor the orca's life, according to the Lummi Nation. The arrangements have not yet been set.

Work has been underway for decades by various groups and even a former Washington governor to bring her home. The Miami Seaquarium maintained that she was better off in their tank than in her home waters, where her family, the J, K and L pods, struggle to survive.

There are 75 orcas today, about as few as when the capture era was ended in 1976 by the intervention of Washington state officials, who took SeaWorld to court to stop the hunts.

Tokitae was believed to be 57 years old. Orca L25 is believed to be her mother and is still alive. The necropsy may finally help determine Tokitae's family tree.

The Miami Seaquarium was recently purchased by The Dolphin Company, which last March entered into an agreement with Friends of Toki, a Florida nonprofit group, to return her to an ocean sanctuary in the Northwest. It seemed her return to her home waters could happen soon.

And now it will. "I will let her know every stop, every step, what is happening to her, that this is good news; her family will know she is home," Morris said.

By the mid-1970s, some 270 orcas were estimated to have been captured in the Salish Sea, the transboundary waters between the U.S. and Canada. At least 12 of those orcas died during capture, and more than 50 were kept for captive display.

Tokitae was the last of the southern residents still in captivity. Her death marks the end of an era from which the pods have never recovered. The orcas are listed as a federally protected endangered species and face multiple threats, including pollution, lack of adequate food, particularly Chinook salmon, and boat noise and disturbance that makes it harder for the orcas to hunt.

2023 The Seattle Times.

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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Lolita the orca's ashes are going home for a traditional water ceremony: Here's what will happen

Lolita the orca's ashes are going home for a traditional water ceremony: Here's what will happen

by Howard Cohen, Miami Herald

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Lolita, the orca who lived in a tank at the Miami Seaquarium from her capture in 1970 in waters off Washington state to her death 53 years later in August, will be honored in a homecoming Saturday

On Wednesday, the Lummi Nation, representing the original inhabitants of Washington's northernmost coast where Lolita was captured, announced it will welcome home Sk'aliCh'elh-tenaut—the orca also known as Tokitae or Toki—"in traditional ceremonies to honor her life and leadership," the group said in a statement.

The Lummi Nation had long advocated on behalf of Tokitae and had aimed to have her returned to Puget Sound in her lifetime.

Lolita, who performed at the Virginia Key attraction until she was retired in 2022 due to health issues, died Aug. 18. She was about 57.

"Lolita will be welcomed by her family, with the honors and ceremonies of the Lummi's still preserved culture. Some of them will be shared to the people live stream in social media," the Seaquarium said in a Facebook post.

According to the Lummi Nation, its members traveled to Athens, Georgia, earlier this week to culturally and traditionally prepare Toki's ashes for her journey home. A necropsy was conducted in August by vets and pathologists at the University of Georgia. Final results will be released soon and made available to the public, the Seaquarium said in its statement.

"This week's ceremonies are private for Sk'aliCh'elh-tenaut's Lummi relations. Sk'aliCh'elh-tenaut will be honored with a public celebration of life at a date to be announced later," the Lummi Nation said.

2023 Miami Herald.

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.After her death in a Miami tank, push to send Lolita home to the Pacific continues

 

Why flat-faced dogs seem more cuddly than longer-muzzled dogs

by Bob Yirka , Phys.org

A French bulldog attempting to open a box. 

Credit: Erzsébet Mőbiusz/Marianna Molnár.

A team of ethologists, natural scientists and psychologists affiliated with several institutions in Hungary has found evidence suggesting that some of the attraction by humans to flat-faced dogs can be tied to their stronger reliance on being helped than other dog breeds. In a study reported in the journal Scientific Reports, the group conducted experiments with two flat-faced breeds, comparing them with non-flat faced breeds, as they engaged in a task.

Prior research has shown that flat-faced dog breeds have grown in popularity over the past several years—they are now the most popular breed category in the United States. Their popularity appears to fly in the face of logic—flat-faced dogs are known to have breathing problems, are at higher risk of heat stroke, are more likely to develop eye trouble and do not live very long.

Some prior research has suggested that the popularity of such breeds is due to their cuteness, specifically their faces. Many have suggested they have attributes that remind us of babies. In this new effort, the research team wondered if other factors might be involved as well. To find out, they conducted an experiment comparing two flat-faced breeds—French and English bulldogs—with a mid-length muzzle breed—Hungarian mudis.

A French bulldog successfully opening the box and retrieving the food. 

An English bulldog attempting to open a box. 

Credit: Erzsébet Mőbiusz/Marianna Molnár.

The researchers enlisted the assistance of 15 French bulldogs, 15 English bulldogs and 13 mudis and their owners. The experiment consisted of allowing a dog to watch as a researcher put a treat inside of a wooden box and then closed it, then allowing the dog to try to open the box to get the treat. The team used three types of boxes of differing degrees of difficulty. As the dogs were attempting to open the box, the owners stood behind them.

The research team found that mudis were approximately 93% better at opening the box. But more interesting was that the flat-faced dogs were 4.5 times more likely to turn around to look to their owners for assistance than the mudis. The researchers suggest such behavior makes them seem more in need of aid, likely making them appear even more like helpless babies and thus more attractive to owners.

More information: Dorottya Júlia Ujfalussy et al, The difference between two brachycephalic and one mesocephalic dog breeds' problem-solving performance suggests evidence for paedomorphism in behaviour, Scientific Reports (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-41229-8

Journal information: Scientific Reports 

2023 Science X Network

Why are dog breeds with innate diseases popular?

21ST CENTURY ALCHEMY

Unraveling the mysteries of glassy liquids

by Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne

Map of the spatial relaxation in a two-dimensional liquid model. Brighter regions indicate 

locations where particles moved significantly during some time interval, in dark regions

 little motion occurred. This image reveals the fractal nature of the relaxation process,

 shaped both by thermal fluctuations and elastic interactions. 

Credit: Tahaei et al 2023.

Glass, despite its apparent transparency and rigidity, is a complex and intriguing material. When a liquid is cooled to form a glass, its dynamics slows down significantly, resulting in its unique properties.

This process, known as "glass transition," has puzzled scientists for decades. But one of its intriguing aspects is the emergence of "dynamical heterogeneities," where the dynamics become increasingly correlated and intermittent as the liquid cools down and approaches the glass transition temperature.

In a new study, researchers propose a new theoretical framework to explain these dynamical heterogeneities in glass-forming liquids. The idea is that relaxation in these liquids occurs through local rearrangements, which influence each other via elastic interactions. By investigating the interplay between local rearrangements, elastic interactions, and thermal fluctuations, the researchers have formulated a comprehensive theory for the collective dynamics of these complex systems.

The study is a collaboration between Professor Matthieu Wyart at EPFL and his colleagues at Max Planck Institute in Dresden, the ENS, the Université Grenoble Alpes, and the Center for Systems Biology Dresden. It is now published in Physical Review X.

The team developed a "scaling theory" that explains the growth of the dynamical correlation length observed in glass-forming liquids. This correlation length is linked to "thermal avalanches," which are rare events induced by thermal fluctuations, which then trigger a subsequent burst of faster dynamics.

The study's theoretical framework also provides insights into the Stoke-Einstein breakdown, a phenomenon where the viscosity of the liquid becomes uncoupled from the diffusion of its particles.

To validate their theoretical predictions, the researchers conducted extensive numerical simulations in various conditions. These simulations supported the accuracy of their scaling theory and its ability to describe the observed dynamics in glass-forming liquids.

The study not only deepens our understanding of glass dynamics but also suggests a new handle to tackle the properties of some other complex systems where the dynamics is intermittent and jerky- features known to occur in a range of situations, from the brain's activity or the sliding between frictional objects.

"Our work connects the growth of the dynamical correlation length in liquids to avalanche-type relaxations, well studied, for example, in the context of disordered magnets, granular materials, and earthquakes," says Matthieu Wyart. "As such, this approach builds unexpected bridges between other fields. Our description of how avalanches are affected by exogeneous fluctuations, including thermal ones, may thus be of more general interest."

More information: Ali Tahaei et al, Scaling Description of Dynamical Heterogeneity and Avalanches of Relaxation in Glass-Forming Liquids, Physical Review X (2023). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevX.13.031034

Journal information: Physical Review X 

Provided by Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne Scientists theorize a hidden phase transition between liquid and a solid