SPACE

Largest-ever map of universe’s active supermassive black holes released

The new map includes around 1.3 million quasars from across the visible universe and could help scientists better understand the properties of dark matter

Peer-Reviewed Publication

SIMONS FOUNDATION

 

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AN INFOGRAPHIC EXPLAINING THE CREATION OF A NEW MAP OF AROUND 1.3 MILLION QUASARS FROM ACROSS THE VISIBLE UNIVERSE.

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CREDIT: ESA/GAIA/DPAC; LUCY READING-IKKANDA/SIMONS FOUNDATION; K. STOREY-FISHER ET AL. 2024

Astronomers have charted the largest-ever volume of the universe with a new map of active supermassive black holes living at the centers of galaxies. Called quasars, the gas-gobbling black holes are, ironically, some of the universe’s brightest objects.

The new map logs the location of about 1.3 million quasars in space and time, the furthest of which shone bright when the universe was only 1.5 billion years old. (For comparison, the universe is now 13.7 billion years old.)

“This quasar catalog is different from all previous catalogs in that it gives us a three-dimensional map of the largest-ever volume of the universe,” says map co-creator David Hogg, a senior research scientist at the Flatiron Institute’s Center for Computational Astrophysics in New York City and a professor of physics and data science at New York University. “It isn’t the catalog with the most quasars, and it isn’t the catalog with the best-quality measurements of quasars, but it is the catalog with the largest total volume of the universe mapped.”

Hogg and his colleagues present the map in a paper published March 18 in The Astrophysical Journal. The paper’s lead author, Kate Storey-Fisher, is a postdoctoral researcher at the Donostia International Physics Center in Spain.

The scientists built the new map using data from the European Space Agency’s Gaia space telescope. While Gaia’s main objective is to map the stars in our galaxy, it also inadvertently spots objects outside the Milky Way, such as quasars and other galaxies, as it scans the sky.

“We were able to make measurements of how matter clusters together in the early universe that are as precise as some of those from major international survey projects — which is quite remarkable given that we got our data as a ‘bonus’ from the Milky Way–focused Gaia project,” Storey-Fisher says.

Quasars are powered by supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies and can be hundreds of times as bright as an entire galaxy. As the black hole’s gravitational pull spins up nearby gas, the process generates an extremely bright disk and sometimes jets of light that telescopes can observe.

The galaxies that quasars inhabit are surrounded by massive halos of invisible material called dark matter. By studying quasars, astronomers can learn more about dark matter, such as how much it clumps together.

Astronomers can also use the locations of distant quasars and their host galaxies to better understand how the cosmos expanded over time. For example, scientists have already compared the new quasar map with the oldest light in our cosmos, the cosmic microwave background. As this light travels to us, it is bent by the intervening web of dark matter — the same web mapped out by the quasars. By comparing the two, scientists can measure how strongly matter clumps together.

“It has been very exciting to see this catalog spurring so much new science,” Storey-Fisher says. “Researchers around the world are using the quasar map to measure everything from the initial density fluctuations that seeded the cosmic web to the distribution of cosmic voids to the motion of our solar system through the universe.”

The team used data from Gaia’s third data release, which contained 6.6 million quasar candidates, and data from NASA’s Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. By combining the datasets, the team removed contaminants such as stars and galaxies from Gaia’s original dataset and more precisely pinpointed the distances to the quasars. The team also created a map showing where dust, stars and other nuisances are expected to block our view of certain quasars, which is critical for interpreting the quasar map.

“This quasar catalog is a great example of how productive astronomical projects are,” says Hogg. “Gaia was designed to measure stars in our own galaxy, but it also found millions of quasars at the same time, which give us a map of the entire universe.”

Map Video [VIDEO] | 

This graphic representation of the map shows the location of quasars from our vantage point, the center of the sphere. The regions empty of quasars are where the disk of our galaxy blocks our view. Quasars with larger redshifts are further away from us.

CREDIT

ESA/Gaia/DPAC; Lucy Reading-Ikkanda/Simons Foundation; K. Storey-Fisher et al. 2024

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ABOUT THE FLATIRON INSTITUTE

The Flatiron Institute is the research division of the Simons Foundation. The institute's mission is to advance scientific research through computational methods, including data analysis, theory, modeling and simulation. The institute's Center for Computational Astrophysics creates new computational frameworks that allow scientists to analyze big astronomical datasets and to understand complex, multi-scale physics in a cosmological context.

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JOURNAL

The Astrophysical Journal

DOI

10.3847/1538-4357/ad1328 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

18-Mar-2024

Comet that passes by Earth once every 71 years visible in night sky

The 12P/Pons-Brooks can be spotted in the night sky with binoculars or a telescope, but may even be visible to the naked eye in the coming weeks.

Niamh Lynch
News reporter @niamhielynch
Saturday 16 March 2024

The 12P/Pons-Brooks comet as seen from Pico de las Nieves on Gran Canaria, Spain. 

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No - it's a comet that has been spotted from Earth for the first time in 71 years.

The 12P/Pons-Brooks comet is growing brighter and is now visible in the night sky - but you'll still need binoculars or a telescope to see it.

Image:A composite photo of the comet taken in Cumbria. Pic: PA/Stuart Atkinson

However, it may be visible to the naked eye in the coming weeks.

It has already had several outbursts of activity, according to Dr Megan Argo, an astrophysicist at the University of Central Lancashire.

"If we're lucky, it may have another in the next few weeks as it passes through the sky," she said.

The comet, named after its discoverers Jean-Louis Pons and William Robert Brooks, spends most of its time in the outer reaches of the solar system, where it is very cold.

It comes back to the inner solar system - passing by Earth - every 71 years and is known as a periodic comet because of this.

As the comet gets close to the sun while passing through the inner solar system, the heat causes the ice to melt straight to gas - through a process called sublimation - and some of the material is lost from the surface.

"This gas forms both a cloud around the solid nucleus of the comet - known as the coma - and a tail of material that can stretch many millions of miles in space," Dr Argo said.

"The tail is made of gas and dust that has been pushed away from the comet by the power of the solar wind streaming from the sun, and this tail is the bit that can become spectacular in the sky as seen from Earth."

Dr Argo said that while 12P/Pons-Brooks is developing a nice tail, it is "not quite visible without binoculars or a telescope just yet".

For those looking to spot the comet, it is below - and slightly to the left - of the Andromeda Galaxy.

The best way to see the comet is to find a place with dark skies and no tall trees, buildings or hills to block the views, astronomers say.

Rensselaer researcher receives DOE grant to develop models that track the formation of black holes

$1.5 million grant supports the creation of surrogate machine learning models for extreme-scale distributed computing infrastructure

RENSSELAER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE

 

IMAGE: 

CHRISTOPHER CAROTHERS, PH.D.

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CREDIT: RENSSELAER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE

When a star goes supernova, a massive burst of neutrinos is the first signal that can escape the density of the collapsing star. Detecting and analyzing this phenomenon in real time would allow us insight into stellar dynamics and, potentially, black hole formation. Detection of these types of signals from modern physics detectors is notoriously hard and presents computational challenges that push the bounds of modern and next-generation computing. Transmitting and analyzing the data from the massive particle physics detectors to the next generation of extreme-scale computing will require detailed modeling of the networking, hardware, and leadership class computing systems. These models will allow researchers to find and optimize the computing pathways, configurations, and infrastructure topologies so that they can handle these massive data loads.

To meet these challenges, the Tachyon Project – named for a hypothetical atomic particle that travels faster than light – has been awarded $7.5 million from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) High Energy Physics (HEP) program to model, simulate, and validate the transport, transmission, and analysis of particle physics data using extreme-scale computing systems, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML) techniques. Christopher Carothers, Ph.D., professor and director of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Center for Computational Innovations, which has been awarded $1.5 million of the total grant, will serve as principal investigator for the project.

Over the five years of the DOE grant, the Tachyon Project will utilize data and information from the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and Argonne National lab computing facilities. The project will model the entire distributed infrastructure required to transmit and analyze data from the international Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE), hosted by Fermilab, to the computing facilities at the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility (ALCF) in near real time. It will do this by creating surrogate machine learning models trained on both historical facility data and massively parallel simulation data. This will enable scientists at Fermilab to predict and tune workflow performance, improve resiliency, and increase the rate of scientific discovery in both the experimental and computing fields.   

Joining Carothers in this research are co-PIs Kevin Brown, Argonne National Laboratory; Andrew Norman, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory; Zhiling Lan, University of Illinois Chicago; Kwan-Liu Ma, UC Davis; Tanwi Mallick, Argonne National Laboratory; Robert Ross, Argonne National Laboratory; and Kai Shu, Illinois Institute of Technology.

About Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute:

Founded in 1824, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is America’s first technological research university. Rensselaer encompasses five schools, over 30 research centers, more than 140 academic programs including 25 new programs, and a dynamic community made up of over 6,800 students and 110,000 living alumni. Rensselaer faculty and alumni include upwards of 155 National Academy members, six members of the National Inventors Hall of Fame, six National Medal of Technology winners, six National Medal of Science winners, and a Nobel Prize winner in Physics. With nearly 200 years of experience advancing scientific and technological knowledge, Rensselaer remains focused on addressing global challenges with a spirit of ingenuity and collaboration. To learn more, please visit www.rpi.edu.

Contact: 
Katie Malatino
Senior Communications Specialist
malatk@rpi.edu
838-240-5691

For general inquiries: newsmedia@rpi.edu

Visit the Rensselaer research and discovery blog: https://everydaymatters.rpi.edu/

Follow us on Twitter: @RPINews

PRISON NATION U$A

Rehabilitative reform

MU researcher Kelli Canada is using a $2.8 million grant to help improve prison conditions for both residents and employees.

UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI-COLUMBIA

 

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KELLI CANADA

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CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI

The United States has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world. And that’s not the only challenge — nearly 44% of U.S. citizens who are released from prison end up returning in less than a year. While many shy away from the statistics, University of Missouri researcher Kelli Canada has taken note and devoted her career as a social worker to improving the mental health and well-being of those in the criminal justice system.

“When you look at the data, specifically regarding prison re-entry, it’s clear to see something isn’t working,” Canada said. “I’m passionate about improving the conditions for those who live and work inside prisons, and my ultimate goal is to help incarcerated individuals re-enter society with the skills and resources they need to be successful long-term.”

A multi-pronged mission

Canada and her research team recently received a $2.8 million grant from Arnold Ventures to help transform the ways people live and work in four Missouri prisons. The five-year project has four key components: staff training, changes to physical spaces within prisons, personal skill building for residents, and community connections.

1. Staff training
   Prison staffers will be trained on the importance of empathetic listening and using more humanizing language, such as calling residents by their names rather than referring to them by a specific number that was associated with them upon imprisonment.
   
   "We also want to promote referring to incarcerated individuals as 'residents' rather than 'offenders' or 'inmates,'" Canada said. "These might seem like small changes, but they can have a big impact on how people feel about themselves, ultimately improving their mental health."
    
2. Physical transformations
   The physical environment of prisons will be altered to provide increased privacy for residents. Other changes include painting the walls of the prison, adding additional lighting, creating communal spaces with games and coloring books for residents to spend time with their kids and families, and increasing access to outdoor spaces.
   
   One of Canada's biggest priorities is restructuring prisons to increase privacy for residents who often have to use the restroom in front of their cell roomates.
   
   "Residents often have to go to the bathroom in front of their roommates," Canada said. "Giving them space to use the bathroom in private and have some quiet time to themselves is a healthy practice that can help people de-stress, especially when they are going through a tough period in their life. We will also be creating more comfortable communal spaces for residents to read newspapers or magazines together outside of their cells, and we are excited to be constructing communal kitchens so residents can prepare a meal together in a 'normal' kitchen environment."
    
3. Personal skills
   Residents will learn skills like budgeting money and cooking meals when their family or friends come to visit.
   
   "These might seem like basic skills, but one thing we've learned over the years is some residents, especially younger residents, have never had to the opportunity to learn these skills before," Canada said. "Not only can it do a lot to improve their self-confidence if they can cook a meal to share with their family or friends who come to visit, but these are skills they can take with them back into society when they exit prison."
    
4. Community connections
   Finally, the project aims to help residents feel like a connected community by assigning various tasks for keeping common areas clean. Some examples include rotating schedules for sweeping and mopping floors, cleaning the communal kitchens and making sure old food in the refrigerators is thrown away.
   
   "By holding each other accountable, we can teach the importance of treating others with respect and thinking about how one's own actions can impact the broader community," Canada said. "We also want to give the residents more resources so they are successful upon re-entry to society, so we will be setting up job interviews via Zoom and improving work-release programs to better facilitate job trainings after release from prison."

 

Finding common ground

Canada’s latest work builds off her recent Prison Research and Innovation Network (PRIN) project, which used a community-engaged research model to bring together staff members and prison residents at the Moberly Correctional Center to discuss ways to improve conditions in the prison.

“It has been incredible to see what changes can happen when you allow prison staff and residents to brainstorm collaborative ideas and build innovations together,” Canada said. “We can’t change things for one group and not the other, and I am proud to support MU’s land-grant mission by conducting research that improves lives out in the broader community.”

Editor's note

Canada’s collaborators on the project include MU’s Ashley Givens, Francis Huang and Rabia Faizan, as well as Beth Huebner from Arizona State University and Janet Garcia-Hallett from University of New Haven.

Tanks of the Triassic: new crocodile ancestor identified

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN

 

IMAGE: 

AN ARTIST’S INTERPRETATION OF THE NEWLY IDENTIFIED AETOSAUR GARZAPELTA MUELLER.

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CREDIT: MÁRCIO L. CASTRO

Dinosaurs get all the glory. But aetosaurs, a heavily armored cousin of modern crocodiles, ruled the world before dinosaurs did. These tanks of the Triassic came in a variety of shapes and sizes before going extinct around 200 million years ago. Today, their fossils are found on every continent except Antarctica and Australia.

Scientists use the bony plates that make up aetosaur armor to identify different species and usually don’t have many fossil skeletons to work with. But a new study led by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin centers on an aetosaur suit of armor that has most of its major parts intact.

 The suit — called a carapace — is about 70% complete and covers each major region of the body.

“We have elements from the back of the neck and shoulder region all the way to the tip of the tail,” said William Reyes, a doctoral student at the UT Jackson School of Geosciences who led the research. “Usually, you find very limited material.”

The research was published in The Anatomical Record.

Reyes and his collaborators used the armor to identify the specimen as a new aetosaur species — which they named Garzapelta muelleri. The name “Garza” recognizes Garza County in northwest Texas, where the aetosaur was found, and “Pelta” is Latin for shield, a nod to aetosaurs’ heavily fortified body. The species name “muelleri” honors the paleontologist who originally discovered it, Bill Mueller.

Garzapelta lived about 215 million years ago and resembled a modern American crocodile — but with much more armor.

“Take a crocodile from modern day, and turn it into an armadillo,” said Reyes.

The bony plates that covered Garzapelta and other aetosaurs are called osteoderms. They were embedded directly in the skin and formed a suit of armor by fitting together like a mosaic. In addition to having a body covered in bony plates, Garzapelta’s sides were flanked by curved spikes that would have offered another layer of protection from predators. Although crocodiles today are carnivores, scientists think that aetosaurs were primarily omnivorous.

The spikes on Garzapelta are very similar to those found in another aetosaur species, but surprisingly, researchers found that the two species are only distantly related. The similarities, they discovered, are an example of convergent evolution, the independent evolution of similar traits in different species. The development of flight in insects, birds, mammals and now-extinct pterosaurs is a classic example of this phenomenon.

According to Reyes, an array of unique features on Garzapelta’s plates clearly marked it as a new species. They range from how the plates fit together to unique bumps and ridges on the bones. However, figuring out where Garzapelta fit into the larger aetosaur family tree was more of challenge. Depending on which portion of the armor the researchers emphasized in their analysis, Garzapelta would end up in very different places. Armor that ran down its back resembled armor from one species, while its midsection spikes resembled armor from another.

Once the researchers determined that the spikes evolved independently, they were able to work out where Garzapelta fit best among other aetosaur species. Nevertheless, Reyes said the research shows how convergent evolution can complicate things.

“Convergence of the osteoderms across distantly related aetosaurs has been noted before, but the carapace of Garzapelta muelleri is the best example of it and shows to what extent it can happen and the problems it causes in our phylogenetic analyses,” Reyes said.

Garzapelta is part of the Texas Tech University fossil collections. It spent most of the past 30 years on a shelf before Reyes encountered it during a visit. Bill Parker, an aetosaur expert and park paleontologist at Petrified Forest National Park who was not part of the research, said that university and museum collections are a critical part of making this type of research possible.

“These specimens weren't just dug in the field yesterday,” he said. “They've been sitting in the museum for decades and it just takes someone like Will to come along and finally decide to study them and make them come to life.”

In addition to different species having different armor, it’s possible that an animal’s age or sex could also affect armor appearance. Reyes is currently exploring these questions by studying aetosaur fossils in the Jackson School’s collection, most of which were found during the 1940s as part of excavations done by the Works Progress Administration.

The research was funded by the National Science Foundation and the Jackson School.

The study co-authors are Jeffrey Martz, an associate professor at the University of Houston-Downtown, and Bryan Small, a research associate at the Museum of Texas Tech University.

William Reyes, a doctoral student at the Jackson School of Geosciences, examines an aetosaur specimen
on display at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science. 

A bony plate of armor called an osteoderms from the trunk region of Garzapelta muelleri. Top image is the osteoderm as seen from above. The bottom image is the osteoderm seen from the side.  Scale bar is 5 centimeters.
 

CREDIT

William Reyes

A hypothetical reconstruction of the aetosaur Garzapelta muelleri, as seen from above, based on fossilized carapace remains in the Texas Tech vertebrate collections. The reconstruction is pictured with examples of its plated and spiked armor in cross-section. 

CREDIT

Jeffrey Martz

 

JOURNAL

The Anatomical Record

DOI

10.1002/ar.25379 

ARTICLE TITLE

Garzapelta muelleri gen. et sp. nov., a new aetosaur (Archosauria: Pseudosuchia) from the Late Triassic (middle Norian) middle Cooper Canyon Formation, Dockum Group, Texas, USA, and its implications on our understanding of the morphological disparity of the aetosaurian dorsal carapace

  

The majority of Americans do not support anti-democratic behavior, even when elected officials do

Despite rampant political polarization, the majority of Democrats and Republicans support democratic values and oppose political violence

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA

 

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AMERICANS HAVE LOW LEVELS OF SUPPORT FOR DEMOCRATIC NORM VIOLATIONS

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CREDIT: DEREK E. HOLLIDAY, SHANTO IYENGAR, YPHTACH LELKES, AND SEAN J. WESTWOOD

Recently, fundamental tenets of democracy have come under threat, from attempts to overturn the 2020 election to mass closures of polling places.

A new study from the Polarization Research Lab, a collaboration among researchers at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, Dartmouth College, and Stanford University, has found that despite this surge in anti-democratic behavior by U.S. politicians, the majority of Americans oppose anti-democratic attitudes and reject partisan violence.

From September 2022 to October 2023, a period which included the 2022 midterm elections, the researchers surveyed more than 45,000 Democrats and Republicans on their attitudes toward five specific democratic norm violations:

• Reducing polling stations in areas where the other party is popular
• Being more loyal to party than election rules and the Constitution
• Censoring partisan media
• Believing that the president should circumvent Congress
• Believing that elected officials of one’s own party should consider ignoring court decisions when the judges who issued these decisions were appointed by a president of the other party

They also gauged these Americans’ feelings about four acts of political violence — assault, arson, assault with a deadly weapon, and murder — as well as their perceptions about the other party.

Broad Opposition to Political Violence

After a year of weekly polling, researchers found that supermajorities of Americans oppose violations of democratic norms and political violence of all kinds. 

“Public opposition to anti-democratic actions and political violence was not only overwhelming, but also remarkably stable throughout the year,” says paper co-author Yphtach Lelkes, Polarization Research Lab Co-Director and Associate Professor of Communication at the Annenberg School.

Of the five norm violations included in the surveys, 17.2% of Democrats and 21.6% of Republicans supported one norm violation. Only 6% of Democrats and 9% of Republicans supported two violations or more, suggesting that broad anti-democratic attitudes are very rare. 

“Although any support for anti-democratic behavior is a cause for concern, the data show there is not a large anti-democratic constituency in America. Those who are the most likely to support anti-democratic actions are also less likely to be electorally important,” says Lelkes.

Throughout the year, support for political violence within both parties was always below 4%.

The researchers also found that both Democrats and Republicans overestimate the opposing party’s support for norm violations, in some cases by four to five times.

"Democracy is under threat in America, but these data show we are not on the brink of a citizen-supported push toward authoritarianism,” says Sean J. Westwood, Polarization Research Lab Co-Director and Associate Professor of Government at Dartmouth College.

Americans have low levels of support for political violence

CREDIT

Derek E. Holliday, Shanto Iyengar, Yphtach Lelkes, and Sean J. Westwood

Elected Officials and the Public

Once survey results showed that the majority of Americans oppose anti-democratic actions and political violence, the researchers wondered whether the politicians who do endorse democratic norm violations and political violence — such as the denial of election results and the January 6 insurrection — might merely be reflecting the sentiments of their specific constituents.

To test this, they gathered data on the U.S. House Representatives who either voted to overturn the 2020 election results or publicly denied the legitimacy of the 2020 election results. 

They then examined whether survey respondents represented by a Member of Congress who denies election results were more inclined to prioritize party loyalty over adherence to election rules and the Constitution. However, they discovered that in these instances, there was no significant correlation between constituents' opinions and policymakers' actions.

"The real gap in support for democracy is not between Democratic and Republican voters, but between Republican voters and Republican representatives,” says lead author Derek Holliday, Polarization Research Lab Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford University. “While it is encouraging to see Republican voters, like Democrats, broadly support democratic norms, it is alarming that election-denying Republicans continue to win elections despite their democratic backsliding behavior."

“Uncommon and Nonpartisan: Anti-Democratic Attitudes In The American Public” was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and authored by Derek E. Holliday, Shanto Iyengar, Yphtach Lelkes, and Sean J. Westwood.

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JOURNAL

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Survey

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Uncommon and Nonpartisan: Anti-Democratic Attitudes In The American Public

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

18-Mar-2024

COI STATEMENT

All authors declare no competing interests.

Americans support democratic norms, elected officials don't

Study shows a strong divide between the attitudes of citizens and elected officials.

DARTMOUTH COLLEGE

Following the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, many Americans have raised concerns about the future of democracy in the United States.

Yet the American public, including Democrats and Republicans alike, strongly oppose anti-democratic actions and partisan violence, according to a new study by the Polarization Research Lab.

"Democracy is under threat in America, but these data show we are not on the brink of a citizen-supported push toward authoritarianism," says the lab's director and study senior author Sean Westwood, an associate professor of government at Dartmouth.

The results are co-authored by researchers at Stanford University and the University of Pennsylvania, and are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The research team surveyed the public to measure support for violations against democratic norms, political violence, and partisan animosity.
 
The researchers drew on two data sets: approximately 45,100 Americans of which 1,000 individuals were interviewed each week, from September 2022 to October 2023, which included the 2022 midterm elections; and a subset of 5,230 Americans, who were interviewed at multiple time points. 

"When it comes to anti-democratic behavior, there is a misperception that citizens of one political party are more likely to violate democratic norms than the other but that's just not the case," says lead author Derek Holliday, a postdoctoral fellow at the Polarization Research Lab.

Respondents were surveyed on their support for four democratic norm violations: 1) if the number of polling stations in areas that typically support the other political party should be reduced; 2) if a candidate who questions an election outcome should be more loyalty to their own political party than election rules and the Constitution; 3) if current elected officials should consider ignoring court decisions issued by judges appointed by the opposing political party; and 4) if the government should be able to censor media that spends more time attacking their own political party than the other party.

The results show that most Americans support democracy with 17.2% of Democrats and 21.6% of Republicans supporting one or more of the four norm violations. 

When the researchers looked at the data, support for each of the four democratic norm violations was almost identical for both parties. For example, support for reducing polling stations in areas dominated by the other party was 8.8% for Republicans and 9.2% for Democrats.

The norm violation that had the most support pertained to censoring partisan media, and had just under 20% support.

The findings also reveal decreasing levels of support for political violence. Although up to 59% of Americans think that members of the other political party support assault, actual support was 3% for assault, 2.4% for arson, 1.9% for assault with a deadly weapon, and 1.7% for murder. "There's a massive mismatch between actual attitudes and how Americans view the other side," says Westwood.

“Public opposition to anti-democratic actions and political violence was not only overwhelming, but also remarkably stable throughout the year,” says co-author Yphtach Lelkes, Polarization Research Lab co-director and associate professor of communication at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania.

While both Democrat and Republican respondents indicated that they strongly oppose loyalty to their own party rather than the Constitution in contested elections, a near majority of elected Republicans indicated they would be comfortable violating that democratic norm.

The researchers also examined if respondents who were represented by an elected official who supported overturning the 2020 election were more likely to support anti-democratic norms but found no such evidence.

"Support for norm violations doesn’t appear to form a divide between everyday Democrats and Republicans, but it is instead a divide between ordinary Americans who support democracy and elected officials who are pushing back against democratic governance," says Westwood.

"It's good news that the public are so uniformly opposed to democratic norm violations, but it's bad news that everyday Americans continue to vote for elected officials who pose a threat to democracy."

Polarization Research Lab co-director Shanto Iyengar, a professor of political science at Stanford University, also contributed to the study.
 

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JOURNAL

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Survey

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Uncommon and Nonpartisan: Anti-Democratic Attitudes In The American Public

 

Breakthrough in melting point prediction: over 100-year-old physics problem solved by Queen Mary Professor

QUEEN MARY UNIVERSITY OF LONDON

A longstanding problem in physics has finally been cracked by Professor Kostya Trachenko of Queen Mary University of London's School of Physical and Chemical Sciences. His research, published in the Physical Review E, unveils a general theory for predicting melting points, a fundamental property whose understanding has baffled scientists for over a century. 

For decades, our understanding of the three basic states of matter – solids, liquids, and gases – relied on temperature-pressure phase diagrams. These diagrams depict the conditions under which each state exists, with distinct lines separating them. However, one crucial line, the melting line – marking the transition between solid and liquid – lacked a universal description. 

Professor Trachenko's theory bridges this gap. By developing a new framework that incorporates recent advancements in liquid theory, he demonstrates that melting lines can be described by a simple parabolic equation. This not only offers a practical tool for predicting melting points but also reveals a surprising universality across different material types. This universality comes from observing that parameters in the parabolic equation are governed by fundamental physical constants such as the Planck constant and electron mass and charge. 

"The simplicity and universality of this result are particularly exciting," explains Professor Trachenko. "It suggests that melting, despite its complexities, exhibits a fundamental unity across diverse systems, from noble gases to metals." 

This discovery holds significant implications beyond theoretical physics. Accurate prediction of melting points is crucial in materials science, with applications ranging from drug development to designing advanced materials and other areas where predicting phase diagrams is important. Professor Trachenko's work paves the way for a deeper understanding of phase transitions and the creation of new materials with tailored properties.  

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JOURNAL

Physical Review E

DOI

10.1103/PhysRevE.109.034122 

ARTICLE TITLE

Theory of melting lines

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

18-Mar-2024