Hurricane Milton rips off the roof of MLB’s Tropicana Field, home to the Tampa Bay Rays

Rhian Lubin and Josh Marcus
Thu 10 October 2024 

Hurricane Milton rips off the roof of MLB’s Tropicana Field, home to the Tampa Bay Rays

Hurricane Milton has ripped the roof off the Tropicana Field Stadium, home to the Tampa Bay Rays, dramatic pictures and footage show, the latest sign of damage from a storm that’s killed an estimated 11 people since making landfall.

Winds of over 100 mph battered St. Petersburg, Florida, on Wednesday night as the baseball stadium’s roof, made of Teflon-coated fiberglass, was torn away.

Drone images show debris littered across the field, which was supposed to be a base for 10,000 responders supporting the clean-up effort after the storm passed. The cots and beds for the responders are visible in the pictures.

The stadium’s roof, supported by 180 miles of cables connected by struts, was built to withstand winds of up to 115 miles per hour, according to the team’s media guide.

Storm chaser and journalist Jonathan Petramala filmed the damage on a drone and told CNN the stadium “had no chance.”

Dramatic images show damage to the stadium’s roof after Hurricane Milton struck (Tampa Bay Times/ZUMA Press Wire/)

“It’s surreal to see the roof shredded like that,” he said. “I was able to get my hands on a piece of that roof, it feels like thick vinyl. It had no chance against those winds of Hurricane Milton.”

No one was injured at the facility during the storm, according to the team.

“Our priority is supporting our community and our staff,” the Rays wrote in a statement on X on Thursday. “We are fortunate and grateful that no one was hurt by damage to our ballpark last night.”

Officials had originally planned to use the stadium as a 10,000-person recovery hub “to support ongoing debris operations and post-landfall responders,” but relocated resources to Jacksonville as Milton approached.

The damage comes just as the Rays finished the season at the Tropicana Field last month. Games cannot be played there without a roof due to the field’s lack of drainage system, the Tampa Bay Times reported.

After much back and forth, a new $1.3bn stadium for the team was scheduled to be built in St Petersburg but won’t be ready until 2028 at the earliest, according to Florida’s Business Observer. The team has been trying for almost 20 years to secure a deal for a “desperately needed” new ballpark in the Tampa Bay area, the outlet reported.

It’s unclear if the roof will be fixed by the time the team opens the 2025 season in March.

Debris litters the field of the Tropicana Field stadium (Tampa Bay Times/Zuma/Shutterstock)

The Rays stadium wasn’t the only landmark to sustain damage in the storm.

A construction crane came down in St. Petersburg, crashing through the offices of the Tampa Bay Times newspaper.


Milton made landfall as a Category 3 hurricane Wednesday night near Sarasota County’s Siesta Key, bringing multiple tornadoes, 28ft waves, strong winds, heavy rainfall, and devastating storm surge.

The landfall’s location, about 70 miles south of Tampa, spared the city from unprecedented damage officials warned it could face from a direct hit.

Florida governor Ron DeSantis said on Thursday that Tampa had avoided the “worst-case scenario,” where storm surge was predicted to overwhelm a city that hasn’t been in the eye of a hurricane in more than a century.

Still, an estimated 70 percent of customers with the city’s Tampa Electric utility remained without power as of Thursday afternoon.

The governor added that some areas received up to 18 inches of rain.

“We will better understand the extent of the damage as the day progresses,” DeSantis said. “We’ve got more to do, but we will absolutely get through this.”

Multiple deaths have already been confirmed after dozens of tornadoes spawned in St Lucie County, seeing a tornado strike Spanish Lakes Country Club retirement village in Fort Pierce, county Sheriff Keith Pearson said.

Federal Emergency Management Agency head Deanne Criswell said the worst damage so far came from the tornadoes and praised officials for ordering people to evacuate.

“The evacuation orders saved lives,” she told Reuters.

More than 3.2 million homes and businesses in Florida have been left powerless, with those in the west-central region the worst impacted.

On Thursday morning, officials with the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office rescued over 135 residents of the Great American Assisted Living Community in Tampa, a home for seniors.

“This is extraordinary to see this type of flooding, especially in this type of area,” Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister said in a social media video.

“To see this unprecedented flooding, I can only imagine how scary it was,” he added.

Barrier islands on the east coast of Florida took particular damage after Milton came in from the Gulf of Mexico.

On the island of Matlacha, while fire crews battled blazes overnight, residents will also be without water until at least Monday, according to local officials.

After landfall, Milton has weakened to a Category 1 hurricane and is moving off Florida’s east coast – with residents still battling against brutal winds and storm surge.

“I couldn’t touch the bottom, really,” one resident of Clearwater told The New York Times of her family’s escape through a flooded apartment complex. “I was floating. I think it’s the worst thing I’ve experienced in my life.”

The storm may be moving on, but the rescue and recovery effort is only beginning.

Since Milton made landfall, 106 individuals and 18 animals were rescued by the state’s Urban Search and Rescue Teams and the Florida National Guard, according to the Florida Division of Emergency Management.

The state has nearly 300 shelters open, supporting 80,000 residents displaced by the storm, according to the agency.

The state has partnered with Uber to give residents in evacuation zones free rides from shelters back to their homes.

More than 6,500 members of the Florida National Guard have been activated as part of the relief effort.

Hurricane Milton battered the state less than two weeks after the September 27 arrival of Hurricane Helene, which killed at least 20 people in Florida.

A political storm has accompanied the actual hurricanes, with Kamala Harris and Governor DeSantis each accusing the other of politicizing disaster response by claiming their counterpart is more focused on politics than cooperating.

Top Republicans including Donald Trump have latched onto false claims and conspiracy theories about the federal response to Helene, which local officials say is hampering relief efforts on the ground.

President Joe Biden said on Thursday it will take “several billion dollars” to rebuild after Milton.

“This is going to be a long haul for total rebuilding,” he said.

UK

Private hospitals to rescue NHS

Laura Donnelly
Thu 10 October 2024 

A doctor speaks to a female patient


The NHS will rely on private hospitals to ease a growing crisis under plans being considered by the Government.

The £1 billion rescue plan to clear waiting list backlogs would result in the independent sector funding the biggest expansion in healthcare since Sir Tony Blair’s premiership.

Cancer checks, surgery and intensive care for NHS patients would increasingly take place in private hospitals, under proposals submitted to the Treasury ahead of the Budget.

A source said the Government would “grab with both hands” any spare capacity to get NHS patients treated more quickly.

The NHS has been pleading for extra funds ahead of the Budget on Oct 30, but in his first speech as Health Secretary, Wes Streeting vowed to end “the begging bowl culture, where the only interaction the Treasury has with the Department of Health is ‘we need more money for X, Y and Z’”.

Under the plans, submitted by private hospitals, the independent sector could treat up to 2.5 million more patients, with some treatment starting in weeks.

Wes Streeting vowed to end a “begging bowl” relationship between the Department of Health and the Treasury - Wiktor Szymanowicz/Future Publishing

The private sector investment would be used to build a string of diagnostic centres for NHS patients across the country, tackling delays in cancer diagnosis, and to develop new surgery units and intensive care facilities.

It comes as NHS waiting lists in England stand at 7.64 million, with warnings that the health service is “hurtling into crisis” as winter approaches. When Labour won the election, Mr Streeting pronounced the NHS “broken”. Since then, waiting lists have risen, with little progress made on pledges to carry out an extra 40,000 appointments.

The Independent Healthcare Providers Network (IHPN), which represents private hospitals, including groups such as Bupa, Circle Health Group and Care UK, has written to the Chancellor and the Health Secretary saying that more than £1 billion of private sector capacity could be invested into facilities for NHS patients.

Mr Streeting is understood to be very interested in the proposals, which would see the private sector committing to a major expansion, using its own staff and both existing and new facilities.

Ahead of the election Mr Streeting said a new Government would “go further than New Labour ever did” in use of the private sector for NHS patients.

“If you want to understand my appetite for reform, think New Labour on steroids,” he said in a speech in May.

The scale of the expansion being considered would surpass moves made by the Blair government, which first introduced use of the private sector by the NHS.


Under Sir Tony and Gordon Brown, the Labour government funded a network of 30 private clinics carrying out operations and tests for NHS patients between 2003 and 2010.

It also introduced patient choice, allowing patients to opt for care in a private hospital, but the drive divided the party and lost momentum.

The new plans, now under discussion with the independent sector, would vastly extend this, with private companies having the chance to win a greater share of the market.

It follows an independent investigation of the NHS by Lord Darzi, which last month warned that the health service was “starved” of capital, which was badly affecting its productivity with too little diagnostic equipment and too few beds and facilities.

Under the plans, investment in the expansion of the health service would come from private facilities.

Around 1 million appointments for NHS patients at private units would be released over the next year from existing capacity, starting within weeks.

In addition, around 1.5 million more operations and appointments would be offered from new and expanded facilities which could start to be deployed within months.
2.5 million extra patients treated privately

This would mean around 7.5 million NHS patients a year treated in private hospitals, up from around 5 million now.

In the letter to Rachel Reeves and Mr Streeting, David Hare, chief executive of the IHPN, said that its investment would mean new facilities could be deployed within months and staffed without drawing staff from the existing NHS workforce.

The network said providers would recruit from abroad and hire staff who have left the NHS, as well as training some staff through apprenticeships.

Previous attempts to use independent hospitals have been limited to some of the simpler procedures, such for cataracts, and hip and knee operations.

However, the new plans would mean independent hospitals would expand their capacity, with some building intensive care units, in order to take on a wider range of cases.

At present, one in seven private hospitals have such facilities, limiting their ability to safely take on complex cases.

The proposals would also lead to a new wave of community diagnostic centres, carrying out tests for diseases such as cancer, which would only treat NHS patients, but be run by the private sector.
‘We want to grab it with both hands’

The plans aim to ease short-term problems facing the health service, with capacity that can be built within the next year.

The IHPN said that “well over £1 billion of private sector capital” could be invested in care for NHS patients, if a long-term deal was agreed.

A Government source said: “If there is any potential extra capacity to help us cut waiting lists faster and get more NHS patients treated, we would want to grab it with both hands.”

Mr Hare told The Telegraph: “When Labour was last in government one of the ways in which it got NHS waiting times down was to make good use of available private sector capacity paid at NHS prices and by asking the private sector to deploy capital on new services including surgical and diagnostic care.

“With NHS waiting lists now at record highs and the public finances stretched, the forthcoming Budget represents a real opportunity to make good on the government’s pre-election commitments of working in partnership with the private sector over the long-term to use the capital, capacity and capability which is there in the sector to improve services for NHS patients.”

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: “This government is steadfast in its commitment to the founding principles of the NHS, which will always be free at the point of use.

“Where there is spare capacity in the private sector which can be used to treat patients, on NHS terms, free at the point of use, we will use it to cut waiting lists.”

Shelter animals cleared from Milton’s path find refuge with animal rescue network

Erum Salam
Thu 10 October 2024 

The pet shelter and rescue coalition Best Friends helped save animals in the aftermath of hurricanes Helene and Milton.Composite: Best Friends


Hurricane Milton, the category 3 storm that battered many parts of Florida, displaced not only residents but also already vulnerable animals in shelters.

Shelters in the state, particularly in cities on the west coast such as Tampa, Sarasota and others, had to scramble to figure out where to relocate their animals ahead of this week’s storm. Luckily, rescue shelters in other parts of the country have joined in the effort to help those down south.

Sharon Hawa, an emergency services manager at Best Friends, a coalition of thousands of public and private shelters and rescue groups, said the need for animal adoptions and fostering is “critical” right now.

“We can make more space for more of these animals to come. Because we don’t know what the situation looks like right now on the ground, if any of the shelter facilities where these animals originated from are still standing and whether they’re going to be operational moving forward,” she said.

Whether on planes or in vans, Best Friends has been transporting nearly 200 animals in areas hit hard by Milton, and last month’s Hurricane Helene, to shelters with more capacity as far north as New York and Massachusetts – but it’s no easy effort.

“All animals have to be cleared by a veterinarian to travel, so they have to be healthy and in good shape so that they don’t run into any medical complications while in transit,” Hawa said.

“Kudos to all of the shelter staff everywhere, because they have to deal with so much on a day-to-day basis. And then when there’s a large-scale disaster like this, it certainly makes it even more challenging for them to do their job, especially when they’re not operating out of their primary facility and they have to work out of a evacuation shelter.”

She added: “But some of the beautiful things that come out of these types of situations are the partnerships that emerge. You’ve got shelters helping other shelters, rescues stepping up to help. So it’s a really an animal welfare community-wide effort.”

Hawa said there is a “national crisis” right now with shelters being overrun, and underscored the important need for adopting or fostering.

“I think the main message that the public has to understand is the impacts of when adopting from a shelter, they’re actually saving two lives,” she said. “They’re saving the animal’s life that they adopted, and then also they’re making space for another animal.”

 Archaeologists unearth unexpected find inside a tomb likely belonging to a Roman gladiator

Ashlyn Messier
Thu, October 10, 2024 


Archaeologists unearth unexpected find inside a tomb likely belonging to a Roman gladiator

In Turkey, a team of archaeologists discovered the tomb of a Roman gladiator dating back to the third century B.C., with the remains of 12 individuals inside.

The tomb was unearthed during the excavation of St. John Monument in Selcuk, Izmir, Turkey, according to Türkiye Today. The excavation was authorized by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and led by associate professor Sinan Mimaroglu from Hatay Mustafa Kemal University’s Department of Art History, according to the source.

While the tomb was from the third century B.C., it was determined that it was later reused during the fifth century A.D., to hold the remains of the 12 men and women, Türkiye Today reported.

The Roman gladiator buried in the tomb was named Euphrates, per the source. In ancient Roman times, gladiators were professional fighters who engaged in battle in front of crowded arenas.

Many early gladiators were enslaved peoples and those who committed crimes, though that wasn't always the case, History.com reported. With the growing popularity of these battles, men began to voluntarily sign up to participate, according to the source.

Gladiators would typically engage in one on one combat, under the monitoring of a referee, according to The Colosseum's website. While early battles were often fought to the death, this less commonly became the case as the games continued, and as fighters underwent intense and expensive training and were costly to replace, according to the source.

Roman gladiators fought bloody battles in arenas full of spectators.

Historians estimate that around one in five or one in 10 battles ended in the death of one combatant, according to History.com. Many gladiators only lived to their mid-20s, per the source.

Tombs similar to the one belonging to Euphrates have been found in Istanbul, Marmara Island and Syria, according to Türkiye Today.

Inside the tomb recently unearthed by archaeologists, there were crosses carved within, dating back to the fifth century, as well as on the lid, which are thought to have been added during the seventh and eighth centuries, according to the source.

The tomb was found at St. John Monument in Selcuk, Izmir, Turkey.

Not much is known about the 12 who were buried inside the tomb, but it's believed they came from an upper-class background.

"The burials inside the church likely belong to the upper class or clergy, as it’s unlikely an ordinary person would be buried in such a meticulous manner within a church," Mimaroglu said, per Türkiye Today.

The finding of this tomb holds significance in many different ways, including giving researchers more knowledge of the ancient city of Ephesus as well as ancient burial practices, the source notes.


50 Viking Corpses Could Crack the History Books Wide Open.

Michael Natale
Thu, October 10, 2024 


Archaeologists recently discovered the remains of more than 50 Vikings, as well as the artifacts they were buried with, in a Danish village.

The ground in which the bodies were found had soil conditions and water levels amenable to excellent preservation, meaning that researchers can study the ancient DNA.

Items uncovered at the site include a wagon, a decorated wooden chest and rock quartz, but further analyses and discoveries will paint an even more detailed picture of this specific Viking society.

The remains of more than 50 Vikings were uncovered recently in Åsum, a village in Denmark, and their remarkable condition could offer incredible insight into the lives they led.

As reported in Archaeology Magazine, a team of archaeologists from Museum Odense were conducting an excavation of the area ahead of a planned upgrade of the local electrical grid. During their dig, they uncovered a burial ground, measuring roughly 2,000 square meters, which held “more than 50 exceptionally well-preserved skeletons,” along with five cremation graves. The site has been dated back to the 9th and 10th centuries.

“Normally when we excavate Viking graves,” said Michael Borre Lundø, an archaeologist and curator at Museum Odense, “we’d be lucky if there were two teeth left in the grave besides the grave goods...but here we have the skeletons fully preserved. This opens up a whole new set of possibilities for discoveries.”

The remarkable preservation of these skeletons, which is attributed to “favorable soil conditions and high water levels” at the site, means it may be possible to conduct ancient DNA (referred to as “aDNA”) analyses on the remains. “This discovery offers extraordinary opportunities to perform a wide range of scientific analyses,” noted Lundø, “which can reveal more about the general health, diet, and origins of those buried.”

But some information can be gleaned, even before aDNA testing, just from what else was found at the burial site. The most striking example might be the remains of a woman who was buried in a wagon, likely one she used within her lifetime. Some of the artifacts she was buried with suggest this woman was of high status in her lifetime.

“Her grave goods included a glass bead necklace, an iron key, a knife with a handle wrapped in silver thread, and a small shard of glass that may have served as an amulet,” Archaeology Magazine noted of the artifacts found with the body. Even more enticing is a “finely decorated wooden chest” found at the foot of her grave, the contents of which have yet to be uncovered.

Other artifacts found at the site include a piece of rock crystal, a transparent form of quartz not native to Denmark, indicating trade between these Danish Vikings and people other regions, like Norway. Further analysis, of both the deceased and the items buried with them, will likely paint an even more detailed picture of the lives they and their people lived.

SPACE-COSMOS

Jupiter's Great Red Spot Is Acting Very Strangely, Puzzling Scientists

Noor Al-Sibai
Thu, October 10, 2024 


Great Ball of Fire

Jupiter's Giant Red Spot (GRS) is large enough to swallow the entire Earth — and as new imagery from Hubble suggests, it's a lot weirder than previously thought.

Between December 2023 and March 2024, the Hubble Space Telescope took a closer look at the massive and mysterious "anticyclone" that has long fascinated astronomers and found that not only does its size keep changing, but that it appears to be, well, jiggling.

"While we knew its motion varies slightly in its longitude, we didn’t expect to see the size oscillate," explained NASA's Amy Simon, a director at the agency's Goddard Space Flight Center, in a statement. "As far as we know, it’s not been identified before."

This ginormous storm is, as NASA points out, the largest in our Solar System. In 1979, the Voyager spacecraft clocked its diameter at a whopping 14,500 miles across — but per more recent Hubble observations, it's shrunken to a mere 10,250 miles.

With these latest Hubble images taken over 90 days, the GRS seems to be behaving like a stress ball. The white clouds around it even sort of resemble a squeezing hand — an incredible coincidence that drives home how fascinating this finding really is.

[video src="https://science.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/hubble-grs-2023-2024-stsci-01j948e7p897jnszr4gqd1pjq3.mp4" /]

Proper Look

Simon noted that despite having been observed by astronomers for centuries, the GRS had never been repeatedly imaged over time before this three-month dedicated look.

"With Hubble’s high resolution," she said, "we can say that the GRS is definitively squeezing in and out at the same time as it moves faster and slower."

"That was very unexpected, and at present, there are no hydrodynamic explanations," she added.

Simon and her team's findings could have implications for studying hurricanes on Earth as well.

"As it accelerates and decelerates, the GRS is pushing against the windy jet streams to the north and south of it," explained Mike Wong, co-investigator of the new research from the University of California at Berkeley, in the agency's statement. "It's similar to a sandwich where the slices of bread are forced to bulge out when there's too much filling in the middle."

As of now, the team is still investigating possible explanations for the spot's strange behavior — but we can be sure Simon's team will be looking at the eye-shaped spot even closer now that they know how weird it is.

More on the GRS: James Webb Observes Mysterious Structures Above Jupiter's Great Red Spot


Past life on Mars? Here's what new NASA evidence points to.

Mashable
Wed, October 9, 2024 


NASA's Curiosity rover takes in a desolate view of Mars at Gale crater in 2021.


Cold, dry, and barren: Mars doesn't look like it could be a haven for life — at least not the kind humans are familiar with.

Despite the Red Planet's appearance, scientists have wondered for decades about the possibility of microbial life inhabiting Mars in the distant past. Now a new study, based on data collected by NASA's Curiosity rover, is peeling back another layer of the mystery. For the first time, researchers measured the isotopic composition of carbon-rich minerals found in Gale Crater, a region laced with dried rivers and gullies and being explored by the rover.

The findings Curiosity beamed millions of miles back to Earth were not optimistic, at least in terms of the potential for life above ground.

"Our samples are not consistent with an ancient environment with life (biosphere) on the surface of Mars," said David Burtt, lead author of the study, in a statement, "although this does not rule out the possibility of an underground biosphere or a surface biosphere that began and ended before these carbonates formed."

The new paper, published in the National Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Monday, suggests two possible ways carbon-rich minerals could have formed at Gale crater: a series of alternating wet and dry periods at the site or salty-ice conditions. These two different ancient climate scenarios could be summed up as bleak and bleaker when it comes to supporting life.

SEE ALSO: NASA's Mars rovers had a gangbusters summer of rocks

Curiosity snapping a selfie on Mars

NASA's Curiosity rover snaps a selfie image on lower Mount Sharp in Gale crater in August 2015. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS

In an environment that swings like a pendulum from wet to dry, the region would intermittently shift from more habitable to less habitable, said Jennifer Stern, a co-author. In frigid temperatures near the planet's equator, the environment would be hostile for living things because most water would be frozen and inaccessible for chemistry or biology.

"And what is there is extremely salty and unpleasant for life," she added in a statement.

This isn't the first time scientists have theorized these possible climate scenarios for ancient Mars. Computer modeling of the planet, based on the presence of certain minerals and rock formations, have led scientists down this path before, but this is the first time they've had isotopic evidence from Martian rocks to bolster those ideas.

Imagining ancient Mars

An artist interprets what Gale crater on Mars might have looked like during one of its ancient, wet periods. Credit: NASA illustration

Scientists have sought life on Mars since the first spacecraft touched down on its surface in 1976. Mounting evidence from robotic explorers, especially from Curiosity and its twin Perseverance, has shown the Red Planet to have once been warmer and wetter, perhaps more than 3 billion years ago.

The rover pair had a highly productive summer, including Perseverance's discovery of a spotted rock with the most compelling signs of ancient dead Martian life yet, though a sample would need to be shipped back to Earth for confirmation. A research team also recently published more evidence of a vast ocean of water below the planet’s surface. And where there's water on Earth, there's often life.

Scientists are interested in Mars' carbon-rich rocks because they are like climate time capsules. Their minerals can hold onto clues about the environments in which they formed, such as the temperature and acidity of the water, and the ingredients within the water and air. Curiosity made the isotope measurements by heating the samples to over 1,600 degrees Fahrenheit and analyzing the released gasses.


Isotopes are versions of an element with different masses. As water evaporates, light versions of carbon and oxygen are more likely to escape into the atmosphere, while heavier versions tend to remain and get incorporated into rocks.

The isotope values of the sampled materials indicate lots of evaporation, the team says, suggesting that they probably formed in a climate that could only support transient liquid water — that is, water that comes from melted ice when temperatures rise and the surface pressure is right.

The heavy isotope values in the samples are much higher than what’s seen on Earth for carbonate minerals. Furthermore, they are the heaviest carbon and oxygen isotope values recorded for any Martian materials. Although evaporation can cause oxygen isotope changes on Earth, the changes measured in the Martian samples were two to three times greater, Burtt said.

Orbiter looking down at a Martian cave

Astrobiologists believe caves like this one on Mars could potentially harbor life. Credit: NASA / JPL / Univ. of Arizona

"The fact that these carbon and oxygen isotope values are higher than anything else measured on Earth or Mars points towards a process (or processes) being taken to an extreme," he said.

But this doesn't discount the possibility of life. The Red Planet appears to have a network of deep caves formed by ancient volcanic vents. Within them could be liquid water, traces of long-deceased bacteria or fungi, or, some scientists believe, perhaps even existing microbial life.

Caves can host complex ecosystems, inhabited by extremophiles that munch on rocks and convert the material into energy for life. Because of this, many astrobiologists want nothing more than to go spelunking on Mars.

This dazzling NASA image shows the biggest super star cluster in our galaxy

Westerlund 1 is a young cluster of stars up to 100,000 times bigger than our sun.

Mariella Moon
·Contributing Reporter
Thu, October 10, 2024 

ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, M. Zamani


The James Webb Space Telescope continues to capture images of space that are clearer and more detailed than what we've seen before. One of the latest images it has taken is of a "super star cluster" called Westerlund 1, and it shows an abundant collection of heavenly bodies, shining brightly like gemstones. Super star clusters are young clusters of stars thousands of times bigger than our sun that are all packed in a small area. Our galaxy used to produce more clusters billions of years ago, but it doesn't churn out as many stars anymore, and only a few super star clusters still exist in the Milky Way.

Westerlund 1 is the biggest remaining super star cluster in our galaxy, and it's also the closest to our planet. It's located 12,000 light-years away, made up of massive stars between 50,000 and 100,000 times the mass of our sun within a region that measures six light-years across. Those stars include yellow hypergiants that are around a million times brighter than our sun, as well. Since the stars populating the cluster have a comparatively short life, scientists believe it's only around 3.5 to 5 million years old. That's pretty young in the cosmic scale. As such, it's a valuable source of data that could help us better understand how massive stars form and eventually die. We won't be around to see it, but the cluster is expected to produce 1,500 supernovae in less than 40 million years.


Astronomers captured an image of the super star cluster as part of an ongoing survey of Westerlund 1 and another cluster called Westerlund 2 to study star formation and evolution. To take the image, they used Webb's Near-InfraRed Camera (NIRCam), which was also recently used to capture a gravitationally lensed supernova that could help shed light on how fast our universe is expanding.

Atoms fuse into world's 'smallest bubble' of water in 1st-of-its-kind 'nanoscale' video

Harry Baker
Thu, October 10, 2024 at 8:53 AM 

Credit: Vinayak Dravid/Northwestern University

For the first time, researchers have captured nanoscale video footage of hydrogen and oxygen atoms combining into water out of "thin air" — thanks to a rare metal catalyst. The super-efficient reaction, which could one day help astronauts make water in space, also produced the smallest bubble of water ever seen, researchers say.

The video was part of a new study, published Sept. 27 in the journal PNAS, in which researchers tested how palladium catalyzes a reaction between hydrogen and oxygen gases to create water in standard lab conditions. The team studied this reaction with a new type of monitoring apparatus that captured the process in extraordinary detail.

"We think it might be the smallest bubble ever formed that has been viewed directly," study lead author Yukun Liu, a materials scientist at Northwestern University in Illinois, said in a statement. "Luckily, we were recording it, so we could prove to other people that we weren't crazy."

The team induced the reaction using a special ultra-thin glassy membrane that holds gas molecules within honeycomb-shaped "nanoreactor" chambers. This means the tests can be viewed in real time using electron microscopes, enabling the researchers to learn more about how the reaction works.

Researchers from the Northwestern University Atomic and Nanoscale Characterization Experimental Center (NUANCE) pioneered this novel technique in a study published in January.

Researchers have known since the 1900s that palladium, a silver-white rare metal similar in appearance to platinum, can catalyze a dry reaction between hydrogen and oxygen, researchers wrote. However, until now, it was unclear exactly how the reaction worked.

The new study revealed that the gaseous atoms first squeeze between the palladium atoms, which are arranged in a square lattice. This expands the lattice and enables water droplets to form on the catalyst's surface. The team also found that the process can be sped up by adding hydrogen atoms to the palladium first, because they are smaller than oxygen atoms. This enables the palladium lattice to expand before the oxygen is added, creating bigger gaps for the larger atoms to fit more readily inside.

The team believes that a scaled-up version of the reaction could be used to create water for astronauts in space or in colonies on other planets. The researchers compared it to a scene from the sci-fi film "The Martian" starring Matt Damon, in which a stranded astronaut makes water on Mars by burning rocket fuel and combining it with oxygen from his suit.

"Our process is analogous, except we bypass the need for fire and other extreme conditions," study co-author Vinayak Dravid, director of the NUANCE Center, said in the statement. "We simply mixed palladium and gases together."

Palladium is an expensive and rare material, costing upwards of $1,000 per ounce. This is largely because it can catalyze many other chemical reactions and is used in a wide range of technologies. As a result, creating a water-generating device for astronauts could be extremely costly.

However, the researchers argued that it would be worth the expense in the long run.

"Palladium might seem expensive, but it's recyclable," Liu said. "Our process doesn't consume it. The only thing consumed is gas, and hydrogen is the most abundant gas in the universe."

Scientists recreate the head of this ancient 9-foot-long bug

CHRISTINA LARSON
Updated Wed, October 9, 2024

This illustration provided by researchers in October 2024 depicts a juvenile Arthropleura insect reconstructed using fossils discovered in Montceau-les-Mines, France. (Mickaël Lhéritier, Jean Vannier, Alexandra Giupponi via AP)


WASHINGTON (AP) — As if the largest bug to ever live – a monster nearly 9 feet long with several dozen legs – wasn’t terrifying enough, scientists could only just imagine what the extinct beast’s head looked like.

That’s because many of the fossils of these creatures are headless shells that were left behind when they molted, squirming out of their exoskeletons through the head opening as they grew ever bigger — up to 8 to 9 feet (2.6 meters) and more than 100 pounds (50 kilograms).

Now, scientists have produced a mug shot after studying fossils of juveniles that were complete and very well preserved, if not quite cute.


The giant bug’s topper was a round bulb with two short bell-shaped antennae, two protruding eyes like a crab, and a rather small mouth adapted for grinding leaves and bark, according to new research published Wednesday in Science Advances.

Called Arthropleura, these were arthropods -- the group that includes crabs, spiders and insects – with features of modern-day centipedes and millipedes. But some of them were much, much bigger, and this one was a surprising mix.

“We discovered that it had the body of a millipede, but head of a centipede,” said study co-author and paleobiologist Mickael Lheritier at the University Claude Bernard Lyon in Villeurbanne, France.

The largest Arthropleura may have been the biggest bugs to ever live, although there is still a debate. They may be a close second to an extinct giant sea scorpion.

Researchers in Europe and North America have been collecting fragments and footprints of the huge bugs since the late 1800s.

“We have been wanting to see what the head of this animal looked like for a really long time,” said James Lamsdell, a paleobiologist at West Virginia University, who was not involved in the study.

To produce a model of the head, researchers first used CT scans to study fossil specimens of fully intact juveniles embedded in rocks found in a French coal field in the 1980s.

This technique allowed the researchers to scrutinize “hidden details like bits of the head that are still embedded in the rock” without marring the fossil, Lamsdell said.

“When you chip away at rock, you don’t know what part of a delicate fossil may have been lost or damaged,” he said.

The juvenile fossil specimens only measured about 2 inches (6 centimeters) and it’s possible they were a type of Arthropleura that didn’t grow to enormous sizes. But even if so, the researchers said they are close enough kin to provide a glimpse of what adults looked like – whether giant or of a less nightmarish size -- when they were alive 300 million years ago.

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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.

Elon Musk’s Starlink charges Hurricane Helene survivors $400 for ‘free’ internet service

Ariel Zilber
Wed, October 9, 2024 



Elon Musk pledged to give victims of Hurricane Helene 30 days worth of free access to his satellite-based Starlink internet service — but the billionaire failed to mention that survivors of the disastrous storm that has claimed the lives of more than 200 people will need to fork over $400 for the system’s hardware.

Starlink, a division of Musk’s rocket-building and space exploration firm SpaceX, announced on its official X page last week that its service “is now free for 30 days” for survivors of Helene who live in areas where phone and fiber cables were cut off — denying them internet access.

The post went viral, generating tens of millions of views.

Elon Musk pledged free Starlink internet service for 30 days for those affected by Hurricane Helene. Jen Golbeck/SOPA Images/Shutterstock

Helene wreaked havoc and devastation on the South. The image above shows Bat Cave, NC on Oct. 8. Getty Images

Musk then wrote on X that all Starlink terminals would work automatically “without [the] need for payment in the areas affected by Hurricane Helene.”

But an experiment run by the online publication The Register showed that anyone who tried to sign up for the service from the disaster-hit area still needed to pay the $400 for the dish as well as shipping, handling and taxes.

Starlink also began promoting a special help page created solely for hurricane victims.

According to the company, anyone in the disaster-hit area who signs up for free internet service will then automatically be moved to a $120-a-month residential subscription after the 30-day grace period.

Customers who live in the disaster zone and already have a dish and want to have their fees waived need to create a special support ticket that the company will evaluate at a non-specified date.

Hurricane survivors needed to pay $400 for the hardware and shipping of the Starlink kit, according to a report. AFP via Getty Images

Kinney Baughman, a resident of Boone, NC, told The Register that the Starlink offer was a “craft bait and switch…meant to take advantage of people instead of helping them.”

Baughman said it wasn’t worth it for residents to take up Musk on his offer given that it would take “months before you get service” — by which time normal internet access will likely have been restored.



“Assuming someone can get over the one or two, if not more, bridges that are down and physically get their hands on the device, you still need electricity to run the thing,” Baughman said.

A Starlink internet kit is seen above on an ATV in Burnsville, NC on Oct. 6. AFP via Getty Images

“Thousands of people are out of power still and hundreds if not thousands of those don’t have a generator.”

The Post has sought comment from SpaceX.

Musk, a supporter of former President Donald Trump, has been critical of the federal response to Helene.

Two weeks ago, Helene flooded streets and homes in western Florida along its devastating march that left at least 230 dead across the South.

Just as the cleanup from Helene was getting underway, Floridians in the western part of the state were forced to evacuate on Monday and Tuesday as another deadly storm, Milton, is expected to make landfall late Wednesday night.

Why monster hurricanes like Milton are happening in the Gulf. It’s not geoengineering

Denise Hruby
Thu, October 10, 2024

Hurricanes have always happened, at least for as long as we have records. But two major hurricanes in just two weeks, both hitting the Florida Gulf Coast, is highly unusual if not quite unprecedented. In 2004, two major hurricanes, Frances and Jeanne, made landfall 21 days apart in the exact same spot, Hutchinson Island.

But on barely moderated social media, it seems weird enough that people are unintentionally spreading false statements, known as misinformation. Others do so intentionally (known as disinformation), often to get more followers on social media and help monetize their profiles.

It’s gotten bad enough that both Republicans and Democrats have started to push back on the same kind of mis- and disinformation, even when it comes from their own ranks.

Gov. Ron DeSantis, when asked about misinformation spreading on the internet about Hurricane Milton in Florida, sharply pushed back at what he said was simply a bid for attention not based in reality.

“Most people are wise to this. We live in an era where if you put out crap online you can get a lot of people to share it and monetize it,” he said.

“Be careful about the nonsense that gets circulated. Be aware that the more titillating it is, the more likely somebody is making money off it. And they don’t really give a damn about the well-being and safety of the people that are actually in the eye of this storm.”

President Joe Biden also called it “un-American” to spread disinformation, which can undermine recovery efforts. “It’s not who the hell we are,” he said.

To get real answers on some of the questions swirling around Hurricanes Helene and Milton, the Herald spoke to scientists and experts who’ve dedicated their careers to meteorology, atmospheric science, tropical cyclones, and hurricanes.
Why did Milton form?

Hurricanes are normal, an extreme weather event that has been around for as long as we know. Some were likely to hit Florida this season, just like in past hurricane seasons.

“Especially for the Panhandle, October is the most active month,” says meteorologist and hurricane expert Athena Masson.

Milton also formed in the Gulf of Mexico, a sort of “red zone” as it has relatively warm water —hurricanes need water of at least 80 degrees to form — and what’s referred to as a low vertical wind shear. Those are winds that, at vastly different altitudes, move in different directions and at high levels can put the brakes on storm intensity. Because the Gulf is surrounded by land, storms will eventually make landfall. “It’s like getting in a bathtub and rocking back and forth,” Masson says.

Milton, however, gained so much strength in part because it formed over an abnormally warm Gulf of Mexico, and the warmer the water, the higher the chances a hurricane intensifies. At one point, Milton’s barometric pressure — a measure of storm intensity — hit 897 millibars, making it the fourth strongest hurricane on record. Only five hurricanes in records have dipped below 900 in official records dating back more than 170 years.

The Herald spoke to, from left, Shel Winkley, who worked as a broadcast meteorologist for 17 years; Athena Masson, a meteorologist and hurricane expert; and Brian McNoldy, an expert in atmospheric science who specializes in tropical storms and hurricanes at the University of Miami.

Why is the Gulf so warm?

The Gulf was 2.9 degrees hotter than 30-year-average during this time of the year, and though a fluke can occur in any given year. “It’s this constant above average that we’ve seen, so we know it’s not just a fluke,” says Shel Winkley, who worked as a broadcast meteorologist for a CBS-affiliate in Texas and taught at Texas A&M University.

This warming is in large part a result of our greenhouse gas emissions – from CO2 to methane – which have created a heat-trapping and ocean-warming blanket around the planet.

Scientists have attributed the role climate change has played in all this: “The water in which Milton developed and then rapidly intensified was about 400 times more likely because of climate change, so we can see how much of a fingerprint climate has,” says Winkley.

How is this happening now, just after Helene?

“This really just comes down to bad luck,” says Brian McNoldy, an expert in atmospheric science who specializes in tropical storms and hurricanes at the University of Miami.

Florida has actually had worse luck. In 2004, four hurricanes slammed the state in just six weeks between August and September. Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne killed more than 100 people and caused some $50 billion in combined damages.

Storms forming around the same time also isn’t unusual — in 2005, for example, Hurricane Katrina, the deadliest to hit the U.S. this century, with 1,392 deaths, formed at the same time as Rita and Wilma, which also reached Cat 5 status.

“So that is not unusual,” Winkley says, “but what is unusual is that both (Helene and Milton) were able to rapidly intensify and how strong they were able to get in such a short amount of time,” he says, adding that this intensity was in part due to the 86-degree warm waters, which ties back to our fossil fuel emissions.

A home lifted a few feet off the ground topples to the ground next to a home on higher stilts in Cedar Key. Just some of damage along Florida’s Gulf Coast after Hurricane Helene.
Can we ‘geoengineer’ hurricanes?

While it’d be great if we could, we simply can’t, says Masson.

Geoengineering describes large, technological, and hugely controversial interventions that could, at some point in the future, help cool our over-heating planet. Scientists are experimenting with technology that could brighten clouds or suck carbon, which accounts for 75 percent of planet-warming greenhouse gases, out of the atmosphere. Both are nascent, and neither are currently able to weaken the effects of climate change.

The closest we might have come to engineer the weather is to destroy comparably tiny clouds, for example, for the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, Masson says.

But hurricanes are massive weather systems, not simple clouds, and they are hundreds of miles wide. Even if it was possible “we’d destroy the entire atmosphere,” Masson says. As a meteorologist, she committed her life “to protect lives and give the best possible updates. If we had that sort of technology, we would be telling people.”
Can we weaken hurricanes, or steer them?

No. There are a lot of theories on what could work out there, atmospheric scientist McNoldy says, but the sheer force of a hurricane is just too mighty to stop, steer, or control in any way.

Back in World War 2, the idea of weakening a hurricane with nuclear bombs was first floated around, “but the equivalent energy in a hurricane dwarfs anything we can do with nuclear weapons,” McNoldy says.

Around the eye of Hurricane Andrew, which destroyed more than 63,000 homes in south Florida in 1992, the heat energy released was 5,000 times the heat and electrical power generation of nuclear power station Turkey Point.

“People come up with these ideas without knowing what a hurricane is,” and though they might seem plausible at first glance, “the scale is impossible.”

Miami Herald Hurricane and Climate Reporter Alex Harris contributed to this story.

This climate report is funded by Florida International University, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the David and Christina Martin Family Foundation in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners. The Miami Herald retains editorial control of all content.

Clarification: An earlier version of this story referred to Katrina as the deadliest hurricane to hit the US. It was the deadliest to hit the U.S. this century, and since modern-day warning systems exist.

The National Hurricane Cnter’s tracking map for Hurricane Milton at 2 a.m. on Thursday as neared Florida’s Space Coast.
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'The Dictator's Wife' Author Reviews Melania Trump's Memoir And… Oof!

Lee Moran
Updated Thu, October 10, 2024 

Former first lady Melania Trump’s new memoir has received yet another less-than-glowing review, this time from the author of the 2022 fictional novel “The Dictator’s Wife.”

Reading the memoir, titled “Melania,” is “to pass through the looking-glass,” Freya Berry wrote in a literary assessment published Wednesday by The Daily Beast.

“Trivial things are important. Important things barely register,” and “there’s no sense of self-awareness that there might be slightlymore at stake when, say, she spends a whole chapter on her White House renovations,” Berry said.

The book’s “main tone is of a press release,” and some sections sound “like a sales pitch,” Berry added, noting one paragraph in which Trump’s “work for scholarships for foster children segues into a plug for her own memorabilia, in a whiplash that actually had me staring at the page, agape at its audacity.”

Berry has recently said that Trump “inspired the antiheroine” in her novel, which centers on the “beautiful, enigmatic wife of a feared dictator,” according to a product description. Berry wrote in a Tuesday article for the British outlet inews.co.uk that she penned “The Dictator’s Wife” after following Trump on the 2016 campaign trail and becoming “fascinated by her moral ambiguity.”

Berry is not the only person to offer a scathing critique of Trump’s memoir.

A review by Vanity Fair’s Keziah Weir bluntly said, “Amid the glitter, though, the book is bad.” Weir described Trump at times as having “the narrative instincts of a hound in a fish store, following her nose from one exciting scent to the next, beginning anecdotes only to abandon them.”

Britain’s Telegraph outlet slapped a one-star review on the book, calling it “deeply weird” and “hard to believe.” And The New York Times described it as “a brazen whitewash of a presidency” that is “full of obfuscations.”

Multiple critics have warned of America’s possible transformation into an authoritarian state should the former first lady’s husband, GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump, beat Democratic rival Kamala Harris in next month’s vote. The former president himself has said that he plans to act like a “dictator” only on “day one” of a potential second term.

Read Berry’s full review at The Daily Beast.

Opinion: I Wrote a Novel About A Dictator’s Wife. Melania’s Book is Much Crazier

Freya Berry
Wed, October 9, 2024 

Getty Images/Eric Faison/The Daily Beast


No one needs reminding these days that real life is stranger than fiction. Still, if you do need a recap, I might suggest Melania’s new memoir, which I read so you don’t have to.

Actually, it wasn’t that hard: partly because it’s only 184 pages of prose, plus 179 photographs, and partly because it’s so free of the woman in question that the whole thing slides over you, like JD Vance’s hair.

From the moment she arrived on the political scene, Melania has inspired me, and I don’t mean to Be Best (whatever that means; I’m still none the wiser). I was a reporter in the 2016 U.S. election, and I wound up writing a novel about a cryptic and beautiful dictator’s wife, one who flips between domesticity and cruelty, a woman who’s essentially a Rorschach blot of herself.

All the Wildest and Weirdest Revelations in Melania’s Book

Yet however much I tried, you literally couldn’t make up Melania the memoir. Take the moment in 2020, when, with a global pandemic looming, she says without a hint of irony that she has a busy roster ahead: her son’s birthday, ‘a trip to Oklahoma’ and the White House Easter Egg Roll. Oh, and as an afterthought, “Additionally, an official visit to meet with [India’s] prime minister Narendra Modi.” She might be just listing things chronologically, but it sure feels like it’s in order of her personal priorities.

Because to read Melania is to pass through the looking-glass. Trivial things are important. Important things barely register. In her first reference to her duties as First Lady, she says “I embarked on a grand odyssey, traveling the corners of the globe.” I mean, I guess you can view the role as a round-the-world cruise. Alternatively, if she’s into Greek myth, Odysseus couldn’t wait to get home, which actually does ring true–Melania is definitely a homemaker, which might explain why pretty much everything is about her, or interior design, or (preferably) both.




The cover of the memoir Melania offers a version of the former first lady as corporate logo. Sadly, the book inside does little more.
Skyhorse Publishing




“I embarked on a grand odyssey, traveling the corners of the globe,” says Melania of her tenure, which did take her to, among other places, the pyramids at Giza in Egypt.
Carlo Allegri/Reuters

That’s fine, I guess, but there’s no sense of self-awareness that there might be slightly more at stake when, say, she spends a whole chapter on her White House renovations. There are six photos of the tennis pavilion. Of her Be Best and campaign duties, there are four.

Perhaps the best metaphor for her time at the heart of government is the day protestors attack the Capitol. Melania doesn’t hear about it, because she’s busy taking photos of all those renovations.

Naturally, her ignorance of these events isn’t her fault. Nothing is her fault. In fact, despite the deeply impersonal style of this book, she’s most expressive when angry, however justifiably, about this or that betrayal. The other emotionally true moments are mostly centered around her son, Barron.




Moments with her son Barron are the only emotionally true parts of the memoir. But elsewhere, the (unnamed) ghostwriter has struggled to fill the space.
Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

As a result, at times you can feel the writer turning to Wikipedia to fill the void where her emotions should be. (‘The house in Bedford sits on 230 acres of land…the house was built in 1919…’)

Indeed the main tone is of a press release. As she wins a modeling competition, the photographers apparently cry, “Let us capture this incredible moment!” Of her mother, “She adored the radiant sun, as its golden rays sun-kissed her skin,” etc etc. It feels like a sales pitch. Sometimes it is a sales pitch: her scuppered caviar-infused skin cream launch, which she “hopes” will return to the market.

Melania Trump Opens Up About Whether Barron Is ‘Autistic’ in Memoir

It’s fine to write a book as a branding opportunity. So were the Obamas’ memoirs - so are most memoirs. She’s just both more brazen and less successful at it. Take that dramatic black-and-white cover: her name as corporate logo. The problem is it just looks like a placeholder until the real cover comes along. Every break is marked by an M, which is a bit jarring when you’ve just read about her mother’s passing.

A paragraph on her work for scholarships for foster children segues into a plug for her own memorabilia, in a whiplash that actually had me staring at the page, agape at its audacity.

It’s frustrating because there are signs of a more interesting woman in there. There are veiled allusions to life being “not perfect.” She stands up for abortion rights, and calls for more kindness online–worthy messages, just poorly conveyed, drowning in branding and product. She says the notorious Zara jacket was nothing to do with her not caring about immigrant children, but a stand against media misinformation. Its slogan was, apparently, “discreet,” which is one word for a message splashed across her entire back in graffiti-style daubs.

Melania’s infamous “I Really Don’t Care. Do You?” jacket is a hint at a more interesting woman with an interior life. But no reader will find her in Melania.
Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

Tellingly, at one point she talks wistfully of the Kennedy era, “The idea of a flawless, almost mythical first family seems unattainable in today’s world.” That’s what Melania wants to be: her own airbrushed image. Yet she also talks again and again about the importance of authenticity, of being herself. At one point she says, “Don’t control, communicate!” But be who, and communicate what? She can’t decide – so neither can we.

Freya Berry is the author of two novels, The Dictator's Wife and The Birdcage Library. Previously she worked as a journalist, covering politics and finance. She lives in London.The Dictator’s Wife is out now https://www.amazon.com/Dictators-Wife-Freya-Berry/dp/1472276302