It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Monday, October 21, 2024
Afghan smartphone addiction revealed: A nation gripped by ‘nomophobia’
A startling 99.73% of undergraduate medical students in Afghanistan exhibit symptoms of nomophobia—the fear and anxiety of being without a mobile phone, according to a new study from the University of Surrey.
University of Surrey
The study, conducted by a team of international researchers, surveyed 754 undergraduate medical students, predominantly aged between 18 and 29, in a country grappling with political turmoil and severe restrictions on women's education. The findings uncover a troubling trend: men experience moderate to severe nomophobia (93%) slightly more than women (88%), challenging previous studies that suggested differing vulnerabilities based on gender.
Dr Suleman Lazarus, lead author of the study and cybercrime expert at the University of Surrey, said:
“The overwhelming prevalence of nomophobia among Afghan students is not just a personal issue for the individuals; it is a reflection of the socio-political crisis in Afghanistan. In a nation where communication and connection are increasingly restricted, the smartphone becomes a lifeline, leading to heightened dependence and anxiety when separated from it.”
The study also highlights the impact of marital status on nomophobia levels, with married individuals showing higher mean scores compared to their single counterparts. This unexpected finding suggests that the dynamics of personal relationships and societal expectations in Afghanistan play a significant role in shaping individuals’ experiences of anxiety related to smartphone use.
To conduct this research, the team used the Nomophobia Questionnaire (NMP-Q), a well-established tool designed to measure the severity of nomophobic symptoms. The data collection took place between October and December 2022, by sampling responses of students at Kabul University of Medical Sciences.
Participants completed a 27-item questionnaire that assessed their feelings and behaviors regarding smartphone usage, which was translated into Dari, the local language, to ensure accessibility and comprehension.
The key findings were:
54% of participants reported moderate nomophobia
35% exhibited severe symptoms
93% of men and 88% of women are nomophobic
Gender, age, and marriage are critical factors influencing the intensity of nomophobia.
The implications of these findings are profound, particularly in light of the Taliban's policies that have restricted women’s rights to education and freedom. These conditions have intensified the reliance on smartphones, making them not just gadgets but essential tools for survival and connection.
The research presents a unique lens through which to view the intersection of technology, mental health, and socio-political context in Afghanistan. With a mere 18.4% of the population actually having access to the internet, combined with a stark gender divide in access to technology itself, understanding nomophobia in this landscape is crucial for addressing mental health and societal wellbeing.
Dr Lazarus continued:
“This study is a crucial step toward understanding the mental health implications of our technology-dependent society, particularly in regions where access to education and basic rights is severely restricted. The data we have gathered paints a vivid picture of the psychological landscape of Afghanistan today.”
WASHINGTON — Americans believe volunteering to help strangers contributes more to society than providing care for family or friends, even though they contribute billions of dollars’ worth of labor in unpaid caregiving every year, according to research published by the American Psychological Association.
This perception could lead Americans of lower socioeconomic status to feel like they have less to contribute than people of higher socioeconomic status, because they often do not have the same amount of time or resources to devote to people outside of their communities.
“Over 53 million Americans provide unpaid care for adults, labor valued at over $450 billion annually. Without this essential caregiving, society would struggle to function,” said Ellen Reinhart, PhD, a postdoctoral scholar at Michigan State University and lead author of the study. “In contrast, the 8.8 billion hours Americans volunteer every year also provides much-needed assistance and is valued at $195 billion. But how do we value these two forms of help?”
Using a series of experiments and data from a longitudinal survey, the researchers examined the differences between people with lower and higher socioeconomic status and how they perceive their contributions to society. The research was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
For the study, the researchers categorized participants with less than a four-year college degree as having lower socioeconomic status, and participants with a four-year college degree or more as having higher socioeconomic status. In general, participants with less than a four-year college degree tended to report lower incomes and a greater likelihood of working as a manual laborer or skilled tradesperson.
Researchers examined data from the Midlife Development in the United States survey, a large, longitudinal survey collected in three waves between 1995 and 2014.
Participants in the survey were asked to rate statements about their contributions to society such as, “I have something valuable to give the world” or “My daily activities do not create anything worthwhile for my community.” They were also asked how many hours per month they spent volunteering or providing unpaid care such as transportation or help with chores to relatives or friends.
The researchers found that while people with higher socioeconomic status volunteered more frequently, those with lower socioeconomic status spent more time providing unpaid care within their social networks.
And even though people with lower socioeconomic status spent more time helping their friends and family, they said they contributed less to society than people with higher socioeconomic status who volunteered to help strangers.
“The belief that helping strangers is the gold standard of contributing seems to be a widely accepted but little recognized assumption. Our research brings this assumption to the surface and questions who it benefits and who it overlooks,” Reinhart said.
In one experiment, the researchers randomly assigned participants to read about one of three people who tutored a younger student. One person was required to tutor a younger student in an after-school program, one person chose to tutor a younger student, and one person tutored their younger cousin.
The researchers found that Americans, regardless of socioeconomic status, thought that the person who chose to tutor a stranger made a greater contribution and deserved more recognition than the other tutors.
Though people thought the person tutoring a family member was more moral than the person who was required to help, they did not think tutoring a family member made a significantly greater contribution to society. Instead, participants saw the person who volunteered to help as the most altruistic because it reflected the most choice.
These findings suggest that, as a society, we need a broader idea of what counts as a meaningful contribution, according to Reinhart.
“As the U.S. population ages, the 20% of Americans caring for an adult, most often a relative, will only increase in the coming years. To meet the growing demand for caregiving, we must value this vital labor,” Reinhart said. “We need to do more to recognize the personal and societal importance of helping people close to home in our everyday circles and investing in these local relationships. Caregiving, perhaps especially when unpaid and with little choice involved, is still a significant contribution.”
Soil’s secret language: Researchers decode plant-to-fungi communication
University of Toronto
image:
For the study, Lumba and her fellow researchers investigated why and how fungi respond to SLs. Eighty per cent of plants rely on this symbiotic relationship, and enhancing the interaction with beneficial fungi could lead to hardier crops and higher crop yield, reducing the need for fertilizers. This in turn would reduce phosphate runoff into water systems and lower the production of greenhouse gases.
Credit: Bradley et al., 2024, Molecular Cell 84, 1–17
Researchers at the University of Toronto have cracked the code of plant-to-fungi communication in a new study published in the journal Molecular Cell.
Using baker’s yeast, the researchers discovered that the plant hormone strigolactone (SL) activates fungal genes and proteins associated with phosphate metabolism, a system that is key to growth.
This insight into how fungi respond to chemical signals at the molecular level could lead to new strategies for cultivating hardier crops and combatting disease-causing fungi.
“As we begin to understand how plants and fungi communicate, we will better understand the complexities of the soil ecosystem, leading to healthier crops and improving our approach to biodiversity,” says Shelley Lumba, lead author and assistant professor in the department of cell and systems biology at the University of Toronto.
In the soil, plant roots engage with fungi in a silent molecular “language” to direct their structure. When plants release SLs, they signal fungi to attach to their roots, providing phosphates – the fuel plants need to grow, and a major component of most fertilizers – in exchange for carbon.
For the study, Lumba and her fellow researchers investigated why and how fungi respond to SLs. Eighty per cent of plants rely on this symbiotic relationship, and enhancing this interaction with beneficial fungi could yield hardier crops, reduce fertilizer use, and minimize phosphate runoff into waterways.
In other cases, disease-causing fungi can exploit chemical cues to infect crops, sometimes wiping out entire harvests. Understanding this chemical language could also help block such pathogens.
Due to the complexity of the soil ecosystem, scientists couldn’t identify the specific chemicals that encourage beneficial fungi, or the effects of these signals, until now. Lumba and her team cracked the code with baker’s yeast, a quieter fungus that has been domesticated by humans for millennia. The easy-going ways of modern strains make them well suited to the lab.
The researchers treated yeast with SLs and observed which genes were turned off and on in response. They found that this chemical signal increased the expression of genes labelled “PHO” that are related to phosphate metabolism. Further analysis showed that SLs function through Pho84, a protein on the surface of yeast that monitors phosphate levels, activating a cascade of other proteins in the phosphate pathway.
The researchers determined that plants release SLs when starved for phosphate, signalling the yeast to change its phosphate uptake.
They found the phosphate response to the SL signal holds true not only for domesticated fungi like baker’s yeast but also for wild fungi, specifically the detrimental wheat blight Fusarium graminearum and the beneficial symbiotic fungus Serendipita indica.
“Gene expression as an output from chemical treatment is key to this approach – it identifies the effect of the SL response on fungal growth.” says Lumba.
Scientists can use this straightforward method to systematically identify plant-derived small molecules that communicate with fungi. Enhancing the interaction with beneficial fungi could lead to advances in agriculture and mitigate pollution and food insecurity.
“The potential impact of this research can improve the lives of so many,” says Lumba. “It’s about healthy soil for a healthy planet.”
Modulation of fungal phosphate homeostasis by the plant hormone strigolactone
License to chill: Bond shows ‘regressive nostalgia’ can freeze a brand's future
University of Birmingham
Super-spy James Bond is a prime example of ‘regressive nostalgia’ highlighting how certain consumer groups cling to idealised past versions of brands and resist attempts to move with the times, a new study reveals.
Researchers examined the James Bond movie franchise - a cultural icon for over 70 years - and discovered that some ‘super-consumers’ react negatively to modern portrayals of the fictional British secret agent that reflect contemporary societal values.
Whilst loyal to the brand, these consumers prefer traditional, more exclusionary, versions of Bond which most closely follow author Ian Fleming’s original 1950s and 1960s vision – characterised as an arrogant, misogynistic, and racist Imperial British male.
Publishing their findings today (17 October) in International Journal of Research in Marketing, consumer behaviour experts from the University of Birmingham and ESCP Business School, London note that regressive nostalgia is characterised by a preference for racial and cultural purity and heroic masculinity. The phenomenon harbours exclusionary and aggressive tendencies that pose significant threats to brands.
The researchers have, therefore, produced a toolkit to help marketeers shield their brand’s contemporary positioning from the negative connotations associated with this form of nostalgia - allowing brands to evolve without alienating their core consumer base.
Finola Kerrigan, Professor of Marketing at the University of Birmingham, commented: “The James Bond franchise is a perfect example of how ‘regressive nostalgia’ manifests. Whilst the brand has successfully adapted to changing times, a small but disproportionally vocal part of its fanbase is anchored in the past, highlighting the need for careful brand management.
“These ‘super-consumers’ cling to Ian Fleming’s characterisation of Bond and the period during which the novels were written to justify their nostalgia. They actively resist attempts to modernise the franchise, dismissing as ‘woke nonsense’ recent movies such as ‘No Time to Die.”
Chloe Preece, Professor of Marketing, ESCP Business School, London notes that these Super-consumers view Bond as a heroic, white, male icon providing a ‘safe space’ for those feeling threatened by contemporary discussion about creating a more inclusive society. The character’s ‘man-of-action’ persona allows this group of mostly male consumers to identify with the spy’s ‘heroic masculinity’ based on his ability to sleep with the ‘Bond girls’.
While the study focuses on the Bond franchise, the researchers identify parallels with other groups’ appropriation of brand resources and associating them with anti-social causes.
“Brands use nostalgia to connect with consumers - delighting and enchanting their customer base whilst connecting them to others – but this makes nostalgia potentially dangerous in drawing consumers to the past, when it creates a sense of loss combining a cherished past and a despised present,” said independent scholar Dr Daragh O’Reilly.
“In order to minimise the negative impact of regressive nostalgia, it is important that the brand does not pander to the nostalgia displayed by a minority of super-consumers. Brand stewards must not be swayed by these loud voices and become exclusionary.”
The researchers note that marketeers should be alert to the risk posed by regressive nostalgia and have devised toolkit comprising of a series of questions to help brand managers assess the level of threat (see Notes to Editors).
ENDS
For more information, please contact Tony Moran, International Communications Manager, University of Birmingham on +44 (0)782 783 2312 or t.moran@bham.ac.uk. For out-of-hours enquiries, please call +44 (0) 121 414 2772.
Notes to Editors
The University of Birmingham is ranked amongst the world’s top 100 institutions, its work brings people from across the world to Birmingham, including researchers and teachers and more than 8,000 international students from over 150 countries.
‘Theorizing Regressive Nostalgia: Understanding Exclusionary Consumers as a Brand Threat’ – Chloe Preece, Finola Kerrigan and Daragh O’Reilly is published in International Journal of Research in Marketing.
Managerial toolkit to assess the threat of regressive nostalgia to a brand
What is the brand’s connection with the past?
What market research data does the brand have that supports the analysis of the brand’s relationship to the past?
Does the brand actively use the past and nostalgia in its positioning?
What does it cost the brand to sustain this connection with the past, and what is the brand benefit from doing so?
How do the brand’s consumers and stakeholders relate to the past?
What material and symbolic resources has the brand made available to consumers that relate to the past?
How are social media and other platforms enabling consumer/customer agency with respect to regressive nostalgia?
To what extent is the brand’s past copyrighted?
How easily can this past be altered, faked, or deep-faked? (considering the threats of AI)
What challenges may come from existing or historical celebrity endorsements, donations to political parties, merchandising figures, internet memes?
Given the brand’s past (imagined or real), what is the nature and scale of the threat to the brand from regressive nostalgia?
Is there any evidence of regressive nostalgia amongst consumers and if so, has this grown recently?
How might the brand’s corporate reputation be at risk?
In what way could regressive nostalgia possibly affect the brand’s strategic marketing and its marketing mix?
How can the brand mobilise inclusivity, diversity, and equality to counter regressive nostalgia if necessary?
What narrative(s) can and should be deployed, developed, adjusted, and managed by the brand to reflect contemporary positionings of the brand?
What domains and frames of reference or meaning-making are available to the brand when working with these divisive and polarizing issues?
Journal
International Journal of Research in Marketing
Subject of Research
People
Article Title
Theorizing Regressive Nostalgia: Understanding Exclusionary Consumers as a Brand Threat
Article Publication Date
17-Oct-2024
SPACE/COSMOS
Astronomers detect ancient lonely quasars with murky origins
The quasars appear to have few cosmic neighbors, raising questions about how they first emerged more than 13 billion years ago.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
image:
This image, taken by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, shows an ancient quasar (circled in red) with fewer than expected neighboring galaxies (bright blobs), challenging physicists’ understanding of how the first quasars and supermassive black holes formed.
A quasar is the extremely bright core of a galaxy that hosts an active supermassive black hole at its center. As the black hole draws in surrounding gas and dust, it blasts out an enormous amount of energy, making quasars some of the brightest objects in the universe. Quasars have been observed as early as a few hundred million years after the Big Bang, and it’s been a mystery as to how these objects could have grown so bright and massive in such a short amount of cosmic time.
Scientists have proposed that the earliest quasars sprang from overly dense regions of primordial matter, which would also have produced many smaller galaxies in the quasars’ environment. But in a new MIT-led study, astronomers observed some ancient quasars that appear to be surprisingly alone in the early universe.
The astronomers used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to peer back in time, more than 13 billion years, to study the cosmic surroundings of five known ancient quasars. They found a surprising variety in their neighborhoods, or “quasar fields.” While some quasars reside in very crowded fields with more than 50 neighboring galaxies, as all models predict, the remaining quasars appear to drift in voids, with only a few stray galaxies in their vicinity.
These lonely quasars are challenging physicists’ understanding of how such luminous objects could have formed so early on in the universe, without a significant source of surrounding matter to fuel their black hole growth.
“Contrary to previous belief, we find on average, these quasars are not necessarily in those highest-density regions of the early universe. Some of them seem to be sitting in the middle of nowhere,” says Anna-Christina Eilers, assistant professor of physics at MIT. “It’s difficult to explain how these quasars could have grown so big if they appear to have nothing to feed from.”
There is a possibility that these quasars may not be as solitary as they appear, but are instead surrounded by galaxies that are heavily shrouded in dust and therefore hidden from view. Eilers and her colleagues hope to tune their observations to try and see through any such cosmic dust, in order to understand how quasars grew so big, so fast, in the early universe.
Eilers and her colleagues report their findings in a paper appearing today in the Astrophysical Journal. The MIT co-authors include postdocs Rohan Naidu and Minghao Yue; Robert Simcoe, the Francis Friedman Professor of Physics and director of MIT’s Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research; and collaborators from institutions including Leiden University, the University of California at Santa Barbara, ETH Zurich, and elsewhere.
Galactic neighbors
The five newly observed quasars are among the oldest quasars observed to date. More than 13 billion years old, the objects are thought to have formed between 600 to 700 million years after the Big Bang. The supermassive black holes powering the quasars are a billion times more massive than the sun, and more than a trillion times brighter. Due to their extreme luminosity, the light from each quasar is able to travel over the age of the universe, far enough to reach JWST’s highly sensitive detectors today.
“It’s just phenomenal that we now have a telescope that can capture light from 13 billion years ago in so much detail,” Eilers says. “For the first time, JWST enabled us to look at the environment of these quasars, where they grew up, and what their neighborhood was like.”
The team analyzed images of the five ancient quasars taken by JWST between August 2022 and June 2023. The observations of each quasar comprised multiple “mosaic” images, or partial views of the quasar’s field, which the team effectively stitched together to produce a complete picture of each quasar’s surrounding neighborhood.
The telescope also took measurements of light in multiple wavelengths across each quasar’s field, which the team then processed to determine whether a given object in the field was light from a neighboring galaxy, and how far a galaxy is from the much more luminous central quasar.
“We found that the only difference between these five quasars is that their environments look so different,” Eilers says. “For instance, one quasar has almost 50 galaxies around it, while another has just two. And both quasars are within the same size, volume, brightness, and time of the universe. That was really surprising to see.”
Growth spurts
The disparity in quasar fields introduces a kink in the standard picture of black hole growth and galaxy formation. According to physicists’ best understanding of how the first objects in the universe emerged, a cosmic web of dark matter should have set the course. Dark matter is an as-yet unknown form of matter that has no other interactions with its surroundings other than through gravity.
Shortly after the Big Bang, the early universe is thought to have formed filaments of dark matter that acted as a sort of gravitational road, attracting gas and dust along its tendrils. In overly dense regions of this web, matter would have accumulated to form more massive objects. And the brightest, most massive early objects, such as quasars, would have formed in the web’s highest-density regions, which would have also churned out many more, smaller galaxies.
“The cosmic web of dark matter is a solid prediction of our cosmological model of the Universe, and it can be described in detail using numerical simulations,” says co-author says Elia Pizzati, a graduate student at Leiden University. “By comparing our observations to these simulations, we can determine where in the cosmic web quasars are located.”
Scientists estimate that quasars would have had to grow continuously with very high accretion rates in order to reach the extreme mass and luminosities at the times that astronomers have observed them, fewer than 1 billion years after the Big Bang.
“The main question we’re trying to answer is, how do these billion-solar-mass black holes form at a time when the universe is still really, really young? It’s still in its infancy,” Eilers says.
The team’s findings may raise more questions than answers. The “lonely” quasars appear to live in relatively empty regions of space. If physicists’ cosmological models are correct, these barren regions signify very little dark matter, or starting material for brewing up stars and galaxies. How, then, did extremely bright and massive quasars come to be?
“Our results show that there’s still a significant piece of the puzzle missing of how these supermassive black holes grow,” Eilers says. “If there’s not enough material around for some quasars to be able to grow continuously, that means there must be some other way that they can grow, that we have yet to figure out.”
This research was supported, in part, by the European Research Council.
###
Written by Jennifer Chu, MIT News
Paper: “EIGER VI. The Correlation Function, Host Halo Mass and Duty Cycle of Luminous Quasars at z & 6”
“EIGER VI. The Correlation Function, Host Halo Mass and Duty Cycle of Luminous Quasars at z & 6”
Near-earth microquasar a source of powerful radiation
The Henryk Niewodniczanski Institute of Nuclear Physics Polish Academy of Sciences
image:
Sources of high-energy cosmic rays in the vicinity of the microquasar V4641 Sag, on the left with energies above a teraelectronvolt, on the right – hundreds of teraelectronvolts. The location of the microquasar is marked with a yellow dot.
Cracow, 17 October 2024 - Modern astronomy has clung to the belief that the relativistic outflows or jets responsible for the existence of electromagnetic radiation of particularly high energies are located in the nuclei of active galaxies distant from Earth. However, a different picture of reality is emerging from the latest data from the HAWC observatory: also jets launched in astrophysical sources from our own intra-galactic ‘backyard’ turn out to be sources of gamma photons of extremely high energy.
Electromagnetic radiation of extremely high energies is produced not only in the jets launched in active nuclei of distant galaxies, but also in jet-launching objects lying within the Milky Way, called microquasars. This latest finding by scientists from the international High-Altitude Water Cherenkov Gamma-Ray Observatory (HAWC) radically changes the previous understanding of the mechanisms responsible for the formation of ultra-high-energy cosmic radiation and in practice marks a revolution in its further study.
Since the discovery of cosmic radiation by Victor Hess in 1912, astronomers have believed that the celestial bodies responsible in our galaxy for the acceleration of these particles up to the highest energies are the remains of gigantic supernova explosions, called supernova remnants. However, a different picture is emerging from the latest data from the HAWC observatory: the sources of radiation of extremely high energies turn out to be microquasars. Astrophysicists from the Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IFJ PAN) in Cracow, co-financed by a grant from the National Science Centre, played a key role in the discovery.
The HAWC observatory was erected on the slope of the Sierra Negra volcano in Mexico with the aim of recording incoming particles and photons from space at particularly high energies. The facility consists of 300 steel water tanks equipped with photomultipliers sensitive to fleeting flashes of light, known as Cherenkov radiation. This appears in the tank when a particle travelling faster than the speed of light in water falls into it. Typically, the HAWC captures gamma photons with energies ranging from hundreds of gigaelectronvolts to hundreds of teraelectronvolts. These are energies up to a trillion times greater than the energy of visible light photons and over a dozen times greater than the energy of protons accelerated at the Large Hadronic Collider (LHC) accelerator.
The supermassive black holes within quasars, i.e. the active nuclei of some galaxies (objects with enormous masses, numbering in the hundreds of millions of solar masses) accelerate and absorb matter from the accretion disk that surrounds them. During this process, very narrow and very long streams of matter, called jets, are shot out from near the poles of the black hole, in both directions along its rotation axis. These move at velocities often close to the speed of light, resulting in shock waves – and it is there that photons of extremely high energies, reaching up to hundreds of teraelectronvolts, are produced.
Located in the nuclei of other galaxies, quasars are among objects that are very distant from us: the nearest (Markarian 231) is 600 million light years away from Earth. This is not the case for microquasars. These are compact binary systems, made up of a massive star and its matter-absorbing black hole, which emit jets with lengths of hundreds of light years. Several tens of such objects have so far been discovered in our galaxy alone.
“Photons detected from microquasars have usually much lower energies than those from the quasars. Usually, we are talking about values of the order of tens of gigaelectronvolts. Meanwhile, we have observed something quite incredible in the data recorded by the detectors of the HAWC observatory: photons coming from a microquasar lying in our galaxy and yet carrying energies tens of thousands of times higher than typical!” says Dr. Sabrina Casanova (IFJ PAN), who, together with Dr. Xiaojie Wang from Michigan Tech University and Dr. Dezhi Huang from University of Maryland were the first to observe the anomaly.
The source of photons with energies of up to 200 teraelectronvolts has been found to be the microquasar V4641 Sagittarii (V4641 Sgr). It lies in the background of the Sagittarius constellation, at a distance of about 20,000 light years from Earth. The main role here is played by a black hole with a mass of about six solar masses, pulling in matter from the stellar giant with a mass three times that of the Sun. The objects orbit around a common centre of mass, circling each other once in just under three days. Interestingly, the jet emitted by the V4641 Sgr system is directed towards the Solar System. In this configuration, an Earth-based observer has a relativistically distorted perception of the time of the matter at the beginning and end of the jet: its front begins to appear younger than it actually is. As a result, the jet seems to propagate through space at superluminal velocity, in the present case as much as nine times the speed of light.
“Significantly, the V4641 Sgr microquasar turns out not to be unique. Extremely energetic photons are meanwhile detected not only from this but also from other microquasars, detected by the LHAASO observatory. It therefore seems likely that microquasars significantly contribute to the cosmic ray radiation at the highest energies in our galaxy,” adds Dr. Casanova.
The latest discovery is of interest not only to cosmic ray scientists. It proves that at a relatively small distance from Earth, mechanisms of jet formation and production of ultra-energetic photons must be at work analogous to those in the nuclei of active, distant galaxies, scaled appropriately to the mass of the black hole. These processes in microquasars occur on a much more human-friendly timescale – over days, not hundreds of thousands or millions of years. Moreover, the photons emitted by microquasars do not have to make their way through the millions of light-years of the cosmic vacuum, where they can be scattered or absorbed during interactions with photons of the ubiquitous cosmic background radiation. All this means that astrophysicists have, for the first time, gained the ability to make comprehensive and virtually undisturbed observations of processes crucial to the evolution of galaxies.
The Henryk Niewodniczański Institute of Nuclear Physics (IFJ PAN) is currently one of the largest research institutes of the Polish Academy of Sciences. A wide range of research carried out at IFJ PAN covers basic and applied studies, from particle physics and astrophysics, through hadron physics, high-, medium-, and low-energy nuclear physics, condensed matter physics (including materials engineering), to various applications of nuclear physics in interdisciplinary research, covering medical physics, dosimetry, radiation and environmental biology, environmental protection, and other related disciplines. The average yearly publication output of IFJ PAN includes over 600 scientific papers in high-impact international journals. Each year the Institute hosts about 20 international and national scientific conferences. One of the most important facilities of the Institute is the Cyclotron Centre Bronowice (CCB), which is an infrastructure unique in Central Europe, serving as a clinical and research centre in the field of medical and nuclear physics. In addition, IFJ PAN runs four accredited research and measurement laboratories. IFJ PAN is a member of the Marian Smoluchowski Kraków Research Consortium: “Matter-Energy-Future”, which in the years 2012-2017 enjoyed the status of the Leading National Research Centre (KNOW) in physics. In 2017, the European Commission granted the Institute the HR Excellence in Research award. As a result of the categorization of the Ministry of Education and Science, the Institute has been classified into the A+ category (the highest scientific category in Poland) in the field of physical sciences.
CONTACTS:
Dr. Sabrina Casanova
Institute of Nuclear Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences
tel.: +48 12 6628274
email: sabrina.casanova@ifj.edu.pl
SCIENTIFIC PUBLICATIONS:
“Ultra-high-energy gamma-ray bubble around microquasar V4641 Sgr”
Sources of high-energy cosmic rays in the vicinity of the microquasar V4641 Sag, on the left with energies above a teraelectronvolt, on the right – hundreds of teraelectronvolts. The location of the microquasar is marked with a yellow dot. (Source: IFJ PAN / HAWC)
Ultra-high-energy gamma-ray bubble around microquasar V4641 Sgr
Article Publication Date
16-Oct-2024
Astrobiology: Potential microbial habitats in Martian ice
Springer
Dusty ice exposed at the surface of Mars could provide the conditions necessary for the presence of photosynthetic life, according to a modelling study. The findings, published in Communications Earth & Environment, suggest that ice deposits located in the planet’s mid-latitudes should be a key location in any search for life on Mars.
High levels of harmful ultraviolet radiation from the Sun make current life on the surface of Mars almost certainly impossible. However, a sufficiently thick layer of ice can absorb this radiation and could protect cells living below its surface. Any life in these conditions would need to be in a so-called radiative habitable zone — shallow enough to receive enough visible light for photosynthesis, but deep enough to be protected from the ultraviolet radiation.
Aditya Khuller and colleagues calculated whether such a radiative habitable zone could exist in ice with the dust content level and structure of the ice observed on Mars. They found that very dusty ice would block too much sunlight, but that in ice containing 0.01–0.1% dust, a habitable region could potentially exist at depths between 5 and 38 centimetres (depending on the size and purity of the ice crystals). In cleaner ice, a larger habitable zone could exist between 2.15 and 3.10 metres deep. The authors explain that dust particles within the ice could cause occasional localised melting at depths of up to approximately 1.5 metres, providing the liquid water necessary for any photosynthetic life to survive. They suggest that the polar regions on Mars would be too cold for this process, but that subsurface melting could occur in mid-latitude areas (between approximately 30 and 50 degrees latitude).
The authors caution that the potential existence of theoretically habitable zones does not mean that photosynthetic life is, or has ever been, present on Mars. However, it does suggest that the few instances of exposed ice in the Martian mid-latitudes could be key areas for future searches for life to focus on.
