AFRICAN ARAB HERO OF TUNISIA

'No regrets' as Jabeur targets world top spot

Issued on: 11/09/2022 - 

'No regrets': Ons Jabeur at a press conference following Saturday's defeat in the US Open final 

JULIAN FINNEY GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP

New York (AFP) – Ons Jabeur insisted she had "no regrets" after losing to Iga Swiatek in the US Open final as she targeted the Pole's world number one ranking next year.

Jabeur's 6-2, 7-6 (7/5) loss on Saturday was her second successive defeat in a Grand Slam final after also coming off second best at Wimbledon in July.

"I have nothing to regret because I did everything possible," said Jabeur, who will return to number two in the world on Monday.

Swiatek remains comfortably in the rankings' top slot with twice as many points.

The 28-year-old Jabeur, however, is already drawing up a battle plan for 2023.

At the Australian Open, she will have no points to defend having missed the 2022 tournament before she suffered a shock first round exit at the French Open.

Despite being the Wimbledon runner-up, ranking points were stripped from the event by the WTA after the All England Club banned Russian and Belarusian players.

"Points-wise, I don't have defending points in Australia, in French Open, in Wimbledon, which is good. It's a good thing. I'm definitely going for the No. 1 spot," said Jabeur.

"I still have the Masters (WTA Finals in Fort Worth). I will maybe show myself there and build more confidence to really get ready for the next season because I feel like I have a lot to show."

Jabeur, a late bloomer on the tour having still been outside the top 30 at the end of 2020, believes history shows that time remains on her side when it comes to her Grand Slam future.

It took her until she was 26 to capture a maiden WTA title in 2021 at Birmingham, adding Madrid and Berlin trophies this year.

"I struggled to win my first WTA title. It took me time," she added.

"So I believe this will take me time. The most important thing is accepting it, learning from the finals that I lost.

"But I'm not someone that's going to give up. I am sure I'm going to be in the final again and I will try my best to win it."

In the meantime, Jabeur acknowledged that 21-year-old Swiatek, who now has three Grand Slam titles after also winning the French Open in 2020 and this year, is the sport's most formidable force.

Swiatek has 10 career titles. She has won her last 10 finals without dropping a set.

"Physically she's everywhere. It will always be great to compete against Iga," said Jabeur.

"I was joking when I said I don't like her. I'll forgive her when she gives me a Rolex or something!"

© 2022 AFP

Swiatek says 'sky's the limit' after US Open triumph

Issued on: 11/09/2022 - 

Iga Swiatek believes the sky is the limit for her career after her US Open win on Saturday 

JULIAN FINNEY GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP

New York (AFP) – Iga Swiatek believes "the sky is the limit" after she crowned her rise to the pinnacle of women's tennis with a third Grand Slam title at the US Open on Saturday.

The 21-year-old Polish world number one claimed her second Grand Slam title of 2022 at Flushing Meadows, defeating Tunisia's Ons Jabeur 6-2, 7-6 (7/5).

It was the latest staging post on a dazzling season which has provided ample evidence Swiatek is the front-runner to dominate the sport as it heads into the post-Serena Williams era.

A second Grand Slam title on Saturday and a victory at the French Open in June are part of seven tournaments she has won this year, which included a 37-match winning streak as she swept to the top of the rankings.

Swiatek, whose favourite surface is clay, says the fact that she was able to triumph in New York could prove to be a psychological watershed for her game.

"At the beginning of the season I realized that maybe I can have some good results on WTA events," she said. "I also made it to semi-final of the Australian Open.

"But I wasn't sure if I was on the level yet to win actually a Grand Slam, especially at the US Open where the surface is so fast.

"It's something that I wasn't expecting for sure. It's also like a confirmation for me that sky is the limit.

"I'm proud, also surprised little bit, just happy that I was able to do that."
Mental toughness

On Saturday, Swiatek shrugged off the uniquely raucous New York crowd -- chair umpire Louise Azemar Engzell made repeated calls for quiet amongst spectators which were routinely ignored -- to close out her 10th straight victory in a final since 2019.

Swiatek believes her ability to block out distractions, and mould her gameplan to suit matches as they are evolving is a sign that she has become a mentally tougher player.

"I'm mostly proud of the fact that mentally I'm not kind of breaking up in those important moments," Swiatek said.

"I have, like, after the matches, even if I lose, I kind of have no regrets because I know I'm doing 100%.

"I'm proud that I have much more solutions and options on court than I had before tennis-wise, but yeah, also mentally.

"I'm really proud of that because I just know how it feels to not have ideas on court, not have anything you can change to make the match better. Right now it's been a long time since I didn't have any idea."

Swiatek plans to celebrate her victory by taking in a Broadway musical on Sunday.

"I'm not going to say the name of the musical because I want to have a little peace tomorrow," she said as she reflected on a US Open campaign that included a chance encounter with pop star Seal.

"After I met Seal, I was like, 'Even if lose right now I already won this tournament, because I got photo with him.'

"It's something that it's only going to happen probably in New York. Yeah, because it's New York."

© 2022 AFP

Green Party president resigns, saying her 'optimism has died'


OTTAWA — The president of the Green Party of Canada has resigned, telling members in a letter that her "optimism has died" amid ongoing party turmoil.



The Canadian Press has obtained a letter from Lorraine Rekmans, who wrote that she can no longer serve because "there is no vision for a better future, but only an effort to look back and settle old scores, while the planet burns."

"I leave this party on my own terms," Rekmans wrote. "I have resigned for principle. I had no confidence in the leadership contestants, and they had no confidence in me, and I lost confidence in federal council."

Rekmans wrote that she has been marginalized, insulted and denigrated by leadership contestants and sees no way to continue as president when one of them will be principal spokesperson for the party.

Four of the six leadership candidates, along with Green MP Mike Morrice, recently issued a joint statement to condemn the misgendering of interim leader Amita Kuttner — who is transgender and nonbinary — in a party Zoom event, though they commended Rekmans for an immediate apology.

The Greens launched a leadership contest this summer to find a replacement for Annamie Paul, who resigned after a disappointing showing for the party in the 2021 election.

Her tenure was marked by internal conflict and she accused some in the party of racism and sexism.

Leadership candidate Sarah Gabrielle Baron, who did not sign the joint statement, said party matters should be handled internally.

Simon Gnocchini-Messier, who also did not sign the joint statement, said Rekmans had his full support as president. He said in a statement that he had confidence in Rekmans to investigate allegations of transphobic behaviour within the party and put an end to them.

The other leadership candidates could not immediately be reached for comment. The winner is set to be announced no later than November.

Kuttner told The Canadian Press that it's not yet clear how the resignation will affect the leadership contest.

"I am grateful for all her work and dedication over the years and her time on council," they said. "I wish her all the best. We will be charting the path forward as things shift and settle."

Rekmans said in her letter that the party's current federal council is completely different than during last year's election, but they are now facing the same allegations of "being insensitive to diversity," as well as allegations the council is not prudent with finances or communications.

"This has been a turbulent tenure for me as president of the Green Party of Canada," she wrote.

"After one year of working at this for more than 40 hours per week as a volunteer, I am exhausted and my optimism has died. I suggest you might want to pay the next president that you elect."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 10, 2022.

The Canadian Press

New study reveals a widening gap in diabetes-related mortality between urban and rural areas in the USA

Study shows improvements in urban areas mostly limited to female and older patients while those in male and younger patients worsened; data also show clear ethnic divide with diabetes-related mortality for black people double that of white people 

Peer-Reviewed Publication

DIABETOLOGIA

A new study published in Diabetologia (the journal of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes [EASD]) finds that there is a widening gap in diabetes-related mortality between urban and rural areas in the USA, and that reductions in mortality rates seen predominantly in urban areas have been mainly limited to female and older patients while outcomes in male and younger individuals worsened. The research was led by Dr Mamas A. Mamas, of Keele University UK, and colleagues.

Diabetes is one of the most widespread chronic diseases and a leading cause of global mortality, estimated by the World Health Organisation to result in more than 1.5 million deaths per year. While the diabetes-related mortality rate has decreased in high-income countries such as the USA, this trend may not apply equally to all groups or across all regions.

Rural populations may have an increased risk of developing DM, and often have less access to healthcare and receive a lower quality of service provision than their counterparts in urban areas. Age and ethnic background also affect both the risk of developing DM and the likelihood of dying from the disease.

The authors analysed 20 years of data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Wide-Ranging ONline Data for Epidemiologic Research (CDC WONDER) Multiple Cause of Death database which recorded the cause of death of every US resident who died in the period 1999-2019. Each death certificate recorded a single underlying cause with up to 20 additional factors, as well as demographic data such as age, sex and ethnicity, and deaths were grouped by county to calculate Age-Adjusted Mortality Rates (AAMRs) per 100,000 population for urban and rural areas.

Between 1999 and 2019 there were 1,572,536 deaths (80% in urban counties) where diabetes was given as the underlying cause and 5,025,745 deaths (again 80% in urban counties) with diabetes as a contributory factor.

The team found that the AAMR of diabetes patients was higher in rural areas across all age, sex, and ethnicity groups and over the 20-year period of the study there was no statistically significant change in the AAMR of diabetes as the underlying or contributing cause of death in rural areas.

By contrast, urban areas saw a significant decrease in the AAMR of diabetes as the underlying (−17%) and contributing (−14%) cause of death over the same time period. As a result, the urban-rural diabetes-related mortality gap has tripled in the USA, rising from 2.0 to 6.8 deaths per 100,000 population for diabetes as the underlying cause, and from 6.8 to 24.3 deaths per 100,000 population for the disease as a contributing factor, with the main impact being felt by male patients and those under-55 years old.

In both urban and rural areas, AAMRs were higher in males and saw a significantly smaller decrease than in females leading to a widening of the male-female diabetes mortality gap. Among under-55s there was an increase in diabetes-associated AAMRs over the time period which was larger in rural (+59% underlying, +65% contributing) than urban (+15% underlying, +14% contributing) populations. This contrasted with the over-55s who experienced a decrease in AAMRs in urban (-21% underlying, -16% contributing) residents and no statistically significant change (-5% underlying, +4% contributing) in rural areas.

Ethnicity was also linked to mortality with American Indian and Black individuals having substantially higher diabetes-related AAMRs than Asian and White patients, and within each ethnic group, rural living was associated with higher mortality. For example, in rural areas, the mortality amongst Black patients remained similar between 1999 and 2019, whereas it decreased by 28% in urban areas. Diabetes-related AAMRs in 2019 were twice as high in Black patients compared to White patients, in both rural and urban settings.

The team note: “Our finding of an increasing gap in diabetes outcomes is in agreement with previous studies that reported greater improvements in blood pressure and cholesterol control for urban adults with diabetes than for those in rural areas over the last two decades.” They add: “These differences remained significant even after multiple adjustments for ethnicity, education, poverty levels and clinical characteristics.”

The observed increases in mortality among the under-55s may be linked to the increasing prevalence of type 2 diabetes, particularly in adolescents and young adults. Early-onset of the condition is typically more aggressive and has a higher rate of premature complications, and previous research has found that glucose control is worse in younger individuals with the disease. Since male patients are more likely to be diagnosed at an early age, this may explain the widening male-female mortality gap observed in both urban and rural populations.

The authors highlight that successful management of diabetes and the control or prevention of associated complications requires medical expertise that may be unavailable or difficult for rural populations to access. Patients in these communities are also less likely to have their primary care delivered by physicians, and they have been further impacted by the disproportionate closure of rural hospitals.

The urban-rural divide is inextricably linked to social determinants of health including education, economic resources, psychological stress and access to preventive healthcare. The authors say: “Healthcare equity, expansion of Medicaid, and telemedicine initiatives that extend access to specialty care may mitigate some of the rural–urban disparities in mortality. However, the ultimate solutions may lie in economic and policy interventions that broaden our focus from treating disease to preventing it.”

They conclude: “A synchronised effort is required to improve cardiovascular health indices and healthcare access in rural areas and to decrease diabetes-related mortality.”

 

---

JOURNAL

Diabetologia

ARTICLE TITLE

Urban–rural disparities in diabetes-related mortality in the USA 1999–2019

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

10-Sep-2022

Link found between parenthood and social conservatism

Line plots showing effects of condition on social conservatism, moderated by emotional engagement with manipulation in Study 1 (left, n = 376) and Study 2 (right, n = 1924). 

Credit: Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences (2022). DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2022.0978

An international team of researchers has found a possible link between having children and degrees of social conservatism in people. In their paper published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the group describes the research they conducted through surveys and interviews and what they learned.

Social conservatism in the modern era has come to be defined as a set of beliefs held in common by socially conservative groups, such as the Republicans in the United States. Beliefs that define membership in these groups tend to include things like a pro-life stance on abortion, support of the death penalty as a reasonable punishment for some crimes and opposition to gay marriage, premarital sex and immigration. In this new effort, the researchers theorized that having children or being entrusted with the care of children might make people more socially conservative. To find out if that is the case, they carried out several studies that involved asking volunteers about their values.

The first study involved asking 376 university student volunteers to look at pictures of children or at imagined activities and then asking them to fill out a survey designed to grade their degree of social conservatism. The second study involved sending out 2,610 surveys to adults across the country asking them about their circumstances, whether they had children and their political beliefs. Other studies involved sending out similar surveys to people in multiple countries.

The researchers found what they describe as an association between having children and an increase in social conservatism. They also found that the more children people had, the more conservative they became, and that those involved in childcare also became more conservative. The researchers note that they did not find any association between having children and economic conservatism, and in fact, many parents tended to see government spending as less of an issue. They also found that some of the views held by parents changed after their kids grew up and left home—like reduced support for subsidized daycare.

The researchers conclude by suggesting that their study challenges the notion that aging is one of the prime drivers to conservatism—parenthood, they suggest, plays a bigger role.

Explore furtherStudy suggests larger families have more conservative views

More information: Nicholas Kerry et al, Experimental and cross-cultural evidence that parenthood and parental care motives increase social conservatism, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences (2022). DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2022.0978

Journal information: Proceedings of the Royal Society B

© 2022 Science X Network

 

Machine learning model can evaluate the effectiveness of management strategies for wildfire prevention

by Aalto University

Satellite image of Borneo in 2006 covered by smoke from fires (marked by red dots). 

Credit: Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team / NASA

Wildfires are a growing threat in a world shaped by climate change. Now, researchers at Aalto University have developed a neural network model that can accurately predict the occurrence of fires in peatlands. They used the new model to assess the effect of different strategies for managing fire risk and identified a suite of interventions that would reduce fire incidence by 50–76%.

The study focused on the Central Kalimantan province of Borneo in Indonesia, which has the highest density of peatland fires in Southeast Asia. Drainage to support agriculture or residential expansion has made peatlands increasingly vulnerable to recurring fires. In addition to threatening lives and livelihoods, peatland fires release significant amounts of carbon dioxide. However, prevention strategies have faced difficulties because of the lack of clear, quantified links between proposed interventions and fire risk.

The new model uses measurements taken before each fire season in 2002–2019 to predict the distribution of peatland fires. While the findings can be broadly applied to peatlands elsewhere, a new analysis would have to be done for other contexts. "Our methodology could be used for other contexts, but this specific model would have to be re-trained on the new data," says Alexander Horton, the postdoctoral researcher who carried out study.

The researchers used a convolutional neural network to analyze 31 variables, such as the type of land cover and pre-fire indices of vegetation and drought. Once trained, the network predicted the likelihood of a peatland fire at each spot on the map, producing an expected distribution of fires for the year.

Overall, the neural network's predictions were correct 80–95% of the time. However, while the model was usually right in predicting a fire, it also missed many fires that actually occurred. About half of the observed fires weren't predicted by the model, meaning that it isn't suitable as an early-warning predictive system. Larger groupings of fires tended to be predicted well, while isolated fires were often missed by the network. With further work, the researchers hope to improve the network's performance so it can also serve as an early-warning system.

The team took advantage of the fact that fire predictions were usually correct to test the effect of different land management strategies. By simulating different interventions, they found that the most effective plausible strategy would be to convert shrubland and scrubland into swamp forests, which would reduce fire incidence by 50%. If this were combined with blocking all of the drainage canals except the major ones, fires would decrease by 70% in total.

However, such a strategy would have clear economic drawbacks. "The local community is in desperate need of long-term, stable cultivation to booster the local economy," says Horton.

An alternative strategy would be to establish more plantations, since well-managed dramatically reduce the likelihood of fire. However, the plantations are among the key drivers of forest loss, and Horton points out 'the plantations are mostly owned by larger corporations, often based outside Borneo, which means the profits aren't directly fed back into the local economy beyond the provision of labor for the local workforce."

Ultimately, fire prevention strategies have to balance risks, benefits, and costs, and this research provides the information to do that, explains Professor Matti Kummu, who led the study team. "We tried to quantify how the different strategies would work. It's more about informing policy-makers than providing direct solutions."

The findings were published in Communications Earth & Environment.Efforts to restore Indonesian peatlands could save billions in wildfire costs

More information: Alexander J. Horton et al, Targeted land management strategies could halve peatland fire occurrences in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia, Communications Earth & Environment (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s43247-022-00534-2

Journal information: Communications Earth & Environment 

Provided by Aalto University 

Exploring an ancestral Maya neighborhood

by Rachel Gill and Yifan Wang, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Aerial view of the elite platform and the 15 stemmed macroblades found in a cache.

 Credit: ©2022 VOPA and Belize Institute of Archaeology, NICH.

We stand in the open fields of Spanish Lookout, a modernized Mennonite farming community in Central Belize, looking at what remains of ancestral Maya homes. White mounds, the remnants of these houses, pock the landscape as far as the eye can see, a stark reminder of what existed more than 1,000 years ago. The collapsed buildings look like smudges on an aerial photograph, but as archaeologists, we get to see them up close. With enough excavation and interpretation, we can eventually make sense of how these dwellings functioned in the deep human past.

Archaeologists usually try to take a representative sample of a site like this, but we are limited on how and where we can excavate. We have been forced to select households and other structures near existing roads—and close to one another. This, then, presents a unique opportunity: the ability to study an ancestral Maya neighborhood.

Our neighborhood paints an interesting portrait of life in the Early Classic period, which dates from A.D. 250-600. By looking at the styles, forms and decoration of broken pieces of pottery, called sherds, we can determine how old these structures are. Standard residences have walls, plaster floors and a collection of domestic vessels that were used for cooking, serving and storage. We also find agricultural tools made of chert, a type of crystalline rock that resembles flint, and manos and metates, which were used to grind maize into flour.

Families lived and worked here, interacted with their neighbors and with the surrounding landscape of fields and forests. We know the Maya left forests in place because the animal bones we find here are of species that can only breed in the forest.

Aerial photograph of what researchers believe is a community

 structure, like a church or recreation center. 

Credit: ©2022 VOPA and Belize Institute of Archaeology, NICH.

One of the buildings here is a particular puzzle. The ancestral Maya constructed it using uniform stones and white limestone plaster, something quite different from your average Maya farmstead. We found few artifacts and pristine construction fills, the latter usually stock full of artifacts in a typical Maya household. We think we found some type of community building, perhaps for community events or ceremonies, similar to a modern church or recreation center where everyone was welcome.

We also partially exposed a substantial platform mound that had four structures at its summit. The structures surrounded a plaza or courtyard. It is clear that an elite family lived here. This mound would have been secluded, sectioned off from the rest of the neighborhood, like the large house at the end of a cul-de-sac where, if you were lucky, you got invited for a pool party, much different from the community building.

Both the elite and nonelite families that lived in this neighborhood together may have invested in the construction of the community building amid the surrounding residences. The artifacts recovered from the community center were of better quality than those found in dwellings. We even found a cache of 15 stemmed points made of chert. These items required great skill to make as they were carved from the highest quality nonlocal chert. And the Maya made them only to offer them unused as a dedicatory cache to enliven or endow the residence with a soul.

Grinding tools typical of ancestral Maya farmsteads include, from

 left, a metate fragment, a round stone and a mano fragment. 

Metates and manos were used to grind maize. 

Credit: © 2022 VOPA and Belize Institute of Archaeology, NICH.

Incised ceramic sherds excavated from an ancestral Maya building. 

Credit: ©2022 VOPA and Belize Institute of Archaeology, NICH.

As we look around us, we are struck by the simple fact that people lived here.

When we think about the structures and artifacts associated with neighborhoods and community centers, we too often reduce the ancestral Maya to the materials they left behind. We sometimes focus too much on the context name, the mound number, the artifact count. As we stand at the crossroads of an ancient Maya neighborhood, if we close our eyes and let the present fade away, we can imagine the mundane realities of life in this exact spot nearly 2,000 years ago: the rustle of the leaves of the jungle above us, the scrape and clink of grinding maize, the smell of cooking maize and beans, or the chatter of a neighbor borrowing a tool or asking about the weather.

The authors on site in Belize.

 Credit: ©2022 VOPA and Belize Institute of Archaeology, NICH.

Aerial photo facing east – all the white smudges are ancestral Maya mounds. 

Credit: ©2022 VOPA and Belize Institute of Archaeology, NICH.

We are discouraged by the damage wrought by modern agriculture to the archaeological record and Maya cultural heritage. But how do you explain to a farmer that what they are plowing away is not a nuisance stone or useless piece of pottery but rather the fragments of hundreds of lives. The ghosts of those who lived on the land before walk between us, using what remains of their homes to whisper, "Remember me."

Explore further Rescuing ancient Maya history from the plow

Provided by University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Swapping meat for seafood could improve nutrition and reduce emissions

by Nature Publishing Group

Credit: Mike Bergmann/Unsplash

Sustainable seafood could provide more nutrition to people than beef, pork and chicken, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions, reports an article published online in Communications Earth & Environment. The findings suggest that policies to promote seafood in diets as a substitute for other animal protein could improve future food security and help address climate change.

Human diets around the world need to become more nutritious, while reducing their climate footprint, to keep up with growing population sizes. Seafood is known to be a good source of protein, fatty acids, vitamins and minerals, and previous research has demonstrated the potential environmental benefits of replacing meat with seafood in diets. However, strategies to reduce climate emissions of future diets typically promote plant-based "green" diets, and overlook the potential of seafood-based "blue" diets.

Peter Tyedmers, Elinor Hallström and colleagues analyzed the nutrient density and climate impacts of globally important wild-caught and farmed sources of seafood from a broad range of fishery and aquaculture sources in 2015. They found that wild-caught salmon, herring, mackerel, and anchovies, as well as farmed mussels and oysters, had the lowest climate impacts relative to their nutritional value. Half of the seafood species analyzed had a higher nutrient density, and emitted fewer greenhouse gases than beef, pork and chicken.

Differences in production and harvesting methods were found to create a large variability in the climate impacts of each species. To further reduce emissions, the fishing industry should adopt fuel-efficient fishing technologies and rebuild depleted stocks while aquaculture produces more unfed fish and shellfish and finds more climate-friendly sources of fish feed, the authors suggest.

While this research focuses on greenhouse emissions, and not the potential impacts on ecosystems, the findings highlight the possibility for seafood to provide a sustainable source of nutritious food that benefits the climate. The authors suggest that policies to help tackle climate change and poor diet should promote sustainable seafood consumption.Consuming small fish instead of farmed salmon could make seafood production more sustainable

More information: Marta Bianchi et al, Assessing seafood nutritional diversity together with climate impacts informs more comprehensive dietary advice, Communications Earth & Environment (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s43247-022-00516-4

Journal information: Communications Earth & Environment 

Provided by Nature Publishing Group 

Small nuke reactors emerge as energy option, but risks loom

by MENELAOS HADJICOSTIS   SEPTEMBER 10, 2022

A rendering of the entrance of a Small Modular Reactor facility that Rolls-Royce 

SMR hopes to have operational by the end of the decade is seen in this handout

 render provided by Rolls-Royce SMR on Friday, Sept. 9, 2022. A global search 

for alternative sources to Russian energy during the war in Ukraine has

 refocused attention on smaller, easier-to-build nuclear power stations that 

proponents say they could provide a cheaper, more efficient alternative to older 

model mega-plants but detractors warn of heightened risks including the 

disposal of highly radioactive wave and the specter of nuclear weapons 

proliferation.

A global search for alternative sources to Russian energy during the war in Ukraine has refocused attention on smaller, easier-to-build nuclear power stations, which proponents say could provide a cheaper, more efficient alternative to older model mega-plants.

U.K.-based Rolls-Royce SMR says its small modular reactors, or SMRs, are much cheaper and quicker to get running than standard plants, delivering the kind of energy security that many nations are seeking. France already relies on nuclear power for a majority of its electricity, and Germany kept the option of reactivating two nuclear plants it will shut down at the end of the year as Russia cuts natural gas supplies.

While Rolls-Royce SMR and its competitors have signed deals with countries from Britain to Poland to start building the stations, they are many years away from operating and cannot solve the energy crisis now hitting Europe. Nuclear power also poses risks, including disposing of highly radioactive waste and keeping that technology out of the hands of rogue countries or nefarious groups that may pursue a nuclear weapons program.

Those risks have been accentuated following the shelling around Europe's largest nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, which has raised fears of potential nuclear disaster.

In the wake of the war, however, "the reliance on gas imports and Russian energy sources has focused people's minds on energy security," Rolls-Royce SMR spokesman Dan Gould said.

An SMR's components can be built in a factory, moved to a site in tractor trailers and assembled there, making the technology more attractive to frugal buyers, he said.

"It's like building Lego," Gould said. "Building on a smaller scale reduces risks and makes it a more investible project."

Some SMRs are essentially pressurized water reactors identical to some 400 reactors worldwide, while other designs use sodium, lead, gas or salt as a coolant instead of water. The key advantages are their size—about one-tenth as big as a standard reactor—the ease of construction and the price tag.

A model of a Small Modular Reactor facility that Rolls-Royce SMR hopes to have

 operational by the end of the decade is seen in this handout render provided by 

Rolls-Royce SMR on Friday, Sept. 9, 2022. A global search for alternative source

s to Russian energy during the war in Ukraine has refocused attention on smaller,

 easier-to-build nuclear power stations that proponents say they could provide a

 cheaper, more efficient alternative to older model mega-plants but detractors 

warn of heightened risks including the disposal of highly radioactive wave and 

the specter of nuclear weapons proliferation.

The estimated cost of a Rolls-Royce SMR is 2.2 billion to 2.8 billion pounds ($2.5 billion to $3.2 billion), with an estimated construction time of 5 1/2 years. That's two years faster than it took to build a standard nuclear plant between 2016 and 2021, according to International Atomic Energy Agency statistics. Some estimates put the cost of building a 1,100-megawatt nuclear plant at between $6 billion and $9 billion.

Rolls-Royce aims to build its first stations in the U.K. within 5 1/2 years, Gould said.

Similarly, Oregon-based NuScale Power signed agreements last year with two Polish companies—copper and silver producer KGHM and energy producer UNIMOT—to explore the possibility of building SMRs to power heavy industry. Poland wants to switch from polluting, coal-powered electricity generation.

Rolls-Royce SMR said last month that it signed a deal with Dutch development company ULC-Energy to look into setting up SMRs in the Netherlands.

Another partner is Turkey, where Russia is building the Akkuyu nuclear power plant on the southern coast. Environmentalists say the region is seismically active and could be a target for terrorists.

The introduction of "unproven" nuclear power technology in the form of SMRs doesn't sit well with environmentalists, who argue that proliferation of small reactors will exacerbate the problem of how to dispose of highly radioactive nuclear waste.

"Unfortunately, Turkey is governed by an incompetent administration that has turned it into a 'test bed' for corporations," said Koray Dogan Urbarli, a spokesman for Turkey's Green Party.

"It is giving up the sovereignty of a certain region for at least 100 years for Russia to build a nuclear power plant. This incompetence and lobbying power make Turkey an easy target for SMRs," said Koray, adding that his party eschews technology with an "uncertain future."

A model of a Small Modular Reactor facility that Rolls-Royce SMR hopes to have

 operational by the end of the decade is seen in this handout render provided by

 Rolls-Royce SMR on Friday, Sept. 9, 2022. A global search for alternative 

sources to Russian energy during the war in Ukraine has refocused attention

 on smaller, easier-to-build nuclear power stations that proponents say they

 could provide a cheaper, more efficient alternative to older model mega-plants

 but detractors warn of heightened risks including the disposal of highly

 radioactive wave and the specter of nuclear weapons proliferation.

Gould said one Rolls-Royce SMR would generate nuclear waste the size of a "tennis court piled 1-meter high" throughout the plant's 60-year lifetime. He said initially, waste would be stored on site at the U.K. plants and would eventually be transferred to a long-term disposal site selected by the British government.

M.V. Ramana, professor of public policy and global affairs at the University of British Columbia, cites research suggesting there's "no demonstrated way" to ensure nuclear waste stored in what authorities consider to be secure sites won't escape in the future.

The constant heat generated by the waste could alter rock formations where it's stored and allow water seepage, while future mining activities could compromise a nuclear waste site's integrity, said Ramana, who specializes in international security and nuclear energy.

Skeptics also raise the risks of possibly exporting such technology in politically tumultuous regions. Gould said Rolls-Royce is "completely compliant" with U.K. and international requirements in exporting its SMR technology "only in territories that are signatories to the necessary international treaties for the peaceful use of nuclear power for energy generation."

Ramana said, however, there's no guarantee nations will follow the rules.

"Any country acquiring nuclear reactors automatically enhances its capacity to make nuclear weapons," he said, adding that every SMR could produce "around 10 bombs worth of plutonium each year."

Rolls-Royce SMR could opt to stop supplying fuel and other services to anyone flouting the rules, but "should any country choose to do so, it can simply tell the International Atomic Energy Agency to stop inspections, as Iran has done, for example," Ramana said.

Although spent fuel normally undergoes chemical reprocessing to generate the kind of plutonium used in nuclear weapons, Ramana said such reprocessing technology is widely known and that a very sophisticated reprocessing plant isn't required to produce the amount of plutonium needed for weapons.

Study of NuScale Power data suggests small modular reactors likely to produce more waste than larger reactors

© 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

DART sets sights on asteroid target

by NASA

This image of the light from asteroid Didymos and its orbiting moonlet Dimorphos is a 

composite of 243 images taken by the Didymos Reconnaissance and Asteroid Camera

 for Optical navigation (DRACO) on July 27, 2022. Credit: NASA JPL DART Navigation 

Team

NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft recently got its first look at Didymos, the double-asteroid system that includes its target, Dimorphos. On Sept. 26, DART will intentionally crash into Dimorphos, the asteroid moonlet of Didymos. While the asteroid poses no threat to Earth, this is the world's first test of the kinetic impact technique, using a spacecraft to deflect an asteroid for planetary defense.

This image of the light from asteroid Didymos and its orbiting moonlet Dimorphos is a composite of 243 images taken by the Didymos Reconnaissance and Asteroid Camera for Optical navigation (DRACO) on July 27, 2022.

From this distance—about 20 million miles away from DART—the Didymos system is still very faint, and navigation camera experts were uncertain whether DRACO would be able to spot the asteroid yet. But once the 243 images DRACO took during this observation sequence were combined, the team was able to enhance it to reveal Didymos and pinpoint its location.

"This first set of images is being used as a test to prove our imaging techniques," said Elena Adams, the DART mission systems engineer at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland. "The quality of the image is similar to what we could obtain from ground-based telescopes, but it is important to show that DRACO is working properly and can see its target to make any adjustments needed before we begin using the images to guide the spacecraft into the asteroid autonomously."

Although the team has already conducted a number of navigation simulations using non-DRACO images of Didymos, DART will ultimately depend on its ability to see and process images of Didymos and Dimorphos, once it too can be seen, to guide the spacecraft toward the asteroid, especially in the final four hours before impact. At that point, DART will need to self-navigate to impact successfully with Dimorphos without any human intervention.

"Seeing the DRACO images of Didymos for the first time, we can iron out the best settings for DRACO and fine-tune the software," said Julie Bellerose, the DART navigation lead at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "In September, we'll refine where DART is aiming by getting a more precise determination of Didymos' location."

Using observations taken every five hours, the DART team will execute three trajectory correction maneuvers over the next three weeks, each of which will further reduce the margin of error for the spacecraft's required trajectory to impact. After the final maneuver on Sept. 25, approximately 24 hours before impact, the navigation team will know the position of the target Dimorphos within 2 kilometers. From there, DART will be on its own to autonomously guide itself to its collision with the asteroid moonlet.

DRACO has subsequently observed Didymos during planned observations on Aug. 12, Aug. 13 and Aug. 22.

With its single 'eye,' NASA's DART returns first images from space

Provided by NASA 

Theoretical physicists argue that black holes admit vortex structures

, Phys.org

Sketch of a black hole endowed with multiple vortices. Colors denote the orientation, with 

the associated trapped magnetic field lines in black. Credit: Dvali et al.

Black holes are astronomical objects with extremely strong gravitational pulls from which not even light can escape. While the idea of bodies that would trap light has been around since the 18th century, the first direct observation of black holes took place in 2015

Since then, physicists have conducted countless theoretical and experimental studies aimed at better understanding these fascinating cosmological objects. This had led to many discoveries and theories about the unique characteristics, properties, and dynamics of black holes.

Researchers at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität and Max-Planck-Institut für Physik have recently carried out a theoretical study exploring the possible existence of vortices in black holes. Their paper, published in Physical Review Letters, shows that black holes should theoretically be able to admit vortex structures.

"Recently, a new quantum framework for black holes, namely in terms of Bose-Einstein condensates of gravitons (the quanta of gravity itself), has been introduced," Florian Kühnel, one of the researchers who carried out the study, told Phys.org. "Up until our article was published, rotating black holes have not been thoroughly studied within this framework. However, they might not only exist, but also be the rule rather than the exception."

Kühnel and his colleagues Gia Dvali and Michael Zantedeschi performed several calculations based on existing physics theories, particularly the recently devised quantum model of black holes based on Bose-Einstein graviton condensates. The key goal of their study was to examine rotating black holes on the quantum level, to determine whether they would actually admit vortex structures.

"Since rotating Bose-Einstein condensates have been subject to intense studies in laboratories, it is known that they admit vortex structure if rotating sufficiently fast," Kühnel said. "We took this as an invitation to look for those structures also in models for rotating black holes—and indeed found them."

Kühnel and his colleagues showed that a black hole with extremal spin can be described as a graviton condensate with vorticity. This is aligned with previous studies suggesting that extremal black holes are stable against the so-called Hawking evaporation (i.e., a black body radiation that is believed to be released outside of a black hole's outermost surface, or event horizon).

In addition, the researchers showed that in the presence of mobile charges, the black hole's overall vortex traps a magnetic flux of the gauge field, which would lead to signature emissions that could be observed experimentally. The team's theoretical predictions could thus open new possibilities for the observation of new types of matter, including millicharged dark matter.

"Vorticity is an entirely new characteristic of black holes, which are on the classical level (i.e., if one closes one's eyes on their quantum structure) fully characterized by three entities: mass, spin and charge," Kühnel said. "This is what we learned from textbooks—until now. We showed that we need to add vorticity."

The team's theorized existence of vortices in black holes offers a possible explanation for the lack of Hawking radiation for maximally-rotating black holes. In the future, this theory could thus pave the way for new experimental observations and theoretical conclusions.

For instance, black hole vortex structures could explain the extremely strong magnetic fields emerging from active galactic nuclei in our universe. In addition, they could potentially be at the root of almost all known galactic magnetic fields.

"We have just recently established the field of black hole vorticity," Kühnel added. "There is a wealth of important and exciting questions to address, including concerning those applications mentioned above. Furthermore, future gravitational-wave observations of merging black holes, each containing a vortex (of multiple of those), might open the door to these new and exciting quantum aspects of space-time."Black holes gain new powers when they spin fast enough

More information: Gia Dvali et al, Vortices in Black Holes, Physical Review Letters (2022). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.129.061302

Journal information: Physical Review Letters 

© 2022 Science X Network

A theoretical study is one that does not depend upon an experiment, manipulation of variables or empirical evidence. It is based on testing, exploring or developing theories, and it generally involves observation or the compilation of information.