Advocates decry homeless sweeps ahead of MLB’s All-Star game

By COLLEEN SLEVIN and PATTY NIEBERG

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A paramedic from Denver Health wheels a gurney from an ambulance to tend to a homeless man Wednesday, July 7, 2021, during a city-sponsored carried out on an encampment of individuals living along Grant Street at Sixth Avenue south of downtown Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)


DENVER (AP) — Ahead of Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game in Denver this week, city officials are facing scrutiny from advocates who accuse them of accelerating the clearing of homeless encampments near Coors Field as the sports world turns its attention to Colorado’s capital city.

Mayor Michael Hancock has emphatically denied that the All-Star Game influenced any clearing decisions, saying the city is just getting caught up after suspending cleanups at the beginning of the pandemic. It resumed regular cleanups last summer.

Officials knew before the city was chosen as the All-Star host that it faced a big cleanup effort, with more encampments than ever, Hancock said.

In cleanups, also called homeless “sweeps,” encampments are fenced off and the people living in tents there are told to pack up and leave so the area can be cleaned.

In March, just before Denver was chosen as a substitute host — Major League Baseball pulled it from Atlanta in April over objections to Georgia’s voting law that critics condemned as being too restrictive — data shows sweeps increased, with cleanups taking place over nine days. The previous peak over the past year was eight days, in October.

But the sweeps picked up even more in May and June with 17 scheduled cleanups taking 22 days, 11 days each month with two or three days of cleanups a week, according to public records obtained by The Associated Press, which were first reported by Denverite, an online news outlet that covers the city.

The city conducted sweeps for 17 weeks straight from early March to late June, a streak that was unmatched during any other period, according to cleanup notices provided to city councilors since December 2019.

The city used to conduct two or three cleanups a week before the pandemic began and has returned to that pace, said Evan Dreyer, Hancock’s deputy chief of staff.

The city’s position is misleading, said Ana Cornelius, an organizer for Denver Homeless Out Loud, who thinks the city has targeted its cleanups to push homeless people out before the All-Star Game. While the city used to clean up one encampment at a time, it has turned to multiday operations — targeting four or five encampments in a bigger area, dramatically increasing the number of people pushed out, she said.

People forced to leave an encampment near the stadium last week were told they could go to another one about 1.5 miles (2.4 kilometers) away and would be safe there until August, she said.

Patrick Shields, an Army veteran who served in Afghanistan, was among the people forced to pick up and leave during a recent sweep on a grass strip outside an office building about 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) from Coors Field. Shields, who has been on the street for eight months after being released from jail, was upset that he and residents he considered to be like family were being forced to move, when it would be cheaper to help them stay in one place.

“We have no hope, no direction because of situations like this,” he said.

The number of people without homes in the United States increased for the fourth straight year in 2020 based on a count conducted before the pandemic began, according to a U.S. Department Housing and Urban Development annual report. And the housing crisis was only exacerbated by the pandemic when many lost jobs.

Downtown Denver looks vastly different compared to the middle of the pandemic in 2020. Tents used by homeless people that lined streets near closed restaurants and shops are now gone, with businesses reopened and pedestrians roaming the streets.

Coors Field is set to host the All-Star Game on Tuesday.

David Corsun, director of the Fritz Knoebel School of Hospitality Management at the University of Denver, doesn’t know what role the game has played in Denver’s ongoing work on homelessness but said it’s common for cities to want to clean up and ensure visitors have positive experiences.

“Any time there’s a mass influx of people … it’s an opportunity to build brand and to create an impression: Denver is an amazing place to live and to visit,” Corsun said.

___

Nieberg is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

LGBTQ RIGHTS VS RELIGIOUS RITES

Protests erupt in Georgia after beaten journalist dies
yesterday


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Opponents of the march block off the capital's main avenue to an LGBT march in Tbilisi, Georgia, Monday, July 5, 2021. A protest against a planned LGBT march in the Georgian capital turned violent on Monday as demonstrators attacked journalists. Organizers of the Tbilisi March For Dignity that was to take place in the evening cancelled the event, saying authorities had not provided adequate security guarantees. (AP Photo/Shakh Aivazov)

TBILISI, Georgia (AP) — Several thousand people protested in front of the Georgian parliament on Sunday evening, demanding that the ex-Soviet nation’s prime minister resign over the death of a journalist who was attacked and beaten by anti-LGBT protesters.

Cameraman Alexander Lashkarava was found dead in his home by his mother earlier Sunday, according to the TV Pirveli channel he worked for. Lashkarava was one of several dozen journalists attacked last Monday by opponents of an LGBT march that had been scheduled to take place that day in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi.

Organizers of the Tbilisi March For Dignity cancelled the event, saying authorities had not provided adequate security guarantees. Opponents of the march blocked off the capital’s main avenue, denounced journalists covering the protest as pro-LGBT propagandists and threw sticks and bottles at them.

Lashkarava, according to his colleague Miranda Baghaturia, was beaten by a mob of 20 people. Local TV channels later showed him with bruises on his face and blood on the floor around him. Media reports say he sustained multiple injuries and had to undergo surgery but was discharged from a hospital on Thursday.

The cause of his death was not immediately clear.

Police launched an investigation into Lashkarava’s death, which Georgia’s Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili and President Salome Zurabishvili both described as “a tragedy.”

Animosity against sexual minorities is strong in the conservative Black Sea nation of Georgia.

The Tbilisi Pride group said Monday that opponents of the planned march were supported by the government and by the Georgian Orthodox Church. The Open Caucasus Media group published a photo of a man it said was a local TV journalist being pulled away from the scene in a headlock by an Orthodox priest.

Zurabishvili condemned the violence, but Garibashvili alleged the march was organized by “radical opposition” forces that he claimed were led by exiled former President Mikheil Saakashvili.

A large crowd of protesters that gathered in Tbilisi on Sunday demanded that authorities punish those responsible for the attack on journalists and urged Garibashvili to step down. Some protesters blamed the prime minister for enabling the violence by publicly denouncing the LGBT march.

 

Curiosity rover finds patches of rock record erased, revealing clues

by Jet Propulsion Laboratory

A self-portrait of NASA's Curiosity rover taken on Sol 2082 (June 15, 2018). A Martian dust storm has reduced sunlight and visibility at the rover's location in Gale Crater. Credit: Jet Propulsion Laboratory

A new paper enriches scientists' understanding of where the rock record preserved or destroyed evidence of Mars' past and possible signs of ancient life.

Today, Mars is a planet of extremes—it's bitterly cold, has high radiation, and is bone-dry. But billions of years ago, Mars was home to lake systems that could have sustained microbial life. As the planet's climate changed, one such lake—in Mars' Gale Crater—slowly dried out. Scientists have new evidence that supersalty water, or brines, seeped deep through the cracks, between grains of soil in the parched lake bottom and altered the clay mineral-rich layers beneath.

The findings published in the July 9 edition of the journal Science and led by the team in charge of the Chemistry and Mineralogy, or CheMin, instrument—aboard NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover—help add to the understanding of where the rock record preserved or destroyed evidence of Mars' past and possible signs of ancient life.

"We used to think that once these layers of clay minerals formed at the bottom of the lake in Gale Crater, they stayed that way, preserving the moment in time they formed for billions of years," said Tom Bristow, CheMin principal investigator and lead author of the paper at NASA's Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley. "But later brines broke down these clay minerals in some places—essentially resetting the rock record."

This evenly layered rock photographed by the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover shows a pattern typical of a lake-floor sedimentary deposit not far from where flowing water entered a lake. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Mars: It Goes on Your Permanent Record

Mars has a treasure trove of incredibly ancient rocks and minerals compared with Earth. And with Gale Crater's undisturbed layers of rocks, scientists knew it would be an excellent site to search for evidence of the planet's history, and possibly life.

Using CheMin, scientists compared samples taken from two areas about a quarter-mile apart from a layer of mudstone deposited billions of years ago at the bottom of the lake at Gale Crater. Surprisingly, in one area, about half the clay minerals they expected to find were missing. Instead, they found mudstones rich with iron oxides—minerals that give Mars its characteristic rusty red color.

Scientists knew the mudstones sampled were about the same age and started out the same—loaded with clays—in both areas studied. So why then, as Curiosity explored the sedimentary clay deposits along Gale Crater, did patches of clay minerals—and the evidence they preserve—"disappear"?

The network of cracks in this Martian rock slab called "Old Soaker" may have formed from the drying of a mud layer more than 3 billion years ago. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Clays Hold Clues

Minerals are like a time capsule; they provide a record of what the environment was like at the time they formed. Clay minerals have water in their structure and are evidence that the soils and rocks that contain them came into contact with water at some point.

"Since the minerals we find on Mars also form in some locations on Earth, we can use what we know about how they form on Earth to tell us about how salty or acidic the waters on ancient Mars were," said Liz Rampe, CheMin deputy principal investigator and co-author at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Previous work revealed that while Gale Crater's lakes were present and even after they dried out, groundwater moved below the surface, dissolving and transporting chemicals. After they were deposited and buried, some mudstone pockets experienced different conditions and processes due to interactions with these waters that changed the mineralogy. This process, known as "diagenesis," often complicates or erases the soil's previous history and writes a new one.

The Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover captured this mosaic as it explored the "clay-bearing unit" on Feb. 3, 2019 (Sol 2309). This landscape includes the rocky landmark nicknamed "Knockfarril Hill" (center right) and the edge of Vera Rubin Ridge, which runs along the top of the scene. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Diagenesis creates an underground environment that can support microbial life. In fact, some very unique habitats on Earth—in which microbes thrive—are known as "deep biospheres."

"These are excellent places to look for evidence of ancient life and gauge habitability," said John Grotzinger, CheMin co-investigator and co-author at the California Institute of Technology, or Caltech, in Pasadena, California. "Even though diagenesis may erase the signs of life in the original lake, it creates the chemical gradients necessary to support subsurface life, so we are really excited to have discovered this."

By comparing the details of minerals from both samples, the team concluded that briny water filtering down through overlying sediment layers was responsible for the changes. Unlike the relatively freshwater lake present when the mudstones formed, the salty water is suspected to have come from later lakes that existed within an overall drier environment. Scientists believe these results offer further evidence of the impacts of Mars' climate change billions of years ago. They also provide more detailed information that is then used to guide the Curiosity rover's investigations into the history of the Red Planet. This information also will be utilized by NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance rover team as they evaluate and select rock samples for eventual return to Earth.

"We've learned something very important: There are some parts of the Martian rock record that aren't so good at preserving evidence of the planet's past and possible life," said Ashwin Vasavada, Curiosity project scientist and co-author at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. "The fortunate thing is we find both close together in Gale Crater, and can use mineralogy to tell which is which."

Curiosity is in the initial phase of investigating the transition to a "sulfate-bearing unit," or rocks thought to have formed while Mars' climate dried out.

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Explore further

Glauconitic-like clay found on Mars suggests the planet once had habitable conditions

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More information: "Brine-driven destruction of clay minerals in Gale crater, Mars" Science (2021). science.sciencemag.org/cgi/doi … 1126/science.abg5449

Journal information: Science 

Provided by Jet Propulsion Laboratory 

A ‘Galaxy’ of Islamic Burials Exhibits An “As Above, So Below” Concept

UPDATED 9 JULY, 2021 - 14:57 ASHLEY COWIE

Sudanese Islamic burial sites are not randomly located as was traditionally believed. Quite the opposite. Thanks to satellite technology , it has been discovered that contrary to the belief that these Islamic burials were scattered randomly across the ancient landscape, thousands of burial sites follow a “galaxy-like” distribution pattern.

Knowing this audience, I know I am safe to open this story with the deeply-gnostic statement: “As above, so below.” I am confident that a vast majority of you will understand the implications associated with that concept, and by the end of this article it will become perfectly clear why I chose this sentence to represent the findings of a new study published in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Stefano Costanzo of the University of Naples “L’Orientale.”



Islamic burial qubbas scattered around the Jebel Maman in Sudan. (Costanzo et al. / PLOS ONE )
Discovering the Galaxy-Like Distribution Pattern of Tombs and Islamic Burials

The Kassala region of eastern Sudan hosts a wide range of funerary monuments which date back to anywhere between thousands of years ago right up to the Islamic tombs of modern Beja people. Sudanese Islamic burial sites are found scattered in patches throughout the area known as Jebel Maman and until now it was assumed that they were located randomly. However, the new study shows that they were distributed according to large-scale environmental factors and small-scale social factors, creating what is described as “a galaxy-like distribution pattern.”

Going Where Archaeologists Cannot, Spy Satellites Reveal Thousands of Forgotten Ancient Sites in Afghanistan
Satellite Imaging Exposes 4,000-year-old Tomb in the Dahshur Necropolis

According to a report in Live Science , professor Costanzo said archaeologists suspected that the location of these monuments was most likely influenced by geological and social factors. On this premise, the researcher set about unravelling any underlying patterns within the ancient the funerary landscape. His goal? To provide new insights into the “ancient cultural practices of the people who built them,” according to the new paper.



Satellite imagery depicting 1,195 qubbas, or Islamic burials, around and on top of a small rocky outcrop. (Costanzo et al. / PLOS ONE )
The Above and the Below: Using Satellite Imagery to Find Patterns

Getting back to the aforementioned “As above, so below.” In this new study Costanzo and his team used remote sensing satellite imagery to plot the locations of 10,000 funerary monuments across 4,000 km2 (1,544 sq mi). To analyze the data set they adopted a “Neyman-Scott Cluster model” that was originally developed to study spatial patterns within the clustering of stars and galaxies.

Thanks to this novel application, it was revealed that just like stars cluster around centers of high gravity, burial monuments in Kassala cluster by the hundreds around central “parent” points. The researchers think these parent points themselves likely represent older tombs of regional importance.


What then caused some sites to become parent points, or central regional sites of importance, over others? The authors hypothesize that the environment greatly influenced the larger scale distribution of tombs. The so-called “high-gravity” areas center on regions with “favorable landscapes and available building materials,” according the paper.

They also determined that smaller scale distribution was more of a “social phenomenon” and that tombs surrounded older central, or important, burial structures. Did you notice that I still haven’t answered that last question that I myself asked? Let’s ask it another way. Why then, were some burial sites more important than others, so much so that they became “parent” points in the new study?



An example of foothill tumuli in the Kassala region of eastern Sudan, which are simple stone raised structures which were widespread throughout African prehistory and history. (Costanzo et al. / PLOS ONE )

The Dawn of Cosmo-Archaeology

The answer to “why” some burial sites became more important remains unanswered. However, it is suspected that maybe more recent family burials have caused more intense clustering, or, that the predominance of burials increases around ancient burials of traditional importance. What is perhaps a greater discovery than the new fact that Sudanese Islamic burial sites are not randomly distributed, is that for the first time archaeologists have applied “advanced geospatial analysis” to unearth the environmental and societal influences underlying the funerary landscape of ancient eastern Sudan.

Essentially, what happened here was a change of resolution, and that change revealed hidden ancient secrets. Standing at any one cluster of burial sites looking across the horizontal plane the archaeologists mind has only a fraction of the spatial data required to appreciate any underlying distribution patterns. By using satellites, a whole new dimension was achieved, and so the clusters were identified. Thus, the new study represents the first time a cosmological approach has been applied to an archaeological problem in this way.
Pre-Columbian Amazon Was Not So Virgin After All
Old Satellite Images Reveal Lost Cities and Previously Unknown Ancient Sites

What this means is that the better our measuring technologies become the more we realize that in our universe, that which is above , really is reflected below. And on a more immediate level, the use of satellite technology in archaeology to ascertain that ancient burial mounds and Islamic burials cluster like stars in distant galaxies around central sites, represents the dawn of a whole new approach for delving into our ancient origins.

Top image: A landscape view of qubba tombs, a type of Islamic burial tomb or shrine, around an area known as Jebel Maman. (Costanzo et al. / CC-BY 4.0 )

By Ashley Cowie

Scientists have discovered a peculiar dinosaur that breathed differently than any other

Shane McGlaun - Jul 10, 2021, 8:17am CDT

Paleontologists have recently discovered something very interesting about an extinct dinosaur and the way it breathes. The image seen below depicts the creature, called the Heterodontosaurus tucki, breathing on a cool morning. Researchers found unusual rib and sternum bones in an extremely well-preserved fossil skeleton of the Heterodontosaurus tucki.

The creature was an ornithischian the size of a turkey and ate plants. Ornithischians are bird-hipped dinosaurs and include a group featuring duck-billed dinosaurs, frilled dinosaurs like the Triceratops, and armored dinosaurs like the Ankylosaurs. The fossils were discovered in the Eastern Cape of South Africa in 2009. They were later x-rayed, allowing scientists to reconstruct the skeleton digitally.

The models revealed skeleton features unseen in previous ornithischians featuring rib and hip bones connected by muscles to help animal breathe in a new way. The dinosaur breathed through the expansion of its chest and belly. The creature measured about three feet long from nose to tail and roamed in portions of South Africa about 200 million years ago during the Jurassic period. It’s one of the earliest species to be included in the ornithischian group.

Since it’s one of the oldest creatures in the group, it gives scientists clues about the evolution of features common among ornithischians but different from other dinosaurs. The skeleton the team discovered was nearly complete, including a group of tiny, slender abdominal rib bones called gastralia. Ribs of that type are found in modern crocodiles and other modern reptiles and have a role in respiration.ADVERTISING

This creature is the first time they were discovered in ornithischians. Before discovering the skeleton, scientists thought that gastralia were absent from all ornithischians. Now they know that the features were lost in later ornithischians, and they know that early members of the group did something different with their bodies for respiration.

The Italian startup awarded at the world congress on artificial intelligence

Natasha Kumar July 10, 2021

AGI – ASC27 is the Italian startup winner of the European section of Shanghai World AI Congress (WAIC) and ranked among the top 10 in the world in the Best Practice Applied Algoritms section, thanks to an Artificial Intelligence capable of helping journalists improve their articles and reach a greater number of readers.

The Roman startup has in fact developed a deep learning system that learns from readers the elements of success of a story capable of going viral. The system, already purchased abroad by an important American entrepreneurial group, it could change the way journalists communicate suggesting to them the strengths and weaknesses of the articles.

How the program works

His name is Asimov, an artificial intelligence co-Bot designed to achieve better results in publishing and communication which, they tell ASC27, “will serve to build the new era of journalism – more efficient, precise and humane – by doing the tasks more repetitive and leaving room for the creative act of journalists so that they can have more time to work on the quality of the articles and information “.

The software is already used daily by over 2000 journalists in major magazines who are expanding their audience and revenues by leveraging Asimov AI.

The event

Presented in the European startup section, the company with Asimov obtained recognition from the important World Artificial Intelligence Congress (WAIC), the world congress on artificial intelligence that opened on 7 July in the presence of 1,000 speakers, including the winners of the Turing Prize, Joseph Sifakis and Yao Qizhi e the “father of Linux” Linus Torvalds, the CEO of Siemens Roland Busch, that of Qualcomm Cristiano Amon, the president of Huawei Ken Hu, and the leaders of Tencent, Alibaba and Baidu.

WAIC exhibition halls occupy over 40,000 square meters in the new Pudong area of ​​Xuhui district. In addition to talking about innovations and business, he addresses topics about reliable AI and sustainable development, the relationship of AI with the environment, privacy and algorithms, and how to avoid the digital divide around the world. The debate is attended by officials from the WHO, UNESCO, the ITU and other international organizations.

More than 300 exhibitors have brought their latest AI applications to WAIC and the hybrid conference, partly online, where they are shown will run until tomorrow 10 July.

The founder of the startup

In this context, the success of the Roman company, created by Nicola Grandis from Abruzzo and located in the heart of Rome, a few steps from St. Peter’s Square, confirms the creativity and value of Italian technological innovation.

“ASC27 aims to revolutionize the way of developing software – says Grandis – employs sixteen AI experts and among them there are some young hackers of national fame”. Our motto is “We create Knowledege – We create knowledge” and we do it using artificial intelligence techniques applied to Cybersecurity and vice versa using the principles of hacking to develop software for innovative solutions “.

The award ceremony – which includes a cash prize and other benefits – will follow the remote presentation of Asimov (due to the pandemic) by ASC27 at the 1st European Online Forum organized by Expand.hk and Sinofy Group, on behalf of the WAIC of Shanghai and the Chinese government in the presence of about 700 journalists, with the forecast of 250 million visitors online.

Do We Live in a Multiverse?


(Victor De Schwanberg/Science Photo Library/Getty Images)

EXPLAINER
SCIENCEALERT STAFF

As far as we currently know, there is a single expanding blob of spacetime speckled with trillions of galaxies - that's our Universe. If there are others, we have no compelling evidence for their existence.

That said, theories of cosmology, quantum physics, and the very philosophy of science have a few problems that could be solved if our blob of 'everything' wasn't, well, everything.

That doesn't mean other universes must exist. But what if they do?
What is a universe?

It should be a simple question to answer. But different areas of science will have subtly different takes on what a universe even is.

Cosmologists might say it describes the total mass of stuff (and the space in between) that has been slowly expanding from a highly concentrated volume over the past 13.77 billion years, becoming increasingly disordered with age.

It now stretches 93 billion light years from edge to edge, at least based on all of the visible (and invisible) stuff we can detect in some way. Beyond that limit, there are either things we can't see, an infinite expanse of nothingness, or – in the unlikely scenario that all of space bends back around on itself – a round-trip back to the start across a hyperspherical universe.

If we're talking quantum physics, though, a universe might refer to all fields and their particles, and their combined influences over one another. As a general rule, a universe (like ours, at least) is a closed system, meaning it can't suddenly lose or gain a significant sum of energy.

Philosophically speaking, a universe might be a discrete set of fundamental laws that governs the behavior of everything we observe. A universe would be defined by its own rules that set its unique speed for light, tell particles how to push or pull, or space how it should expand.

What is a multiverse in cosmology?

A century of astronomical observations has told us a lot about the age, size, and evolution of galaxies, stars, matter and the four dimensions we sum up as spacetime.

One thing we know with great confidence is that everything we see now is expanding at an accelerating rate. This logically implies the Universe, at least the one we live in, used to be a lot smaller.

(NASA/JPL)

We can theoretically squeeze all of the matter of the Universe down to a point where the concentration of energy reduces atoms to a soup of simpler particles and forces combine until we can't tell them apart. Any smaller than that? Big shrugs.

If we go with what's known as a cyclic model of cosmology, the parent universe preceded ours in some way. It might even be a lot like this one, only running in reverse compared with ours, shrinking over time into a concentrated point only to bounce back out for some reason. Played out for eternity, we might imagine the respective universes bounce back and forth in an endless yo-yo effect of growing and collapsing.

Or, if we go with what's known as a conformal cyclic model, universes expand over trillions upon trillions of years until their cold, point-like particles are so spread out, for all mathematical purposes everything looks and acts like a brand new universe.

If you don't like those, there's a chance our Universe is a white hole – the hypothetical back end of a black hole from another universe. Which, logically, just might mean the black holes in our Universe could all be parents, pinching off new universes like cosmic amoebae.

What is a multiverse in quantum physics?

Early last century, physicists found theories that described matter as tiny objects only told half of the story. The other half was that matter behaved as if it also had characteristics of a wave.

Exactly what this dual nature of reality means is still a matter of debate, but from a mathematical perspective, that wave describes the rise and fall of a game of chance. Probability, you see, is built into the very machinery that makes up the gears of a universe like ours.

Of course, this isn't our daily experience as vast collections of atoms. When we send a bucket of molecules called a rocket to the Moon as it zooms past 300,000 kilometres away, we're not rolling dice. Classical old physics is as reliable as tomorrow's sunrise.

But the closer we zoom in on a region of space or time, the more we need to take into account the possible range of measurements we might find.

This randomness isn't the result of things we don't know – it's because the Universe itself is yet to make up its mind. There's nothing in quantum mechanics explaining this transition either, leaving us to imagine what it all means.

In his 1957 doctoral dissertation, American physicist Hugh Everett suggested the range of possibilities are all as real as one another, representing actual realities – separate universes, if you like – just like the one we're all familiar with.

What makes any one universe in this many worlds interpretation distinct is how each wave correlates with a specific measurement taken of other waves, a phenomenon we call entanglement.

What 'we' means, and why 'we' experience one entangled set over waves over another, isn't clear, and in some ways presents an even bigger problem to solve.
What is a multiverse in philosophy?

One of science's most fundamental starting assumptions is that in spite of what your mother tells you, you're not special. Nor is any other human, or our planet, or – by extension – our Universe.

While rare events occur from time to time, we don't answer The Big Questions with 'it just happened that way'.

So why does our Universe seem to have just the right tug-of-war of forces that allow not just particles to appear, but to congeal for long enough periods into atoms that can undergo complex chemistry to produce thinking minds like ours?

Philosophically speaking, the anthropic principle (or principles, since there are many different ways to spin the idea) suggests we might have it backwards. Without these conditions, no minds would have arisen to consider the amazing turn of events.

If just a single universe 'just happened that way' early one spring morning, it'd be one big coincidence. Too big really.

But if there were infinite universes, with infinite combinations of forces pushing and pulling, some would inevitably give rise to minds that just might ask 'are we part of a multiverse?'

Will we ever discover other universes?

Given the very definition of a universe relies on some kind of physical fence keeping influencing factors apart, it's hard to imagine ways we might ever observe the existence of a sibling for our universe. If we did, we might as well see it as an extension of our own Universe anyway.

That said, there could be some cheats that could give us a glimpse.

Any experiment to find one would have to rely on that 'fence' having some holes in it that allow particles or energy to leak across, either into ours, or away from it. Or, in the case of universes existing in our past, monumental events that left enough of a scar that not even a rebirth could erase.

For now, we still have no good reason to think our blob of everything is anything but unique. Given we're still learning how our own Universe works, the current gaps in physics could yet be plugged without any need to imagine a reality other than ours.

In countless other versions of this article scattered throughout the multiverse, however, the question of whether we are alone just might have a different answer.


All Explainers are determined by fact checkers to be correct and relevant at the time of publishing. Text and images may be altered, removed, or added to as an editorial decision to keep information current.

The Mysterious Ice Worm


July 12, 2021



Biologist Peter Wimberger holding an ice worm in the snow.

Nell Greenfieldboyce/NPR

On the mountaintop glaciers of the Pacific Northwest lives a mysterious, and often, overlooked creature. They're small, thread-like worms that wiggle through snow and ice. That's right, ice worms!

NPR science correspondent Nell Greenfieldboyce talks to Emily about how they survive in an extreme environment and why scientists don't understand some of the most basic facts about them.

For more of Nell's reporting, you can follow her on Twitter @nell_sci_NPR. You can follow Emily @emilykwong1234.

Email the show with suggestions or thoughts at ShortWave@NPR.org.

This episode was produced by Thomas Lu, edited by Gisele Grayson and Viet Le, and fact-checked by Indi Khera. The audio engineer for this episode was Josh Newell.

NELL GREENFIELDBOYCE

EMILY KWONGTwitter

THOMAS LUTwitter

LISTEN· 13:3013-Minute 

Study says known geochemical processes can’t explain Enceladus’ methane

Shane McGlaun - Jul 12, 2021,

A new study was recently published in Nature Astronomy that concluded known geochemical processes cannot explain the levels of methane measured by the Cassini spacecraft on Saturn’s frigid moon Enceladus. The team says an unknown methane-producing process is likely at work hidden in the ocean underneath the moon’s icy shell. Scientists know that giant water plumes erupt from Enceladus, and they have long wondered if the sub-surface ocean believed to lie between the moon’s rocky core and its icy shell might harbor life.

The Cassini spacecraft detected relatively high concentrations of certain molecules associated with hydrothermal vents on the bottom of the ocean on Earth. Molecules detected included dihydrogen, methane, and carbon dioxide. High levels of methane discovered in the plumes Cassini investigated were particularly unexpected.

Researchers on the project wanted to know if it’s possible that earthlike microbes could be eating the dihydrogen and producing methane in the amounts detected by Cassini. Microbes of that type are known as methanogens. Scientists want to explore that sub-surface ocean, but note doing so would require an extremely challenging deep-dive mission not in sight for a couple of decades.

Study researchers constructed mathematical models to calculate the possibility of different processes, including biological methanogenesis, to explain Cassini’s data. The team used new mathematical models combining geochemistry and microbial ecology to analyze the plume data and model potential processes that could explain the observations.



The conclusion was that Cassini’s data was consistent either with microbial hydrothermal vent activity or processes that don’t involve life forms but are different from those known to occur on earth. Hydrothermal activity on Earth happens when cold seawater seeps into the ocean floor and circulates through the underlying rock. Then, when it passes close to a heat source, such as a magma chamber, it spews out into the water again through hydrothermal vents. Scientists suspect similar processes on Enceladus are responsible for the plumes erupting from its surface.

South African telescope captures stunning image of radio galaxy


By Samantha Mathewson 

Cosmic threads, ribbons and rings are caused by radio emissions from matter falling into the black hole at the center of the galaxy.

The Fanaroff-Riley Type I radio galaxy IC 4296 dominates this spectacular vista, wider than the full moon on the sky. MeerKAT radio data are represented in red/orange hues in this composite view. (Image credit: SARAO, SSS, S. Dagnello and W. Cotton (NRAO/AUI/NSF))

A stunning new image from the South African MeerKAT telescope captures powerful radio emissions woven through space.

The radio emissions emanate from an enormous rotating black hole that lies at the center of an elliptical galaxy known as IC 4296. Energy released by matter falling into the black hole generates two radio jets of high energy gas on opposite sides of the galaxy — creating what is also known as a double-lobed radio galaxy.

Using the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory's (SARAO) MeerKAT telescope, located in the southwest Karoo region of the country, researchers detected the radio waves from IC 4296, along with other unique cosmic features that may reveal new clues about large radio galaxies, according to a statement from the SARAO.

Recent observations of IC 4296 revealed that the radio jets become unstable as they travel beyond the outer reaches of the galaxy, allowing some of the charged electrons to escape into intergalactic space. These stray electrons create several faint radio "threads," which appear below the galaxy in the new image.

The MeerKAT radio data — represented by the red-orange colored gas in the composite image — also captures smooth "ribbons" between the bright emission jets and outer lobes located on either side of the galaxy. The radio lobes are caused by the interaction of a jet with its surrounding medium. The ribbons fill channels that the jets have carved into the surrounding gas. Nearly 1 million light-years from IC 4296, the ribbons are met by intergalactic gas, creating "smoke rings" in the radio lobes, according to the statement.

"Only MeerKAT's unique combination of sensitivity, angular resolution and dynamic range allowed the discovery of these threads, ribbons and rings," Jim Condon, lead author of the study from the U.S. National Radio Astronomy Observatory, said in the statement.

The intergalactic threads, ribbons and rings captured in the recent MeerKAT radio data represent a never-before-seen combination of cosmic features, according to the SARAO statement.


STEREO-A's view of the inner solar system between May 25 and June 1, 2020. Comet ATLAS streaks down across the screen as the planet Mercury enters at the left of the frame; meanwhile, the solar wind blows out from the sun on the left. (Image credit: NASA/NRL/STEREO/Karl Battams)

"Only MeerKAT's unique combination of sensitivity, angular resolution and dynamic range allowed the discovery of these threads, ribbons and rings," Jim Condon, lead author of the study from the U.S. National Radio Astronomy Observatory, said in the statement.

The intergalactic threads, ribbons and rings captured in the recent MeerKAT radio data represent a never-before-seen combination of cosmic features, according to the SARAO statement.

The South African MeerKAT radio telescope, which saw first light in 2018, is a precursor to Square Kilometre Array (SKA), which aims to answer fundamental astrophysical questions about the nature of objects in the universe with dishes scattered across South Africa and Australia.

"It is clear that new results like this from MeerKAT and other SKA pathfinders are set to overhaul our understanding of extragalactic radio sources," according to the statement.

The recent findings have been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal.

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Samantha Mathewson
Samantha Mathewson joined Space.com as an intern in the summer of 2016. She received a B.A. in Journalism and Environmental Science at the University of New Haven, in Connecticut. Previously, her work has been published in Nature World News. When not writing or reading about science, Samantha enjoys traveling to new places and taking photos! You can follow her on Twitter @Sam_Ashley13.