Over the Course of the Pandemic, Bugs Have Invaded the World’s Most Popular Museums

Jessica Cherner

Fri, October 1, 2021, 

If you’ve ever aimlessly wandered through the great halls of such museums as New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, Madrid’s Museo del Prado, and Paris’s Musée d’Orsay, and wondered how these centuries-old works by the likes of the world’s most famous painters have managed to survive the test of time, you’re not alone. Even shortly after their completion, the pieces on canvas boasted a certain delicacy and fragility that required the most precious handling. Now, of course, the museums enlist the best restorers in their fields to keep the priceless works of art in peak condition, but the last year and a half presented these experts with a rather unexpected challenge—bugs.

Jean-Baptiste Tilliar’s plush daybed displayed at the J. Paul Getty Museum played host to quite a few pests, so conservators and preparators thoroughly cleaned each individual component before isolating the entire piece with a plastic tarp.

Photo: J. Paul Getty Museum

While bugs may be annoying to us, they can be detrimental to, say, Jean-Baptiste Tilliar’s pink 18th-century daybed at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. The unticketed guests, most commonly the one-centimeter-long webbing clothes moths we all know and hate during sweater season, typically devour wool, silk, and dust—feasts that are available at museums. Not to mention that the unexpected shutdown of every museum from Cape Town to Boston last year created an ideal environment for bugs, the Artnet News reports.

Not only is there a sizable buildup of dust and other debris from constant visitors (and the immediate lack thereof), but it was also prime breeding season when the pandemic began. Plus, another potential reason for the explosion of art-destroying moths in some of the hottest spots in the world is bugs’ dislike for disruption and crowds, so hundreds of suddenly empty galleries afforded the pesky insects to be left to their own devices.

Kleidermotte Tineola bisselliella

An adult webbing clothes moth.

Photo: Schellhorn/ullstein bild/Getty Images

Luckily, the bugs won’t win this battle because museums, including the J. Paul Getty, have instituted a very particular cleaning routine that relies more heavily on anoxic treatments than they do on harsh chemicals, which could potentially damage the art. The conservators also employ 20-foot-long insulated cargo containers whose internal temperatures dip as low as negative 20 degrees Fahrenheit. The freezers can hold anywhere between three and six objects per ten-day treatment, killing any adults, larvae, or eggs that may be calling an ornate 17th-century tapestry home.

Like any deep-cleaning project, ones on this scale can take quite a bit of time. In fact, Madeline Corona, assistant conservator of the decorative arts and sculpture conservation at the J. Getty Museum says exclusively to AD, “Our deep-cleaning project took approximately a year to complete. Regular gallery cleaning is an important aspect of preventive conservation and is always an ongoing activity.”

TOPSHOT-BRITAIN-HEALTH-VIRUS-MUSEUM

Cleaning and de-bugging is well underway at the British Museum where staff members use specific dusting practices to clear any webs or nests.

Photo: Paul Ellis/Getty Images

The thing is: Bugs are as much a part of museums as the art itself. Even with constant surveillance and treatment, the annoying insects have and always will be present in museums. Corona explains, “Pest management programs are an integral part of the preservation of any collection. Our monitoring program did exactly what we wanted it to: It alerted us of an uptick early on and allowed us to get ahead of it. The pandemic gave us the opportunity to respond in a very holistic way because we didn’t have visitors on-site.” In post-lockdown life, however, more thorough cleaning practices are in place to keep the bugs as much at bay as possible, letting the works of art take center stage.

Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest

EVOLUTION IN ACTION

Is the Coronavirus Getting Better at Airborne Transmission?


A man sits near a window as people wearing face masks walk along a pedestrian crossing at Shibuya district Thursday, Sept. 30, 2021, in Tokyo

(AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

Apoorva Mandavilli
Sat, October 2, 2021, 

Newer variants of the coronavirus such as alpha and delta are highly contagious, infecting far more people than the original virus. Two new studies offer a possible explanation: The virus is evolving to spread more efficiently through air.

The realization that the coronavirus is airborne indoors transformed efforts to contain the pandemic last year, igniting fiery debates about masks, social distancing and ventilation in public spaces.

Most researchers now agree that the coronavirus is mostly transmitted through large droplets that quickly sink to the floor and through much smaller ones, called aerosols, that can float over longer distances indoors and settle directly into the lungs, where the virus is most harmful.

The new studies don’t fundamentally change that view. But the findings signal the need for better masks in some situations, and indicate that the virus is changing in ways that make it more formidable.

“This is not an Armageddon scenario,” said Vincent Munster, a virus expert at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who led one of the new studies. “It is like a modification of the virus to more-efficient transmission, which is something I think we all kind of expected, and we now see it happening in real time.”

Munster’s team showed that small aerosols traveled much longer distances than larger droplets and the alpha variant was much more likely to cause new infections via aerosol transmission. The second study found that people infected with alpha exhaled about 43 times more virus into tiny aerosols than those infected with older variants.

The studies compared the alpha variant with the original virus or other older variants. But the results may also explain why the delta variant is so contagious — and why it displaced all other versions of the virus.

“It really indicates that the virus is evolving to become more efficient at transmitting through the air,” said Linsey Marr, an expert in airborne viruses at Virginia Tech who was not involved in either study. “I wouldn’t be surprised if, with delta, that factor were even higher.”

The ultratransmissibility of the variants may come down to a mix of factors. It may be that lower doses of the variants are required for infection, or that the variants replicate faster, or that more of the variant virus is exhaled into aerosols — or all three.

The alpha variant proved to be twice as transmissible as the original virus, and the delta variant has mutations that turbocharged its contagiousness even more. As the virus continues to change, newer variants may turn out to be even more transmissible, experts said.

But the tools at our disposal all still work well to halt the spread. Even loose-fitting cloth and surgical masks block about half of the fine aerosols containing virus, according to the study of people infected with variants, published this month in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.

Still, at least in some crowded spaces, people may want to consider switching to more protective masks, said Don Milton, an aerosol expert at the University of Maryland who led the research.

“Given that it seems to be evolving towards generating aerosols better, then we need better containment and better personal protection,” Milton said of the virus. “We are recommending people move to tighter-fitting masks.”

To compare how different variants spread through the air, his team asked participants with mild or asymptomatic infections to recite the alphabet, sing “Happy Birthday” loudly or shout out the University of Maryland slogan, “Go, Terps!”

People infected with the alpha variant had copious amounts of virus in their nose and throat, much more than those infected with the original virus. But even after adjusting for that difference, those infected with the variant released about 18 times as much virus into the smallest aerosols.

But the researchers examined only four people infected with alpha, and 45 with older variants. That could skew the observed differences between the variants, said Seema Lakdawala, a respiratory virus expert at the University of Pittsburgh, who was not involved in either new study.

Infected people can pass the virus along to many, many others — or to none at all. How much virus they expel may depend on where in the respiratory tract it is replicating, on the nature of the mucus in its environment and on what other microbes it may hitch a ride with.

“We have really no idea why some individuals are superspreaders and others are not,” Lakdawala said. “There’s a lot of heterogeneity between individuals.”

Data from a greater number of participants would be more convincing, but the two studies together do suggest that enhanced transport through aerosols at least partly contributes to the variant’s contagiousness, she said.

Munster’s study did not involve people at all, but Syrian hamsters. Using the animals allowed the team to control the experimental conditions tightly and focus only on the movement of aerosols, Munster said.

The researchers separated pairs of hamsters with tubes of different lengths that allowed airflow but no physical contact. They looked at how well the different variants traveled from infected “donor” hamsters to uninfected “sentinel” hamsters.

When the cages were more than 2 meters apart, only the smallest aerosols — particles smaller than 5 microns — were shown to infect the sentinel hamsters. And the team found, as expected, that the alpha variant outcompeted the original virus in infecting the sentinel hamsters.

The results were posted on bioRxiv, a website that features papers before they have been published in a scientific journal.

The researchers are now testing the delta variant and expect to find that it is even more efficient, Munster said.

Together, the new findings underscore the importance of masks for vaccinated people, especially in crowded spaces, experts said. Although people with breakthrough infections after vaccination are much less likely to spread the virus than unvaccinated people, the contagiousness of the variants raises the probability.

With billions of people worldwide vaccinated, and billions still unvaccinated, the virus may still change in unexpected ways, Munster said: “There might be additional evolutionary pressures, shaping the evolutionary direction of this virus.”

© 2021 The New York Times Company

 

Engineered cyanobacteria uses electricity to turn carbon dioxide into fuel

by Bob Yirka , Tech Xplore

Graphical abstract. Credit: DOI: 10.1039/D1EE01526E

A combined team of researchers from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Miami University, has developed an engineering process that allows cyanobacteria to use electricity to turn carbon dioxide into ethylene or acetate. In their paper published in the journal Energy & Environmental Science, the group describes their technique and its possible use as an energy storage system.

As the researchers note, natural photosynthesis is an inefficient means for converting carbon dioxide to useful compounds for human purposes. In this new effort, the researchers have engineered part of the process to make it more efficient, and in so doing have developed a new way to store energy.

Scientists have divided natural photosynthesis into two main systems, photosystem I and photosystem II. Photosystem I involves the use of light to allow the transfer of electrons across a membrane. With photosystem II, enzymes capture photons that in turn energize electrons. The researchers noted that this system suffers from three main inefficiencies. The first is that the photosystems have overlapping absorption spectra. The second is that the oxygen produced by photosystem II has to compete with carbon dioxide for the enzyme that fixes the carbon pathway. And finally, natural photosynthesis can only use light in a limited part of the solar spectrum.

To overcome these inefficiencies, the researchers engineered cyanobacteria (a type of bacteria that obtain energy via photosynthesis, aka blue-green algae) in a way that allowed them to use sunlight and a stream of electrons to drive carbon dioxide fixation. More specifically, they removed all of photosystem II and replaced it with an artificial system that worked by attaching the modified cells to an electrical circuit. They found that when the cells were exposed to light, the cyanobacteria were able to deliver electrons to photosystem I, which allowed for converting carbon dioxide to useful fuels such as ethylene or acetate.

The researchers note that if a renewable resource was used as the source of the electricity, the system could be used as a means of energy storage. And, the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide could be used to produce greener fuels. More work is required, however, to find out how well the system could be scaled up to useful levels.

New energy conversion layer for biosolar cells

More information: Zhaodong Li et al, Exogenous electricity flowing through cyanobacterial photosystem I drives CO2 valorization with high energy efficiency, Energy & Environmental Science (2021). DOI: 10.1039/D1EE01526E

Journal information: Energy & Environmental Science 

© 2021 Science X Network

 

Scientists Recreate Cosmic Reactions To Unlock Astronomical Mysteries of Exploding Stars

By ARGONNE NATIONAL LABORATORY OCTOBER 3, 2021

Experiments will give scientists a closer look at how exploding stars create world’s heaviest elements.

How do the chemical elements, the building blocks of our universe, get built? This question has been at the core of nuclear physics for the better part of a century.

At the beginning of the 20^th century, scientists discovered that elements have a central core or nucleus. These nuclei consist of various numbers of protons and neutrons.

Now, scientists at Michigan State University’s Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) have built and tested a device that will allow pivotal insights into heavy elements, or elements with very large numbers of protons and neutrons. Ben Kay, physicist at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory, led this effort. FRIB is a DOE Office of Science User Facility.

“Exploding stars, the merger of giant collapsed stars, we are now learning details about the nuclear reactions at the heart of these events. With SOLARIS, we are able to recreate those reactions here, on Earth, to see them for ourselves.” — Ben Kay, Physics division

Kay and his team have completed their first experiment using the device, called SOLARIS, which stands for Solenoid Spectrometer Apparatus for Reaction Studies. Planned experiments will reveal information about nuclear reactions that create some of the heaviest elements in our world, ranging from iron to uranium.

Also planned are experiments with exotic isotopes. Isotopes are elements that share the same number of protons but have different numbers of neutrons. Scientists refer to certain isotopes as exotic because their ratios of protons to neutrons differ from those of typically stable or long-lived isotopes that occur naturally on Earth. Some of these unstable isotopes play an essential role in astronomical events.

An interior view of SOLARIS and the accelerator and detectors at the rear. Credit: Argonne National Laboratory

“Exploding stars, the merger of giant collapsed stars, we are now learning details about the nuclear reactions at the heart of these events,” said Kay. ​“With SOLARIS, we are able to recreate those reactions here, on Earth, to see them for ourselves.”

The new device follows in the footsteps of HELIOS, the Helical Orbit Spectrometer, at Argonne. Both use similarly repurposed superconducting magnets from a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine like that found in hospitals. In both, a beam of particles is shot at a target material inside of a vacuum chamber. When the particles collide with the target, transfer reactions occur. In such reactions, neutrons or protons are either removed or added from nuclei, depending on the particles, and their energies, used in the collision.

“By recording the energy and angle of the various particles that are released or deflected from the collisions, we are able to gather information about the structure of the nuclei in these isotopes,” said Kay. ​“The innovative SOLARIS design provides the necessary resolution to enhance our understanding of these exotic nuclei.”

What makes SOLARIS truly unique is it can function as a dual-mode spectrometer, meaning it can make measurements with either high or very low intensity beams. ​“SOLARIS can operate in these two modes,” explained Kay. ​“One uses a traditional silicon detector array in a vacuum. The other uses the novel gas-filled target of the Active-Target Time-Projection Chamber at Michigan State, led by SOLARIS team member and FRIB senior physicist Daniel Bazin. This first experiment tested the AT-TPC.” The AT-TPC enables scientists to use weaker beams and still collect results with the needed high accuracy. 

The AT-TPC is essentially a large chamber filled with a gas that serves as both the target for the beam and the detector medium. This differs from the traditional vacuum chamber that uses a silicon detector array and a separate, thin, solid target.

“By filling the chamber with gas, you are ensuring that the fewer, larger particles from the low-intensity beam will make contact with the target material,” said Kay. In that way, the scientists can then study the products from those collisions.

The team’s first experiment, led by research associate Clementine Santamaria of FRIB, examined the decay of oxygen-16 (the most common isotope of oxygen on our planet) into much smaller alpha particles. In particular, the eight protons and eight neutrons in oxygen-16 nuclei break up into a total of four alpha particles, each consisting of two protons and two neutrons.

“By determining how oxygen-16 decays like this, comparisons can be made to that of the ​‘Hoyle state,’ an excited state of a carbon isotope that we believe plays a key role in the production of carbon in stars,” explained Kay.

Kay and his team recorded over two million reaction events during this experiment and observed several instances of the decay of oxygen-16 into alpha particles.

The dual functionality of SOLARIS will allow for an even broader range of nuclear reaction experiments than before, and give scientists new insights into some of the greatest mysteries of the cosmos.

FRIB is a user facility for the Office of Nuclear Physics in the DOE Office of Science.

 

New tool reveals ultimate owners of companies

by Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology

Credit: Skoltech PR team

Researchers from Skoltech, the European University at St. Petersburg, and Lomonosov Moscow State University have developed an algorithm that detects the ultimate controlling owners of companies. Applicable to datasets with millions of organizations, it runs faster and delivers more accurate results than competing approaches. By unwinding the complex web of owners, the algorithm makes it possible to get an idea of a closed company's compliance with environmental, social, and governance standards by looking at the practices of its more transparent owner. The study is available from the arXiv preprint repository.

With responsible investing gaining popularity, even as major nations seek ways to counter tax evasion in offshore financial centers and put unwanted individuals and companies on designated persons lists to deter business with them, the problem of revealing the ultimate beneficiary that owns a company through a long chain of intermediaries is as complex and relevant as ever.

To address it, a team of Russian researchers has created a network science-based algorithm called α-ICON, short for Indirect Control in Onion-like Networks. The tool ingests ownership data from state registers and detects and ranks the ultimate owners of each organization, providing indirect insights into its practices for compliance officers, potential investors, and due diligence analysts to draw upon.

According to the researchers, theirs is one of just a few algorithms for revealing ultimate corporate ownership, and by far the most efficient: α-ICON takes mere minutes to process the database of all 4.2 million U.K. companies. Previously existing algorithms would take days to do that. It is also more accurate, correctly determining the ultimate owner in 96% of the cases, compared with 89% for its closest competitor.

To test the accuracy of α-ICON, the team collected—and publicly released—an evaluation dataset with verified information about 1,007 British companies with debt or equity traded in the U.S. that disclosed their ownership. Aside from being used to demonstrate the superior performance of the new algorithm, this first-of-its-kind evaluation dataset will be of use for future research.

α-ICON stems from the ideas of Katz centrality used in science of complex systems to determine the most influential players in the network. To ensure computational effectiveness, the algorithm builds on an observation that ownership networks resemble onions so that one can peel off layer by layer until the dense core of interconnected organizations remains

The study's first author, Kirill Polovnikov, of Skoltech, explains how this observation drastically improves the performance: "Computation of control in complex networks with many cycles is generally associated with the spectral decomposition of a huge matrix, equal in size to the number of nodes. By recognizing the 'onion-like' structure of the ownership network, we can solve the problem in the most general form only for a strongly connected core of several hundred companies. The rest of the control can be effectively back-propagated to firms in the outer shell thanks to the hierarchical loopless structure of the control network in the shell layers."

When the authors applied their algorithm to the more than 4 million companies based in the United Kingdom, it turned out that the multinational optical retail chain Specsavers had the most complex ownership structure in the country. With a market capitalization of $3.5 billion, pet supplies retailer Pets at Home boasts greater ownership network complexity than the oil giant BP, worth $84 billion.

"This does not imply that Pets at Home enjoys more control than BP since we are comparing only the complexity of the ownership networks, ignoring their size. Small companies can exhibit extremely complex ownership chains. Our algorithm allows one to identify the ultimate controlling entities regardless of their size," stressed Dmitriy Skougarevskiy, an associate professor of empirical legal studies at the European University at St. Petersburg.

The new algorithm will be useful to researchers and practitioners alike. By revealing the ultimate owners of businesses, it helps the investors, compliance officers, and due diligence analysts to quickly and easily make sense of the complicated ownership schemes and understand whether they are dealing with an entity likely to respect certain social, environmental, and governance standards, and whether that company is controlled by a designated individual or a tax haven-based parent.

The α-ICON code is available on GitHub.

Companies owned by families are better at looking after their staff but not the environment

More information: Kirill Polovnikov, Nikita Pospelov, Dmitriy Skougarevskiy, α-Indirect Control in Onion-like Networks. arXiv:2109.07181v2 [physics.soc-ph], arxiv.org/abs/2109.07181v2

Provided by Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology 

Revealing the logic of the body’s ‘second brain’

Scientists discover new science in the gut and, potentially, new leads on how to treat irritable bowel syndrome and other disorders

Peer-Reviewed Publication

MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: A NETWORK OF GLIAL CELLS, THE LOGIC GATES OF THE GUT’S NERVOUS SYSTEM, ARE SEEN IN THIS MICROGRAPH. THE CELLS — THE DARK ORBS ENVELOPED IN GRAY — HAVE BEEN COLORIZED ACCORDING TO HOW THEY RESPOND TO A CHEMICAL SIGNAL. view more 

CREDIT: CREDIT: PROC. NATL. ACAD. SCI./GULBRANSEN LAB

Researchers at Michigan State University have made a surprising discovery about the human gut’s enteric nervous system that itself is filled with surprising facts. For starters, there’s the fact that this “second brain” exists at all.

“Most people don’t even know that they have this in their guts,” said Brian Gulbransen, an MSU Foundation Professor in the College of Natural Science’s Department of Physiology.

Beyond that, the enteric nervous system is remarkably independent: Intestines could carry out many of their regular duties even if they somehow became disconnected from the central nervous system. And the number of specialized nervous system cells, namely neurons and glia, that live in a person’s gut is roughly equivalent to the number found in a cat’s brain.

“It’s like this second brain in our gut,” Gulbransen said. “It’s an extensive network of neurons and glia that line our intestines.”

Neurons are the more familiar cell type, famously conducting the nervous system’s electrical signals. Glia, on the other hand, are not electrically active, which has made it more challenging for researchers to decipher what these cells do. One of the leading theories was that glial cells provide passive support for neurons.

Gulbransen and his team have now shown that glial cells play a much more active role in the enteric nervous system. In research published online on Oct. 1 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the Spartans revealed that glia act in a very precise way to influence the signals carried by neuronal circuits. This discovery could help pave the way for new treatments for intestinal illness that affects as much as 15% of the U.S. population.

“Thinking of this second brain as a computer, the glia are the chips working in the periphery,” Gulbransen said. “They’re an active part of the signaling network, but not like neurons. The glia are modulating or modifying the signal.”

In computing language, the glia would be the logic gates. Or, for a more musical metaphor, the glia aren’t carrying the notes played on an electric guitar, they’re the pedals and amplifiers modulating the tone and volume of those notes.

Regardless of the analogy, the glia are more integral to making sure things are running smoothly — or sounding good — than scientists previously understood. This work creates a more complete, albeit more complicated picture of how the enteric nervous system works. This also creates new opportunities to potentially treat gut disorders.

“This is a ways down the line, but now we can start to ask if there’s a way to target a specific type or set of glia and change their function in some way,” Gulbransen said. “Drug companies are already interested in this.”

Earlier this year, Gulbransen’s team found that glia could open up new ways to help treat irritable bowel syndrome, a painful condition that currently has no cure and affects 10% to 15% of Americans. Glia could also be involved in several other health conditions, including gut motility disorders, such as constipation, and a rare disorder known as chronic intestinal pseudo-obstruction.

“Right now, there’s no known cause. People develop what looks like an obstruction in the gut, only there’s no physical obstruction,” Gulbransen said. “There’s just a section of their gut that stops working.

Although he stressed that science isn’t at the point to deliver treatments for these problems, it is better equipped to probe and understand them more fully. And Gulbransen believes that MSU is going to be a central figure in developing that understanding.

“MSU has one of the best gut research groups in the world. We have this huge, diverse group of people working on all the major areas of gut science” he said. “It’s a real strength of ours.”

---

JOURNAL

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI

10.1073/pnas.2025938118 

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Circuit-specific enteric glia regulate intestinal motor neurocircuits

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

1-Oct-2021

Researchers believe they’ve discovered a planet orbiting three stars at the same time


Alexandra Mae Jones

CTVNews.ca writer
Sunday, October 3, 2021


ALMA images of the planet-forming disk with misaligned rings around triple star system GW Orionis. The image on the right is made with ALMA data taken in 2017 from Bi et al. The image on the left is made with ALMA data taken in 2018 from Kraus et al.

 Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), S. Kraus & J. Bi; NRAO/AUI/NSF, S. Dagnello

TORONTO -- Researchers believe they may have discovered the very first instance of a planet orbiting three stars at once, although they still haven’t seen it yet.

Around 1,300 light-years away from Earth, there is a star system with three stars gravitationally bound to each other. According to a new study published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, some abnormalities in the dust rings around the stars suggest that there are hidden planets orbiting these three stars.

Earth’s solar system consists of planets orbiting a single, central star, but this is actually more unusual than multi-star systems. Around half of all star systems feature two stars -- called a “binary pair” -- and around one in five star systems feature three or more stars.

Until now, scientists have yet to discover a planet in a circumtriple orbit around three stars before.

“It’s really exciting because it makes the theory of planet formation really robust,” Jeremy Smallwood, lead author of the paper, said in a press release. “It could mean that planet formation is much more active than we thought, which is pretty cool.”

GW Orionis, or GW Ori is the name of the triple-star system that researchers looked at in this new study, using observations from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope.

While the telescope didn’t capture direct evidence of a planet, researchers believe that the unusual physical characteristics of the star system could only be explained by the presence of one or more massive hidden planets in orbit around all three stars.

In GW Ori, the first two stars are the same distance away from each other as the Earth is to the Sun, known as an astronomical unit (au). The third star is around eight au away from the first two.

The interesting thing about the star system is the discs of dust and gas swirling around the stars, containing the building blocks for planet creation. Researchers observed three dust rings that were misaligned with each other, and that there was also a large break or gap in the dust rings at around 100 au.

What could’ve caused this? Researchers set out to discover the cause.

One theory as to what formed these dust rings was that the torque from the three stars could be separating the disc of gas around the stars into these distinct layers. When simulated, the pressure of these stars could warp, but could not break the disc in the way researchers were observing in GW Ori.

Researchers compared the triple-star system to a binary star system and found they could model the circumtriple disc as a circumbinary disc, which allowed them to run more simulations to test what could break the disc.

Researchers then ran through what would happen in this star system if a planet was orbiting the three stars.

“The results of the simulations […] shows that if a planet forms in a misaligned disc and is massive enough to carve a gap, it can lead to an effectively broken disc,” the study stated.

They also found that if a planet formed in a misaligned disc, it would grow in size every time its orbit brought it back in sync with the disc again, and that it could carve multiple gaps in the disc.

Researchers estimate that the most likely planet to create the structures we see around this star system would be one or more large, Jupiter-style gas giants, although they add that under certain scenarios, a low-mass planet would also be capable of creating a gap in the dust rings if it was orbiting more consistently along the dust ring.

Despite the evidence pointing towards the first planet -- or planets -- to be found orbiting three stars at once, it may be hard to prove it definitively.

“If misaligned planets are present around the hierarchical triple-star system, they would be difficult to detect,” the study stated.

One of the most common methods to detect planets in distant star systems is the transit method, in which we record the level of light coming from a star and can detect a planet passing in front of the planet by the dimming of the light that occurs when the planet is in front of the star. It’s easier to detect planets that orbit on a consistent plane, which may not be the case with GW Ori’s potential planets.

Still, researchers will be on the lookout for more data using ALMA, hoping to find direct evidence of the first case of a circumtriple orbit.

Clues to the Origins of Life in Our Solar System
Streamed live on Sep 29, 2021

SETI Institute

When people think about the search for life beyond Earth they often think about looking beyond our solar system and even beyond our galaxy. But what about looking closer to home? Titan, Saturn’s largest moon has a dense atmosphere, an internal liquid water ocean, and stable bodies of liquid methane on its surface. While we have not found any evidence of life on Titan, its chemistry and environment make it an interesting place to explore. Europa is a moon of Jupiter with a water-ice crust and liquid ocean underneath. Its atmosphere is very thin, but it’s composed mostly of oxygen. Zibi (Elizabeth) Turtle is the principal investigator of the Dragonfly mission which will land a drone-like vehicle on Titan to conduct sorties to sample and examine sites around Titan. Morgan Cable is also on the Dragonfly Team, and both Zibi and Morgan are working on the Europa Clipper mission which will perform reconnaissance of Europa to investigate whether it could have conditions suitable for life. Join Zibi and Morgan, along with SETI Institute planetary astronomer Franck Marchis for their discussion about what makes Titan and Europa such intriguing places to search for clues about the origins of life in our solar system. 

For more information on Dragonfly: https://dragonfly.jhuapl.edu/ For more information on Europa Clipper: https://europa.nasa.gov/ 

If you like science, support the SETI Institute! We're a non-profit research institution whose focus is understanding the nature and origins of life in the universe.

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Barbie (the astronaut) jets off on zero-gravity flight to inspire young girls

Astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti hopes the doll, which has been videoed floating at zero gravity like she will be at the International Space Station, can inspire young girls.

Shingi Mararike
News correspondent @ShingiMararike
Monday 4 October 2021

Samantha Cristoforetti's Barbie doll travelled on a Zero-gravity flight,

 modelling the preparation and experience of a real-life astronaut

Barbie is partnering with the European Space Agency and it's only European female astronaut in an effort to inspire young girls to pursue careers in space and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics).

As part of an initiative called This World Space Week, a special one-of-a-kind Barbie doll modelled on Samantha Cristoforetti will go on sale across the UK and Europe.

Ms Cristoforetti, 44, will break new ground next year by becoming the first European to command the International Space Station.

Samantha Cristoforetti holding her Barbie doll

She hopes the doll, which has been videoed floating at zero gravity like she will be at the space station, can inspire young people.

"As astronauts, something that we all care about is inspiring the next generation,'' Ms Cristoforetti said.

"I think boys and girls, they get passionate about things because they see something intriguing because they see something funny and so maybe those images will kindle a passion in some girls' hearts and that will be incredible."

As part of the programme, educational resources are also being made available to spotlight different space careers, and teach primary school-aged children more about space.

Barbie's Marketing Director for Europe and Emerging Markets Isabel Ferrer said: "With Space & STEM careers still underrepresented by women, Barbie is using its platform this World Space Week to show girls exciting and diverse roles and activity in space to inspire them to explore their limitless potential."

It is hoped the doll will spark children's imaginations and lead them to consider careers in space and STEM

This scheme isn't just aimed at aspiring astronauts though. It is also focused on potential engineers and space scientists like Dr Nicol Caplin.

As a Deep Space Exploration Scientist in the Human and Robotic Exploration Directorate, she works on a number of astrobiology experiments destined for the International Space Station.

Dr Caplin, who has noticed a lack of gender diversity in not just space but STEM careers more broadly, said young girls seeing the doll could be "extremely powerful".

"I think it's quite difficult to be what you can't see and so to imagine yourself as a Barbie doll floating through space. Maybe that could have some spark and could really inspire some girls to put on a space suit and to go into space themselves one day."

The doll's Zero-G flight marks the start of World Space Week

Dr Caplin, who joined the ESA as a research fellow at the age of 28, said she believes encouraging young people is mainly about choice.

"It's not so much about forcing girls into STEM. I think this is all about giving young girls the choice of knowing what they want to do in life and knowing what is open to them.

"It's all what the child enjoys and if it happens to be science, I'm all for that and that should be encouraged. Maybe this toy could help that."

UCP ADDS THEIR POLITICAL AGENDA TO MUNCIPAL ELECTIONS

As Albertans go to polls on equalization referendum, many don't know what it means

VOTE NO!

 At the same time as the referendum, voters will be asked to choose municipal leaders, school board trustees, and two preferred Senate candidates.

WE PREFER NO SENATORS THANKS

#ABOLISHTHESENATE

Author of the article:Lisa Johnson
Publishing date:Oct 03, 2021 • 

Premier Jason Kenney's government is proceeding with plans to put federal equalization on Alberta's municipal ballots this fall. 


As Albertans cast a symbolic vote for or against equalization, many don’t understand what that vote will mean.

In advance polls and the Oct. 18 municipal election, Albertans will face a yes or no referendum question: should Canada’s “commitment to the principle of making equalization payments” be removed from the Constitution?

It refers to a section that says the Canadian government supports the idea of ensuring “provincial governments have sufficient revenues to provide reasonably comparable levels of public services at reasonably comparable levels of taxation.”

In a debate set for Thursday, Trevor Tombe, professor of economics at the University of Calgary, will argue that the equalization referendum is not an effective way to get a better deal for Alberta, while Bill Bewick, Fairness Alberta executive director and professor of political science at Athabasca University, will argue that it is.

Bewick said Sunday he’s joining the debate, hosted by New West Advocacy, to help educate people who don’t understand equalization and federal transfers well enough.

“I also feel like a lot of people don’t know this referendum is happening — still,” he said.

 Bewick said while some are looking for excuses to not support the equalization referendum, that would be a missed opportunity for Albertans to show a collective push for reform.

“I’m doing my best to make sure they know there’s something meaningful at stake here and we can’t risk a ‘no’ vote because that would set things back considerably,” he said.

Tombe said Sunday he agrees Albertans don’t understand the issue, but he hopes the debate helps them clarify where they stand on the principle — that Canadians, no matter where they live, should get comparable public services without having abnormally high taxes.

“In terms of voting because you think it will achieve an outcome that will improve Alberta’s fiscal situation? No, that’s just wrong,” he said, adding it’s unfortunate the question is being posed as a way for Albertans to fight back against others.

Premier Jason Kenney’s UCP has long insisted that the current equalization payments are one of the ways Alberta is not getting a “fair deal” from Ottawa, and Kenney has called the vote a “strategy to elevate Alberta’s fight for fairness in the federation to the top of the national agenda.”

Alberta doesn’t have the power to change the federal program on its own. Under equalization, payments come from Ottawa, using money collected through federal taxes. Transfers are sent out to provinces with lower incomes. Provinces with higher incomes — like Alberta — do not receive transfers.

Tombe said it’s true Alberta has not received a payment for many decades, “but that’s for the simple reason that Alberta is in a really good place.”

“Despite the challenging last few years, our economy remains very strong relative to others, so it’s not a program meant to help out higher income provinces like Alberta,” Tombe said.

Last Tuesday, the Free Alberta Strategy was launched with the support of two sitting UCP MLAs — in part to push to end equalization. However, after announcing the referendum question in July, Kenney hasn’t been actively trumpeting the issue.

Still, some believe he will inevitably play a role in the referendum.

On Friday, former UCP MLA Drew Barnes, now an Independent, said in a news release based on what he has heard campaigning in favour of a ‘yes’ vote, Kenney’s plummeting popularity may spoil the referendum.

“I can tell you today that the top threat to the success of this referendum has become the premier himself,” he wrote.

In late September, then-United Conservative party vice-president of policy Joel Mullan also publicly called for Kenney to resign ahead of the referendum, saying the premier could have a negative effect because of his growing unpopularity.

As of Sept. 28, four groups — Alberta Proud, Vote Yes to End Equalization Inc., Bewick’s Equalization Fairness Alberta, and the Society of Albertans Against Equalization — were registered as third-party advertisers with Elections Alberta.

lijohnson@postmedia.com

‘We’re in a crisis’: Top Saskatchewan doctor says COVID-19 surge won’t end soon

By David Lao Global News
Posted October 3, 2021

Sask. Health Authority top doctor does not see end in ‘near future’ to climbing COVID-19 hospitalizations

As Saskatchewan’s rates of COVID-19 cases and deaths continue to hit record-breaking numbers, the chief medical officer of the province’s health authority says that she doesn’t see an end to their health-care crisis coming “in the near future.”

The comments from Saskatchewan Health Authority Chief Medical Officer Dr. Susan Shaw, who spoke with The West Block’s Mercedes Stephenson, come just days after the province’s health minister expressed hesitancy at describing their health-care situation as a crisis or emergency, despite the province seeing a per capita rate of new COVID-19 cases three times the national average and a death rate of four times the national average.


READ MORE: Saskatchewan’s proof of vaccination, negative test result policy now in effect

“The word crisis can mean different things to different people, but it’s certainly an extreme, challenging time. I’m hearing this directly from the doctors, sometimes indirectly from the doctors,” said Health Minister Paul Merriman on Wednesday after being asked whether there was a crisis

In response to whether there was an emergency in the province, Shaw laid it out plainly: “I do think we’re in a crisis.”

Shaw pointed to the province’s ICUs surging beyond usual capacity, forcing adults to be admitted to pediatric intensive care units usually reserved for children, as well as the suspension of hundreds of surgeries and procedures and the province’s organ donor program.

1:55 Business owners worried by vaccination proof pushback

“We’re doing everything we can to make sure that people get the best care they can, regardless of what type of illness they have. But it is a real struggle,” said Shaw.

“We’ve been facing increased numbers for weeks now and I don’t see an end coming in the near future.”

Health officials in Saskatchewan tallied another 480 new cases of COVID-19 on Saturday, as well as another eight people who have died after contracting the virus.

A total of 239 patients are in-hospital receiving care while another 67 are in ICUs.

On Friday, a new proof-of-vaccination or negative test result policy went into effect across Saskatchewan, requiring residents to provide either of those in order to access several businesses or locations in the province.

On whether the new proof of vaccination policy had come too little, too late, Shaw expressed optimism in its implementation but added that it left room for it to still be expanded.

1:35 All Saskatchewan health authority employees to show proof-of-vaccination, or negative test to work

When asked about what needs to be done next by the province, Shaw pointed to a set of recommendations sent by her and other medical officers to the province’s chief medical health officer and elected officials.

“I think the situation has changed significantly since then because we’re seeing even more daily numbers, which are people with infections presenting for care,” said Shaw, who urged the government to consider reducing the size of indoor gatherings.

“I think we need to go even further and making sure that vaccines are accepted and necessary to go into as many places as possible. And I do think that there’s an opportunity here to slow things down so that the system can at least plateau and then hopefully get into recovery mode.”

Explainer: What's behind the wild surges in global LNG prices and the risks ahead

By Jessica Jaganathan

A liquified natural gas (LNG) tanker leaves the dock after discharge at PetroChina's receiving terminal in Dalian, Liaoning province, China July 16, 2018. REUTERS/Chen Aizhu/File Photo

Summary

Asian LNG prices surge from below $2/mmBtu to above $34/mmBtu

European gas storage at low levels, fuelling restocking efforts

Maintenance at LNG plants prolonged and delayed due to COVID

SINGAPORE, Oct 1 (Reuters) - In less than a year and a half, liquefied natural gas (LNG) prices have lurched from record lows to record highs, with the market first reeling from the impact of the pandemic and now unable to keep up with a global recovery in demand.

Demand jumped on economic growth plus a cold northern hemisphere winter followed by a hot summer, while supplies have been stymied by production problems. Recent power curbs and outages across China due to coal shortages have only exacerbated competition between Asia and Europe in securing sources of energy.

That's led to LNG prices hitting $34 per million British thermal units this week compared with just under $2 mmBtu in May 2020, while European gas prices have catapulted 300% higher this year.

Key LNG prices

HOW BAD IS THE SUPPLY-DEMAND MISMATCH?

Gas inventories remain critically tight in Europe and Asia which together account for 94% of global LNG imports and over a third of global gas consumption.

Most major LNG producers are operating at or close to full capacity and have allocated the vast majority of their shipments to specific customers, leaving little prospect of a short-term fix.

According to the International Gas Union, only 8.9 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) of a total 139.1 mtpa of planned new liquefaction capacity is expected to come online in 2021.

Some of that additional capacity has been delayed by COVID-19 movement restrictions that have stopped or dragged out construction and maintenance work at several key sites including in Indonesia and Russia over the past year.

So far this year, 288.1 million tonnes of LNG has loaded for exports globally, just 7% growth over the same period last year, Refinitiv data shows.

WHAT ARE THE RISKS AHEAD?

Buyers may struggle to buy enough gas for restocking and use. Less wind in Europe lately has boosted gas usage by power stations there, while in China power is being rationed to industry and some residential users, triggering a jump in LNG imports.


Current long-range forecasts call for a mild winter in much of Asia this year, but the market fears a repeat of the 2020/21 cold snap could lead to a buying binge similar to the one in January that fired up prices.

"At the extreme, it would not be a surprise if some gas or LNG cargoes could even change hands in the $100/MMBtu range, or ~$580/bbl in oil-equivalent terms, based on observing how prices have spiked in the U.S. gas market, for example, over the past ten years," Citi said in a note to clients last week.

HOW DID WE GET HERE?

Spot LNG fell to a record low of $1.85/mmBtu in May 2020, when coronavirus containment measures snuffed out power demand just as new supplies from major producers including Qatar, Australia and the United States flowed onto the market.

Global LNG exports

LNG producers slashed production, reducing shipments through the 2020 summer which have had a lasting impact on global gas inventories. The 2020/21 winter freeze then caught many power providers short, sparking a surge in spot demand and tightening gas stockpiles further just as logistics constraints slowed delivery times.

Those factors and high shipping rates sent LNG spot prices rocketing to a record $32.50 per mmBtu in mid-January, though prices returned below $10 by the end of the month.

Prices have since bounced back. European buyers struggled to rebuild stocks, with a hot summer boosting air conditioner use just as high carbon prices forced power generators to cut coal use and burn more gas. Gas field maintenance in Norway and lower volumes from Russia also cut supplies.

Higher purchases by Asia on growth in Chinese demand and stock rebuilding exacerbated Europe's shortfall, resulting in Europe-bound shipments through August sliding 18% from the same period in 2020, Refinitiv data shows.

Europe LNG imports

That left Europe's gas inventories at 50-60% full by late summer, compared to 80% in the same period last year. The current re-stocking wave is now fuelling Europe's surge in gas prices.

WILL SUPPLIES BE FORTHCOMING?

Apart from COVID-19-related project delays, the global energy sector pivot away from fossil fuels towards greener energy supplies has slowed investment in LNG infrastructure. That has hindered the ability of producers to quickly deliver more supply to market, said Charif Souki, co-founder of U.S natural gas company Tellurian (TELL.O).

"The world was kind of lulled to complacency because prices were low for five years so no one felt an urge to plan and everyone got very religious on environmental protection and it is wonderful – we should be – but we should look at what things actually work rather than simply what we hope for," he added.