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How long is a day on Venus? Scientists crack mysteries of our closest neighbor

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Venus is an enigma. It’s the planet next door and yet reveals little about itself. An opaque blanket of clouds smothers a harsh landscape pelted by acid rain and baked at temperatures that can liquify lead.

Now, new observations from the safety of Earth are lifting the veil on some of Venus’ most basic properties.

By repeatedly bouncing radar off the planet’s surface over the last 15 years, a UCLA-led team has pinned down the precise length of a day on Venus, the tilt of its axis and the size of its core. The findings are published today in the journal Nature Astronomy. [Read more…] about How long is a day on Venus? Scientists crack mysteries of our closest neighbor

The very first structures in the Universe

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The very first moments of the Universe can be reconstructed mathematically even though they cannot be observed directly.

Physicists from the Universities of Göttingen and Auckland (New Zealand) have greatly improved the ability of complex computer simulations to describe this early epoch.

They discovered that a complex network of structures can form in the first trillionth of a second after the Big Bang. [Read more…] about The very first structures in the Universe

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  • Final dance of unequal black hole partners
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    Final dance of unequal black hole partnersSolving the equations of general relativity for colliding black holes is no simple matter. Physicists began using supercomputers to obtain solutions to this famously hard problem back in the 1960s. In 2000, with no solutions in sight, Kip Thorne, 2018 Nobel Laureate and one of the designers of LIGO, famously…
    Tags: black, holes, gravitational, universe, uncategorized

How birds evolved big brains

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An international team of evolutionary biologists and paleontologists have reconstructed the evolution of the avian brain using a massive dataset of brain volumes from dinosaurs, extinct birds like Archaeopteryx and the Great Auk, and modern birds.

The study, published online today in the journal Current Biology, reveals that prior to the mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous Period, birds and non-avian dinosaurs had similar relative brain sizes.

After the extinction, the brain-body scaling relationship shifted dramatically as some types of birds underwent an explosive radiation to re-occupy ecological space vacated by extinct groups. [Read more…] about How birds evolved big brains

Big breakthrough for ‘massless’ energy storage

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Researchers from Chalmers University of Technology have produced a structural battery that performs ten times better than all previous versions. It contains carbon fibre that serves simultaneously as an electrode, conductor, and load-bearing material. Their latest research breakthrough paves the way for essentially “massless” energy storage in vehicles and other technology.

The batteries in today’s electric cars constitute a large part of the vehicles’ weight, without fulfilling any load-bearing function. A structural battery, on the other hand, is one that works as both a power source and as part of the structure – for example, in a car body. This is termed “massless” energy storage, because in essence the battery’s weight vanishes when it becomes part of the load-bearing structure. Calculations show that this type of multifunctional battery could greatly reduce the weight of an electric vehicle.

The development of structural batteries at Chalmers University of Technology has proceeded through many years of research, including previous discoveries involving certain types of carbon fibre. In addition to being stiff and strong, they also have a good ability to store electrical energy chemically. This work was named by Physics World as one of 2018’s ten biggest scientific breakthroughs. [Read more…] about Big breakthrough for ‘massless’ energy storage

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  • New storage battery more efficient and heat-resistant
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    New storage battery more efficient and heat-resistantAt the beginning of 2020, for the first time ever, renewable energy was able to cover more than half of the electricity consumed in Germany. But the more important renewable energy sources become, the more urgent is the need to store the electricity produced in this way. Green energy could…
    Tags: energy, storage, batteries, battery, technology

Astronauts in crewed missions to Mars could misread vital emotional cues

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Living for nearly 2 months in simulated weightlessness has a modest but widespread negative effect on cognitive performance that may not be counteracted by short periods of artificial gravity, finds a new study published in Frontiers in Physiology.

While cognitive speed on most tests initially declined but then remained unchanged over time in simulated microgravity, emotion recognition speed continued to worsen. In testing, research participants were more likely to identify facial expressions as angry and less likely as happy or neutral.

“Astronauts on long space missions, very much like our research participants, will spend extended durations in microgravity, confined to a small space with few other astronauts,” reports Mathias Basner, professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. [Read more…] about Astronauts in crewed missions to Mars could misread vital emotional cues

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  • The human heart in space: What can we learn from mathematical modeling
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    The human heart in space: What can we learn from mathematical modelingHuman spaceflight has been fascinating man for centuries, representing the intangible need to explore the unknown, challenge new frontiers, advance technology and push scientific boundaries further. A key aspect of long-term human spaceflight is the physiological response and the consequent microgravity (0G) adaptation, which has all the features of accelerated…
    Tags: spaceflight, microgravity, astronauts, exercise, study, space

A stronger maths foundation in first grade

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Six-year-olds can’t really talk to adults about the problems they may experience with mathematics. It is hard for teachers to know for certain who is keeping up and who is lagging, says Prof Elizabeth Henning from the University of Johannesburg.

The teacher could be facing 45 or even 60 little faces in the classroom, she says.

Some children may appear to cope after a few weeks’ school holiday or closures due to Covid-19. But early childhood teachers need to understand what children remember and what may have been forgotten. School reopening is a good time to find out where everyone is with math and reading, she continues. [Read more…] about A stronger maths foundation in first grade

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  • Conflicts in kindergarten can reduce children's interest in reading and math
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    Conflicts in kindergarten can reduce children's interest in reading and mathTeacher-perceived conflict predicts lower interest and pre-academic skills in math and literacy among kindergarteners, a new study from Finland shows. Kindergarten represents a crucial context in which children develop school-related skills and patterns of engagement that form the basis for the development of later competencies important for academic success. Kindergarten…
    Tags: children, teachers, math, skills, study, news, life

Study of auto recalls shows carmakers delay announcements until they ‘hide in the herd’

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Automotive recalls are occurring at record levels, but seem to be announced after inexplicable delays. A research study of 48 years of auto recalls announced in the United States finds carmakers frequently wait to make their announcements until after a competitor issues a recall – even if it is unrelated to similar defects.

This suggests that recall announcements may not be triggered solely by individual firms’ product quality defect awareness or concern for the public interest, but may also be influenced by competitor recalls, a phenomenon that no prior research had investigated.

Researchers analyzed 3,117 auto recalls over a 48-year period – from 1966 to 2013 – using a model to investigate recall clustering and categorized recalls as leading or following within a cluster. They found that 73 percent of recalls occurred in clusters that lasted 34 days and had 7.6 following recalls on average. [Read more…] about Study of auto recalls shows carmakers delay announcements until they ‘hide in the herd’

Study: Countering hate on social media

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The rise of online hate speech is a disturbing, growing trend in countries around the world, with serious psychological consequences and the potential to impact, and even contribute to, real-world violence.

Citizen-generated counter speech may help discourage hateful online rhetoric, but it has been difficult to quantify and study. Until recently, studies have been limited to small-scale, hand-labeled endeavors.

A new paper published in the proceedings of the 2020 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing (EMNLP) offers a framework for studying the dynamics of online hate and counter speech. [Read more…] about Study: Countering hate on social media

Building your professional brand in a prestigious job

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Researchers from HEC Montreal and York University published a new paper in the Journal of Marketing that examines how people who attain “prestigious” posts in high-profile organizations can manage their professional brands to promote career mobility.

The study, forthcoming in the Journal of Marketing, is titled “Working It: Managing Professional Brands in Prestigious Posts” and is authored by Marie-Agnès Parmentier and Eileen Fischer.

Job insecurity is pervasive. There are no guarantees of continued employment, even for those who are extremely successful in their field. This research addresses two primary questions:

  1. for individuals managing their professional brands, what tensions are triggered while working in a prestigious post? and
  2. what practices are conducive to mitigating these tensions and enhancing professional brand equity in a way that promotes career mobility?

[Read more…] about Building your professional brand in a prestigious job

AI and photonics join forces to make it easier to find ‘new Earths’

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Australian scientists have developed a new type of sensor to measure and correct the distortion of starlight caused by viewing through the Earth’s atmosphere, which should make it easier to study the possibility of life on distant planets.

Using artificial intelligence and machine learning, University of Sydney optical scientists have developed a sensor that can neutralise a star’s “twinkle” caused by heat variations in the Earth’s atmosphere. This will make the discovery and study of planets in distant solar systems easier from optical telescopes on Earth.

“The main way we identify planets orbiting distant stars is by measuring regular dips in starlight caused by planets blocking out bits of their sun,” said lead author Dr Barnaby Norris, who holds a joint position as a Research Fellow in the University of Sydney Astrophotonic Instrumentation Laboratory and in the University of Sydney node of Australian Astronomical Optics in the School of Physics. [Read more…] about AI and photonics join forces to make it easier to find ‘new Earths’

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    There might be many planets with water-rich atmospheresAn atmosphere is what makes life on Earth's surface possible, regulating our climate and sheltering us from damaging cosmic rays. But although telescopes have counted a growing number of rocky planets, scientists had thought most of their atmospheres long lost. However, a new study by University of Chicago and Stanford…
    Tags: planets, atmosphere, scientists, star, earth, telescope, university, planet, telescopes, planet's
  • On the quest for other Earths
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    On the quest for other EarthsIn the search for planets capable of sustaining life, an international research team with members from ETH has taken a significant step forward. As the researchers reported recently in the journal Nature Communications, they found signs of a Neptune-sized planet in the Alpha Centauri star system, a mere 4.4 light years…
    Tags: planets, stars, light, planet, earth, telescope, study, atmosphere, exoplanets, team
  • Carbon-rich exoplanets may be made of diamonds
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    Carbon-rich exoplanets may be made of diamondsAs missions like NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, TESS and Kepler continue to provide insights into the properties of exoplanets (planets around other stars), scientists are increasingly able to piece together what these planets look like, what they are made of, and if they could be habitable or even inhabited. In…
    Tags: planets, exoplanets, earth, stars, study, telescope, university, solar, team, scientists
  • Earth has a hot new neighbour – and it's an astronomer's dream
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    Earth has a hot new neighbour – and it's an astronomer's dreamA newly discovered planet could be our best chance yet of studying rocky planet atmospheres outside the solar system, a new international study involving UNSW Sydney shows. The planet, called Gliese 486b (pronounced Glee-seh), is a “super-Earth”: that is, a rocky planet bigger than Earth but smaller than ice giants…
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  • The seven rocky planets of TRAPPIST-1 seem to have very similar compositions
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    The seven rocky planets of TRAPPIST-1 seem to have very similar compositionsA new international study led by astrophysicist Eric Agol from the University of Washington has measured the densities of the seven planets of the exoplanetary system TRAPPIST-1 with extreme precision, the values obtained indicating very similar compositions for all the planets. This fact makes the system even more remarkable and…
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