Science stories of the week

Not a headline I wanted to read.

Bird flu in cats points to risk of another pandemic​


https://academic.oup.com/ofid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/ofid/ofaf261/8123920?login=false

Paywall so...

https://phys.org/news/2025-05-bird-flu-cats-pandemic.html - this is swine flue H5N1

Just a little back ground on this to tie it all together

Spanish flu (that did not originate in Spain) was also H1N1 - this killed about 50 million people.

This mutated over time as do all living things and we now have "seasonal" flu, also H1N1 - this is an Influenza type A

The H and N are types of protein found on the virus.

en.wikipedia.org

Influenza A virus - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
wegs said:
Not 'this week,' but close enough...thought it was interesting.

www.sciencenews.org

Here’s how we might generate electricity from rain

Water drops produce electricity when dripped through a small tube. That power might be harnessed as renewable energy in rainy places.
www.sciencenews.org www.sciencenews.org
Click to expand...

An oasis compared to the kind of "Free thoughts" and "Pseudoscience" topics that apparently dominate this week.

  • The plug flow from four 32-centimeter-long tubes for 20 seconds produced enough electricity to continuously power 12 LED lightbulbs during that time. “We think it will be helpful in rainy places, including tropical countries like Singapore,” Soh says.

In contrast to places where springtime is about it for rain.
_
 
This is weird.

Length contraction is a feature of SR but the rotation is new to me, I had not thought it through fully.

Some background here and if you scroll down the Penrose- Terrel effect is mentioned "Visual effects."

phys.org

A snapshot of relativistic motion: Special relativity made visible

When an object moves extremely fast—close to the speed of light—certain basic assumptions that we take for granted no longer apply. This is the central consequence of Albert Einstein's special theory of relativity. The object then has a different length than when it is at rest, and time passes...
phys.org phys.org
 
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Pinball1970 said:
This is weird.

Length contraction is a feature of SR but the rotation is new to me, I had not thought it through fully.

Some background here and if you scroll down the Penrose- Terrel effect is mentioned "Visual effects."

phys.org

A snapshot of relativistic motion: Special relativity made visible

When an object moves extremely fast—close to the speed of light—certain basic assumptions that we take for granted no longer apply. This is the central consequence of Albert Einstein's special theory of relativity. The object then has a different length than when it is at rest, and time passes...
phys.org phys.org
Click to expand...
  • "Technically, it is currently impossible to accelerate rockets to a speed at which this effect could be seen in a photograph. However, the group led by Peter Schattschneider from USTEM at TU Wien found another solution inspired by art: they used extremely short laser pulses and a high-speed camera to recreate the effect in the laboratory. "We moved a cube and a sphere around the lab and used the high-speed camera to record the laser flashes reflected from different points on these objects at different times," explain Victoria Helm and Dominik Hornof..."
So basically a simulation of the appearance or visual illusion that one might observe at that speed, of a couple of uncharacteristically plain or "devoid of surface details" Borg vessels. (The spherical version of the latter being rarely witnessed in the ST franchise.) Hopefully more imitations to come of effects that would be encountered under extreme conditions.
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Transmission of transgenic mosquito-killing fungi during copulation

phys.org

Scientists develop 'mosquito STD' to combat malaria

A team of researchers including a University of Maryland entomologist has successfully turned the pesky mosquito's sex life into its downfall. By creating what amounts to a sexually transmitted disease specifically for mosquitoes, the scientists unveiled a potentially powerful new weapon in the...
phys.org phys.org

From the article above.

"A team of researchers including a University of Maryland entomologist has successfully turned the pesky mosquito's sex life into its downfall.

By creating what amounts to a sexually transmitted disease specifically for mosquitoes, the scientists unveiled a potentially powerful new weapon in the global fight against malaria."

The paper.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-83242-5
 
phys.org

Largest map of the universe announced revealing 800,000 galaxies, challenging early cosmos theories

In the name of open science, the multinational scientific collaboration COSMOS on Thursday released the data behind the largest map of the universe. Called the COSMOS-Web field, the project, built with data collected by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), consists of all the imaging and a...
phys.org phys.org

800,000 Galaxies at your fingertips.

More from Webb, once you start playing around with the link below, it becomes a little addictive.
You can zoom in and view the individual pixel, my understanding is that spectral data is available for each one, that was one of the features of the instruments.
Zooming right in then out step by step illustrates the incredible technology Webb has in its locker.
You have other features too, top right you can change filters if you know what you are doing!

 
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Pinball1970 said:
Some better news, Vera Rubin first light.

phys.org

Vera Rubin observatory reveals stunning first images

Breathtaking stellar nurseries, a sprawling stretch of cosmos teeming with millions of galaxies, and thousands of newly discovered asteroids were revealed Monday in the first deep space images captured by the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile.
phys.org phys.org
Click to expand...
  • In just 10 hours of observations, the Rubin Observatory discovered 2,104 previously undetected asteroids in our solar system, including seven near-Earth objects—all of which pose no threat. For comparison, all other ground- and space-based observatories combined discover about 20,000 new asteroids per year. Rubin is also set to be the most effective observatory at spotting interstellar objects passing through the solar system.
That will make Avi Loeb happy.
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C C said:
  • In just 10 hours of observations, the Rubin Observatory discovered 2,104 previously undetected asteroids in our solar system, including seven near-Earth objects—all of which pose no threat. For comparison, all other ground- and space-based observatories combined discover about 20,000 new asteroids per year. Rubin is also set to be the most effective observatory at spotting interstellar objects passing through the solar system.
That will make Avi Loeb happy.
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Click to expand...
Dr Loeb is a class A nut job
 
wegs said:
Right? Don’t shoot the messenger. lol
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These conspiracy theories indicate a collapse of rationality among the US public. This is what social media - and more particularly, its manipulation by anti-rational actors for political purposes - is doing to US society. A nation of hysterical, credulous morons is being cultivated.
 
exchemist said:
These conspiracy theories indicate a collapse of rationality among the US public. This is what social media - and more particularly, its manipulation by anti-rational actors for political purposes - is doing to US society. A nation of hysterical, credulous morons is being cultivated.
Click to expand...
Yep, I hear ya - some of the stuff I run across is totally unhinged. But I don’t think it’s a case of people turning into ''morons''. A lot of people in general, don’t trust the system (whatever that is) anymore, and are trying to make sense of things when life is feeling pretty chaotic. But, I do agree that social media and politics has damaged critical thinking. :confused:
 
wegs said:
Yep, I hear ya - some of the stuff I run across is totally unhinged. But I don’t think it’s a case of people turning into ''morons''. A lot of people in general, don’t trust the system (whatever that is) anymore, and are trying to make sense of things when life is feeling pretty chaotic. But, I do agree that social media and politics has damaged critical thinking. :confused:
Click to expand...
But this woolly notion of not trusting “the system”, whatever TF they think that means, is part of the problem. For some people, “the system” can be expanded - gormlessly - to take in just about any source of information or expertise. Republican politics these days is all about undermining trust in the institutions society has relied on, from the law to medicine, and even science itself. The internet is the handmaid of these people.
 
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