The Overnight News Digest is a nightly series chronicling the eschaton. Tonight is science news!
Phys.org
How does an academic explain the importance of ancient hieroglyphics to modern audiences glued to their phones? Through the cunning use of emojis.
The Israel Museum in Jerusalem this week opened the "Emoglyphs" exhibition, comparing the pictograms of antiquity to those of today.
"I usually find it very hard to explain how hieroglyphs are used as a script," the show's curator, Shirly Ben-Dor Evian, told AFP.
"Then it occurred to me that some of the things can now be explained more easily because we are all writing with pictures now—it has become very widespread."
Discovering a new fundamental underwater force
A team of mathematicians from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Brown University has discovered a new phenomenon that generates a fluidic force capable of moving and binding particles immersed in density-layered fluids. The breakthrough offers an alternative to previously held assumptions about how particles accumulate in lakes and oceans and could lead to applications in locating biological hotspots, cleaning up the environment and even in sorting and packing.
How matter settles and aggregates under gravitation in fluid systems, such as lakes and oceans, is a broad and important area of scientific study, one that greatly impacts humanity and the planet. Consider "marine snow," the shower of organic matter constantly falling from upper waters to the deep ocean. Not only is nutrient-rich marine snow essential to the global food chain, but its accumulations in the briny deep represent the Earth's largest carbon sink and one of the least-understood components of the planet's carbon cycle. There is also the growing concern over microplastics swirling in ocean gyres.
Science Daily
Researchers determine age for last known settlement by a direct ancestor to modern humans
Scientists find iron 'snow' in Earth's coreHomo erectus, one of modern humans' direct ancestors, was a wandering bunch. After the species dispersed from Africa about two million years ago, it colonized the ancient world, which included Asia and possibly Europe.
But about 400,000 years ago, Homo erectus essentially vanished. The lone exception was a spot called Ngandong, on the Indonesian island of Java. But scientists were unable to agree on a precise time period for the site -- until now.
In a new study published in the journal Nature, an international team of researchers led by the University of Iowa; Macquarie University; and the Institute of Technology Bandung, Indonesia, dates the last existence of Homo erectus at Ngandong between 108,000 and 117,000 years ago.
The Earth's inner core is hot, under immense pressure and snow-capped, according to new research that could help scientists better understand forces that affect the entire planet.
The snow is made of tiny particles of iron -- much heavier than any snowflake on Earth's surface -- that fall from the molten outer core and pile on top of the inner core, creating piles up to 200 miles thick that cover the inner core.
The image may sound like an alien winter wonderland. But the scientists who led the research said it is akin to how rocks form inside volcanoes.
The Guardian
World's oldest known fossil forest found in New York quarry
The world’s oldest known fossil forest has been discovered in a sandstone quarry in New York state, offering new insights into how trees transformed the planet.
The forest, found in the town of Cairo, would have spanned from New York to Pennsylvania and beyond, and has been dated to about 386m years old. It is one of only three known fossil forests dating to this period and about 2-3m years older than the previously oldest known fossil forest at Gilboa, also in New York state.
“These fossil forests are extremely rare,” said Chris Berry from Cardiff University’s School of Earth and Ocean Sciences. “To really understand how trees began to draw down carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, we need to understand the ecology and habitats of the very earliest forests.”
See you later, trotting alligators – many crocodiles can gallop
Crocodiles have never had a friendly reputation, but they may just have become even scarier. Veterinary scientists have discovered that a surprising number of species are capable of galloping when they reach their top speeds.
Previously it was thought that only a couple of crocodile species were able to use this horse-like gait, but the latest observations show that the ability extends to eight different species. Alligators and caimans, by contrast, can manage only a trot.
Since the gait is shared across many species, the researchers believe galloping may have first emerged in crocodiles’ ancient land-dwelling ancestors, called crocodylomorphs, which were cat-sized creatures with long legs.
Nature
Rumours fly about changes to US government open-access policy
A rumour that the White House is considering a policy that would make all federally funded studies free to read as soon as they are published has prompted a protest from academic publishers.
Two groups that represent publishers in the United States and around the world sent letters to the US government on 18 December opposing any policy that would mandate immediate open access. The publishers told the administration that such a move would hinder the peer-review process, stifle innovation, and tip the publishing business into chaos.
According to the widely-discussed rumour, whose origin is unclear, the Trump administration is drafting an executive order that would force the change in publishing practices. This would follow an effort led by European funders — called Plan S — which will require that research they fund be open access immediately on publication, with liberal licensing terms.
The science events to watch for in 2020
A Mars invasion, a climate meeting and human–animal hybrids are set to shape the research agenda.2020 will see a veritable Mars invasion as several spacecraft, including three landers, head to the red planet. NASA will launch its Mars 2020 rover, which will stash rock samples that will be returned to Earth in a future mission and will also feature a small, detachable helicopter drone. China will send its first lander to Mars, Huoxing-1, which will deploy a small rover. A Russian spacecraft will deliver a European Space Agency (ESA) rover to the red planet — if issues with the landing parachute can be resolved. And the United Arab Emirates will send an orbiter, in the first Mars mission by an Arab country. […]
CERN hopes to secure funding for a future mega-collider this year. The European particle-physics laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland, will hold a special meeting of its council in Budapest in May, where a committee will decide on the plans as part of an update to the lab’s European Strategy for Particle Physics. CERN’s proposal includes a menu of options for a future collider. The lab hopes to build a 100-kilometre machine that could be up to six times as powerful as the Large Hadron Collider and cost up to €21 billion (US$23.4 billion).
Sci-News
Water Lily Genome Sheds Light on Early Evolution of Flowering Plants
An international team of researchers has successfully sequenced and analyzed the genome of the blue-petal water lily (Nymphaea colorata), a plant species that is valued for the aesthetically attractive blue color of petals. The findings, published in the journal Nature, provide insights into the early evolution of the flowering plants (angiosperms) on key innovations such as flower development and floral scent and color.
Water lilies belong to the flowering plants and have a global distribution that includes cold regions (northern China and northern Canada).
Many species, particularly from the genus Nymphaea, have large and showy flowers. Their aesthetic beauty has captivated notable artists such as the French impressionist Claude Monet.
X17 Particle Might Solve Mystery of Dark Matter
Professor Attila Krasznahorkay and his colleagues at ATOMKI (the Institute of Nuclear Research in Debrecen, Hungary) recently published a paper that hints at the existence of a previously unknown subatomic particle dubbed X17. The team first reported finding traces of the particle in 2016, and they now report more traces in a different experiment.
If the results are confirmed, the X17 particle could help to explain dark matter, the mysterious substance scientists believe accounts for more than 80% of the mass in the Universe.
It may be the carrier of a ‘fifth force’ beyond the four accounted for in the standard model of physics: gravity, electromagnetism, the weak nuclear force and the strong nuclear force.
Science
Relocated island wolves outlasting mainland wolves in new Isle Royale home
Island life isn’t for everyone, nor, it seems, for every wolf.
One year into a federal effort to restock the wolf population in Isle Royale National Park in Michigan’s Lake Superior, a pack of eight relocated from a nearby island appears to be thriving, while four of 11 wolves brought from the mainland have died. Another wolf voluntarily departed last winter, returning to Minnesota over an ice bridge.
The U.S. National Park Service (NPS) today released news of the most recent wolf deaths, and the emerging pattern is clear: Wolves relocated as a pack from Canada’s Michipicoten Island Provincial Park have so far been more successful on Isle Royale than wolves brought individually from either mainland Minnesota, Michigan, or Canada’s Ontario province. The Michipicoten wolves’ provenance as a bonded group was likely crucial to the fact they have all survived so far in the new environment, says wildlife ecologist Rolf Peterson from Michigan Technological University in Houghton, who has studied Isle Royale wolves since 1971. “That’s about the only explanation I can think of,” to account for the difference in the wolves’ fates.
What is love? It depends which language you speak
Falling in love is never easy. But do it in a foreign language, and complications pile up quickly, from your first fumbling attempts at deep expression to the inevitable quarrel to the family visit punctuated by remarks that mean so much more than you realize. Now, a study of two dozen terms related to emotion in nearly 2500 languages suggests those misunderstandings aren’t all in your head. Instead, emotional concepts like love, shame, and anger vary in meaning from culture to culture, even when we translate them into the same words.
“I wish I had thought of this,” says Lisa Feldman Barrett, a neuroscientist and psychologist at Northeastern University in Boston. “It’s a very, very well-reasoned, clever approach.”
Los Angeles Times
California coastal waters rising in acidity at alarming rate, study finds
Waters off the California coast are acidifying twice as fast as the global average, scientists found, threatening major fisheries and sounding the alarm that the ocean can absorb only so much more of the world’s carbon emissions.
A new study led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration also made an unexpected connection between acidification and a climate cycle known as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation — the same shifting forces that other scientists say have a played a big role in the higher and faster rates of sea level rise hitting California in recent years.
El Niño and La Niña cycles, researchers found, also add stress to these extreme changes in the ocean’s chemistry.
These findings come at a time when record amounts of emissions have already exacerbated the stress on the marine environment. When carbon dioxide mixes with seawater, it undergoes chemical reactions that increase the water’s acidity.
The Washington Post
To protect birds, more architects and local governments alter building designs
Birds are winging their way somewhere unexpected: building codes.
Turns out that glass-covered buildings in modern cities can become graveyards for migrating birds, leading to hundreds of millions of bird deaths each year. Under pressure from conservation groups, architects and local governments are increasingly tweaking building codes to protect birds from hitting buildings.
This month, the New York City Council passed legislation that puts birds into its building code. It requires new construction and newly altered buildings to incorporate specially treated glass on the lowest 75 feet in an attempt to reduce the number of bird strikes.
NPR News
Archaeologists Discover Ancient Greek Royal Tombs Dating Back 3,500 Years
A team of American archaeologists has discovered two large ancient Greek royal tombs dating back some 3,500 years near the site of the ancient city of Pylos in southern Greece. The findings cast a new light on the role of the ancient city — mentioned in Homer's Odyssey — in Mediterranean trade patterns of the Late Bronze Age.
Each of the two tombs — one about 39 feet in diameter and the other about 28 feet — was built in a dome-shape structure known as a tholos.
Space
Boeing's 1st Starliner Spacecraft to Land Sunday After Launching Into Wrong Orbit
The first trip to orbit by Boeing's CST-100 Starliner crew capsule will be a short one.
Starliner has been cleared to land Sunday morning (Dec. 22), about 48 hours after launching on an uncrewed demonstration mission called Orbital Test Flight (OFT). OFT was supposed to go to the International Space Station (ISS), but Starliner's onboard timing system erred shortly after liftoff and the capsule ended up stranded in a low orbit, without enough fuel to make its appointed rounds.
So the mission team has decided to bring Starliner down six days earlier than previously planned, NASA and Boeing representatives announced today (Dec. 21).
Historic 1st Photo of a Black Hole Named Science Breakthrough of 2019
The first image of a black hole, previously thought nigh impossible to capture, was named the top scientific breakthrough of 2019 by the journal Science.
Black holes have gravitational pulls so powerful that, past thresholds known as their event horizons, nothing can escape, not even light. Supermassive black holes millions to billions of times the mass of our sun are thought to lurk in the hearts of virtually every large galaxy, influencing the fate of every star caught in their gravitational thrall.
Using Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity, German physicist Karl Schwarzschild was the first to lay the foundation of the science describing black holes. In the decades since then, scientists have detected numerous signs of black holes, such as the effects their gravity have on their surroundings and the ripples in the fabric of space and time known as gravitational waves emitted when they collide.
Gizmodo
Prehistoric Humans Built a Wall to Keep Out the Sea—But It Failed
A 7,000-year-old seawall has been discovered off the Israeli coast, and it’s now the oldest-known defense against rising sea levels. The seawall eventually failed, and the village had to be abandoned, in what’s serving as an ominous lesson from the past.
The Tel Hreiz archaeological site is located off the Carmel coast of Israel and once hosted a vibrant Neolithic community. This Mediterranean settlement thrived for hundreds of years, as its villagers hunted gazelle and deer, farmed cows and pigs, fished for tilapia, raised their dogs, and manufactured copious amounts of olive oil.
All seemed well, but this community was completely oblivious to something we’re all too familiar with today: massive amounts of melting ice. But whereas we’re responsible for the current climate catastrophe and the associated rise in sea levels, these Neolithic people were completely innocent.
IBM Research Created a New Battery That Outperforms Lithium-Ion—No Problematic Heavy Metals Required
With everything from cars, to trucks, to even airplanes going electric, the demand for batteries is going to continue to skyrocket in the coming years—but the availability of the materials currently used to make them is limited. So scientists at IBM Research have developed a new battery whose unique ingredients can be extracted from seawater instead of mining. […]
As a potential solution, scientists at IBM Research’s Battery Lab came up with a new design that replaces the need for cobalt and nickel in the cathode, and also uses a new liquid electrolyte (the material in a battery that helps ions move from one end to the other) with a high flash point. The combination of the new cathode and the electrolyte materials was also found to limit the creation of lithium dendrites which are spiky structures that often develop in lithium-ion batteries that can lead to short circuits. So not only would this new battery have less of an impact on the environment to manufacture, but it would also be considerably safer to use, with a drastically reduced risk of fire or explosions.
But the benefits of IBM Research’s design don’t stop there. The researchers believe the new battery would have a larger capacity than existing lithium-ion batteries, could potentially charge to about 80 percent of its full capacity in just five minutes, would be more energy-efficient, and, on top of it all, it would be cheaper to manufacture which in turn means they could help reduce the cost of gadgets and electric vehicles.
The Root
Meet the Black Woman Who Is the Brains Behind the Green New Deal
Rhiana Gunn-Wright is constantly figuring out how best to engage black people on environmental justice and crafting policy that empowers them against under-investment and structural racism. As she sees it, environmental justice is central to black liberation. But, as Gunn-Wright explained to me, issues like climate change aren’t explained to people in ways that relate to their experience.
She kept this in mind as a key architect of the Green New Deal, which Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s office used to draft H.R. 109. As policy director at New Consensus, Gunn-Wright is charged with ensuring that the black and brown communities that are disproportionately impacted by climate change will reap the benefits of a policy designed to combat it.
AP News
Scientists seeking cause of huge freshwater mussel die-off
On a recent late fall afternoon at Kyles Ford, the white branches of sycamore trees overhung the banks of the Clinch River, leaves slowly turning yellow. Green walnuts covered the ground. The shallow water ran fast and cold over the rocky bottom, but it was littered with the white shells of dead mussels.
Freshwater mussels range from about the size of a large button to the size of a billfold, but the work they do for ecosystems is enormous. They can filter around 8-10 gallons of river water each day, cleaning it of algae, silt and even heavy metals and making the whole river a better environment for fish, amphibians, plants and bugs. Mussels also benefit the people who use their rivers as a source of drinking water.
That’s why scientists are working quickly to discover the cause of a massive mussel die-off on the Clinch and understand whether it is related to similar die-offs on at least five U.S. rivers and another in Spain.
It’s sizzling: Australia experiences hottest day on record
Australia experienced its hottest day on record and temperatures are expected to soar even higher as heatwave conditions embrace most of the country.
The Australian Bureau of Meteorology said the average temperature across the country of 40.9 degrees Celsius (105 Fahrenheit) Tuesday beat the record of 40.3 Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) from Jan. 7, 2013.
“This hot air mass is so extensive, the preliminary figures show that yesterday was the hottest day on record in Australia, beating out the previous record from 2013 and this heat will only intensify,” bureau meteorologist Diana Eadie said in a video statement on Wednesday.
LiveScience
A Never-Before-Seen Event Is Collapsing an Ice Sheet in the Russian Arctic
For the first time, scientists think they're watching a fast-moving river of ice being born. These so-called ice streams are rapid, long-lasting flows of ice that form in the middle of more static ice formations known as ice sheets. There are only a handful of them on Earth. They form in remote parts of the arctic and antarctic and, once established, can last decades or even centuries. Until now, no one had ever seen one emerge.
But now, in a new paper published Nov. 21 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, a team of glaciologists argues that another, shorter-term event that began in 2013 in the Russian Arctic may have sparked the emergence of a long-lasting ice stream. The event, called a glacier surge, is like a frozen flood. A great deal of ice comes loose and bursts out toward the ocean in a rush.
"After the initial surge in 2013, the glacier still retains fast flow at around [1.1 miles per year (1.8 kilometers per year)]," the authors wrote in the new study. That's "an unusually high and long-lasting speed for a glacier surge."
Giant Panda Babies Are Born 'Undercooked' and No One Knows Why
Giant panda babies are born weirdly tiny and underdeveloped. No one knows why, and the major theory just turned out to be wrong.
Carnivorans — an order of mammals that includes all bears, dogs, cats, raccoons, weasels and seals, among other species — tend to enter the world small, weak, hairless and blind, according to a new paper published Dec. 2 in the Journal of Anatomy. But bears in particular tend to give birth to unusually small cubs.
Some researchers suspect that this oddity has to do with hibernation: At some point, bears started cutting short their pregnancies to avoid gestating while they hibernate, and now that trait is baked into every bear species — even pandas, which don't hibernate. That theory has a big problem though, the authors of the new paper found: Pandas are born exceptionally tiny and underdeveloped, even for bears. And other bears, including species that do hibernate, are born with robust, mature skeletons.
Science Alert
6-Foot Penguins Used to Roam The Planet. This Species Could Explain What Happened
A new species of extinct penguin has been discovered. It's helping us bridge the gap between modern penguins and their counterparts from the Paleocene epoch - the 10-million-year period following dinosaur extinction.
The world's oldest known penguins existed only a few million years after the mass-extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs – except for birds, the only dinosaurs that didn't go extinct.
Some of these earliest penguins had longer legs than their living relatives. And some species, including the colossal Kumimanu biceae, would have rivalled the size of you or I.
NASA's 'Quiet' Supersonic Jet Experiment Was Just Approved For Final Assembly
The X–59 Quiet SuperSonic Technology (QueSST), to give it its full name, is an experimental jet being developed by the space agency, with a specific aeronautic design intended to cut down on sonic booms when the aircraft reaches supersonic speed.
The ambitious proof-of-concept project is the result of long years of research and development, and the design just passed a major technical hurdle this week, receiving clearance for final assembly, as announced by NASA.
What that means is that the X–59 is on track to have its first test flight in 2021, the details of which will be confirmed and approved next year.
The jet, which will still produce sonic boom shockwaves – but much quieter ones, expected not to disturb civilians on the ground – is currently being built by Lockheed Martin, in a project costing close to US$250 million.
BBC News
How the scramble for sand is destroying the Mekong
A crisis is engulfing the Mekong River, its banks are collapsing and half a million people are at risk of losing their homes. The entire ecosystem of this South East Asian river is under threat, all because of the world's insatiable demand for sand.
Extracted from the bed of this giant river in Cambodia and Vietnam, sand is one of the Earth's most sought-after resources. Up to 50 billion tonnes are dredged globally every year - the largest extractive industry on the planet.
"Extraction is happening at absolutely astronomical rates, we're having an industrial-scale transformation of the shape of the planet," says river scientist Prof Stephen Darby at Southampton University.
Australia fires: A visual guide to the bushfires and extreme heat
Australia is grappling with massive bushfires fuelled by record-breaking temperatures and months of severe drought.
Fires in New South Wales (NSW) have burned at least 2.7m hectares (7.4m acres) this season, destroying more than 700 houses. Eight people - including two volunteer firefighters whose vehicle was hit by a tree - have died. […]
To put the fire damage in New South Wales in perspective, 1.8 million hectares burned in the 2018 California wildfires and some 900,000 hectares were lost in the 2019 Amazon fires.
Flames up to 70m (230ft) in height have been reported.
So are bushfires getting worse?
Many Australians are asking that very question and whether these fires are linked to climate change - but the science is complicated.
Scientists have long warned that a hotter, drier climate will contribute to fires becoming more frequent and more intense.
Ars Technica
Physicists measured forces behind why Cheerios clump together in your bowl
Those who love their Cheerios for breakfast are well acquainted with how those last few tasty little "O"s tend to clump together in the bowl: either drifting to the center, or to the outer edges. It's been dubbed the "Cheerios effect," although I can state with confidence the phenomenon can also observed in a bowl of Froot Loops. Now a team of physicists has made the first direct measurements of the various forces at work in the phenomenon, described in a new paper in Physical Review Letters.
"There have been a lot of models describing this Cheerios effect, but it's all been theoretical," said co-author Ian Ho, an undergraduate at Brown University. "Despite the fact that this is something we see every day and it's important for things like self-assembly [for micro robotics], no one had done any experimental measurements at this scale to validate these models. That's what we were able to do here."
The Cheerios effect is found elsewhere in nature, such as grains of pollen (or, alternatively, mosquito eggs) floating on top of a pond, or small coins floating in a bowl of water.
Acidifying oceans could eat away at sharks’ skin and teeth
For hundreds of millions of years, sharks have been roaming Earth’s oceans making meals out of a huge range of critters, from the whale shark gobbling up tiny krill to the 60-foot megalodon that could take down whales. Their ancestral line has survived mass extinctions with ease, most notably the catastrophe that took down the dinosaurs.
But nothing could have prepared them for the scourge that is humanity—we’re polluting their waters and snatching up their prey and hunting them to extinction. And now, thanks to climate change, humans may be transforming the very water sharks swim into an existential threat: In findings published today in the journal Scientific Reports, researchers show that prolonged exposure to acidified water corrodes the scales, known as denticles, that make up a shark’s skin. To be clear, this work was done in the lab and on only one species, but the implications are troubling. As we belch still more CO2 into the atmosphere, which reacts with seawater and makes the oceans more acidic, the seas themselves could become yet another threat that pushes sharks over the brink.