A female North Atlantic right whale has been found dead off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard‚ Massachusetts‚ with a rope wrapped around it‚ the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced on Sunday.“On the afternoon of January 28‚ 2024‚ NOAA Fisheries was notified of a deceased female North Atlantic right whale near Joseph Sylvia State Beach‚” reads a statement. The whale‚ they add‚ is thought to be a juvenile and was found with a piece of rope entangled around and embedded in its peduncle – the area where the tail fluke connects to the body.Close-up of the whale's tail with embedded rope.Image credit: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution/Michael Moore NOAA Permit # 24359North Atlantic right whales are one of the most endangered of all large whale species. By the early 1890s‚ they had been hunted to the brink of extinction and their population has never recovered to pre-whaling numbers. Although they no longer face the perils of whaling‚ humans still represent their biggest threat‚ namely because of vessel strikes and encounters with fishing gear. According to NOAA Fisheries‚ only around 360 individuals remain‚ including fewer than 70 reproductively active females.“It’s devastating to hear about another loss to North Atlantic right whales‚” Gib Brogan‚ a campaign director at Oceana‚ an international conservation group based in Washington‚ told The New York Times. “This death is even more troubling when it is a female calf that could have gone on to have many calves of her own for decades to come.”The whale’s cause of death is not currently known‚ but experts are examining the rope and planning a necropsy (animal autopsy) to hopefully find some clues‚ NOAA said. Becoming ensnared in a rope in such a way can have a detrimental effect on a whale’s swimming‚ feeding‚ and reproduction‚ and could also lead to flesh wounds and‚ therefore‚ potentially life-threatening infections‚ according to Oceana.Close-up of the rope going across and under the whale and a snarl of rope emerging from the injury.Image credit: Woods Hole Oceanorgraphic Institution/Michael Moore NOAA Permit # 24359This is the latest in a string of whale deaths and injuries off the US coast and comes during the right whale’s calving season‚ which runs from November to April.Since 2017‚ there has been an ongoing Unusual Mortality Event for North Atlantic right whales‚ and this whale is the 37th documented mortality. In that same period‚ 35 whales have also been found seriously injured‚ and 51 sublethally injured or ill. On a more positive note‚ NOAA Fisheries have been making comprehensive efforts to help protect these endangered whales‚ by addressing the threats they face and monitoring their progress‚ as described in their "Road to Recovery" for North Atlantic right whales.

Crystals are regular arrangements of atoms that repeat in space. But what if you had an arrangement of particles that repeat in time? Spontaneously coming together with a certain period over and over again‚ even though the properties might change? Theoretically‚ this was defined by Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek in 2012‚ and over the last few years they have been discovered in a lot of setups‚ including in a children’s toy.But their general duration is brief‚ lasting for a fraction of a second. Now physicists have been able to create a robust time crystal that was shown to survive for at least 40 minutes. That’s 10 million times longer than previous time crystals‚ which usually last just a few milliseconds. And researchers believe it could be even longer-lived than that.The team at TU Dortmund University designed the special crystal in a material called indium gallium arsenide. This semiconductor material is manipulated in a way similar to nuclear magnetic resonance‚ which induces the spins of its atomic nuclei to become polarized. Thus‚ the material is slightly magnetized. The interaction between the spin of the nuclei and that of the electrons in the material generates the polarization‚ and those spontaneous interactions make the time crystal.The periodicity at which the time crystal appears can be easily manipulated in this setup‚ which could have intriguing applications. And the whole time crystal can be "melted"‚ creating a chaotic system with potentially fascinating properties.Time crystals are often visualized by imagining a complex timepiece where the numbers are made to appear by weird mechanical parts coming together once a minute. Another scenario is comparing a time crystal to the moons of Jupiter‚ since their orbital periods are in resonance. This means that for every four orbits of Io‚ Europa does two‚ and Ganymede does one. So every 7.15 days‚ the pattern repeats itself. These are good analogies but they miss a crucial thing: they require energy and they lose energy.A true time crystal requires no energy‚ so the periodicity is not induced. It’s not like a pendulum being wound up. Time crystals just repeat themselves. If this sounds like perpetual motion or another hypothetical violation of thermodynamics‚ worry not. Thermodynamics is safe. A time crystal is a limiting case where the entropy change is zero. The study is published in the journal Nature Physics. 

A pig brain has been kept alive outside of its body for five hours using a new machine developed by scientists at UT Southwestern Medical Center.The newly developed system allows the brain to be isolated from the rest of the body using a super-smart artificial pump that takes care of its blood supply.To mimic real circulation‚ the device can subtly tweak the composition of the blood and adjust its flow for a range of variables‚ including blood pressure‚ volume‚ temperature‚ oxygenation‚ and nutrients. This is enabled through a computerized algorithm that keeps tabs on the blood pressure‚ flow‚ pulsatility‚ and other factors.In the study‚ the system was tested on the brains of domestic farm pigs (Sus scrofa domesticus). Once hooked up to the device‚ brain activity was monitored using continuous electrocorticography and brain depth electrode recordings.According to the researchers‚ there was little-to-no change in brain activity and other measurements for up to five hours of the brain being isolated from the rest of the animal’s body.“This novel method enables research that focuses on the brain independent of the body‚ allowing us to answer physiological questions in a way that has never been done‚” Dr Juan Pascual‚ study author and Professor of Neurology‚ Pediatrics‚ and Physiology at UT Southwestern‚ said in a statement.You might be asking‚ why? Well‚ the scientists behind the device argue that it could allow researchers to understand how certain aspects of the brain operate‚ independently of the body’s influence.They have already used their system to learn about the effects of low blood sugar on the brain. This can often be tricky to study in typical animal models because the body can partially compensate for low blood sugar by altering metabolism‚ which alters the brain. Without the body‚ no such problem can arise.The researchers are also interested in using this device as a cardiopulmonary bypass system‚ the “heart-lung machine” that keeps blood flowing during cardiac surgery and transplantation. Dr Pascual said this device has been patented to test its effectiveness for this job.This team of researchers is not the first to play around with the idea of isolating brains from bodies. Other scientists have previously isolated the head of a dog and a monkey.Who knows where this field of study will lead‚ but perhaps the old sci-fi trope of a "brain in a vat" isn’t as fantastical as once thought. The study is published in the journal Scientific Reports.

It’s rare to catch a supernova as it explodes‚ and it is even rarer to see stars just going boom. This has nothing to do with astronomers' abilities‚ and more to do with the fact that we don’t really know when a star will go supernova – and there are a lot of stars out there. But thanks to new surveys some stars are being studied in the years before their final demise‚ and researchers report now the discovery of a star that exploded months after it has been studied.The supernova in question is called SN 2023fyq. Data on its progenitor was collected 150 days before the supernova took place. This was not because the researchers thought it would end soon‚ but because it was acting a bit strange – it was considered a low-luminosity transient. Its light was changing but not in the dramatic fashion of a nova or supernova.It was an object of interest and was followed many times since changes in luminosity were spotted‚ and it kept increasing until the whole star went kaboom. The event was a core-collapse supernova (CCSN)‚ the final fate of very massive stars running out of nuclear fuel in their core. But their demise is not without warning in the preceding weeks.“The observed luminosity increases exponentially during this time‚ while the object maintained an almost constant photospheric radius‚” the authors wrote in the paper‚ which is awaiting peer review. “These observations of SN 2023fyq and the final moments of the progenitor‚ highlight that the progenitors to CCSNe can undergo some extreme instabilities shortly before their final demise.”The event took place in spiral galaxy NGC 4388 which is in the relatively nearby Virgo Cluster. While there are uncertainties on the exact distance of this galaxy ( around 56.7 million light-years away)‚ its relative closeness makes it a good place to catch such a progenitor before it explodes. This discovery is important for our understanding of what we expect from stars going supernova. The star that became SN 2023fyq did not calmly exist and then suddenly explode: It was undergoing changes leading up to the supernova.“Progenitor analysis typically occurs after the star has been destroyed‚ by searching through archival images‚ and measuring the photometric properties of the assumed progenitor. Although this area of transient astronomy is in its infancy‚ the repercussions of detecting precursor activity are immense‚ highlighting that the progenitor is not in a equilibrium state‚ and may not be represented well by standard stellar evolutionary models. SN 2023fyq and similar transients‚ highlight that the pre-SN appearance of the progenitor is non-trivial‚ and without careful consideration‚ may produce misleading results in supernova progenitor studies‚” the authors concluded.A paper reporting the findings has been submitted to the journal Astronomy &; Astrophysics and it is available on the ArXiv.[H/T Universe Today]

A 3-month-old puppy has surprised vets by unexpectedly regrowing his jawbone after it had been surgically removed because of a tumor. Tyson the French bulldog had to have the majority of his lower left mandible cut away‚ yet enters the history books as the first reported dog ever to regenerate a lost jaw.Vets first noticed Tyson’s cancer when he was brought in for surgery on a cleft palate in the spring of 2023. The tumor was identified as an oral papillary squamous cell carcinoma‚ with follow-up scans revealing that it had not yet spread to other parts of the body.Keen to act fast‚ the young pup's owners gave the go-ahead for doctors to remove the affected area‚ despite knowing that this would probably leave Tyson without a functioning jaw for the rest of his life. “We decided to give him a chance and continue with surgery‚” explained owner Melissa Forsythe‚ in a statement. “We had no idea his jaw would grow back!”Astonishingly‚ however‚ when Tyson was examined eight weeks later‚ veterinarians noticed that his jaw had indeed regrown. While similar outcomes have previously been recorded in human children‚ this is the first time that this has been observed in a dog.Documenting the case‚ the vets overseeing Tyson’s care explain that bone regrowth in young humans is usually enabled thanks to the presence of stem cells in the periosteum‚ which covers the surfaces of bones. When operating on the puppy‚ surgeons took care to leave as much of the periosteum as possible.“Periosteum was preserved ventrally during this puppy’s surgery‚ and it was likely imperative to the subsequent regeneration of the bone‚” they write. “However‚ exact mechanisms by which bone was regenerated cannot be fully understood in this case.”Whatever triggered the regrowth‚ Tyson’s new jaw is almost as good as the original and is the same length as the right mandible. “The patient has continued to do well seven months after subtotal mandibulectomy‚ with a normal occlusion for the breed and no signs of oral pain or reoccurrence of the tumor‚” write the authors of the case report.Despite surpassing all expectations‚ Tyson’s new jaw does not have any teeth and he can’t yet eat solid foods. As a result‚ Forsythe says "he spent the majority of his puppyhood wearing an E-collar‚ not able to play with toys or chew on anything.”However‚ none of this has stopped Tyson from racking up milestones and achievements. For example‚ he has already graduated obedience class and walked in a Christmas parade.Tyson celebrates his first birthday.Image courtesy of Melissa ForsytheCommenting on this unique case‚ veterinarian Alexandra Wright – who led Tyson’s care team – said "more has to be done to understand the likelihood of this occurring in other dogs and if a specific age range makes a difference.”"[But] this case documents a very positive surgical outcome in a life-threatening situation."The case report is published in the journal Frontiers in Veterinary Science.

Young Americans are turning against Israel‚ and that’s Israel’s fault‚ says New York Times columnist Ezra Klein. Is he right?     In a significant January 27 op-ed‚ Klein…

When we look up at the sky on a particularly dark night‚ there is a sense of timelessness. We might see the flash of a meteor‚ and occasionally a comet is visible to the naked eye‚ but the cold and distant stars are unchanging. Or so it seems. There can also be a sense of calm‚ that despite all the uncertainty of the world‚ the stars will always watch over us. So it’s hard to imagine that light years away there could be a lurking event that poses an existential threat to humanity. That threat is extremely tiny‚ but not zero‚ and it is the focus of a recent paper published in The Astrophysical Journal. The study focuses on kilonovae‚ which can occur when either two neutron stars collide‚ or a neutron star collides with a stellar-mass black hole. Kilonovae are similar to supernovae‚ but much more intense. In the paper‚ the authors look at a particular kilonova known as GW170817. It was detected by the LIGO and Virgo gravitational wave observatories in 2017‚ and seen as a gamma-ray burst by the Fermi and INTEGRAL space telescopes. Since we have both optical and gravitational observations‚ the energy of the kilonova can be calculated quite well. The team took this data and combined it with computer simulations on kilonovae. They wanted to estimate the minimum safe distance of a kilonova. In other words‚ how close to us could one go off and still be a harmless light show? What they found was that there are several safe distances‚ depending on which aspect of the supernova poses a threat. Diagrams of emissions from a binary neutron star merger. Credit: Perkins‚ et al One threat would be the X-ray afterglow. When neutron stars collide‚ a jet of high-energy gamma rays can stream from their common polar region. These jets collide with interstellar gas and create an afterglow of intense X-rays. The intensity of this glow could ionize Earth’s atmosphere‚ leaving us exposed to things like solar flares and ultraviolet radiation. But only if the kilonova occurred within about 16 light-years of Earth. The gamma rays themselves could pose a similar threat‚ but only to within about 13 light-years. But as the team found‚ the greater threat wouldn’t reach us at the speed of light. After the explosion‚ a shockwave from the collision would expand away from the kilonova over the span of about a thousand years. When the shockwave collides with interstellar gas and dust‚ it creates intense cosmic rays. If such a stream of cosmic rays reached us it could vaporize our atmosphere‚ killing almost all life on Earth. But this would only pose a threat to a distance of about 40 light-years. GW170817 occurred about 130 million light-years away‚ so it poses absolutely no threat to us. Even if one were to occur in our stellar neighborhood‚ it would likely be too distant to pose any harm. As far as we know‚ there are no binary neutron stars within 40 light-years that will merge any time soon. So there is nothing for us to worry about. Mostly what this study shows is that throughout the cosmos kilonovae can pose a threat to life from time to time‚ but that threat is not large enough to wipe out a large fraction of worlds. We can face cosmic dangers‚ but thankfully a kilonova isn’t one of them. Reference: Perkins‚ Haille ML‚ et al. “Could a Kilonova Kill: A Threat Assessment.” The Astrophysical Journal 961.2 (2024): 170. The post How Dangerous are Kilonovae? appeared first on Universe Today.

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The following article‚ Why Do So Many Young Americans Hate Israel?‚ was first published on Conservative Firing Line. Young Americans are turning against Israel‚ and that’s Israel’s fault‚ says New York Times columnist Ezra Klein. Is he right?     In a significant January 27 op-ed‚ Klein pointed to a recent poll showing only 27% of Americans aged 18 to 29—known as “Gen Z”—are more sympathetic to Israel than to the Palestinian Arabs‚ as compared to 63% … Continue reading Why Do So Many Young Americans Hate Israel? ...