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The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has warned of disruption to air travel along the path of April 8’s total solar eclipse.According to a statement released by the agency‚ air traffic and airports should prepare for disruption to normal proceedings before‚ during‚ and after the event‚ starting from 10:00 am UTC on April 7 through to 4:00 am UTC on April 10.Though the eclipse itself will only cover the US between around 6:30 pm to 7:40 pm on April 8‚ this extended period is likely because it’s expected that lots of people will be descending upon areas in the eclipse’s path of totality‚ via plane‚ in order to get the rare opportunity of seeing a total solar eclipse. After all‚ the next one in the contiguous US isn’t scheduled to be until 2044.“There may be a higher traffic volume than normal anticipated at airports along the path of the eclipse. Traffic should anticipate delays during peak traffic periods. Parking may be limited – particularly at the smaller‚ uncontrolled airports‚” reads the FAA’s statement‚ with the agency listing over 400 airports that could be affected.It’s not just delays on the roads around airports that could be a problem for people either. The statement also warns that aircraft “should be prepared for potential airborne holding‚ reroutes‚ and/or Expect Departure Clearance Times (EDCTs)”. That’s not just helpful information for pilots – if you’re planning on traveling by air in this area during this timeframe‚ you may well end up delayed.Airports and air traffic aren’t the only ones to have been on the receiving end of a warning about the eclipse. Recent weeks have seen emergency officials put out warnings to residents in the path of totality to stock up on essential supplies‚ including for pets‚ whilst some schools in affected areas have been asked to close.For those heading into the crowds‚ whether by plane or by other means‚ you could be in for a spectacular sight – as long as the weather doesn’t end up being cloudy.“During the 2024 eclipse‚ the Sun will be in or near solar maximum‚ when the magnetic field is more like a tangled hairball. Streamers will likely be visible throughout the corona‚” according to NASA. “In addition to that‚ viewers will have a better chance to see prominences – which appear as bright‚ pink curls or loops coming off the Sun.”“With lucky timing‚ there could even be a chance to see a coronal mass ejection – a large eruption of solar material – during the eclipse.”Sounds pretty great – so don’t forget to pack your eclipse glasses so you can watch in wonder safely.

Gravitational wave detectors on Earth have already revolutionized astronomy and in the next decade‚ we will have LISA‚ the first gravitational observatory in deep space. But there is scope to build a detector in between these two types‚ both in terms of location and frequencies. This can be done by building it on the Moon.The idea for a lunar gravitational wave detector was first proposed during the Apollo program. Now‚ in a new paper‚ scientists explore three options for building gravitational wave observatories on the Moon‚ including turning the Moon itself into a detector. As they note‚ there are plenty of challenges and the technology is not quite there yet but the potential is enormous – as would be the antenna itself. Gravitational wave detectors can measure the tiny distortions of space-time by gravitational waves caused when massive objects move and merge. One of the proposals‚ from senior author Jan Harms of the Gran Sasso Science Institute‚ is the Lunar Gravitational Wave Antenna‚ which aims to use the deformation of the Moon as a gravitational wave passed through it using highly sensitive seismometers. “The gravitational wave would come... from very far away‚ like the early universe. [I]t would come to the Moon and it would cause it to vibrate like a bell‚" Harms told IFLScience. "Then essentially you can put sensors on the surface of the Moon to measure its deformations or vibrations."Another proposal suggests using mirrors and lasers rather than seismometers to measure the smallest deformations‚ while the third doesn’t focus on the Moon as the detector but as an ideal location to build a detector just like the Ligo and Virgo detectors we have on Earth. The laser interferometers LIGO and Virgo use are big L-shaped vacuum tubes through which a laser beam is sent. It should take the light the same amount of time to travel down both tubes. However‚ if a gravitational wave is passing through‚ one will be shorter by an amount less than an atom‚ enough for the detector to confirm the event.To reach such delicate precision‚ the mirrors that reflect the lasers are attached to devices called super attenuators that can reduce the shaking of the planet by a trillion times. The Moon may have moonquakes‚ but it's the most seismically quiet place in the Solar system‚ so the precision would be even higher.                                      To maximize the sensitivity of these devices‚ they also have to be cooled to extreme temperatures. The Moon has some incredibly cold regions‚ like the bottom of craters at the poles where sunlight never reaches. However‚ this is also one of the challenges identified in the research: if placed in craters that are always in darkness‚ how to power a detector? Moon missions are usually powered by solar panels and we saw what happened when that goes wrong with Japan's SLIM lunar lander earlier this year.  Controlling the experiment at a distance will also be an issue unless we are planning many permanent lunar bases. There are also challenges in creating seismometers‚ laser systems‚ and high-quality mechanics that would work to the high precision necessary. So‚ these detectors are not ready now but the team is confident that the challenges can be overcome. It might not be a quick turnaround but it is certainly possible‚ and there is a very compelling scientific case to do so.“This effort to realize detectors is really closing the gap between what we want to do on Earth and what we can do in space. This is going to open an immense science case that we cannot have in any other way‚” Harms told IFLScience.Gravitational wave detectors on the Moon would detect gravitational waves in the deciHertz range instead of the 1 to 100s Hertz range Earth-based ones do. These waves are those produced by the mergers of binary neutron stars months or even years before colliding. It could also help us find more precise locations of massive black hole binaries. Also‚ given that lunar gravitational wave detectors would be long-lived and not start-and-stop experiments‚ they could provide wider searchers for gravitational wave events and help test general relativity even more.The study is published in the journal Philosophical Transactions Of The Royal Society A.

Mimicry is pretty common in the animal kingdom. It might involve species mimicking the coloration of trees to better hide from predators‚ or it can involve species mimicking each other to act as a defense mechanism. In some cases‚ predators mimic the surroundings to better ambush unsuspecting prey items. One new potential example of mimicry in crab spiders‚ where the male and female together resemble a complete flower‚ could be the first cooperative mimicry to be observed.In a tropical rainforest in Xishuangbanna‚ Yunnan Province‚ China‚ researchers saw both a male and female crab spider (Thomisus guangxicus) together. This is not unusual as courtship and breeding behavior takes many days between male and female crab spiders. However‚ the combination of the male spider on the back of the female spider made the researchers question whether this was an example of cooperative mimicry.“We think they are together because of the courtship behavior‚ but as we observe‚ the behavior lasts for several days. According to previous studies‚ female crab spiders tend to eat males during or after mating‚ and so far‚ the most reasonable explanation is the female hunger hypothesis‚” Shi-Mao Wu‚ co-author of the study‚ told IFLScience.The larger white female species seems to mimic the fused petals of the flowers of the native Hoya pandurata plant‚ a type of milkweed. Meanwhile‚ the male perched on top appears to resemble the flowers’s pistils and stamens. The team say that the complex flowers are only truly mimicked when both male and female appear together. “There is no doubt that the two spiders are perfectly integrated into the environment‚ so we suspect that they can more easily avoid natural enemies‚ especially predation‚ during this long mating process‚ which may improve male survival‚” continued Wu. The team think this could be the first case of cooperative mimicry in the world‚ according to New Scientist. These spiders may mimic flowers both to avoid predation by birds‚ but also to ambush prey themselves. Some species of crab spiders can even change color to better match their surroundings. Crab spiders in the genus Thomisus are known for their incredible mimicry and ambush skills.Image Credit: JossK/Shutterstock.com“Our preliminary observations do not find them together on other plants‚ but we do not rule out this possibility. We conjecture that their mating on the flowers of this species is more advantageous due to their cooperative mimicry‚” finished Wu. The paper is published in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment.

Dogs have an innate ability to recognize nouns‚ forming mental representations of the objects they hear referenced with words. And while our furry friends may have kept this remarkable power hidden up to now by generally refusing to fetch items on demand‚ a new study on canine brain activity has given them away.Until now‚ most research into dogs’ linguistic skills had tested their ability to retrieve specific objects‚ with disappointing performances making it difficult to assess the extent to which pooches recognize reference words. To gain a deeper understanding‚ the authors of the new study used non-invasive electroencephalography (EEG) to measure the animals’ brain activity when hearing nouns from their learned vocabulary.The researchers had 18 dog owners call out the words for toys that their pets knew by name‚ before holding up either said item or a mismatched object. Observing the dogs’ EEG readings‚ the study authors noted that this brain activity differed depending on whether the displayed toy matched the recited word or not.For instance‚ when the dogs were presented with a mismatch‚ their brains reacted by producing a signal resembling what’s known as the “N400 effect” in humans. This particular brain response generally arises when we hear or read words that don’t line up with our expectations and is seen as “a well-established neural correlate of semantic processing‚" the authors write.   In a statement‚ study author Marianna Boros explained that the presence of this signal in the dogs’ ECG readings indicates that “they activate a memory of an object when they hear its name.”“Your dog understands more than he or she shows signs of‚” added co-author Lilla Magyari. “Dogs are not merely learning a specific behavior to certain words‚ but they might actually understand the meaning of some individual words as humans do.”The strength of this effect was generally stronger for words that dogs were more familiar with‚ thus supporting the conclusion that the animals really do understand nouns. Furthermore‚ the researchers found that this ability is not dependent on the size of a dog’s vocabulary‚ indicating that semantic processing is inherent to the species and doesn’t arise as a product of extensive training.“It doesn’t matter how many object words a dog understands - known words activate mental representations anyway‚ suggesting that this ability is generally present in dogs and not just in some exceptional individuals who know the names of many objects‚” said Boros.Despite the advanced linguistic skills illustrated by the dogs’ brain activity patterns‚ the study authors explain that the animals probably don’t process words in the same way as human adults‚ or even babies. For instance‚ they write that “when learning the meaning of a word‚ infants grasp that words refer to categories‚ not individual objects.” In contrast‚ the dogs involved in this research displayed “one-to-one mapping of object names to individual objects‚ but not mapping to categories.”Nonetheless‚ they say that the ability to understand words for specific items “assumes that dogs have to evoke the mental representation of the object upon hearing its name and thus link the two in a referential manner.”The study is published in the journal Current Biology.

Last night the Earth experienced the strongest geomagnetic storm since 2017‚ but it was minor compared to the one triggered by the most powerful solar storm on record in 1859‚ known as the Carrington Event. Now‚ we learn the disruption to the Earth’s magnetic field during the Carrington Event was even greater than previously estimated. A combination of modern digital tracing and detailed reconstruction have mined records of the Earth’s magnetic field at the time to reveal more than was thought possible. The finding reinforces how vulnerable modern society could be to a repetition of an event like this.On September 1‚ 1859‚ the Sun spewed electrified gas and subatomic particles amounting to the energy of 10 billion atomic bombs towards the planet‚ causing telegraph communications to fail‚ literally shocking operators‚ and causing systems to catch fire. Northern Lights were reported as far south as Cuba and Hawaii‚ allowing witnesses to read newspapers by the light of the auroras alone. Solar storms have occurred throughout Earth’s existence. However‚ our estimates of scale relied on very indirect measures like the presence of certain radio-isotopes in tree rings. In recorded history reports of enormous auroras can hint at the timing of solar storms‚ but are of little use in estimating size. Consequently‚ our data on just how big solar storms can get stretches back less than two centuries. As chance would have it‚ the Carrington Event‚ easily the largest storm in that time‚ occurred when such tracking was in its infancy.  Records made at the time have been found to hold more information about the Event than had been thought‚ and it’s not good news for those preparing for future impacts in a more wired world.Had the Carrington Event occurred even a few decades later than its actual date of 1859‚ it would have had electricity and long railway lines to electrify‚ not just telegraphs. At least‚ however‚ we’d have known its size better.   Nevertheless‚ both the UK's Greenwich and Kew observatories had magnetograms that measured fluctuations in the strength and direction of the Earth’s magnetic field‚ subsequently shown to be mainly in response to solar activity.Since 1838‚ local geomagnetism was measured at Greenwich by shining light onto mirrors on the ends of magnetized pieces of metal suspended so they could swing freely‚ with the reflected light falling on photosensitive paper. Kew joined in two years before the great storm.As solar activity disturbed the Earth’s magnetic field‚ the magnets twisted‚ causing the light to move across the paper. The stronger the disruption‚ the further the light shifted. The paper was mounted on a slowly rotating drum‚ similar to those disaster films have taught us to associate with seismometers.Unfortunately‚ neither system had been built in anticipation of the geomagnetic field taking a beating anything like as strong as 1859 had in store. As a result‚ the mirror-bearing metal swung so widely‚ the light beam went off the photographic paper for 12 hours during a magnetic storm preceding the Carrington Event‚ and again during the event itself. Such large movements tell us these were two immensely strong incidents‚ but not how strong. It’s here that digitizing the magnetogram records has proven an unexpected boon. The paper records have been carefully archived‚ and according to a team led by Dr Ciaran Beggan of the British Geological Survey they “Are in relatively good condition considering their age and the manner of preservation.” After careful extraction from their bindings‚ the daily records were photographed and digitized‚ creating a continuous sequence‚ rather than disconnected days.By measuring the rate of movement of the light beams before they left the paper and after they returned the authors calculated the rate at which the field was changing‚ which they estimated at 500 nT/minute as a minimum. Given that once-a-century storms are expected to produce changes of 350-400 nT/min at London’s latitude‚ even the floor value is extraordinary.Besides the problem of how far the light swung off the paper‚ it is not easy to translate the measured movements to modern SI units. Nevertheless‚ Beggan and co-authors have conducted detailed reconstructions using comparisons between the two measurements to translate the movements into nanotesla changes in field strength. Changes in the field’s orientation are equally important.Two years after the Carrington Event a scientific paper estimated its strength based on data like this and came to similar conclusions. However‚ 20th-century astronomers‚ having not experienced anything close to as large‚ concluded the original estimates must have overstated it. “Looking at the rate of change … it’s at least 500 nanotesla per minute‚ which kind of supports what the original 1861 papers suggested‚” Beggan told New Scientist. “It just proves once again that the Carrington storm was an extreme event.”Competing scientific societies established these magnetograms because‚ before GPS‚ the Earth’s magnetic field was crucial for navigation. As far back as the 17th century‚ Edmond Halley led voyages to map the way the field changed across the Atlantic Ocean‚ before realizing changes with time needed to be accounted for as well. It’s unfortunate the two sets of records we have were just 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) apart‚ hardly representing global coverage‚ but more piecemeal data was collected from Finland‚ India‚ and Guatemala among other places.The study is open access in Space Weather. 

Earth is being struck with strong geomagnetic storm activity after a coronal mass ejection was blurted out by the Sun over the past weekend. It’s a big one‚ but authorities say the risk to the public is minimal. It could also be a great opportunity to spot some aurora if you live along the appropriate latitude.The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center issued an alert saying that a significant coronal mass ejection occurred on March 23. Disturbances were forecasted to occur from late March 24 through to March 25 when the solar flare reached Earth after its 15- to 18-hour journey from the Sun. On March 24‚ when the wave of activity first hit‚ the NOAA released another announcement saying that geomagnetic storming had reached severe (G4) levels‚ adding that “infrastructure operators have been notified to take action to mitigate any possible impacts.”This level of solar activity might cause some disruption for high-frequency radio signals used by aviation‚ maritime‚ and military communications‚ although most low-frequency radio signals won’t be impacted. While there is a "slight risk" for some power cuts in the power grid‚ any disruptions are expected to be pretty short-term.An aurora forecast from the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center for Sunday March 24 (left) and Monday March 25 (right).Image credit: NOAA Space Weather Prediction CenterThe good news is that intense solar activity can increase the chances of seeing aurora in the night sky. As per the NOAA's forecast‚ large parts of Canada and Alaska will have a high likelihood of seeing aurora borealis on the night of Monday‚ March 25‚ while some northern US states might also be lucky enough to catch a slight glimpse.  The UK's Met Office has suggested that some aurora activity may also be seen in Scotland and northern England.Northern lights and southern lights are the result of charged high energy particles from the solar winds clashing with gas molecules in the magnetic field of the Earth‚ causing them to emit colorful swirls of light.The upper atmosphere of the Sun is constantly emitting solar wind. Flares occur when these charged particles have been pent up by the intense magnetic fields on the Sun‚ then suddenly become released in a rupture of energy. Despite the Sun being 149 million kilometers (93 million miles) away from Earth‚ this burst can still affect our planet.There’s no need to panic this time around. That said‚ geomagnetic solar storms do have the potential to cause catastrophic damage.The most powerful known flare‚ known as the Carrington Event‚ unfolded in 1859. Along with causing extremely bright auroras to beam across the Northern and Southern Hemispheres‚ major disruptions to the electromagnetic field caused telegraph systems to crash in many parts of the world. Some telegraph stations even burst into flames.                        In today’s world of satellite communications and prolific electrical systems‚ a solar storm of this size would be devastating. It’s estimated that damages in the US alone would likely be $1-2 trillion in the first year and full recovery could take up to a decade or so. A small taste of this potential disaster came in 1989 when extreme solar storms struck Earth‚ causing a nine-hour blackout at Hydro-Québec's electricity transmission system in Canada. Millions of people in the region lost power for over 12 hours. Another prominent lesson came during the Cold War when a solar storm almost led Earth into an all-out nuclear conflict. On May 23‚ 1967‚ radar and radio communications in Earth’s Northern Hemisphere became jammed‚ leading the US to believe they had been sabotaged by the USSR. Assuming an attack was imminent‚ the US Air Force prepared their aircraft for war. Fortunately‚ early efforts to monitor the Sun’s activity managed to show that it was simply a misunderstanding. Scientists believe that the Earth is getting close to solar maximum‚ set to lead to an increase in such solar activity. The question is: will we be ready for another massive solar flare? The short answer to this big question is no‚ not really.

In a story published Saturday online and appearing on the front page of Monday’s print edition‚ The Washington Times’s Valerie Richardson detailed a sampling of the far-left earmarks inside Friday’s spending package to keep the government open that would assist groups in helping underage children become transgender‚ fund drag shows‚ and hospitals that conduct abortions. The earmark-laden bill sailed through the House 286-134 (with 101 Republican yes votes) and 74-24 in the Senate (with 25 Republicans in support) and included what Richardson said in her lede were “millions of dollars for woke causes‚ including groups that host drag shows and provide teens seeking to change their sex with gender-affirming hormones and underwear.” Richardson passed on the credit to “conservatives” for having “flagged a bevy of earmarks for pet congressional causes in the 1‚012-page minibus that cleared the Senate on Saturday‚” including perhaps the most appalling one of all offered by New Jersey’s two Democratic senators‚ Cory Booker and Bob Menendez: “$400‚000 for Garden State Equality in New Jersey‚ which promotes ‘FREE gender-affirming garments.’” Yes‚ that would consist of “chest binders‚ used to flatten female chests‚ and gaffs”. As for the drag shows‚ there was “$845‚000 was for Envision: You of Denver‚ an LGBTQ mental health organization that has hosted drag shows”. Another one first highlighed by “Advancing American Freedom‚ a conservative group founded by former Vice President Mike Pence” was “$400‚000...earmarked by Sen. Tammy Baldwin‚ Wisconsin Democrat” for Briarpatch Youth Services‚ which has a “Teens Like Us LGBTQIA2s+ program offers counseling and ‘gender-affirming clothing‚’ according to an Advancing American Freedom screen grab‚ and emphasizes that youths ‘do NOT need parent/guardian permission to join.’” This went on for graph after graph‚ including “$850‚000 earmarked for LGBTQ senior housing in Massachusetts” and a $1.8 million earmark by Rhode Island’s Democratic senators Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse “for Women &; Infants Hospital in Providence‚ which performs surgical abortions up to 22 weeks into pregnancy.” To see Richardson’s full story‚ click here.