OND: Harvest moon, climate refugees, wall wind turbine, JWST and more – Daily Kos

Space.com

Harvest Moon tonight! See the full moon rise near Jupiter and Neptune (Sept. 10)

by Brett Tingley

The full moon will be joined in the night sky by Jupiter and Neptune on Saturday (Sept. 10).

September's full moon is also called theHarvest Moonin the Northern Hemisphere, as this full moon falls near theautumnal equinox, which traditionally marks the beginning of the harvest season. The full moon this month will also appear in the sky close to two of its celestial companions in our solar system, Jupiter and Neptune.

WIRED

As the Planet Warms, Canada Faces an Influx of Climate Refugees

by Hanna Hett

As droughts, deteriorating farmland, and rising sea levels push people around the world from their homes, advocates in Canada are calling on the federal government to support those who areand will bedisplaced by the climate crisis.

In August, Climate Action Network Canada (CAN-Rac), a body of more than 100 environmental groups across the country, sent aletterto Prime MinisterJustin Trudeauand Immigration Minister Sean Fraser asking them to grant permanent residency to all 1.7 million migrants in Canada, including half a million undocumented people. This regularization process is key to climate justice, explained Caroline Brouillette, national policy manager for CAN-Rac.

Fighting the climate crisis is not only about reducing our emissions, its about how we care for one anotherand thats why were asking for this, she said.

Climate change is already a factor causing people to immigrate to Canada, said Syed Hussan, the executive director of the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change (MWAC), which worked with CAN-Rac to send the letter. But while climate migrants come to the country as workers, students, or refugees, they may not even be able to describe their experiences having resulted from climate change.

He said many migrants understanding of climate change is that it causes poverty. Climate change is actually closely linked to economic deterioration, Hussan explained.

UnofficialNetworks.com

Ingenious "Wind Turbine Wall" Could Power Your Entire Home

by Pat Donahue

We are all familiar with traditional wind turbines. They are often found in remote areas sitting on bare ridgelines or near the coast where the wind is consistently strong. Entrepreneur Joe Doucet has developed an incredible wind turbine wallthat could work wonders in urban environments.

The wall features a grid of independent axes with square panes that spin. The current iteration is a 25x8 wall with 25 axes. This makes it an excellent option for urban environments where space is limited. According to an article in Fast Company, one of these walls should be enough to provide 10,000-kilowatts of electricity per year. This is enough electricity to cover the needs of an average household.

Doucet is thinking big with this project. His vision is to use larger-scale wind turbine walls on the side of buildings and along highways. It is easy to build a wind turbine wall on a larger scale. The challenge is using materials to keep the weight down as to not put too much strain on the structure it is mounted on.

Science.org

Exceeding 1.5C global warming could trigger multiple climate tipping points

by David I. Armstrong McKay, etal

Climate tipping points (CTPs) are a source of growing scientific, policy, and public concern. They occur when change in large parts of the climate systemknown as tipping elementsbecome self-perpetuating beyond a warming threshold. Triggering CTPs leads to significant, policy-relevant impacts, including substantial sea level rise from collapsing ice sheets, dieback of biodiverse biomes such as the Amazon rainforest or warm-water corals, and carbon release from thawing permafrost. Nine policy-relevant tipping elements and their CTPs were originally identified by Lentonet al. (2008). We carry out the first comprehensive reassessment of all suggested tipping elements, their CTPs, and the timescales and impacts of tipping. We also highlight steps to further improve understanding of CTPs, including an expert elicitation, a model intercomparison project, and early warning systems leveraging deep learning and remotely sensed data.

[...]

We identify nine global core tipping elements which contribute substantially to Earth system functioning and seven regional impact tipping elements which contribute substantially to human welfare or have great value as unique features of the Earth system (see figure). Their estimated CTP thresholds have significant implications for climate policy: Current global warming of ~1.1C above pre-industrial already lies within the lower end of five CTP uncertainty ranges. Six CTPs become likely (with a further four possible) within the Paris Agreement range of 1.5 to

[...]

Our assessment provides strong scientific evidence for urgent action to mitigate climate change. We show that even the Paris Agreement goal of limiting warming to well below 2C and preferably 1.5C is not safe as 1.5C and above risks crossing multiple tipping points. Crossing these CTPs can generate positive feedbacks that increase the likelihood of crossing other CTPs. Currently the world is heading toward ~2 to 3C of global warming; at best, if all net-zero pledges and nationally determined contributions are implemented it could reach just below 2C. This would lower tipping point risks somewhat but would still be dangerous as it could trigger multiple climate tipping points.

BIG THINK.COM

A surprisingly strong link between altitude and suicide in the U.S.

by Ross Pomeroy

KEY TAKEAWAYS

CNET

James Webb Telescope Snares Eye-Popping View of Tarantula Nebula

by Amanda Kooser

Another day, another mind-blowing view of the cosmos courtesy of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope. The latest entry in Webb's run of jaw-dropping images shows how the next-generation observatory is able to reveal exquisitedetails of the Tarantula Nebula, a scenic region of gas, dust and hot young stars.

JWST sees the universe in infrared light, letting it peer deep into space objects. The Tarantula Nebula images are an excellent example of this. "A range of Webb's high-resolution infrared instruments, working together, reveal the stars, structure, and composition of the nebula with a level of detail not previously possible,"NASA saidin a statement on Tuesday.

The nebula's formal name is 30 Doradus, but its spindly "legs" of dust and gas filaments (notably seen in this Hubble view) earned it the spidery nickname. The nebula -- located 161,000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy -- is a fiesta of star formation, home to thousands of up-and-coming stars that are among the hottest and most massive ones we've ever seen.

Neuroscience News

A Single Protein Could Unlock Age-Related Vision Loss

Research led by Sanford Burnham Prebys professor Francesca Marassi, Ph.D., is helping to reveal the molecular secrets of macular degeneration, which causes almost 90% of all age-related vision loss.

The study, published recently in the Biophysical Journal, describes the flexible structure of a key blood protein involved in macular degeneration and other age-related diseases, such as Alzheimers and atherosclerosis.

Proteins in the blood are under constant and changing pressure because of the different ways blood flows throughout the body, says Marassi.

For example, blood flows more slowly through small blood vessels in the eyes compared to larger arteries around the heart. Blood proteins need to be able to respond to these changes, and this study gives us fundamental truths about how they adapt to their environment, which is critical to targeting those proteins for future treatments.

There are hundreds of proteins in our blood, but the researchers focused on vitronectin, one of the most abundant. In addition to circulating in high concentrations in the blood, vitronectin is found in the scaffolding between cells and is also an important component of cholesterol.

Vitronectin is a key player in many age-related diseases, but for Marassis team, the most promising target is macular degeneration, which affects as many as 11 million people in the United States. This number is expected to double by 2050.

The Conversation

Heat pumps can cut your energy costs by up to 90%. Its not magic, just a smart use of the laws of physics

by Alan Pears

Heat pumps are becoming all the rage around a world that has to slash carbon emissions rapidly while cutting energy costs. In buildings, they replace space heating and water heating and provide cooling as a bonus.

A heat pump extracts heat from outside, concentrates it (using an electric compressor) to raise the temperature, and pumps the heat to where it is needed. Indeed, millions of Australian homes already have heat pumps in the form of refrigerators and reverse-cycle air conditioners bought for cooling. They can heat as well, and save a lot of money compared with other forms of heating!

Even before the restrictions on Russian gas supply,many European countrieswere rolling out heat pumps even in cold climates. Now,government policies are accelerating change. The United States, which has had very cheap gas in recent years, has joined the rush: President Joe Biden hasdeclaredheat pumps are essential to the national defence and ordered production be ramped up.

Brighter Side of News

Groundbreaking study identifies the genetic cause of ADHD

by D. Halperin

Israeli scientists have cracked code to better understand the genetic causes of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

ADHD is one of the most common neurological disorders that usually first show up during childhood. This disorder in particular is characterized by inattention, hyperactivity, impulsivity and difficulty focusing. But what causes it?It is obvious that there is a genetic predisposition to it. But how exactly does it work? Which genes are affected?

Womens Health

Research reveals plant-based milk with most nutritional value - and it's a shocker

by Lauren Clark

From oat to almond and soy to hemp, alternative milks have long been ingratiating themselves with our fridges. Reasons for swapping dairy for aplant-basedalternative are often concerns about allergies or intolerances, an effort to be more sustainable or a preference for the taste.

However, some alt-milks are more nutritious than others - and research has indicated that the most nourishing of them all is probably not the one you're sipping on right now. Indeed, astudyfrom the US-based Institute of Food Safety and Health have revealed that pea milk is the most mineral-packed of them all.

Indeed, the researchers found that only pea and soy milk had higher levels ofmagnesium, phosphorus, zinc and selenium than even cow's milk. Of these two, pea milk was the highest - with 50 per cent more phosphorus, zinc and selenium. Although, soy milk did contain greater levels of magnesium.

Popular Science

A close look at the Great Pacific Garbage Patch reveals a common culprit

by Lauren J. Young

For decades, our oceans have been filling up with trash. The North Pacific Garbage Patch, also called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, has accumulated approximately 80,000 tons of plastic wasteand thatestimate continues to climb. Most of the litter in the ocean is delivered by rivers that carry waste and human pollution from land to sea. But the origins of floating debris in offshore patches havent been fully understood. A recent study published inScientific Reportshas identified one important source of the trash: the fishing industry.

Between 75 to 86 percent of the plastics floating in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch come from offshore fishing and aquaculture activities, according to an analysis of the trash collected by nonprofit project the Ocean Cleanup. Major industrialized fishing nations, including Japan, China, South Korea, the US, Taiwan, and Canada, were the main contributors of the fishing waste. These findings highlight the contribution of industrial fishing nations to this global issue, says Laurent Lebreton, lead study author and head of research at the Ocean Cleanup.

COSMOS

NASA is about to try changing the direction of an asteroid

by Matthew Agius

The asteroid Dimorphos is about to have an earthly visitor a US$300 million spacecraft that NASA will crash into the space rocks surface in a matter of weeks.

DART short for Double Asteroid Redirection Test is a spaceship that has one purpose: to be destroyed in the name of science.

And while theArtemis project is making headlinesas the US space agency prepares to send people back to the moon and eventually to trial humans living on the surface for short periods DART represents the first test of a technique that could help protect Earthlings from hypothetical asteroid impacts.

While our planet has done well in recent times to avoid catastrophic impacts from celestial objects (its only been65 million yearssince the dinosaurs forgot to repel an incoming object) DART is a step towards determining whether deflecting an asteroid is possible.

UNDARK MAGAZINE

In the Great Lakes, the Pandemic Disrupted Sea Lamprey Control

by Rebecca Redelmeier

ITS A GRAY MORNINGon Lake Ontario when Will Sampson, a sports fishing guide and recreational angler, sees one of the fishing reels on his fathers boat jerk. He reels it in. On the other end of the line is a Chinook salmon that he estimates weighs 22 pounds a great catch, save for one wriggling detail: Latched into the salmons side dangles a two-foot long sea lamprey, suction-cup mouth clinging on, one eye peeking around its hosts fin. In its lifetime, that sea lamprey could kill up to 40 pounds of fish; the hooked Chinook was its latest target.

Here, just off the Toronto harbor front and 27 miles to Niagara Falls, the Sampsons have gotten to know the Great Lakes infamous eel-like invasive fish well. Out of every 10 big fish they catch, they say usually at least four will have clear signs of a lamprey bite, some with multiple wounds at different stages of healing. For the father-son duo, the lamprey on the mornings Chinook is just another sign that this summer, the blood-sucking fishs population has ballooned.

Its a scenario that scientists are concerned about, too. During the 1940s and 1950s, when the regions sea lamprey populations reached their peak, they decimated fisheries, wiping out livelihoods and wreaking havoc on the lakes ecosystem. Since then, the species has been the subject of a robust cross-border control program. But that program was disrupted significantly during 2020 and 2021 amid pandemic restrictions.

SYFY Wire

SCIENTISTS UNLOCK THE KEY TO IMMORTALITY IN JELLYFISH

by Cassidy Ward

Weve known for some time that Turritopsis dohrnii, otherwise known as the immortal jellyfish, was out there living its best life over and over again by intermittently switching between its adult and larval stages. When the stresses of being an adult become too much for it to bear, it simply turns back the clock to become a juvenile and starts the whole process over again. While disease or predation can and does end the life of individual jellies, they dont succumb to the same biological ticking clock as the rest of us.

While weve been able to observe this behavior in immortal jellyfish, so far it has been unclear what biological mechanisms contribute to their everlasting life. Now, scientists from the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Oviedo have identified the genes responsible, opening the door to future research. Their findings werepublished in theProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Zeroing in on what makes the immortal jellyfish special required a comparison of their genome with that of a close relative. Scientists compared their DNA with that of Turritopsis rubra, a jellyfish which is similar to the immortal jelly but, importantly, cannot regenerate. By comparing the genomes, they were able to identify specific sequences which the immortal jelly uses to revert from its adult medusa stage back to its larval stage, a process known as transdifferentiation.

The comparison revealed genes involved in DNA replication and repair, telomere maintenance,stem cellproduction, communication between cells, and reduction of the oxidative cellular environment, according toa press release from the University of Oviedo. All of those processes are associated with the healthy, or unhealthy, aging of humans.

The Conversation

Most human embryos naturally die after conception restrictive abortion laws fail to take this embryo loss into account

by Kathryn Kavanagh

Many state legislatures are seriously considering human embryos at the earliest stages of development forlegal personhood.Total abortion bansthat consider humans to have full rights from the moment of conception have created aconfusing legal domainthat affects awide range of areas, including assisted reproductive technologies, contraception, essential medical care and parental rights, among others.

However, an important biological feature of human embryos has been left out of a lot of ethical and even scientific discussion informing reproductive policy most human embryos diebefore anyone, including doctors, even know they exist. This embryo loss typically occurs in the first two months after fertilization, before the clump of cells has developed into afetuswith immature forms of the bodys major organs. Total abortion bans that define personhood at conception mean that full legal rights exist for a 5-day-old blastocyst, a hollow ball of cells roughly0.008 inches (0.2 millimeters)across with a high likelihood of disintegrating within a few days.

As anevolutionary biologistwhose career has focused on how embryos develop in a wide variety of species over the course of evolution, I was struck by the extraordinarily high likelihood that most human embryos die due to random genetic errors. Around60% of embryos disintegratebefore people may even be aware that they are pregnant. Another 10% of pregnancies end in miscarriage, after the person knows theyre pregnant. These losses make clear that the vast majority of human embryos dont survive to birth.

Zooniverse

Set sail with two new Zooniverse projects this week - Civil War Bluejackets and Spider Crab Watch. Read on to learn how you can help out these nautical researchers, and earn your sea legs to boot.

So many science articles; so little time and space. Happy researching!

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OND: Harvest moon, climate refugees, wall wind turbine, JWST and more - Daily Kos