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Scientists have identified what could potentially be the “deepest known blue hole” in the world, extending so far down that the bottom has not yet been reached. Researchers described how the underwater abyss’s extensive depths could harbor a “biodiversity to be explored” in a recent study published in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science. Indeed, new measurements taken during a December scuba-diving expedition indicate that the Taam Ja’ Blue Hole (TJBH), located in Chetumal Bay off the Yucatan Peninsula, extends at least 1,380 feet (420 meters) below sea level — nearly the height of Trump Tower in Chicago. That’s 480...

Published in the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, the research aimed to reveal how a woman’s appearance impacts the moral behavior of others. Researchers in Tel Aviv gave men and women, 110 individuals each, a questionnaire with an image of a woman attached, and falsely told participants it was the face of the scientist leading the study. Half of the questionnaires featured the image of a typically attractive woman and the other half, a less attractive woman. The results showed that men were more likely to behave more honestly when they believed they were interacting with a beautiful woman...

Explanation: The star system GK Per is known to be associated with only two of the three nebulas pictured. At 1500 light years distant, Nova Persei 1901 (GK Persei) was the second closest nova yet recorded. At the very center is a white dwarf star, the surviving core of a former Sun-like star. It is surrounded by the circular Firework nebula, gas that was ejected by a thermonuclear explosion on the white dwarf's surface -- a nova -- as recorded in 1901. The red glowing gas surrounding the Firework nebula is the atmosphere that used to surround the central star....

It sounds like a dream, but it's true in Antarctica, gold rains from the sky. Tucked in among the glaciers, fiery Mount Erebus is the southernmost active volcano on Earth, providing a bit of heat amid the frozen landscape. The frozen continent features 138 volcanoes, according to a 2017 study, with around nine of them reported as active. With a summit elevation of 12,448 feet (3,794 meters), Mount Erebus is the most well-known. Erebus is one of three volcanoes that form Ross Island, and it's said that it was erupting when it was discovered in 1841 during the voyage of...

Scientists have taken a significant step in understanding these whirling quasiparticles and putting them to work in future semiconductor technologies. Researchers reported that they have imaged the exciton’s electron and hole for the first time, revealing how excitons may be trapped in dense, stable arrays. According to the scientists, the findings have significant implications for the development of various future technologies as well as the quest to better understand excitons. The findings were published on March 8th, 2022, in the journal Nature by researchers from the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Stanford University, and the Okinawa Institute for...

With more and more people below the age of 50 being diagnosed with the illness, the medical community is urgently trying to determine a cause.The recent revelation by Kate Middleton, Princess of Wales, that she was battling cancer was a shock to many around the world. Middleton, who is only 42, has always appeared to be in the best of shape and in good health. Her diagnosis, however, only highlights the disturbing rise in the number of young people diagnosed with various forms of cancer, especially colon or colorectal cancer. Middleton is rumored to have been diagnosed with colorectal cancer,...

In 1957, the astrophysicist Herman Bondi wrote a paper in which he considered the possible existence of a negative mass in Albert Einstein’s theory of gravity. A negative mass would repel a positive mass away from it. Given that, a pair of positive and negative masses could accelerate together up to the speed of light. The negative mass would push away the positive mass which in turn would pull the negative mass for the ride. The runaway pair would accelerate indefinitely, without any need for fuel or a propulsion system. Energy conservation would not be violated because the sum of...

...Unlike most near-Earth asteroids, which are thought to hail from the main asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, asteroid 2016 HO3, also known as Kamo'oalewa, was likely blasted from the Giordano Bruno crater on the moon's far side and has been hurtling through space for several million years...Measuring between 150 and 190 feet in diameter, the asteroid is about half the size of the "London Eye" Ferris wheel...Previous research pointing to Kamo'oalewa likely originating from the moon included its reflectance spectrum, which is more compatible with lunar materials rather than the general population of near-Earth asteroids, and...

While we don't like to talk ill of the dead, new physiological analysis has found that the king of the dinosaurs was not so smart after all. It upends previous research that last year likened the brain and neuronal composition of the Tyrannosaurus rex to that of a primate. It's been a rough year or two for the long extinct dinosaur. First, we questioned their teeth, finding that those iconic chompers could very much have been smaller and hidden behind lips, and now an international team of paleontologists, behavioral scientists and neurologists have concluded that the T. rex wasn't smarter...

The papyrus had been buried under metres of ash at the house, believed to have belonged to Julius Caesar’s father-in-law, after Vesuvius erupted in AD79 and scholars have spent the last 250 years painstakingly trying to find a way to read its contents, The Times reports. Now Professor Graziano Ranocchia of the University of Pisa and his colleagues have used techniques, including shortwave infrared hyperspectral imaging, which picks up variations in the way light bounces off the black ink on the papyrus, to decipher the document. Professor Ranocchia described the scroll as 'the oldest history of Greek philosophy in our...

And the Fertility Rates by State largely corresponds to the voting divide in the 2020 pres. election: Fertility Rates by State: Presidential Results 34 posted on 4/29/2024, 9:39:18 PM by daniel1212 (Turn 2 the Lord Jesus who saves damned+destitute sinners on His acct, believe, b baptized+follow HIM)

Explanation: Three bright objects satisfied seasoned stargazers of the western sky just after sunset earlier this month. The most familiar was the Moon, seen on the upper left in a crescent phase. The rest of the Moon was faintly visible by sunlight first reflected by the Earth. The bright planet Jupiter, the largest planet in the Solar System, is seen to the upper left. Most unusual was Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks, below the Moon and showing a stubby dust tail on the right but an impressive ion tail extending upwards. The featured image, a composite of several images taken consecutively at the...

Discovering a machine that could somehow produce thrust without releasing propellant would be a game-changer for human space travel. There’s just one problem—such a device would defy the laws of physics.

In my self-designated role critiquing various schemes for total transformation of the world energy system, I get to review large amounts of poor, shoddy, and incompetent work. When people get into advocating for this “energy transition,” the stars regularly align to bring forth the most extreme levels of ineptitude. Start with the fact that the “smartest” people are filled with arrogance and hubris, but are not actually very smart. Add that many innumerate Politics and English majors have flooded into a field that cries out for engineering calculations. Add too that groupthink and orthodoxy enforcement prevent anyone from pointing out...

Cambridge-based AstraZeneca, which is contesting the claims, acknowledged in a legal document submitted to the High Court in February that its vaccine 'can, in very rare cases, cause TTS'. TTS is short for thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome – a medical condition where a person suffers blood clots along with a low platelet count. Platelets typically help the blood to clot. The complication – listed as a potential side effect of the jab – has previously been called vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia (VITT). AstraZeneca's admission could lead to pay-outs on a case-by-case basis. Although accepted as a potential side effect for...

Explanation: The Ring Nebula (M57) is more complicated than it appears through a small telescope. The easily visible central ring is about one light-year across, but this remarkably deep exposure - a collaborative effort combining data from three different large telescopes - explores the looping filaments of glowing gas extending much farther from the nebula's central star. This composite image includes red light emitted by hydrogen as well as visible and infrared light. The Ring Nebula is an elongated planetary nebula, a type of nebula created when a Sun-like star evolves to throw off its outer atmosphere and become a...

Explanation: If the Sun is up but the sky is dark and the horizon is bright all around, you might be standing in the Moon's shadow during a total eclipse of the Sun. In fact, the all-sky Moon shadow shown in this composited panoramic view was captured from a farm near Shirley, Arkansas, planet Earth. The exposures were made under clear skies during the April 8 total solar eclipse. For that location near the center line of the Moon's shadow track, totality lasted over 4 minutes. Along with the solar corona surrounding the silhouette of the Moon planets and stars...

On the cold dead surface of Mars, something remarkable happens each spring. The red planet becomes infested with giant black spiders. At least, that’s what it looks like. In reality, vast fields of dark, spider-like formations become etched into the Red Planet’s landscape. No, they are not alive, nor actually spiders, but instead a geological phenomenon that occurs nowhere else in the solar system. With the recent orbital passes of the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Mars Express and the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO), scientists are now closer than ever to understanding these mysterious features known as “araneiforms.” Araneiforms are...

One of the driest growing seasons in decades has decimated crops and left millions hungry. A prolonged dry spell in southern Africa in early 2024 scorched crops and threatened food security for millions of people. The drought has been fueled in large part by the ongoing El Niño, which shifted rainfall patterns during the growing season. Impact on Rainfall and Agriculture From late January through mid-March, parts of Southern Africa received half or less of their typical rainfall, according to researchers at the Climate Hazards Center (CHC) at the University of California, Santa Barbara. February 2024 was especially dry. The...

Explanation: In northern hemisphere spring, bright star Regulus is easy to spot above the eastern horizon. The alpha star of the constellation Leo, Regulus is the spiky star centered in this telescopic field of view. A mere 79 light-years distant, Regulus is a hot, rapidly spinning star that is known to be part of a multiple star system. Not quite lost in the glare, the fuzzy patch just below Regulus is diffuse starlight from small galaxy Leo I. Leo I is a dwarf spheroidal galaxy, a member of the Local Group of galaxies dominated by our Milky Way Galaxy and...