This week’s science information has been out of this world, with NASA‘s announcement that speckled rocks discovered on Mars could be the clearest sign yet that life once existed on the Red Planet.
The rocks all include flecks of leopard-like spots that, on Earth a minimum of, are telltale indicators of chemical reactions that microbes use for vitality. This, alongside the presence of natural compounds and proof of water as soon as flowing by means of the rocks, has gotten scientists critically excited.
But keep the Champagne corked, because it’s still possible that the marks may have been left by inorganic processes, meaning we’ll have to wait for the politically endangered Mars Sample Return mission before we know for sure.
This week also thankfully brought us more conclusive news from the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO). By detecting faint ripples in space-time released by the merger of two distant black holes, the detector finally confirmed a decades-old theory by Stephen Hawking that the cosmic monsters hyperlink basic relativity to quantum mechanics.
Tying these two threads collectively right into a concept of every little thing could possibly be achieved with only one journey to a black gap. However making that journey would require some critical mobile engineering — if information of human stem cells experiencing accelerated aging in space is something to go by. Within the meantime, our planet has a close flyby by the asteroid Apophis and some strange-looking solar eruptions to get by means of.
LA’s ‘halo’ barrel mystery begins to unravel
They appeared under the lights of deep-sea survey robots working off the coast of Los Angeles in 2020 — a graveyard of 27,000 barrels encircled by haloes of whitish, poisonous sediment many on the time believed to be the banned pesticide DDT. But the precise amount of the barrels, who put them there, and what they could include stay unknown to at the present time.
Nevertheless, a brand new examine has shed some mild into the murky state of affairs. Analyzing samples collected from 5 of the barrels, researchers discovered that they did not include DDT in spite of everything, however caustic alkaline waste able to killing a lot of the marine life within the neighborhood. Additionally they found the chemical reactions that type the haloes themselves, which they’ll use to determine the general extent of the poisonous spill.
Uncover extra planet Earth information
—‘New’ island emerges from melting ice in Alaska
—Action on climate change faces new threat: The doomers who think it’s too late to act
Life’s Little Mysteries
Humans and chimpanzees share nearly 99% of their genetic material: It’s a frequently repeated truism about us and one of our closest-living relatives, but is it even true? It turns out not really, and even the comparison itself obscures a deeper truth about how DNA makes humans and chimps in the first place.
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Visible time crystals created
Only theorized in 2012, time crystals have been captivating us since they were first created in 2016. Since those early years, scientists have replicated the fascinating phenomenon in a variety of systems, but none of them can be seen directly.
That’s now changed, with the announcement that scientists have made visible time crystals out of the liquid crystals usually discovered inside LCD screens. These aren’t simply an intriguing demonstration of the weird quantum workings of time crystals, they might have sensible functions too — presumably showing on future high-denomination payments as anti-counterfeiting designs.
Uncover extra physics and arithmetic information
—Scientists watch a single electron move during a chemical reaction for first time ever
—Meet the ‘neglectons’: Previously overlooked particles that could revolutionize quantum computing
—Lightning on Earth is sparked by a powerful chain reaction from outer space, simulations show
Also in science news this week
—Diagnostic dilemma: A woman kept tasting bleach — and doctors found a hidden cause in her blood
Science Long Read
Just past midnight, in the silence and dark of Chile’s far South Patagonia region, a camera trap picked up something inexplicable: Across three photos, intense lights danced downward in front of the lens.
Could they have been a camera artifact, ball lightning, or even UFOs? Live Science reported on the hunt for answers.
Something for the weekend
If you’re looking for something to do over the weekend, here are some of the best polls, skywatching guides and crosswords published this week.
—‘We have basically destroyed what capacity we had to respond to a pandemic,’ says leading epidemiologist Michael Osterholm [Interview]
—Live Science crossword puzzle #9: A ‘royal’ snake that wears a hood — 14 across [Crossword]
— Have you gotten this year’s COVID vaccine? [Poll]
Science in pictures
New photos of the comet 3I/ATLAS captured during the recent “blood moon” total eclipse appeared to show a surprising development — the comet, an interloper from beyond our solar system, could also be turning green.
The commonest clarification for this unusual change (and no, it isn’t little inexperienced males) is the presence of diatomic carbon within the comet’s coma, its fuzzy, momentary ambiance. But with no diatomic carbon but to be detected by spectroscopic observations, the jury remains to be out. Astronomers might want to take follow-up images to substantiate the impact and examine its trigger.
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