Musk's SpaceX, Bezos' Blue Origin land contracts to build NASA's astronaut moon lander

FILE PHOTO: Tourists take pictures of a NASA sign at the Kennedy Space Center visitors complex in Cape Canaveral, Florida April 14, 2010. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

(Reuters) - NASA on Thursday selected space firms SpaceX, Blue Origin and Dynetics to build lunar landing systems that can carry astronauts to the moon by 2024, the White House’s accelerated deadline under the space agency’s moon-to-Mars campaign.

The three companies, which include firms of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, will share $967 million from NASA.

Details on specific amounts each company will receive was not immediately known.

Boeing Co (BA.N), a NASA contractor and one of the companies that bid for this contract, was not selected.

Unlike the Apollo program that put astronauts on the moon 50 years ago, NASA is gearing up for a long-term presence on Earth’s satellite that the agency says will eventually enable humans to reach Mars.

The next manned mission to the moon will require leaps in robotic technologies and a plan for NASA to work with the three companies to design and develop human landing systems.

Reporting by Joey Roulette and Munsif Vengattil; Editing by Maju Samuel

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

#News | https://sciencespies.com/news/musks-spacex-bezos-blue-origin-land-contracts-to-build-nasas-astronaut-moon-lander/

Space executive: Government can’t save every startup but can do a lot

Relativity Space VP Josh Brost: “The most impactful thing that government can do is actually go out and buy services from startups."

WASHINGTON — As space investors become more conservative during the current economic downturn, they are less inclined to fund long-shot ventures and more likely to support companies that have a government contract.

Even in today’s environment “there are still investors out there with capital that they’re looking to deploy toward great ideas,” said Josh Brost, vice president of business development and government affairs at Relativity Space.

But these investors are looking for more than just promising ideas. “What they want to see is if there is a government use case at the end of this,” Brost said April 30 on a webinar hosted by Aviation Week & Space Technology.

Relativity Space is a California-based startup that uses 3-D printing to manufacture small launch vehicles.

Pentagon officials have raised concerns about the economic impact of the pandemic on commercial suppliers, including space companies that depend on private investors and may not have enough cash to weather the crisis. The small space launch sector was identified as one of the most vulnerable.

Brost said government loans or direct aid can help bridge the gap for a few months but “the most impactful thing that government can do is actually go out and buy services from these startups,” he said.

With a signed government contract in hand, “then the startups can go back to their investors and say: ‘Now we know there is a use case for this and the government is going to be a big player in the future for us,’” said Brost. “We can raise capital off of that.”

Startups have trouble getting loans

The reality is that many startups in the space sector are struggling, said Eric Stallmer, president of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation. The group has been lobbying to have rules changed that currently disqualify many startups from coronavirus relief loan programs because of how the Small Business Administration defines “small business.”

Most startups are funded by venture capital firms that typically invest in a portfolio of companies. To be eligible for the SBA loan program a business has to have fewer than 500 employees. When defining a small business, the SBA applies an “affiliation rule,” requiring companies to include in their worker count all the employees of companies with which they are “affiliated.”

CSF and other industry groups have raised this issue and the “government just hasn’t been responsive despite us addressing it and highlighting that it’s a major problem,” Stallmer said on the webinar.

DoD has taken actions to help the industry, said Stallmer. But many companies won’t survive unless the government changes the rule that makes venture funded startups ineligible for stimulus loans, he said.

“When startup companies get started, are commercial banks going to lend to them based on this great idea that they have? No. Banks are conservative lenders, so that is why we have relied so heavily on the venture community, and they have delivered for us,” said Stallmer.

As venture funds pull back, access to loans is essential, he said.

Foreign investment worries

The pandemic has fueled concerns at the Pentagon that companies that develop critical national security technologies and are now in financial stress could become targets of Chinese investors.

That has been an issue for years, said Carissa Christensen, CEO of Bryce Space and Technology. But the current crisis has stirred new worries in the U.S. government about China taking advantage of fragile companies.

“China is very interested in space and its space sector is growing, it’s a national priority,” she said. But China’s own economy and space industry is under stress so the country will focus first on its own companies. “I think there is, has been and will continue to be Chinese interested in investing in space companies globally, as well as interest in investing in space companies in China.”

Christensen cautioned that the U.S. government should not move to completely shut out foreign investment because that could push companies to take technology developments offshore. “If you constrain investment into American companies, those companies then are incentivized or forced to either shut down or find investors elsewhere — and if they can’t do that as American companies, they will do it as European companies or as Japanese companies or as companies based in nations in the Middle East.”

A successful technology industrial policy “comes down to a focus on ensuring that we are retaining the U.S. advantage, which means more companies, more startups, more investment, a more robust venture ecosystem and a much more robust space startup ecosystem than any other country in the world.”

#Space | https://sciencespies.com/space/space-executive-government-cant-save-every-startup-but-can-do-a-lot/

Here's how renewable energy could help us economically recover from the pandemic

Renewable energy could power an economic recovery from COVID-19 by spurring global GDP gains of almost US$100 trillion (£80 trillion) between now and 2050, according to a report.

The International Renewable Energy Agency found that accelerating investment in renewable energy could generate huge economic benefits while helping to tackle the global climate emergency.

The agency's director general, Francesco La Camera, said the global crisis ignited by the coronavirus outbreak exposed "the deep vulnerabilities of the current system" and urged governments to invest in renewable energy to kickstart economic growth and help meet climate targets.

The agency's landmark report found that accelerating investment in renewable energy would help tackle the climate crisis and would in effect pay for itself.

Investing in renewable energy would deliver global GDP gains of US$98 trillion above a business-as-usual scenario by 2050 by returning between US$3 and $8 on every dollar invested.

It would also quadruple the number of jobs in the sector to 42 million over the next 30 years, and measurably improve global health and welfare scores, according to the report.

"Governments are facing a difficult task of bringing the health emergency under control while introducing major stimulus and recovery measures," La Camera said.

"By accelerating renewables and making the energy transition an integral part of the wider recovery, governments can achieve multiple economic and social objectives in the pursuit of a resilient future that leaves nobody behind."

The report also found that renewable energy could curb the rise in global temperatures by helping to reduce the energy industry's carbon dioxide emissions by 70 percent by 2050 by replacing fossil fuels.

Renewables could play a greater role in cutting carbon emissions from heavy industry and transport to reach virtually zero emissions by 2050, particularly by investing in green hydrogen.

The clean-burning fuel, which can replace the fossil fuel gas in steel and cement making, could be made by using vast amounts of clean electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen elements.

Andrew Steer, chief executive of the World Resources Institute, said: "As the world looks to recover from the current health and economic crises, we face a choice: we can pursue a modern, clean, healthy energy system, or we can go back to the old, polluting ways of doing business. We must choose the former."

The call for a green economic recovery from the coronavirus crisis comes after a warning from Fatih Birol, head of the International Energy Agency, that government policies must be put in place to avoid an investment hiatus in the energy transition.

"We should not allow today's crisis to compromise the clean energy transition," he said. "We have an important window of opportunity."

Ignacio Galán, the chairman and CEO of the Spanish renewables giant Iberdrola, which owns Scottish Power, said the company would continue to invest billions in renewable energy as well as electricity networks and batteries to help integrate clean energy in the electricity.

"A green recovery is essential as we emerge from the COVID-19 crisis. The world will benefit economically, environmentally and socially by focusing on clean energy," he said.

"Aligning economic stimulus and policy packages with climate goals is crucial for a long-term viable and healthy economy."

This story was originally published by The Guardian, and is republished here as part of the Covering Climate Now partnership to strengthen the media's focus on the climate crisis.

#Environment | https://sciencespies.com/environment/heres-how-renewable-energy-could-help-us-economically-recover-from-the-pandemic/

The sun is less active than similar stars. That's good news

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The sun appears to be far less active than similar stars in terms of brightness variations caused by sunspots and other phenomena - a “boring” personality, according to scientists, that may not be a bad thing for us Earthlings.

FILE PHOTO: A medium-sized (M2) solar flare and a coronal mass ejection (CME) erupting from the same, large active region of the Sun on July 14, 2017. NASA/GSFC/Solar Dynamics Observatory/Handout via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS - THIS IMAGE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY/File Photo

Researchers said on Thursday that an examination of 369 stars similar to the sun in surface temperatures, size and rotation period - it takes the sun about 24-1/2 days to rotate once on its axis - showed that they displayed on average five times more brightness variability than the sun.

“This variability is caused by dark spots on the surface of the star rotating in and out of view,” said astronomer Timo Reinhold of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany, lead author of the research published in the journal Science. “A direct measure of solar activity is the number of sunspots on the surface.”

The sun - essentially a hot ball of hydrogen and helium - is an average-sized star that formed more than 4.5 billion years ago and is roughly halfway through its lifespan. Its diameter is about 864,000 miles (1.4 million km). Its surface temperature is about 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit (5,500 degrees Celsius).

“Temperature and rotation period are thought to be the major ingredients for the dynamo inside the star, which generates its magnetic field, and eventually the number and size of the spots causing the brightness to vary. Finding such stars with very similar parameters as our sun but being five times more variable was surprising,” Reinhold said.

Elevated magnetic activity associated with sunspots can lead to solar flares, coronal mass ejections - large expulsions of plasma and magnetic field from the outermost part of the sun’s atmosphere - and other electromagnetic phenomena that can affect Earth, for example disrupting satellites and communications and endangering astronauts.

Solar monotony may be good news.

“A much more active sun might have also affected Earth on geological time scales - paleoclimatology. A ‘too active’ star would definitively change the conditions for life on the planet, so living with a quite boring star is not the worst option,” Reinhold said.

The researchers compared data on the similar stars to historical records of the sun’s activity. These records included about 400 years of observational data on sunspots and about 9,000 years of data based on chemical element variants in tree rings and ice cores caused by solar activity. These records indicated the sun has not been much more active than it is now.

The findings, Reinhold said, do not rule out that the sun may be in a quiet phase and may become more variable in the future.

Reporting by Will Dunham; Editing by Sandra Maler

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

#News | https://sciencespies.com/news/the-sun-is-less-active-than-similar-stars-thats-good-news/

Groundbreaking Spinosaurus discovery just made it the first known swimming dinosaur

A single tail from one of the largest and most enigmatic dinosaur species looks to have solved a longstanding mystery about these extinct creatures: whether they could swim.

The discovery of a giant fossilised tail belonging to the theropod Spinosaurus aegyptiacus suggests these huge predators were aquatic animals after all, using tail-propelled locomotion to swim and hunt in rivers millions of years ago.

"This discovery really opens our eyes to this whole new world of possibilities for dinosaurs," says palaeontologist Nizar Ibrahim from the University of Detroit Mercy.

"It doesn't just add to an existing narrative, it starts a whole new narrative and drastically changes things in terms of what we know dinosaurs could actually do."

Reconstruction of tail and skeleton, plus cross sections of tail pieces. (Marco Auditore/Gabriele Bindellini)

Centuries ago, scientists speculated that terrestrial dinosaurs may have dwelled in water environments, but in recent decades, the idea has fallen out of favour, with most researchers suggesting non-avian dinosaurs were limited to roaming on land.

Spinosaurs, however, have somewhat complicated the issue, with some ancient bones suggesting possible evidence of semi-aquatic adaptations.

In previous research, Ibrahim and his team made such a case, but other researchers weren't so sure.

Now, the palaeontologist is back, with what his team claims is the first "unambiguous evidence for an aquatic propulsive structure in a dinosaur".

That evidence consists of a giant fin-like tail, discovered in the Cretaceous rock deposits of the Sahara Desert in eastern Morocco.

Estimated to be between 90 to 100 million years old, the tail discovery fills in the picture on what Spinosaurus looked like, broadening our perspective on the world's only existing skeleton of the species (another was destroyed in World War II).

"This dinosaur has a tail with an unexpected and unique shape that consists of extremely tall neural spines and elongate chevrons, which forms a large, flexible fin-like organ capable of extensive lateral excursion," the researchers write in their paper.

In the study, the team examined the amount of thrust this structure could have generated when swimming through the water, and conclude the performance is comparable to living aquatic vertebrates with similar appendages.

In other words, Spinosaurus presents the best evidence yet that dinosaurs – or at least this particular species – might have swum.

"This discovery is the nail in the coffin for the idea that non-avian dinosaurs never invaded the aquatic realm," Ibrahim says.

"This dinosaur was actively pursuing prey in the water column, not just standing in shallow waters waiting for fish to swim by. It probably spent most of its life in the water."

The findings are reported in Nature.

#Nature | https://sciencespies.com/nature/groundbreaking-spinosaurus-discovery-just-made-it-the-first-known-swimming-dinosaur/

Senate Armed Services Committee schedules hearing on FCC’s Ligado order

Inhofe: "Given that the FCC has made its decision, it’s critical our members understand the national security implications."

WASHINGTON – The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) announced the committee has scheduled a May 6 hearing on the impact on national security of the Federal Communications Commission’s approval of Ligado’s spectrum proposal.

Invited witnesses include Dana Deasy, the Pentagon’s chief information officer; Michael Griffin, undersecretary of defense for research and engineering; former Coast Guard commandant Thad Allen; and Gen. John Raymond, chief of space operations and commander of U.S. Space Command.

“The Senate Armed Services Committee is holding this hearing to review the national security impacts of the FCC’s order on the Ligado proposal as it relates to our committee’s jurisdiction,” Inhofe said in a statement April 30.

“Both publicly and privately, the Department of Defense has expressed serious concerns about the risks Ligado’s planned usage poses both to military equipment and ancillary equipment used by the military, industry and everyday Americans as well,” Inhofe said. “Given that the FCC has made its decision, it’s critical our members understand the national security implications and what steps the military will need to take to mitigate these effects if the decision is not reversed.”

For additional background and analysis on this issue, you can listen to the replay of the SpaceNews’ webinar on FCC policy held April 29.

#Space | https://sciencespies.com/space/senate-armed-services-committee-schedules-hearing-on-fccs-ligado-order/

Pandemic side-effects show us a glimpse of an alternative future on Earth Day 2020

The skies are clearing of pollution, wildlife is returning to newly clear waters, a host of flights have been scrapped and crude oil is so worthless that the industry would have to pay you to take it off their hands – a few months ago, environmentalists could only dream of such a scenario as the 50th anniversary of Earth Day hove into view.

But this disorientingly green new reality is causing little cheer given the cause is the coronavirus pandemic that has ravaged much of the world.

"This isn't the way we would've wanted things to happen, God no," said Gina McCarthy, former head of the US Environmental Protection Agency in the Obama administration. "This is just a disaster that pointed out the underlying challenges we face. It's not something to celebrate."

Wednesday's annual Earth Day event, this year largely taking place online, comes as public health restrictions to prevent the spread of COVID-19 have resulted in a sharp dip in air pollution across China, Europe and the US, with carbon emissions from the burning of fossil fuels heading for a record 5 percent annual drop.

The waters of Venice are now clear, lions lounge on roads normally frequented by safari-goers in South Africa and bears and coyotes wander around empty accommodation in Yosemite national park in California.

Meanwhile, nearly eight in 10 flights globally have been canceled, with many planes in the US carrying just a handful of people. The oil industry, a key driver of the climate crisis and direct environmental disaster, is in turmoil, with a barrel of crude hitting an unprecedented minus-$40 on Monday.

These would perhaps be the sort of outcomes seen had stringent environmental policies been put in place in the wake of the first Earth Day in 1970, which saw 20 million Americans rally in support of anti-pollution measures.

Instead, the pain of the COVID-19 shutdown has highlighted how ponderous the world's response has been – the expected cut in emissions, for example, is still less than what scientists say is needed every year this decade to avoid disastrous climate impacts for much of the world.

"It's the worst possible way to experience environment improvement and it has also shown us the size of the task," said Michael Gerrard, an environmental law expert at Columbia University.

How people react to the return of normalcy after the pandemic will help define the crises racking the environment, according to Gerrard. "A key question will be do we have a green recovery, do we seize the opportunity to create jobs in renewable energy and in making coastlines more resilient to climate change?" he said. "The current US president clearly has no inclination to do this."

McCarthy, now head of the Natural Resources Defense Council, noted that some Indian people were seeing the Himalayas for the first time due to the veil of air pollution lifting.

"You wonder if people will want to go back to what it was like before," she said. "The pandemic has shown people will change their behavior if it's for the health of their families. This has been the lost message on climate, that it's a human problem, not a planetary problem. We have to show you can have a stable environment and your job, too."

The problems in the natural world haven't suddenly vanished – this week various researchers found that the Arctic is very likely to be free of sea ice in summers before 2050, that the bushfires that torched Australia earlier this year released more carbon than the country's annual CO2 output and that the first quarter of 2020 was the second-warmest on record.

Donald Trump has signaled that he will try to provide a bailout to the US oil and gas industry, with US$25bn already handed out by the US government to prop up airlines. In China, it's not certain that the wildlife-packed "wet markets" where COVID-19 is believed to have originated will be shut down.

Conservationists warn that returning the world to its pre-pandemic settings will quickly wipe out any environmental benefits of the shutdown.

"It's a serious wake-up call," said Thomas Lovejoy, an ecologist who coined the term "biological diversity". "We bulldoze into the last remaining places in nature and then are surprised when something like this happens. We have done this to ourselves by our continual intrusion into nature. We have to re-chart our course."

This story was originally published by The Guardian, and is republished here as part of the Covering Climate Now partnership to strengthen the media's focus on the climate crisis.

#Environment | https://sciencespies.com/environment/pandemic-side-effects-show-us-a-glimpse-of-an-alternative-future-on-earth-day-2020/

Scientists report terrifying ice lumps that could be the largest hailstones recorded

The hailstone is so massive it even stunned meteorologists.

"It's incredible," said meteorologist Matthew Kumjian from Penn State University in the US. "This is the extreme upper end of what you'd expect from hail."

The hefty ice lump smashed down from a supercell thunderstorm in Argentina two years ago, in the heavily populated town Villa Carlos Paz. In a recently published study, Kumjian and colleagues have concluded the hailstone is possibly the largest ever recorded - estimated to be up to 23.7 centimetres (over 9 inches).

However, as its dimensions were only gleaned from video evidence (below, 11 seconds in), and not direct measurements, they can't conclusively say it's the largest to be recorded.

Granizo en Villa Carlos Paz @todonoticias pic.twitter.com/RJakJjW8sl

— Leonardo Orozco (@LeoOrozco3105) February 8, 2018

Another hailstone from the same storm, recorded by local Victoria Druetta, came in at 18 centimetres (7.1 inches), after she saw chunks of it smash off during the impact of its landing.

(Victoria Druetta)

Such horrific hailstones require special conditions - massive storms with powerful updrafts to keep them aloft long enough to pack on that weight. They start as raindrops sucked above freezing altitudes in a storm, and as they're tossed about up there, layers of supercool liquid water freeze onto them - the twists and turns moulding their lumpy lobed structures.

Such updrafts and windfields that twist and strengthen with height are promoted by warm and humid conditions, and radar information from this recent study showed this large hail fell close to where the main updraft occurred. 

The examined hail also showed substantial wet growth, which occurs in the lower part of hail growth zones within the storms, suggesting the updraft there must be particularly strong for these giants to obtain their size.

As fascinating as this may be from a safe distance, hail of course is also extraordinarily dangerous, and more so the larger it gets. 

"Hail can cause significant damage to property and agriculture, as well as injuries or even deaths," the researchers wrote in their paper.

They proposed officially classifying hailstones larger than 15 centimetres (6 inches) as "gargantuan", to help warn us all of their damaging potential.

"Anything larger than about a quarter in size can start putting dents into your car," Kumjian said. "In some rare cases, 6-inch hail has actually gone through roofs and multiple floors in houses. We'd like to help mitigate the impacts on life and property, to help anticipate these kinds of events."

The team searched for warning signs leading up to the hailstorm but found a "lack of indications of an extreme event in the pre-storm environment, numerical model forecasts, or radar imagery collectively," and pointed out we need a lot more research in this area.

With predicted increases in the severity of thunderstorms in the future, understanding the dynamics of these giant stones of ice may soon become more critical. So far, research on future hailstorms suggests some areas may see increases in hail frequency while others a decrease, but that there will likely be a shift from small to large hailstones occurring with increasing global temperatures.

Penn State meteorologist Rachel Gutierrez explains volunteers can help scientists better understand the risks of hailstorms by reporting and providing accurate recordings of gargantuan hailstones, including the time and location of its fall and its weight.

This research has been published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.

#Nature | https://sciencespies.com/nature/scientists-report-terrifying-ice-lumps-that-could-be-the-largest-hailstones-recorded/

Space agencies working on a ‘unified message’ on industry stimulus

The Space Acquisition Council is collecting data on the state of the defense supply chain.

WASHINGTON — The Space Acquisition Council, which includes senior leaders from the Pentagon and the National Reconnaissance Office, has made it a priority to assist space industry suppliers that are financially stressed by the coronavirus crisis.

But exactly what type of assistance will be offered is still to be determined, said the Department of the Air Force’s top procurement official Will Roper.

Roper told reporters April 29 during a video conference that he has asked DoD organizations that work with space companies to get as much data as possible on suppliers that might be on the brink of collapse.

“When we get the results back, it’ll help us put out a unified message to Congress, to the Office of the Secretary of Defense and others about where to take actions,” Roper said.

The Pentagon has already identified small launch vehicles and microelectronics as sectors that support national security space programs and have been weakened by the crisis. Roper suspects there are other fragile points in the supply chain such as providers of specialized materials used in satellites.

“These are critical supplies,” he said. “You can’t just make a satellite out of anything, you have to have materials that meet tolerances that you just don’t get anywhere,” said Roper. “It’s not an area that you can just snap your fingers and find a company that does that type of work.”

During an emergency meeting April 27, “we reached the decision to put out a survey,” Roper said. The council also discussed “specific queries” that were sent from particular companies but Roper said he could not mention them by name.

“What we wanted to do with this emergency session is to put our thoughts on the table about what we’re seeing in the space industrial base,” he said.

Roper has seen investors become more conservative “and I think they’re looking for the government to take a leading role in saying what’s going to be important in the long term.”

Space is viewed as a “booming part of the future economy” and now needs help, said Roper. “Before COVID-19 most of the large investment firms were predicting at least a trillion dollar space economy by 2040.”

Congress might not support stimulus for DoD

Giving more money to the Pentagon to help stressed suppliers will be a hard sell, according to the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee Adam Smith (D-Wash.).

“I don’t think we should put money for DoD in a stimulus package,” Smith said April 29 during a Defense Writers Group video conference.

Smith said the Pentagon has plenty of money it can reallocate to fund industry stimulus efforts. Fuel costs, for example, have plummeted so there is extra funds in those accounts.

“Any future supplementals should be to fight the virus” not to buy military equipment, Smith said.

“I have not seen an argument that makes sense to me that we should put more money into defense to manufacture things,” he said.

With regard to helping suppliers in space or other sectors, “I don’t think DoD necessarily should turn into a bank on this one.”

Lots of businesses need help right now, said Smith. “Some have seen 100% of their revenue disappear.” A question for DoD is “how do you distribute resources? How do you make sure that it gets to the people that most desperately need it? We’re going to need to constantly reevaluate what’s working and what’s not working, and who needs the help.”

#Space | https://sciencespies.com/space/space-agencies-working-on-a-unified-message-on-industry-stimulus/

Here's why news on the 'insect apocalypse' has been so confusing

News of an insect apocalypse has become a familiar headline in recent years, with study after study pointing to an alarming loss in invertebrate numbers. As consistent as the message seems, the results don't always agree with one another.

A new study led by ecologists from the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research suggests the decline in global populations might not be as steep as we thought, and could actually be improving in some areas.

That conclusion might appear to be in stark contrast to claims we heard last year that 40 percent of all insect species face extinction, with some claiming an annual decline of 2.5 percent in their numbers worldwide, or even higher in some corners of the globe.

But taken in context, the new study builds a picture that shows how important it is to protect our environment and pay close attention to this vital part of the biosphere.

By compiling more than 160 surveys monitoring the weight of insect and arachnid populations around the globe, the researchers were able to get a good sense of the biomass and distributions of creepy crawlies dating as far back as 1925.

Their figures suggest there's a marked difference in trends for invertebrates in different ecosystems in different parts of the world.

For those that live on land – which is most insects and spiders – the news still isn't terrific, with an estimated yearly drop of just under one percent.

Seeing nearly one tenth of the invertebrate biomass shrink away every decade isn't exactly cause to celebrate, but it's a slope that we could optimistically interpret as giving us more time to act.

Oddly, other results in the study do provide us with a ray of hope. Insects that live in aquatic environments might have had a bit of a hey-day over the past century, growing by a similar amount year by year.

With so many numbers hinting at such different scenarios, it's easy to feel confused. Are things terrible? Just bad? Or is the science simply unsettled?

Manu Saunders is an ecologist from the University of New England with plenty of experience in interpreting data on insects. While she was not involved in this study, her advice is to not miss the wood for the trees.

"The overall trend is not the important message here," Saunders explained to ScienceAlert.

"The key take-home for me is the variation in insect population trends across space and time, between species groups, and between types of habitats or climate zones. These trends can be more informative about where we can most effectively address conservation initiatives."

It's all well and good to be shocked by the numbers. But hidden inside the statistics are important details we'll need to understand if we're to make decisions on how to best focus our efforts.

The surveys used in the study were all at least a decade or two in length, and focussed largely on protected environments across more than 40 countries covering five continents.

The details revealed the decline was worst in North America. Even putting those numbers aside, a weak global drop was still evident, indicating there's plenty of reason for all of us to pay attention.

The reason behind the decline is also a topic still in need of more research. Bees have suffered greatly from pesticides, parasites, and potentially changes in climate, but the sheer diversity of insects means it's unlikely any one explanation will be sufficient for all.

Just why there is a rise in freshwater insects is a bit of surprising mystery, and could be evidence that ongoing efforts to improve water quality are succeeding.

As encouraging as it is to think governments can turn things around with adequate environmental protections, the sheer complexity of insect ecology means solutions will probably need to be diverse. 

"This study is great because it really highlights how complex and varied insect population trends are," says Saunders.

"Although some people are again focusing on the simplified average trend mentioned in the abstract, the authors themselves take pains to note that there is more nuance here."

Given the study was light on data covering managed environments like crops, and included few sites from the Southern Hemisphere, there's plenty of room for further research to contribute to that nuanced description.

We're going to need all the information we can get, and with luck, the picture it all paints won't be a simple one, but one rich in ideas that can inform our decisions. 

It shouldn't take threats of an insect apocalypse to motivate us into putting pressure on governments to protect such an important part of nature. Just solid data.

This research was published in Science.

#Environment | https://sciencespies.com/environment/heres-why-news-on-the-insect-apocalypse-has-been-so-confusing/

'River monster': Huge African dinosaur Spinosaurus thrived in the water

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The huge African predator ​Spinosaurus spent much of its life in the water, propelled by a paddle-like tail while hunting large fish - a “river monster,” according to scientists, that showed that some dinosaurs invaded the aquatic realm.

Tools lie at the excavation site of Spinosauru in the Kem Kem region of the Sahara Desert in southeastern Morocco, from the excavation site of Spinosaurus in an undated photograph provided April 29, 2020. Diego Mattarelli/Handout via REUTERS.

Scientists on Wednesday announced the discovery of fossil bones from the tail of ​Spinosaurus in southeastern Morocco that provided a deeper understanding of the appearance, lifestyle and capabilities of the longest meat-eating dinosaur on record.

“Spinosaurus had a highly specialized tail - a propulsive structure that would have allowed this river monster to actively pursue prey in the water column,” said University of Detroit Mercy paleontologist and anatomist Nizar Ibrahim, lead author of the study published in the journal Nature.

Spinosaurus, which lived 95 million years ago during the Cretaceous Period, was a highly unusual dinosaur, and not just because of its staggering dimensions - up to 50 feet (15 meters) long and seven tons.

The anatomy of Spinosaurus had remained mysterious for decades after crucial fossils were destroyed during World War Two until the 2008 discovery of the Morocco skeleton, with the additional tail bones dug up since 2015.

Its tail was flexible with a large surface area thanks to a series of tall neural spines - different from the stiff and tapering tails of other carnivorous dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurus rex - indicating Spinosaurus and its close relatives engaged in tail-propelled locomotion unlike any other dinosaurs.

Laboratory experiments in which a plastic model of the Spinosaurus tail was attached to a robotic swimming device showed that the tail could move laterally to create thrust and power the animal through water like a crocodile, said Harvard University fish biologist and biomechanist George Lauder, a study co-author.

This indicates Spinosaurus terrorized rivers and river banks as a semi-aquatic animal, not merely wading into the water waiting for fish to swim by. It may have eaten huge fish, including sharks.

“This discovery overturns decades-old ideas that non-bird dinosaurs were restricted to terrestrial environments,” said Harvard University vertebrate paleontologist and biomechanist Stephanie Pierce, a study co-author. “So, yes, we believe that this discovery does indeed revolutionize our understanding of dinosaur biology.”

Spinosaurus still was able to move on land and lay eggs there, perhaps walking on four legs rather than two like other meat-eating dinosaurs.

“But it had so many adaptations to an aquatic existence - nostrils high on the skull and further back from the tip, flat bottomed-toe bones and claws, dense and thickened bone for buoyancy control, and this newly discovered tail form - that it would have been at least as aquatic as Nile Crocodiles,” University of Portsmouth paleontologist and study co-author David Martill said.

“It just might topple T. rex,” Pierce said, “as the most famous and exciting meat-eating dinosaur.”

Reporting by Will Dunham; Editing by Sandra Maler

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

#News | https://sciencespies.com/news/river-monster-huge-african-dinosaur-spinosaurus-thrived-in-the-water/

Look at the adorable derpy face of this newly discovered mata mata turtle

The mata mata turtle of South America is known for its camouflage, blending in effortlessly with the plant detritus, rocks and algae of its freshwater homes. But little did we realise that it was also hiding an entire species.

Yep - what we thought was a single species of turtle in the Chelus genus has now turned out to be at least two, discovered through rigorous genomic analysis.

No wonder it looks so delightfully smug.

"Although these turtles are widely known due to their bizarre looks and their unusual feeding behaviour, surprisingly little is known about their variability and genetics," said herpetologist Uwe Fritz of the Senckenberg Natural History Collections in Germany.

"Until now, we assumed that there is only one species of this armoured reptile that ranges widely across South America."

It is possible for a wide variety of physical differences within a species group - take giant squids, for example. But scientists had noticed that how mata mata turtles look seems to vary according to region. This prompted speculation that the genus has been harbouring a second species.

They're very charismatic little reptiles with wedge-shaped heads, wide mouths, tiny eyes, bark-like knobby shells often coated in algae, and tubercles and skin flaps all over the head and neck.

A mata mata turtle found in Guyana in 2015. (bruceebennett/iNaturalist/CC BY-NC 2.0)

These characteristics aid the turtle's peculiar hunting strategy. They lurk at the bottom of a body of water, neatly camouflaged, waiting for fish to swim a bit too close. Then, the head snaps out, and that large mouth opens wide, sucking the prey in like a vacuum.

But the mata mata turtles from the Amazon Basin and the drainage region of the Mahury River have some colour variations on the skin and shell, as well as some morphological differences from the mata mata turtles of the Orinoco and Río Negro basins.

So, the researchers collected 75 DNA samples from mata mata turtles across the entire distribution range, and ran them through mitochondrial analyses. They also conducted a survey of the turtles' morphological characteristics, and compared it to their DNA findings.

Not only did the DNA results show two distinct lineages, these matched up with the morphological differences.

The old species, Chelus fimbriata, lives in the Amazon and Mahury regions. It has a dark underside, and a more rectangular shell.

The new species has been named C. orinocensis, and it inhabits the Orinoco and Río Negro basins. The underside of its shell is unpigmented, and the overall shape of the shell is more oval.

According to the team's analysis, the two species started to diverge about 12.7 million years ago, during the late Miocene. This was around the same time that the combined Amazon-Orinoco Basin split into two.

As well as revealing a previously unknown diversity in this turtle species, the finding has implications for conservation. Previously, the mata mata turtle population was considered homogeneous, widespread and healthy. Now, we have to rethink that.

"To date, this species was not considered endangered, based on its widespread distribution. However, our results show that, due to the split into two species, the population size of each species is smaller than previously assumed," said biologist Mario Vargas-Ramírez, formerly at Senckenberg and now at the National University of Colombia.

"In addition, every year, thousands of these bizarre-looking animals end up in the illegal animal trade and are confiscated by the authorities. We must protect these fascinating animals before it is too late."

The research has been published in Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution.

#Nature | https://sciencespies.com/nature/look-at-the-adorable-derpy-face-of-this-newly-discovered-mata-mata-turtle/

Small Business Administration rule disqualifies many space startups from coronavirus relief loans

The Commercial Spaceflight Federation and the SmallSat Alliance have asked the SBA to change how it defines a small business.

WASHINGTON — Industry groups representing space and other technology sectors are asking the U.S. government to change rules that make many startups ineligible to receive Small Business Administration loans to help pay workers during the coronavirus crisis.

The issue was raised in an April 29 letter sent to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Office of Management and Budget acting director Russell Vought and the head of the Small Business Administration Jovita Carranza.

The letter was signed by two space industry groups — the Commercial Spaceflight Federation and the SmallSat Alliance — along with the App Association, Dcode and Financial Executives International.

The groups claim that hundreds of U.S. startups have been disqualified from loan programs — created under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act and the Paycheck Protection Program — because of the way the SBA defines “small business.”

Many startups are funded by venture capital firms that typically invest in a portfolio of companies. To be eligible for the SBA loan program a business has to have fewer than 500 employees. When defining a small business, the SBA applies an “affiliation rule,” requiring companies to include in their worker count all the employees of companies with which they are “affiliated.”

That rule requires venture-backed startups to aggregate the employees of all the unrelated companies in which their investors have equity positions, pushing many beyond the 500-employee threshold.

According to the industry groups, 98 percent of U.S. startups have fewer than 100 employees.

The letter warns that until the SBA issues a waiver to the “affiliation rule,” thousands of workers nationwide will be laid off from startups. “Many of these companies support elements of our nation’s critical infrastructure and need to be protected.”

An industry source said the April 29 letter from the five trade groups follows several other letters sent by congressional leaders to the SBA and to Treasury over the past month on the same issue.

#Space | https://sciencespies.com/space/small-business-administration-rule-disqualifies-many-space-startups-from-coronavirus-relief-loans/

This Hungarian village welcomed skull-shaping immigrants as the Roman Empire crumbled

As the Roman Empire drew to a dramatic collapse towards the end of the 5th century, ripples were felt across its former territories. Balances shifted as new powers rushed to fill the vacuums Rome's retreats left behind.

The changes to the everyday lives of the people are far less well documented, but a cemetery in Pannonia Valeria - in what is now Hungary - is shedding light on the cultural upheaval. And it seems that the founders of that community welcomed newcomers - and even adopted their customs, including modifying the shape of their skulls.

During this time, "the population decreased and the settlement structure changed drastically. Communities fled to the western provinces with the promise of safety, while others sought refuge in forts and cities looking for protection," the researchers wrote in their paper.

"The newly arriving groups also founded rural settlements often in connection to the former Roman infrastructure, such as roads and fortified places."

Until around 470 CE, a site now called Mözs-Icsei dűlő was the burial ground of just such a settlement. Its 96 graves have been well documented, with work going back decades.

But archaeologists in Germany and Hungary have now closely examined the remains of 87 individuals, analysing the strontium isotopes in the bones to figure out how the community came together.

That's because some stable isotopes - like strontium - are taken up by plants from the soil. When humans eat these plants, the isotopes can replace some of the calcium in teeth and bones, which can then be dated and matched to geological regions known to have particular isotope ratios.

Using this technique, the team was able to identify three distinct populations across two or three generations buried in the Mözs-Icsei dűlő cemetery.

The first population is a small founder population. They were buried in Roman-style brick graves, with Roman and Hun style grave goods, and the strontium isotope ratios in their bones indicated a largely local diet.

The second is a foreign group of 12 individuals who seem to have arrived at the community around a decade after the founders. They all had similar strontium isotope ratios, indicating that they had a shared origin. Ten of them also had modified skulls, suggesting they practised head shaping - the use of tight cloth bindings in infancy to elongate the still-hardening skull.

We still don't know why ancient cultures practised cranial modification. Although it's dying out today, it's an ancient practice, and there's evidence for it dating back thousands of years all around the world - and, interestingly, it seems to have no effect on cognitive function.

The third, slightly later group suggests that the customs of both earlier populations seem to blend together in the following generation. Not only were there founder-style grave goods included in later burials, head shaping seems to have exploded in popularity.

(Wosinsky Mór Museum, Szekszárd, Hungary)

In all, the 96 graves contained 51 individuals with deliberately modified skulls, marking the site as one of the biggest concentrations of artificial cranial deformation in the region.

As we have previously reported, reasons for the practice seem varied globally throughout history - from a marker of social status, to a side-effect of binding a baby's soft head to protect it while it grows. Or maybe some people just thought it looked really cool.

Whatever the reasons for it, the practice here is a beautiful example of how a community can grow and thrive under regional strife, joining their differences to build something new together.

"The community .. accepted and integrated men, women, and children of different geographical and cultural backgrounds during the two to three generations of its existence. The isotope data indicate that residential changes played a remarkable role and occurred not only on an individual basis, but also in groups of a shared cultural background and lifestyle," the researchers wrote in their paper.

"Placed into the historical narrative, this could be understood as the emergence of a Roman-'Barbarian' Mischkultur (mixed culture), in which Romanised 'Barbarians' and 'barbarised' late Roman population groups were indistinguishable."

The research has been published in PLOS One.

#Humans | https://sciencespies.com/humans/this-hungarian-village-welcomed-skull-shaping-immigrants-as-the-roman-empire-crumbled/

A piece of the moon for sale: just $2.5 million

LONDON (Reuters) - One of the world’s largest lunar meteorites goes on private sale at Christie’s on Thursday, valued at 2 million pounds ($2.49 million).

The moon rock, weighing over 13.5 kg, was probably struck off the surface of the moon by a collision with an asteroid or comet and then showered down on the Sahara desert.

Known as NWA 12691, it is thought to be the fifth largest piece of the moon ever found on earth. There is just 650 kg of moon rock known to be on earth.

“The experience of holding a piece of another world in your hands is something you never forget,” said James Hyslop, Christie’s head of science and natural history.

“It is an actual piece of the moon. It is about the size of a football, a bit more oblong than that, larger than your head.”

Like many meteorites that are discovered, it was found in the Sahara by an anonymous finder after travelling some 240,000 miles to earth from the moon. It then changed hands and was carefully studied.

Scientists can be certain of its origin after comparing it with rock samples brought back by the United States’ Apollo space missions to the moon.

“In the 1960s and 1970s the Apollo programme brought back about 400 kilograms of moon rock with them and scientists have been able to analyse the chemical and isotopic compositions of those rocks and they have determined that they match certain meteorites,” said Hyslop.

Meteorites are incredibly rare and only about one in a thousand comes from the moon, making this a very special object, he added.

Slideshow (7 Images)

“We are expecting huge international interest in it from natural history museums... it is a wonderful trophy for anyone who is interested in  space history or lunar exploration.”

The moon has fascinated man since the dawn of human history as a symbol of power, love, time and prosperity, and is the earth’s only natural satellite. It is thought to have been formed 4.5 billion years ago when a Mars-sized body collided with earth.

Christie’s will also offer for private sale a group of 13 aesthetic iron meteorites. That collection is estimated to be worth 1.4 million pounds.

Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge, Mike Davidson and Sarah Mills; Editing by Alexandra Hudson

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

#News | https://sciencespies.com/news/a-piece-of-the-moon-for-sale-just-2-5-million/

Guiana Space Center to reopen May 11

MT LAUREL, New Jersey — Europe’s spaceport will resume launch activity May 11 when France lifts a nation-wide lockdown that included the Guiana Space Center. 

Located in the South American territory of French Guiana, the spaceport has been closed since March 16 in an effort to slow the spread of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. 

The French space agency CNES said April 29 that launch activity and construction of the Ariane 6 launch pad were resuming with protective measures to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

Those measures include “strict social distancing” before leaving mainland Europe, medical screenings for people flying into French Guiana’s Cayenne airport, and a 14-day quarantine in Kourou, French Guiana, after landing. 

CNES said 100 people will travel from Europe to the Guiana Space Center on May 11, and will start preparations May 25 for a Vega rocket launch previously scheduled for March. 

In an interview, CNES President Jean-Yves Le Gall said the spaceport’s first missions would be the Vega launch in June followed by an Ariane 5 launch in July. 

“We should be back to routine operations one month from now,” Le Gall said. 

European launch provider Arianespace had 14 missions planned from the Guiana Space Center this year, two of which were completed prior to the spaceport’s closure.

The March bankruptcy of Arianespace-customer OneWeb left eight Soyuz launches in limbo, but only two of those would have launched from the Guiana Space Center. The other six were to launch from Russia and Kazakhstan. Le Gall said the Guiana Space Center should be able to accommodate all eight of Arianespace’s other 2020 missions without issue, despite the coronavirus delay. 

“We had some margins between the launches, so if everything is going well we will probably complete the launch program as it was planned early this year,” he said. 

Le Gall said launches at the Guiana Space Center shouldn’t require more time than in the past because of the coronavirus, but cautioned it will take time to know that fully. 

Spaceport personnel will be required to wear face masks while working, he said. Masks, spacing out workers and other safety steps should enable CNES to keep the spaceport running without a second interruption, he said. 

Le Gall said the coronavirus has had a limited impact on completing the Ariane 6 launch pad, known as ELA4, because some of that work resumed April 21 with local staff. Launch pad work will return to normal after more people arrive in May, he said. 

Le Gall said ELA4 should be completed in the second half of 2020. The biggest difference between ELA4 and the Ariane 5 launch pad is the introduction of a mobile gantry that will allow access to Ariane 6 up to the final minutes before liftoff, Le Gall said. 

#Space | https://sciencespies.com/space/guiana-space-center-to-reopen-may-11/

Becoming a parent makes you 25% less environmentally friendly, new research finds

It's not unusual for parents to worry about the next generation and the future planet they'll inherit, but new research suggests having children doesn't necessarily make you any 'greener' as a person - quite the opposite, in fact.

A new study in Sweden has found that even those who really care about the environment often end up having their deck of priorities re-shuffled by the realities of parenthood.

After all, there's only so much time and energy available in a single day, and children have a way of sapping up a lot of those limited resources.

Comparing adult parents to adult non-parents in Sweden, researchers found households made up of the former tend to emit more carbon dioxide from transportation, food, heating, and electricity.

Ultimately, the team found two-adult households with children were responsible for over 25 percent more carbon emissions than two-adult households without children.

"Our findings suggest that having children might increase CO2 emissions both by adding to the population and by increasing CO2 emissions from those choosing to have children," the authors write.

While adding another human to the planet in this day and age will inevitably increase carbon emissions, especially in wealthier nations, by how much exactly is still up for debate, and currently, only a small fraction of adults choose not to have children because of environmental reasons.

This means there are many parents out there who consider themselves quite 'green' and who list the environment as a top priority, even though their behaviour isn't quite matching up.

"Becoming a parent can transform a person – he or she thinks more about the future and worries about future risks imposed on their children and progeny," explains economist Jason Shogren from the University of Wyoming (UW). 

"But, while having children might be transformational, our results suggest that parents' concerns about climate change do not cause them to be 'greener' than non-parent adults."

This is one of the first rigorous studies on whether parents behave 'greener' than other adults. But it's still an open question, and the current findings will need to be verified in other nations and in larger sample sizes.

Previous research has provided mixed evidence on whether parenthood changes environmental attitudes, preferences, and behaviours, but the new study reevaluates the subject with a unique dataset, including an impressive 4,000 Swedish households.

Across all major household expenditures, the findings reveal a "substantial gap" in carbon emissions between parents and non-parents, especially in regards to transportation and food.

The results might be surprising, given how accepted climate change is in Sweden – the nation has a sizeable carbon tax that many people are happy to pay – but it's a good reminder that even with the best of intentions, parents can sometimes overlook the bigger impact of their actions for more immediate concerns.

This isn't to say it's entirely their fault, either. It may simply be about time and energy, although this is currently just one theory.

Reports on time usage in Swedish households reveal that out of all people, parents with small children have the least leisure time, and that's true even in a nation with generous parental leave. That could be making a big difference.

Carbon-intensive goods are usually convenient and cheap, the authors explain, which makes them particularly tempting to parents. When you're juggling the demands of a family, driving to the grocery store might be simpler than taking public transport or biking. Whereas pre-prepared food containing red meat might be convenient, and in some cases even cheaper.

Figuring out what's driving this emissions gap between adults is essential. The world isn't about to stop having children, so policies that alleviate some of the stress parents with young children are facing could allow families the time and money to better reduce their carbon footprint in the future.

For instance, if food really is an environmental issue in these households, then perhaps government subsidies for meat substitutes will go a longer way towards reducing emissions. Just as government policies for breastfeeding may reduce our reliance on formula milk, which produces a shocking amount of carbon emissions.

Still, there are other explanations, other than time and convenience. It may be stemming from the children themselves.

"Altruistic parents' consumption may also be impacted by the child's immediate preferences for carbon-intense consumption, such as a taste for red meat, flights to family-friendly resorts, and so on," the authors write.

"Children may of course also be concerned about the environment, which in turn may affect household consumption. Even though children in the Nordic countries have been found to be more environmentally concerned than their parents, there is a substantial gap between their attitudes and actions."

While the research took place in just one country, the authors think their findings are relevant to many other nations around the world.

"If we're finding these results in Sweden, it's pretty safe to assume that the disparity in carbon footprints between parents and non-parents is even bigger in most other Western countries," argues UW economist Linda Thunstrom.

The study was published in PLOS ONE.

#Humans | https://sciencespies.com/humans/becoming-a-parent-makes-you-25-less-environmentally-friendly-new-research-finds/

New tests suggest a fundamental constant of physics isn't the same across the Universe

Scientists have found evidence that a fundamental physical constant used to measure electromagnetism between charged particles can in fact be rather inconstant, according to measurements taken from a quasar some 13 billion light-years away.

Electromagnetism is one of the four fundamental forces that knit everything in our Universe together, alongside gravity, weak nuclear force, and strong nuclear force. The strength of electromagnetic interaction between elementary particles is calculated with the help of what's known as the fine-structure constant.

However, the new readings – taken together with other readings from separate studies – point to tiny variations in this constant, which could have huge implications for how we understand everything around us.

The latest data also show the Universe may have previously hidden 'north' and 'south' bearings, a definitive direction upon which these variations in electromagnetism can be mapped.

"[The new study] seems to be supporting this idea that there could be a directionality in the Universe, which is very weird indeed," says astrophysicist John Webb, from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Australia. "So the Universe may not be isotropic in its laws of physics – one that is the same, statistically, in all directions."

"But in fact, there could be some direction or preferred direction in the Universe where the laws of physics change, but not in the perpendicular direction. In other words, the Universe in some sense, has a dipole structure to it."

The electromagnetic force that surrounds us has a crucial role in tying electrons to nuclei inside atoms – without it, matter would simply disintegrate. It provides us with visible light, and is the main reason electricity works as it does.

Using images and data captured by the Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile, the research team was able to measure this force as it would've appeared in the Universe when it was much younger and closer to its beginnings.

The data require further testing and verification, but the team says that the current results raise a curious question: whether the idea of there being a 'Goldilocks' balance of fundamental forces – just perfect for life to be able to exist – actually applies throughout our Universe.

"Putting all the data together, electromagnetism seems to gradually increase the further we look, while towards the opposite direction, it gradually decreases," says Webb.

"In other directions in the cosmos, the fine structure constant remains just that – constant. These new very distant measurements have pushed our observations further than has ever been reached before."

That idea of directionality in the Universe has been backed by researchers working independently in the US, who have been busy looking at the nature of X-rays. They've also found a cosmic alignment that happens to point in the same way as the one the UNSW team has discovered.

As for what this means for physics on a broader scale, it's too early to say. The findings are absolutely worth further research at least, and mean the Grand Unified Theory - the search for one unifying force that can tie electromagnetism, weak and strong nuclear forces together - may even have to be shelved for a while.

Indeed, research published last year suggests there might be a fifth fundamental force to take into consideration. The further we look out into the Universe and the more we discover, the more complex and strange everything seems to get.

"Our standard model of cosmology is based on an isotropic universe, one that is the same, statistically, in all directions," says Webb. "That standard model itself is built upon Einstein's theory of gravity, which itself explicitly assumes constancy of the laws of nature."

"If such fundamental principles turn out to be only good approximations, the doors are open to some very exciting, new ideas in physics."

The research has been published in Science Advances.

#Physics | https://sciencespies.com/physics/new-tests-suggest-a-fundamental-constant-of-physics-isnt-the-same-across-the-universe/

Smallsat launch delays prompt push for greater standardization

WASHINGTON — A study that found that every small satellite launched commercially in the last five years suffered delays is evidence of the need of greater standardization in payload accommodations so that smallsats can easily switch vehicles, one company argues.

The study, conducted by Bryce Space and Technology and released April 22, found that all 1,078 smallsats — defined as weighing less than 600 kilograms — launched commercially in the last five years suffered delays ranging from days to years for a variety of reasons.

The median launch delay for the smallsats included in the study is 128 days. A little more than 150 smallsats had delays of no more than two weeks, but a similar number suffered delays of at least one and a half years.

The fact that so many smallsats have suffered launch delays is not surprising. “We’ve always known anecdotally that launch moves to the right,” said Grant Bonin, vice president of business development at Spaceflight, which arranges launches of smallsats on a variety of rockets, in an April 28 interview. “What we hadn’t really done yet is attempt to quantify just how likely delays are.”

Spaceflight commissioned the Bryce study to both quantify the delays and identify their causes. “I think some of that data was eye-opening as well, because it reflects a different distribution of launch delay causes than what a lot of people might assume,” he said.

The survey found that 40% of delays were due to payloads, including those of the primary payload on launches where smallsats were flying as secondary payloads. Issues related to launch vehicles accounted for 34% of delays, but most of those were caused by launch vehicle development and manufacturing delays, rather that delays caused by vehicle anomalies. Most of the rest of the delays were due to administrative or programmatic issues, or changes in the International Space Station manifest for those smallsats being launched from the station.

Whatever the reason, delays can cause serious problems for many of Spaceflight’s customers. “The facts of life have always been that launches are delayed, and that can be extremely punishing on businesses who need satellites in space,” Bonin said. “A day of slip in launch is a day they’re not making money off the asset because it’s not in space.”

He argued that the fact that many delays are caused by primary payload or launch vehicles issues underscores the importance of having more standardized approaches to accommodating smallsats, so that they can be easily remanifested from one launch vehicle to another. “That’s something we can do months before launch, but we’re committed to the idea, with standardization, of decreasing that time significantly, to a matter of weeks,” he said.

Such standardization already exists for cubesats, most of which use deployers that can be easily moved from one launch vehicle to another. Spaceflight wants to try to extend standardization to larger smallsats. “Locking in the electrical interfaces, standardizing the mechanical interfaces, and standardizing how a spacecraft needs to be processed is really key,” he said.

One reason for delays that emerged since the Bryce report is linked to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Bonin said that several launch providers it works with, including Arianespace, the Indian Space Research Organisation and Rocket Lab, are encountering delays because of lockdowns that have halted launch activities.

It’s not clear when those launches will resume, although the New Zealand government backed down from its highest coronavirus alert level this week, allowing some increased business activity. He predicted a surge in launch activity once those providers can resume launches and address their backlog.

Demand for future launches, though, may be depressed. “With the customer base right now, we’re seeing a lot of people taking a deep breath and putting themselves on pause,” he said. Startups in particular are concerned about access to capital needed to expand their businesses, including developing and launching satellites.

“I think a lot of companies are just stopping and saying to themselves, ‘Survival is victory, so we’re going to try to ride this out and extend our runway as much as possible,’” he said. There will remain demand from companies in the midst of satellite deployment plans, as well as government customers in the U.S. and elsewhere. “You might see a shift in our customer portfolio a little bit.”

There will also likely be a shakeout not only among customers but also launch providers, given the large number of companies working on small launch vehicles. “But overall, we are bullish and optimistic about the industry bouncing back in a strong way,” he concluded.

#Space | https://sciencespies.com/space/smallsat-launch-delays-prompt-push-for-greater-standardization/

Palaeontologists think they have found 'the most dangerous place' in Earth's history

A long-known but under-studied deposit of Cretaceous rock on the edge of the Sahara desert was more than just an ancient stomping ground for dinosaurs, according to a comprehensive new paper.

The Kem Kem Group in eastern Morocco might also represent a prime candidate for the most dangerous time and place to have been alive in Earth's prehistoric past, based on its fearsome preponderance of large-bodied carnivores, as evidenced in the fossil record.

(Ibrahim et al., ZooKeys, 2020)

That prevalence – in contrast to the relative scarcity of herbivore remains – constitutes a bias towards giant flesh-eaters that can't be found in any comparable modern terrestrial ecosystem, researchers say.

"This was arguably the most dangerous place in the history of planet Earth, a place where a human time-traveller would not last very long," says palaeontologist Nizar Ibrahim from the University of Detroit Mercy.

A Carcharodontosaurus eyes a group of crocodile-like hunters called Elosuchus. (Davide Bonadonna)

In a new study, Ibrahim and his team reviewed the abundance of fossil evidence sourced from what has previously been termed the 'Kem Kem beds' – a fossil-rich deposit of ancient strata situated near the Moroccan-Algerian border and dating back to the Late Cretaceous period.

The site's existence has long been known, and not only to palaeontologists, but also to commercial fossil hunters, meaning the plundered remains of many of these ancient dinosaurs, reptiles, and other creatures are now scattered far and wide across the globe in private collections.

That distribution of isolated fossils means we've been missing out on a consolidated overview of what the Kem Kem Group's fossil haul truly represents; something Ibrahim and fellow researchers have attempted to rectify with their new analysis, which involved visits being made to collections held on several continents.

"This is the most comprehensive piece of work on fossil vertebrates from the Sahara in almost a century, since the famous German palaeontologist Ernst Freiherr Stromer von Reichenbach published his last major work in 1936," explains one of the team, palaeobiologist David Martill from the University of Portsmouth in the UK.

The review provides "a window into Africa's age of dinosaurs", Ibrahim says, and suggests the Kem Kem Group actually encompasses two distinct fossil-rich sites, called the lower Gara Sbaa and upper Douira formations.

Both formations exhibit a range of dinosaurs and pterosaurs, in addition to ancient crocodyliforms, turtles, fish remains, plus various invertebrate, plant, and trace fossils.

The fish-eating, sail-backed Spinosaurus. (Davide Bonadonna)

Perhaps the most remarkable feature of the Kem Kem palaeoecosystem is what has since become known as 'Stromer's riddle': the overabundance of predatory versus herbivorous dinosaurs, seen in both the Kem Kem Group, and also the Bahariya Formation of Egypt.

With regard to the Kem Kem Group, this is indicated by the presence of four different kinds of theropods (an abelisaurid, Spinosaurus aegyptiacus, Carcharodontosaurus saharicus, and Deltadromeus agilis), whereas in most Mesozoic formations like this, only one or two large-bodied predators like this would be found, the researchers say.

But there is more that sets Kem Kem apart, the team found.

Tabular cross-bedding in the Gara Sbaa formation. (Ibrahim et al., ZooKeys, 2020)

"In addition to the overabundance of large-bodied dinosaurian predators," the authors write, "at least three of the four large-bodied predators present in both the Kem Kem and Bahariya assemblages are among the largest (top 10 percent) dinosaurian predators on record."

At the same time, large-bodied herbivores are neither diverse nor abundant in the fossil record, the team says, although they likely did dwell alongside the large meat-eaters, but are "not as diverse as in many other Cretaceous formations nor particularly common as fossils".

(University of Detroit Mercy)

Nonetheless, there was plenty else to eat. At the time these dinosaurs roamed, roughly 100 million years ago (but dating up to 115 million years back for some of the fossils), the area was the headland of a vast river system, and a bountiful supply of fish and other marine animals would have easily sustained the theropod population.

"This place was filled with absolutely enormous fish, including giant coelacanths and lungfish," Martill says.

"There is an enormous freshwater saw shark called Onchopristis with the most fearsome of rostral teeth, they are like barbed daggers, but beautifully shiny."

The findings are reported in ZooKeys.

#Nature | https://sciencespies.com/nature/palaeontologists-think-they-have-found-the-most-dangerous-place-in-earths-history/

Creator of Wolfram Alpha has a bold plan to find a new fundamental theory of physics

Stephen Wolfram is a cult figure in programming and mathematics. He is the brains behind Wolfram Alpha, a website that tries to answer questions by using algorithms to sift through a massive database of information. He is also responsible for Mathematica, a computer system used by scientists the world over.

Last week, Wolfram launched a new venture: the Wolfram Physics Project, an ambitious attempt to develop a new physics of our Universe.

The new physics, he declares, is computational. The guiding idea is that everything can be boiled down to the application of simple rules to fundamental building blocks.

What's the point of the 'new physics'?

Why do we need such a theory? After all, we already have two extraordinarily successful physical theories.

These are general relativity – a theory of gravity and the large-scale structure of the Universe – and quantum mechanics – a theory of the basic constituents of matter, sub-atomic particles, and their interactions. Haven't we got physics licked?

Not quite. While we have an excellent theory of how gravity works for large objects, such as stars and planets and even people, we don't understand gravity at extremely high energies or for extremely small things.

General relativity "breaks down" when we try to extend it into the miniature realm where quantum mechanics rules. This has led to a quest for the holy grail of physics: a theory of quantum gravity, which would combine what we know from general relativity with what we know from quantum mechanics to produce an entirely new physical theory.

The current best approach we have to quantum gravity is string theory. This theory has been a work in progress for 50 years or so, and while it has achieved some success there is a growing dissatisfaction with it as an approach.

How is Wolfram's approach different?

Wolfram is attempting to provide an alternative to string theory. He does so via a branch of mathematics called graph theory, which studies groups of points or nodes connected by lines or edges.

Think of a social networking platform. Start with one person: Betty. Next, add a simple rule: every person adds three friends. Apply the rule to Betty: now she has three friends. Apply the rule again to every person (including the one you started with, namely: Betty). Keep applying the rule and, pretty soon, the network of friends forms a complex graph.

A simple rule multiple times creates a complex network of points and connections. (Author provided)

Wolfram's proposal is that the universe can be modelled in much the same way. The goal of physics, he suggests, is to work out the rules that the universal graph obeys.

Key to his suggestion is that a suitably complicated graph looks like a geometry. For instance, imagine a cube and a graph that resembles it.

 (Author provided)

Above: In the same way that a collection of points and lines can approximate a solid cube, Wolfram argues that space itself may be a mesh that knits together a series of nodes.

Wolfram argues that extremely complex graphs resemble surfaces and volumes: add enough nodes and connect them with enough lines and you form a kind of mesh. He maintains that space itself can be thought of as a mesh that knits together a series of nodes in this fashion.

What does this have to do with physics?

How can complicated meshes of nodes help with the project of reconciling general relativity and quantum mechanics? Well, quantum theory deals with discrete objects with discrete properties. General relativity, on the other hand, treats the universe as a continuum and gravity as a continuous force.

If we can build a theory that can do what general relativity does but that starts from discrete structures like graphs, then the prospects for reconciling general relativity and quantum mechanics start to look more promising.

If we can build a geometry that resembles the one given to us by general relativity using a discrete structure, then the prospects look even better.

Space may be a complex mesh of points connected by a simple rule that is iterated many times. (Wolfram Physics Project)

So is it time to get excited?

While Wolfram's project is promising, it does contain more than a hint of hubris. Wolfram is going up against the Einsteins and Hawkings of the world, and he's doing it without a life spent publishing in physics journals.

(He did publish several physics papers as a teenage prodigy, but that was 40 years ago, as well as a book A New Kind of Science, which is the spiritual predecessor of the Wolfram Physics Project.)

Moreover, his approach is not wholly original. It is similar to two existing approaches to quantum gravity: causal set theory and loop quantum gravity, neither of which get much of a mention in Wolfram's grand designs.

Nonetheless, the project is notable for three reasons.

First, Wolfram has a broad audience and he will do a lot to popularise the approach that he advocates. Proponents of loop quantum gravity in particular lament the predominance of string theory within the physics community. Wolfram may help to underwrite a paradigm shift in physics.

Second, Wolfram provides a very careful overview of the project from the basic principles of graph theory up to general relativity. This will make it easier for individuals to get up to speed with the general approach and potentially make contributions of their own.

Third, the project is "open source", inviting contributions from citizen scientists.

If nothing else, this gives us all something to do at the moment – in between baking sourdough and playing Animal Crossing, that is.

Sam Baron, Associate professor, Australian Catholic University.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

#Physics | https://sciencespies.com/physics/creator-of-wolfram-alpha-has-a-bold-plan-to-find-a-new-fundamental-theory-of-physics/