keep up with astrophysics news
and improve your cultural literacy 
.... beginning its 7th year
 
feedback, questions, broken links, and what not:   kolena@gmail.com

last updated:   7 a
m  August 31, 2019

August  guide to the bright planets   or the   Sky This Week

find the asteroid  Ceres   in July/August 2019



solar system


stars

exoplanets
(and ET life)

galaxies &
cosmology


relativity, quantum,
& particle physics

cultural
literacy

teaching/education,
science & tech

  late August 2019


About those 'dark absorbers' on Venus
(Astronomy)


Enceladus -- the greatest hope for life beyond Earth?
(Starts with a Bang)


Did an ancient asteroid impact lift Earth out of a Snowball state?
(Science)
2.2 Byr ago


Ryugu news

Latest images
(Astronomy)
more evidence of a violent birth

but
few signs of dust
(Science News)
where did it go?
or is it in hiding?

with surface rocks like carbonaceous chondrite meteorites
(Science)
paywall

-------------------

Why are Jupiter & Saturn spinning so slowly (sic)?
(Astrobites)
yet have most of the solar system's angular momentum?



Why the moon shines brighter in γ-rays than the sun
(NASA)
it has no magnetic field... and it's closer


The first Moon rock from Earth
(Particle)


Arecibo gets the $12 million fix it needs
(Earth & Sky)


Saturn's rings may only be around for another 100 Myr
(Smithsonian)
so better look now

and
A brief history of Saturn's rings
(The Conversation)


🔥 
yes, there is a  climate crisis 🔥




how we know the planet is warming
the big picture


Summer weather becomes more persistent in a
2
°C world
(Nature Climate Change)
in particular, drought, heat, and rainfall extremes


Anthropogenic effects appear in global ocean carbon cycle
 (Nature Climate Change)


April tornado frequency linked to ocean temperature
(Scientific American)
link still murky?

published artlcle
(Science Advances)
free temporarily


Is global warming weakening the

El Niño - El Niña
connection?

(Science News)
making them more unpredictable

published article
(Science Advances)
free temporarily


Goodbye to more big coal plants
(Scientific American)
closed by economics, not climate policy



Why a giant Greenland glacier is melting
(CNN)

climate policy

Sanders' climate plan

What's in Bernie Sanders 'Green New Deal' plan
(Vox)
a lot, but so is the $16 trillion price tag

What Sanders
says is in it

(Bernie Sanders)

It's the best way forward
(Washington Post)

A game-changer
(Desmog Blog)

A climate plan for the many
(Jacobin)
not the few


and taking control of the energy grid
(Jacobin)
yes!


and from the head-in-the-sand people

A plan that will take us nowhere?
(Washington Post)
because doing nothing is always better than addressing the problem


 
is it worse than a Trumpian wall?
(Washington Post)

WaPost is sure conflicted on this issue, huh?


Yang's climate plan

Carbon tax, more nuclear, move away from the coast
(Vox)


What Yang says is in his plan
(Andrew Yang)

--------------------

Trump's new climate plan
(Vox)
6 things


Is climate change leaving presidential politics?
(Vox)
Jay Inslee drops out


DNC again rejects candidate debate on climate change
(The Guardian)

Why the DNC needs a climate debate
(The Intercept)

---------------------


climate solutions

Is Big Tech the solution to climate change?
(Washington Post)
how to extract carbon from the atmosphere
but most CO2 put underground is used to find more fossil fuels:
is this progress?


Why we're having trouble fixing climate change
(Washington Post)
we don't have much empathy for our descendants


To fix the climate, tell better stories
(Nautil.us)
a narrative vacuum


Why we need an international center for climate modeling
(Scientific American)


A plan to cut NC's greenhouse-gas emission from electricity production by 70%
(Raleigh N&O)
by 2030


citizen comments
on the

proposed plan
can be made here
 by 9/9


RCP8.5:  the global-warming future or a scare tactic?
(Carbon Brief)
the origin of and controversies over RCP8.5


The case for strategic and managed climate retreat
(Science)
why, where, when, & how should communities relocate

pay attention Pacific islands, LA, & Miami


Want to avoid extended heat waves and heavy rainfall?
(Carbon Brief)
stay under 1.5
°C warming


climate non-solutions

Let the methane run free?
(NY Times)
EPA rolls back methane regulations



Is fracking responsible for the methane rise?
(Vox)


published paper
(Biogeosciences)
clues from C13H4 depletion


Air conditioning:
cooling the room, heating the planet

(The Guardian)


climate reporting

Have scientists underestimated the pace of climate change?
(Scientific American)


The islands that are sinking
(Time cover story)


Global warming is here....
denying it is unforgivable

(Washington Post)


environment

The very real threat of nuclear winter
(Rutgers U)
Treaty on Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons remains unratified
including by the U.S.


published article
(J Geophysical Research: Atmospheres)
paywall


Funeral for a glacier
(The Guardian)
lost to global warming


Trump's war on the NC environment
(Raleigh N&O)


Mapping the strain on the U.S. water supply
(Washington Post)


World gathers to tackle wildlife extinction crisis
(The Guardian)


Trump administration is greatest threat to endangered wildlife

(Vox)


No, paper straws aren't (much) better than plastic ones
(The Atlantic)



An unnoticed kilonova
(U Maryland)
1 year before the famous one


published paper
(MNRAS)


Total annihilation
(Gemini)
in the supernova death of a super-massive star by pair instability
first ever observed?

and
The supernova that destroyed its star
(Sky & Telescope)


The definitive theoretical paper on pair-instability supernovas

(Astrophysical Journal)
from 2002



Supernova clues in the Antarctic snow
(NY Times)

The surprisingly similar dark-side temperatures of exoplanets
(McGill U)
why 800
°C?
... and independent
of day-side insolation and temperature


1 in 4 sun-like stars has an Earth-like planet in its habitable zone?
(Earth & Sky)

details in
published article
(Astronomical Journal)
paywall


Hot rocky planets orbiting small stars may not retain an atmosphere
(Scientific American)
if so, the most common planets in the universe are likely lifeless

published paper
(Nature)
free to read but not to save

on the other hand,
let's not dismiss planets around uv-emitting stars
(Astrobites)


Extreme solar systems IV meets
this week in Iceland

(Northwestern U)
titles only, no audio, no video

summary of
Day 5 talks
Day 4 talks
Day 3 talks
Day 2 talks
Day 1 talks


How Earth might look to alien astronomers
(arXiv)
from afar


more on
WASP-121b
(Earth & Sky)
the hot, heavy-metal planet




Untangling the star streams in the Milky Way
(ESA)
with GAIA


A history of the intergalactic medium
(Knowable)
how galaxies eat, breathe, & die

based on
The evolution of the intergalactic medium
(Annual Reviews of Astronomy & Astrophysics)
"The bulk of cosmic matter resides in ... the space between galaxies"
more than half the dark matter and an even larger fraction of the baryons


Do AGNs trigger -- or inhibit -- star formation?
(Astrobites)



What if there was no Big Bang?
(New Scientist)

paywall


The secrets of early-universe hydrogen
(Nature)
a history of the universe's first billion years

neutrino masses

How galaxies helped us weigh the lightest neutrinos
(The Conversation)
and why it matters


arXiv pre-pub article
lightest mνc2 <  0.086 ev
Σ of ν mc2 <  0.26 ev
from cosmological observations and particle physics experiments


published article:
An upper bound on the mass of the lightest neutrino?
(Phys. Rev. Letters)
paywall


gravitational waves

Probable detection of black hole swallowing
neutron star?
(ANU)
masses still being sorted out

the mystery deepens
(Gizmodo)
if an ns-bh merger,
why no E&M signal?
if a bh-bh merger, evidence
for lightest bh ever?

and more rumors:
Gravitational waves from a 100-solar -mass black hole?
(Quanta)
too big to exist?

 
LIGO  remains mum on everything
'wait till 2020'?


  Properties of a bh-ns merger candidate
(arXiv)
written pre-rumor of the above (but rather about the rumor of 4/26/19)


22 gravitational-
wave events remain under investigation

(LIGO)
as part of LIGO run 2

----------------------

5 most likely solutions to the  black-hole information paradox
(BackReaction)
out of hundreds


How black holes destroy information
(BackReaction)
and why it matters



The muon:
particle physics' future?

(Starts with a Bang)



Qutrits teleported for the first time
(Science News)


Quantum weirdness isn't real, after all?
(Lee Smolin, in
New Scientist)
can QM be formulated from a set of higher principles?
much more coherent than the article immediately below
paywall


read with caution

3 reasons why GR can't be quite right
(BackReaction)
wave-particle duality, singularities, and
irreversibility
why does no one say that QM can't be quite right?

and the article is cautioned because of some gross misconceptions -- kind of embarrassing from a once-professional physicist



How we know the size of elementary particles
(Starts with a Bang)
somewhat muddled as usual... this guy needs an editor
why are no-evidence 'preons' in a diagram? ;
radio-telescope antennas aren't 'big', their dishes are!; and a badly-flawed (but sadly typical) interpretation of the double-slit experiment
 



read with even greater caution

Will dark photons never go away?
(LiveScience)
despite an intensive search at SPS/CERN, nothing there



Can dark matter and black holes interact?
(Starts with a Bang)


Testing gravitational waves for wave-particle duality?
(Starts with a Bang)




futures

Catering to the wealthy
(The Atlantic)
one of America's fastest-growing jobs


Be afraid. 
Be very afraid.

(Rolling Stone)
Trump 2020
is America stupid enough to do it twice?


Corporate consciousness?
(Business Roundtable)
believe it only when you see it happening
greed will no longer be corporations' primary focus?


Trump to NRA:
don't worry, universal background checks are 'off the table'

(Washington Post)
Trump caves, again


Confused about the ruling class?
(The Atlantic)
read this

----------------------

Enough of riches, meritocracy, & prizes
(The Atlantic)
a way out?


Mike Pompeo,
Secretary of Trump

(New Yorker)
the road from derision to flattery

or
Mike Pompeo, Secretary of Hypocrisy
(NY Times)
gosh, why single out only one secretary?


American slavery
began 400 years ago

the 1619 project

(NY Times)
awesome content;
visually, a disorganized mess


and some NYT
subset stories:

The barbaric history of sugar
aka 'white gold'

Why American prisons owe their cruelty to slavery

Why can't we teach slavery right in American schools?


The dawn of American slavery
Washington Post responds with their own series

Why we should remember 1619
(Washington Post)
 the arrival of slaves in Jamestown


1619 and the cult
of conservative innocence

(Vox)

How slavery became America's first big business
(Vox)  


Slavery of southern plantations?
(Washington Post)
some (white) tourists don't want to hear about it


Teaching the truth about slavery in schools has always been a failing proposition
(Washington Post)


5 things (some) people still get wrong about slavery
(Vox)


books and docs

The fate of food
(Kirkus)
what we'll eat in the age of climate change
up for insects?


End Times
(Science News)
the catastrophic events that could
kill us all


Something deeply hidden
(Not Even Wrong)
"you can tear off the cover" which pitches 'multi-world woo'
(and) ... "be left with something ... mostly reasonable"


American Factory
(The Guardian)
the new global haves and have-nots
premieres this week on Netflix...
produced by the Obamas


Race and history in Virgina
(The Atlantic)



art/trips/museums

Richard Serra
(NY Times)
carrying the weight
of the world


Who's on fire?
(Vox)
sadly, many places


A visual tour of Greenland
(Washington Post)
quick! before it melts! ...or someone buys it


Lee Krasner, hiding in plain sight
(NY Times)
colorful, but a mess


education

Smart tech choices for teaching your class
(Chronicle of Higher Education)
far too many choices?


College Board drops 'adversity score'?
(Forbes)
'good' say the
thieving rich
sorry Forbes, it's just broadening the score from one number


Scientific publications:
whither cost and quality?

(Physics Today)
pay-to-read vs.
pay-to-publish



Mapmaker: the gerrymandering game that puts the fun in undermining democracy

(Ars Technica)
yes, it's a real game


Why conservatives are turning away from higher ed
(The Atlantic)

or
Why conservatives are afraid of higher education
(LA Review of Books)
and
they sure changed their minds quickly
(The Atlantic)


Paths out of darkness
(Science)
a special series of articles on suicide -- and looking for new ways to save lives


science & tech


Christine (Hammock) Koch,
NCSSM '97 and
ISS astronaut

(Raleigh N&O)
Tar Heel of the Month


Trump's systematic assault on science
(Washington Post)


Gerlach, NV:
the darkest town in America?

(538)

oh, and
Why is the sky dark at night, anyway?
(Starts with a Bang)


The quantum revolution is coming
(Washington Post) and Chinese scientists are ahead

and
what 's going to stop Internet attacks by quantum hackers?
(Science)
when those computers come on line?


To the Moon on
the cheap?

(Politico)
but
with a contest


human origins & behavior

No one 'gay gene'
(Science News)
but yes, evidence of genetic disposition


First Americans:
were in Idaho?

(Science News)
16,500 yrs ago, 1000 yr earlier than thought
says the evidence of stone tools

and they came by sea from Japan?
(Ars Technica)


Following the ancient amber road
(Smithsonian)
from St. Petersburg
to Venice



Worrying about extinction
(The Conversation)
because we're alone in the cosmos?
hilarious


A plague of self-citation?
(Nature)

limited time?  read the most important stories from  early August 2019:


1)   guns in America
and
what the science says about guns and mass killings


2)  
what lies hidden by dust:  young galaxies and SMBHs

3)  million-$ Breakthrough Prize goes to
a theory that doesn't describe reality


4)   climate news

IPCC special report on land use and food

melting (with sea rise), burning, and flooding  keep getting worse


5)   real-time stellar evolution

6)   solar system updates

did heavy late bombardment era happen earlier than thought ?

did a neptune-sized object collide head-on with proto-Jupiter?

a multi-impact lunar origin theory


7) 
Mauna Kea telescopes return to normal

8)  election security:  we keep ignoring the danger

9)  environmental degradation

coming or already here:  global desertification & a water crisis

it's raining plastics





solar system

stars

exoplanets
(and ET life)

galaxies &
cosmology

relativity, quantum,
& particle physics


cultural
literacy

teaching/education,
science & tech

  early August 2019


Did a neptune- sized proto-planet collide with Jupiter in the early solar system?
(Rice U)
it would explain the  low density and large extent of Jupiter's core


Astronomy comments

Earth & Sky has some helpful figures



Solar system's planet migration began 4.5 Gyr ago
(U Colorado)
causing a very early bombardment era that may have left time niches
for life to start
the Moon's 3.9-Gyr-old rocks are red herrings


A multiple-impact hypothesis for the Moon's origin
(Astrobites)


Mauna Kea news

Mauna Kea telescopes re-open
(KITV)
after 4-week shut-down

previous news:
Mauna Kea update
(Astrobites)
astronomical community split

30-m telescope to
go to Canary Islands, instead?

(AP via MSN)
'
our mountains are not sacred'

-------------------

The mountain on Ceres
(Earth & Sky)
is not sacred either



Venus: a laboratory
for exoplanetary science

(arXiv)


Look around Mars
(Earth & Sky)
interactive, courtesy of Curiosity rover


Worried about a
quick terrestrial magnetic reversal?

(Astronomy)
calm down... the last one took 22,000 years


published paper
(Science Advances)
free for the moment


Our best look at Io's volcanoes
(National Geographic)


Hayabusa 2 @  Ryugu
(Astrobites)


Walking on the Moon
(The Conversation)
 
are tardigrades, courtesy of a crashed Israeli satellite


🔥 
yes, there is a  climate crisis 🔥




how we know
the big picture


IPCC special report

Change how we eat and grow food
(Vox)
or the planet dies

Eat less meat
(Nature)
and change bad land use habits

7 takeaways
(The Atlantic)
the big one:
land can't multitask

4 ways to better land use
(Vox)

IPCC executive summary
and
links to full report
(IPCC)


Q&A takeaways
(Carbon Brief)

-------------------

The fastest- warming U.S. counties
(Washington Post)
more than 5
°F
in 125 years
climate change is already here


July 2019: the hottest month in human recorded history
(Washington Post)
and 2015 - 2019 is the hottest 5-year period


Global sea-level rise acceleration began in mid-1960s
(Carbon Brief)
30 years earlier than previously thought

published article
(Nature Climate Change)
paywall


melting & burning

Droughts, heat waves, & floods
(Nature)
how to tell if climate change is to blame


Disappearing Greenland
(Washington Post)
a historic melting month and day

data here
(Polar Portal)


and
just disappearing green
(Scientific American)
global plant growth
continues decrease that began in late 90s
due to lower H2O vapor pressure deficit caused by global warming

published paper
(Science Advances)
free for now


Arctic burning,
Greenland melting

(Science News)

and NE Russia is melting too
(NY Times)
releasing permafrost CH4 and mammoth bones


Wildfires in the Arctic
(The Conversation)
a planetary warning
...will it go unheeded?


A velocity map of Antarctica's melting ice
(Science News)


climate reporting

Millions of times later, and still the 97% consensus is denied
(Bulletin, Atomic Scientists)


We will pay for climate change
(Wired)
the questions are 'who' & 'when',
 not 'how'



climate solutions

Carbon pricing won't fix climate change
(Scientific American)
it will help in the U.S., but not in developing countries



Want 100% renewable energy?
Need cheap batteries.

(Vox)
what is a reasonable cost?


Should you be ashamed to fly?
(Vox)
shorter flights are less efficient, but longer ones have a bigger footprint


Electric scooters: not as eco-friendly as they seem
(The Guardian)


climate adapting
(Scientific American)

to floods & fires

in Alaska


climate stupidity

Is fracking the cause of the recent CH4 spike?
(Biogeosciences)
U.S. fracking, that is

Vox comments


Geoengineering
isn't the answer

(Prospect)
we've been messing with the climate since the industrial revolution... what has it got us?


NC leads in re- building in flood plains
(Raleigh N&O)
i.e., NC leads in climate stupidity


Climate-denying cherry-picking
(Neurologica)
to oppose electric cars and deny increasing warming

and the evidence:
Yes, hybrids are greener than conventional cars
(How Stuff Works)

and the published research


environment

It's raining plastics
(Adventure Journal)
in the Rockies, the Arctic, the Alps, ...

the US Geological Survey document  showing the evidence


Humans vs. Earth
(Nature)
defining the Amthropocene?


Desertification:
the greatest environmental challenge of our time

(Carbon Brief)
and climate change is making it worse



Water crises loom for a quarter of humanity
(NY Times)
not just LA, but most of the American Midwest and West


discovery rumor:
A black hole swallowing a neutron star?
(Science News)
would be a first


What we might learn about neutron stars from a
ns-bh merger

(AAS Nova)
radius constraints?
equation of state?




Real-time stellar evolution in T UMi

(AAVSO)
thermal pulses at the end of its nuclear life?

Astronomy comments


Massive stars form like less massive ones, except with jets
(University College, Dublin)


An 'impossible' white dwarf
(AAS Nova)


Vela pulsar caught in a detailed glitch
(McGill U)
does the superfluid core have 2 components?


The type I SNe zoo
(arXiv)
technical


The most anemic star ever
(MNRAS)
106 x less iron than
in the sun


Not so fast: spindown with age becomes more complicated
(AAS Nova)



A 7-minute eclipsing binary with 2 white dwarfs
(Earth & Sky)
will their separation
grow or shrink?
a GR testing ground

Probability of a rocky planet orbiting a sun-like star in its habitable zone?:  0.03 - 0.40
(Penn St. U)


Moonetisimals
form quickly?

(Astrobites)
why we don't find circumplanetary disks


A time-lapse video map of the
~4000 exoplanets
(Earth & Sky)


A football-shaped exoplanet trailing
heavy metals

(Hubble)
WASP-121b


TESS finishes 1st year of science
(Sky & Telescope)
~25 new exoplanets
sadly, no broadcasts from the recent TESS science conference




ET life

Finding ET life by looking for biofluoresence
(Cornell U)
produced by their star's uv flares

Youngest SMBH?
(Starts with a Bang)
cloaked in dust


A surprising amount of dust is hiding galaxies in the young universe
(ALMA)
the ancestors of  massive elliptical galaxies?
discovery is "a challenge" for current theories of galaxy formation

or maybe not?
(Science)
technical

 

H0 intrigue and infighting?
(Quanta)
and close to home


There are no Seyfert type IIs
(Astronomy)
that aren't Seyfert type Is in disguise


Milky Way in 3D
(Science News)
it's warped, say the Cepheids
due to an encounter with
a dwarf galaxy?


Decoding the mechanism for
γ-ray bursts

(Astrophysical J.)


Magnetic fields span intergalactic space

(Physics Today,
August 2019 issue)
the clue: synchrotron radiation emanating from the IGM between merging galaxy clusters


A two-black-hole collision may require a little help from a friend
(Quanta)
i.e., a third black hole



Hunting the sterile neutrino
(Science)


Breakthrough Prize

... awarded to 'discoverers' of
supergravity

(Breakthrough Prize)
can you 'discover'
something that
(very likely) isn't true?


...and the prize for speculation goes to
(Prospect)


Three physicists honored for
influential theory...

(Nature)
... despite it having
no known relation to reality


...the purpose of the prize
is to “reward extraordinary ideas"
(Andrei Linde, at
Scientific American)

...whether they are experimentally proven
or not
this seems uncomfortably close to saying 'why bother to test physics theories ?'


"Sends the message that, in (basic) physics, contact to observation is no longer relevant...
(BackReaction)
... by awarding a scientific prize for an idea with no evidence speaking for it..."
... and then it gets nasty

------------------

Do gravitational- wave calculations and simulations on your laptop
(AstroBites)
in seconds
no more waiting for hours on a supercomputer!


Decay of charm quark violates
CP (charge-parity) symmetry

(Physics Today,
August 2019 issue)


Quantum computing using semiconductor spins
(Physics Today,
August 2019 issue)



read with great caution

Energy is conserved in an expanding universe
(Starts with a Bang)
despite photon redshifts

No, energy isn't conserved in an expanding universe
(Preposterous Universe)
it changes because spacetime does


Dark matter may have been produced during inflation
(Johns Hopkins)


Aiming time's arrow
(Quanta)


Does time have an arrow?
(Aeon)
not written by a scientist
of course



There are no free quarks
(Starts with a Bang)
except when there are


Black holes spin near the speed of light?
(Starts with a Bang)
maybe, if you ignore magnetic field effects during their collapse
... as the author seems to have done


The labor shortage
(Vox)
why there are more jobs than people to
fill them in the U.S.


The great land robbery
(The Atlantic)
how 1 million black families were ripped from their farms


Did a nuclear-powered missile explode in Russia?
(Vox)
it may explain the radioactivity burst


guns, again

Don't ban assault weapons...tax them
(The Atlantic)


Profile in cowardice
(Washington Post)
the GOP on guns


The $8 billion murder industry
(Jacobin)
gun manufacturers


Guns are the problem
(Vox)
Americans do not have a monopoly on hate and mental illness.... we do have a monopoly on guns


No, Kevin McCarthy, it's not due to video games

No, Ohio Rep. Keller, it's not transgender people, Obama, Colin Kaepernick, or marijuana either
(Dayton Daily News)


How to reduce gun deaths
(NY Times)
yet again
the liberal approach has failed... treat it as a public health issue instead


American exceptionalism
(The Atlantic)
the inability to see the correlation between more guns and more killings


Other countries warn about traveling to Trump's America
(Washington Post)
have we become a s***hole country?


If conservatives want to keep their guns, they need to find a way to stop mass shootings
(Washington Post)


what the science says

Stop blaming mental illness
(Science)
the commit less than 4% of violent crimes

Can science prevent mass shootings?
(Science News)


More guns do not stop more crimes
(Scientific American)
why do so many Americans believe the opposite?


The science of gun violence and gun control in the U.S.
(Scientific American)
a special report


Mental illness does not cause gun violence
(NIH)
mental illness does NOT 'pull the trigger'


"violent video games  have minimal impact on violent activity in society"
(Society for Media Psychology and Technology)

and ditto
(SagePub)
a meta-analysis

--------------------

A baby-boomer report card
(NY Times)
from A to C-


Want a better life for your kids?
(NY Times)
move, generally away from the South

Where the opportunities are
(Opportunity Atlas)
designed by Raj Chetty


The moral obtuseness of food delivery services
(The Atlantic)


election security

Did a misogynistic joke save the integrity of NC ballots?
(Indy Week)


New report details state-by-state funding  needs for 2020 elections
(Brennan Center for Justice)


Voter purge rates remain high
(Brennan Center for Justice)
especially in states with a history of past discrimination problems


NC dithers about new secure voting systems
(Raleigh N&O)
yes they are?
no they're not?
yes, they are?
... amid scandal and vacancy
apparently a decision is coming 8/23

and still the gerrymandering

Gerry-font
(Ugly Gerry)
a font created by
your congressional districts



Michigan GOP sues for constitutional right to gerrymander
(Slate)
after Michigan voters pass non-partisan election reform

the Michigan lawsuit
(Election Law Blog)


4 NC ex-governors
speak out against gerrymandering

(Raleigh N&O)
but not Pat McCrory

------------------

presidential debates & rallies

Fear and gloating in Cincinnati
(Washington Post)
at least there were no un-American chants


The wrong debate on health care
(NY Times)
affordability vs
Medicare-for-all



Too much time on stuff only that Congress can do
(Vox)
and not enough time spent on what the President can do


The Middle East, Alex, for 30 seconds
(The Intercept)
no way to choose a President(ial) candidate



watch past and future Democratic debates here
(Government Hub)


Requirements for making debate #3
(Vox)
7 8 have qualified for 9/12/19, in Houston


links to all candidates websites

------------------

Are you rich?
(NY Times)
take the quiz

The invention of money

(New Yorker)
from Kublai Khan to bank bailouts



books

How carbon-14 revolutionized science
(The Guardian)
the most important isotope



The Ice at the End of the World
(American Prospect)
the story of climate & Greenland's history


... the most dangerous spy in history
(Nature)
Klaus Fuchs

the Manhattan-project scientist who spied for
the Soviets


art/trips/museums

Manet's last years
(NY Times)
review of exhibit
Manet and Modern Beauty
(Art Institute of Chicago)


The Forbidden City
(NY Times)
opens up



See Greenland melt
(The Atlantic)
during the summer heat wave



teaching

The dying art of instruction
(NY Books)
in the digital age



200+ NC public school teachers laid off
(Raleigh N&O)
by NC Virtual Public School
who screwed up?


learning

12 place to trip on science
(Washington Post)
including NRAO and Brookhaven NL


NCAA chooses money over academics
(Raleigh N&O)
again



'The $300 textbook is dead'
(Vox)
the shift to digital

is totally unconvincing


More teens dropping math
(The Conversation)
in Australia

The origin of math anxiety (in the UK):
(Cambridge U)
the summary

the published work


science & nature

Without bees,
we're in trouble
(NY Times)


Triumph of the firstborn
(The Atlantic)
professional, that is



It's the membranes, stupid
(The Atlantic)
a new clue to the origin of life?

published article
(PNAS)


TR-4 banana fungus reaches Colombia
(National Geographic)
can extinction of Cavendish banana
be far behind?


Death of a tectonic plate?
(Scientific American)


The high cost of amber (research)
(The Atlantic)
human & financial


The end of beef?
(Outside)
or at the beginning of the end

couldn't come soon enough

Future of the Arctic
(Scientific American, August 2019,
entire issue)

paywall


bad tech

Death spiral:
newspapers losing to digital media

(Washington Post)
Gannet-Gatehouse merger is only a temporary save


Restoring citizenship to gig-economy workers
(The Nation)
the bill that Uber and Lyft hate


Equifax & the FTC fail math
(Washington Post)
promising $125 and delivering 20 cents


5G broadband wireless threatens weather forecasting
(Physics Today,
August 2019 issue)
overlapping frequencies means interference

 
Last gasp
(NY Times)
another newspaper bites the dust
the legacy of GoogleFbook



solar system


stars

exoplanets
(and ET life)

galaxies & cosmology



relativity, quantum,
& particle physics

cultural
literacy

teaching & ed,
science & tech

  late July 2019


Enceladus's ocean
is the right age
to support life

(Earth & Sky)
from

Evolution of Saturn's mid-sized moon
(Nature Astronomy)
paywall


A 1000-ft-high tsunami on ancient Mars?
(Astronomy)


Watching Io's active volcanoes
(AAS NOVA)
for 5 years



Water not invincible in dark, polar lunar craters
(NASA Goddard)
we think


All astronomical viewing on Mauna Kea suspended
(Associated Press)
(13 observatories)
protestors block traffic over telescope construction

and now
all working personnel have been removed
(Hawaii News Now)
maintenance of telescopes is jeopardized, as are
visits of native Hawaiians to their sacred mountain


The native-Hawaiian protest is against process, not science
(Nature)

well, except for:
A religious, anti-science screed defending the telescope-blockade
(Vox)
so I guess it's ok to
block abortion clinics for religious reasons, or block LGBT people from adopting a child,
buying a wedding cake, or giving blood, also for religious reasons?
ain't religion great?

---------------------

 
When they walked on the Moon
50 years ago

How they did it
(Washington Post)
one step at a time 


The Apollo: the forgotten films
(Discovery Channel)
supposedly footage seen nowhere else?
watch here with cable sign-in


Small steps and giant leaps
(National Archives)
how Apollo shaped our understanding of Earth and beyond

watch replay 
(live discussion, 7/17) (YouTube)

premiered  07/17
8 Days: to the Moon and Back
(PBS, 1½ hours)
beware: this is  not reality, but a dramatization
free on PBS until 9/11/19


UNC's Morehead Planetarium
(Raleigh N&O)
where astronauts learned the stars

the planetarium and the NC Museum of History celebrate with a
'One Giant Leap Festival' festival this Saturday, 7/20, 11 am - 4 pm


The greatest photos ever?
(The Guardian)
Apollo's artistic masterpieces


The science of Apollo
(Sky & Telescope)
does get the Moon's origin right


All about moon rocks
(Vox)
although it doesn't have the best theory of the Moon's origin
... go here for that




Why the Moon is such a cratered place
(The Conversation)
uh, because it has no atmosphere?



Special Issue:
Apollo anniversary

(Science)
does 8 pages really constitute
'a special issue'?!?

Moongazing
(Science)
will humans' return to the Moon inspire a new age of lunar telescopes?



Analyzing lunar samples: implications for planetary formation
and evolution

(Science)
paywall


China's lunar exploration program
(Science)
paywall


One small step back in time: Reliving the
wonder of Apollo 
(Scientific American)
nice pictures & audio
but links to substantive articles are all paywalled

...and you can only access the pictures if you haven't used up your 3-a-month allotment


Astronaut ice cream?
(Vox)
never happened


The 21 places we successfully landed on the Moon
(Smithsonian)
crashes don't count?


back to the Moon?

Daunting
(The Verge)
the to-do list


Fraught
(The Atlantic)

Hasty
(Vox)
no plan,
no budget details,
no roadmap
definitely a Trump plan

a bit older, but ...

If we can figure out how to get there
(Washington Post)

Not happening
(Starts with a Bang)

-------------------

the future Moon

Moon fever is rising
(NY Books)
past history


The Moon is where the money is
(Nautil.us)
capitalism in space


The next 5 years
at the Moon?

(Sky & Telescope)
maybe, maybe not



🔥
yes, the climate
is changing
🔥




how we know
the big picture

The fingerprints
of AGW are unmistakeable
(The Guardian)
3 new publications:
'no doubt' left on the scientific consensus of AGW?


The current warming is global and unique
(Smithsonian)
over the past 2000 years


AGW -- like no other temperature change
(Science News)


No evidence for previous global
warming/cooling
periods

 (Nature)

all free to read,
but not to save:


Strong evidence
(Nature)
"that AGW is
... unparalleled (and) unprecedented in
the past 2,000 years"


The largest warming trends
in the common era

(Nature Geoscience)
oc
curred during the second half of the
20th
c
entury


and

A pre-industrial
temperature baseline is hard
to define

(Nature Geoscience)
due to multiple volcanoes


----------------
-----

Glaciers melting
10 - 100x faster than expected

(Scientific American)
1st direct  measurements ever, from sonar

uh-oh

based on
published article
(Science)
it's challenging current simulations

(paywall)


Improved temperature coverage gives sharper view of climate trends
(Eos)
documenting the robustness of warming trends and the lack of a warming hiatus


California wildfires:
amplified by 5x
by anthropogenic
climate change

(The Atlantic)

published article
(Earth's Future)
free to read, but not save


U.S. sets 12-month precipitation record
(National Center for Environmental Info)
and other bad news


climate reporting

How each state makes its electricity
(NY Times)
NC: most is nuclear, with natural gas a
close 2nd
coal has dropped by 2.5x
in 4 years


Remember when:
12 years to save the planet?

(BBC)
now, more like 18 months


and the climate deniers laugh
(Science 2.0)


How to talk effectively about climate change
(Scientific American)
with the help of a new book:
Creative (Climate) Communications



Taking stock 2019
(Rhodium Group)
of carbon emissions



How to fake an argument against the reality of climate change
(Neurologica)

or
fake an argument denying the scientific consensus
(Neurologica)


climate consequences

Human aerosols and interactions with clouds
(Nature)
still messy, but climate models are improving



Reducing China's
CO2 emissions will
reduce air pollution in the USA

(Environ. Res. Letters)
shouldn't we be addressing that in trade talks?
it would cut premature deaths in down-wind countires by 2000 over the next 10 years


The NC town fighting the
climate crisis

(The Guardian)
one hurricane at a time

but one more could turn
it into ghost time


climate politics

White House blocks written climate testimony
(NY Times)
on national security threat

scientist resigns
over suppression


How to lose your job as a climate scientist in a climate-denying administration
(The Guardian)


How science got drilled in the rush to Arctic drilling
(Politico)
conclusions first, science second


The Democrats' climate death drive
(Jacobin)
it's time for a Dem-candidate debate on climate change


climate problems

Expanding airports after you declare a
climate emergency?

(The Conversation)
how about low-carbon options instead?


Climate change drives migration from Guatemala
(The Guardian)
to the U.S.


Major U.S. cities leaking methane at 2x rate thought
(Science)
from homes & businesses


climate stupidity

While planet overheats, Ohio gives coal a bailout
(The Guardian)
along with rich owners


Why did Ohio just pass the worst energy bill ever?
(Vox)
bailing out coal plants while gutting energy efficiency and reducing support for renewables


How Florida keeps homeowners from installing solar
(NY Times)


climate solutions

A crazy climate fix
(Scientific American)
convert atmospheric CH4 to CO2


The case for a supply-side climate treaty
(Science)
limiting the supply of fossil fuels



4 automakers reach mpg deal with California -- bypassing Trump's rule relaxation
(Washington Post)
hurrah for Honda, Ford, Volkswagen, & BMW

 
A new approach to understanding the remaining carbon budget
(Carbon Brief)

published article
(Nature)
free to read, but not to save


Convert CO2 to electricity
(Scientific American)

Why (some) sea- surface temps may need to be corrected
(Nature)
and likely more fuel for climate deniers who will call it changing the data to fit the claims


Highest-energy photons ever recorded
(Astronomy)
coming from the Crab,  E  > 100 TeV




Spiraling solar wind re-created
in Earth lab

(Quanta)
with a short simulation

published article
(Nature Physics)
free to read, but not save



How pulsation-
pair instability supernovas work

(AAS Nova)
maybe it also
occurs ia pn mergers?


Missing link
planets found

(UC Riverside)
1 super-Earth and 2 sub-Neptunes



First photos of a baby planet
(Astrobites)
plus a showcase of protoplanetary disks


A past crash in an exoplanetary system?
(Astrobites)
even better, it has a mass-radius diagram for various terrestrial-
planet compositions



 
An atmospheric analysis of a sub-Neptune planet
(Earth & Sky)
GJ 3470b appears to have a H/He-rich atmosphere, with low metallicity and minimal H2O/CH4

Astrobites has more detailed data


ET life

Partially-frozen Earth-like planets can support life?

(AGU)
if snowball events are only temporary


(still) Searching for the origin of life
(Smithsonian)
are exoplanets helping?


U.S. Navy briefs Congress on UFOs
(Scientific American)



Life on Enceladus?

 
Looking for aliens?
(The Guardian)
will a million people storm Area 51 on 9/20/2019?
the Air Force is not amused


VERITAS: a new look for aliens
(Astronomy)
using visible light



The Vatican astronomer dissembles and evades when asked about ET life
(Vox)
and its implications for Catholicism
I thought it was a sin to lie?


Our distance from the Galactic Center
(A&A)
nailed:
d  =  8178 + 13 pc
using SO2's orbit


The Milky Way's cannibalization of Gaia-Enceladus
(Astronomy)
changed our galaxy forever
it happened 10 Gyrs ago


Mapping the vast void in our cosmic neighborhood
(IFA, Hawaii)
with an 11-minute 3-D visualization

with a video
sadly, in computer speak

or an interactive 3-D model




Hubble tension

Is it a crisis....
yet?

(Science News)
with links to several arXiv talk summaries from the following conference:

Tensions between the early and late
universe

(Kavli-Santa Barbara)
3-day conference:
videos, podcasts, & slides all publicly available
lots on methods & results, not much on resolution to the tension


Summary of talks and a section on ways to reconcile the tension
(arXiv)
semi-technical


H0: constant confusion
(Astronomy)
non-technical


with results from
3 new methods


1) TRGB

How the TRGB method works
(Astrobites)
H0 = 69.8 + 1.7 km/s/Mpc,
sort of tin the middle

based on the tip of the red-giant branch,
calibrated by
Type I SN


to-be published article

(arXiv)

2) H0liCOW

H0LiCOW: a new
independent measure of H0

(Astrobites)
from gravitational time-delay data, it agrees with the
'late universe' value from Cepheids and Type I SN

H0 = 73.3 (+ 1.8) km/s/Mpc

preprint
(arXiv)
with a discussion of cosmological implications
submitted to MNRAS


3) Megamasers

Slides from talk
H0 = 72.0 (+ 1.9) km/s/Mpc


4) and another potential one

Based on the cosmic horizon
(NRAO)
using gravitational waves from neutron-star mergers

---------------------

"stuck in the middle?"
(Carnegie)

"adding to the mystery"
(NASA Goddard)

...but "not so fast with 'new physics'"
(Science News)

Nature
has a few more details


Sky & Telescope
is late to the story, but has some unique graphs & pictures


H0 tension summary

(Astronomy)
somewhat older



Rumors: have astronomers hit the trifecta?
(Starts with a Bang)
photons, cosmic rays and/or neutrinos, AND gravitational waves

what LIGO is saying,, seems leaning toward a bh-bh merger
but
IceCube silent on has a simultaneous, simul-local neutrino detection


A glimpse of quark matter inside
neutron stars

(Quanta)
a hint of exotic-matter formation?
but the title is a bit overblown


General relativity passes a test at the galactic center
(Smithsonian)
bending of SO2's
light by the SMBH

and Sky & Telescope explains the differences between GR and Newtonian redshifts


read with some caution

We're in the 6th (and final?) era of the universe
(Starts with a Bang)
perhaps... but we still don't understand dark energy

as New Scientist
reminds us



read with much caution

When Earth had
two moons

(Nautil.us)
an attempt to explain the Moon's quite different hemispheres
definitely not the standard lunar origin theory


Anticipating the next
discoveries in particle physics

(TASI, U Colorado)
so why are there so many talks on supersymmetry?
and why are they co-opting the M87 SMBH image?  it's got zero to do with particle physics


How to get a universe from nothing
(Starts with a Bang)
there is a free lunch?


Quantum supremacy is coming?
(Quanta)
promises, promises
and not for the first time


Quantum darwinism passes first test
(Quanta)
it's an alternative to objective reality


A table-top gravitational-wave detector?
(Astronomy)
OK, a large table


Will the the Be8 decay anomaly lead to a dark matter discovery?
(Starts with a Bang)
via a 'dark photon'


Searching for dark matter with an SMBH
(Physics Central)


Dark (matter) stars:
the seeds of SMBHs?

(Astronomy)


Has anyone one been killed by dark matter?
(Gizmodo)

if so,
(some) Dark matter
interactions with humans might look link gunshots

(arxiv)

or 'no' because
If they could, they already would have
(Science News)

says
Death by dark matter
(arXiv)


Parallel universes?
don't believe it

(
Starts with a Bang)
or mirror matter, or a dark-matter wind , or ...
until you see evidence

curious, since he's one of the big supporters of the
no-evidence multiverse



local elections 

State Election Board delays voting systems certification
(Raleigh N&O)
no clear reason why; what don't they yet know?

and chair resigns
(Raleigh N&O)
delaying the decision further?


Georgia chooses
Dominion Voting Systems

(Georgia Public Broadcasting)


Gerrymandering trial ends....
what's next?

(Raleigh N&O)
an appeal by the loser



Judges exclude GOP witness's false testimony at gerrymandering trial
(Raleigh N&O)


The right to a free and fair election
(The Guardian)
the eyes of democracy are on Wake County


Senators still want answers about the 2016 election in Durham
(Raleigh N&O)


things to do

Stop the resumption of federal executions
(Vox)
you don't teach people not to kill by killing

or else, We are all executioners now
(New Republic)


Pass Wyden's Voting Security Act
(Law 360)
that Senate 'leader' McConnell is blocking

because  we're not ready for foreign interference
(Rep. Adam Schiff,
Vox Recode)


Russians targeted election systems in all 50 states
(NY Times)

Read the full Senate report on Russian election interference
(
U. S. Senate)
Volume I released 7/25/2019;
4 more to come

Hours later, GOP Senators block House-passed Election Security Act
(CNN)
the excuse:
states run elections


Robert Mueller:
finish the job!

(The Atlantic)
oops, missed out on that


and the media have a 2nd chance to
get the reporting correct

(Washington Post)


Choose the a Democratic Presidential candidate who will beat Trump
(Washington Post)
 by harnessing hope -- and fear


Stop NC's partisan gerrymandering
(Facing South)
with an independent redistricting commission


Stop watching democracy burn
(Indy Week)
part IV of the series


Raise the minimum wage to a livable amount
(Vox)
because (mostly) good things happened after Seattle did it
The House has passed it
 ...Senate, what about you?

...and a $15/per-hr-wage happens only in 2025 -- that's pretty lame


America

Real Americans?
(NY Books)
an anachronism?


The 3 Democratic parties
(NY Times)
with different priorities and preferring different policies


Raj Chetty:
can he save the American dream?

(The Atlantic)
a very long read


What black voters want
(Detroit News)
the same thing that white voters do


What conservative voters want
(New York)
cultural dominance


What millennials want
(The Atlantic)
everything.  now.
because they're tired of waiting....
does he mean millennial congresswomen?  all 4 of them?  or all millennials?
  in which case they should move out of their parents' home, get real jobs,
and start voting,... they're not


The long history of insisting that minorities can't criticize America
(Washington Post)


A guide to the 4 classes in America
(Orange County Register)
and their political preferences


America's indefensible 'defense' budget
(NY Books)
once again


That time, at internment camp...
(Washington Post)
George Takei, on his WWII internment with other U.S. citizens of Japanese descent 


The case against war with Iran
(NY Books)

Who's to blame for escalating tensions with Iran?
(Des Moines Register)
America.



hypocrisy
thy name is Trump

Trump disavows
'send them back'

(WaPost, 7/18)

Trump disavows
disavowal

(WaPost 7/19)

Trump outrage cycle
(Politico)
indignation, rinse, repeat


If only we had sent him back when Trump trashed America during his 2017 inauguration address
(Raleigh N&O)
remember his 'American carnage'?


GOP shrugs at huge deficits
(Washington Post)
after lecturing Obama for 8 years

-------------------


art/museums/trips

Flying to your own wilderness in the Adirondacks?
(NY Times)
yeah, screw climate change


How close Notre Dame came to collapse
(NY Times)
and how it was saved


A different  way to see the Holy Land
(Smithsonian)
1 tour, 2 guides
(1 Israeli, 1 Palestinian)



teaching

  Duke students
get a raise

(Indy Week)
after years of organizing...
but Duke still won


The teaching profession is a financial calamity
(The Atlantic)
which should not
be a surprise


education

Presenting America
(The Guardian)
Ken Burns



Why Candyland was invented
(The Atlantic)
for mobility-impaired kids in the hospital
and still selling 1 million per year


Has college gotten too easy?
(The Atlantic)
studying is down, GPA's are up

based on
Why have college completion rates increased?
(BYU working paper)


How colleges fail unprepared athletes
(Raleigh N&O)
UNC whistleblower testifies to Congress


science


The quest for exotic propulsion
(Scientific American)
beyond chemical



Celebrating 20 years of Chandra
(Chandra)
and its x-ray observations


Is CAESAR buried?
(Scientific American)
is there a better way to choose science missions?


How science got drilled in the rush to Arctic drilling
(Politico)
not a surprise when the Secretary of the Interior is an oil-industry lobbyist


How neural networks are like the distribution of galaxies in the universe
(Nautil.us)


 Condor comeback
(Washington Post)
nearly wiped out, how it fought its way back
from 22 to 1000+


Archaeology of
 the 99%

(Knowable)
commoners didn't own things that would survive as artifacts


Did/could neanderthals speak?
(Sapiens)
depends on their throat anatomy


Processed food makes us fat
(Washington Post)
the evidence is in

and the paper
(Cell Metabolism)
with the key graph right on top


The case for diet soda
(Washington Post)
there's little evidence against it


sustainable seafood

The best seafood choices

(Seafood Watch)
to keep the ocean healthy...  here's the Southeast guide
from Monterey Bay aquarium

Eat sustainable fish
(Marine Research Council)
could be a lot more helpful

------------------

The Arctic
(Scientific American, July 2019 issue)
the new reality:
science & politics


Who should pay for 'moonshots?
(Scientific American)
federal support for science research needs an increase


How animals became multi-celled
(Quanta)
is still debatable


Need to know how Durham & vicinity looked like 500 Myrs ago?
(Dinosaur Pictures)
this map will tell you
with city/time options


pseudo-science

It's time the U.S. had a country had a
Psychologist General

(Scientific American)
the country is in a mental-health crisis


bad media

A cesspool of racist pseudoscience
(Scientific American)
the Internet, of course
just 'racist'?!?


The media have a 2nd chance to get the Mueller report correct
(Washington Post)
when House members question Mueller this week


CNN shows it's learned nothing
from 2016

(Vox)
the debate draft


bad tech

Another day, another hack
(Washington Post)
Capital One:
100 million people


More money than anyone imagined
(The Atlantic)
why the tech bubble never burst


Building a digital underclass
(NY Times)
here's looking at you, big tech


Fbook and crypto-currency
(Washington Post)
what could possibly go wrong?


Despite promises,
self-driving cars are
'way'
in the future
(NY Times)
because pedestrians, drives, & cyclists are unpredictable
praise the lord!


 

limited time?  read the most important stories from early July 2019:

1)  The Moon remains the star on the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 (7/19/19)

news about the Moon

humans and the Moon

remembering the Apollo missions

going back to the Moon?

2)  making exoplanets


3)  the habitability of Titan and its oceans

what will Dragonfly find?

4)  a new way to measure the Hubble constant

5)   Supreme Court abdicates on gerrymandering

will NC courts take action on gerrymandering or also abdicate?

6)  a President fans racist fires

immigrants at the border

7)  the climate news is still bad

a battle about reforestation

will Presidential candidates come to a climate debate?
 
8)  When did humans arrive in Europe or the Americas?

9) remembering the Central Park 5

10)  the battle over July 4th



  early July 2019


The Moon --  the place to be in July

When Earth & Moon were one
(Scientific American, July 2019 issue)
making the Moon
with a synestia

and it's free!
sorry, free access to the article lasted only a week

 
How was the
Moon made?

(NY Times)
we won't know till we go back

but, yeah, believe the
SA article above



Why precious metals are scarcer on the Moon
(Nature)

published article:
Reconstructing the late accretion history of the Moon
(Nature)
paywall


humans & the Moon


The lunar eclipse of 7/16/2019 is not visible in N. American
(EclipseWise)
too bad


Keeping time with
the Moon

(Science News)
how ancient humans used the Moon as a calendar


Would there be life on Earth without the Moon?
(Scientific American)
did lunar tides jump-start biology?
axial stability, climate moderation, driving species migration & diversity, and more


How visualizations of the Moon have changed over time
(Science News)
in 9 images


the Apollo missions

The complete
guide to Apollo 11

(Space)


1969: the year men walked on the Moon
(The Atlantic)
45 photos


What you don't know about
Apollo 11
(Smithsonian)


Apollo 11 was almost a joint U.S.-Soviet mission
(Nature)


What the astronauts left behind on the Moon
(Science News)
trash, mementos,
and experiments


More than half of Nature's published authors were inspired to become scientists by Apollo
(Nature)
from 10 years ago


The scientific legacy of Apollo
(Physics Today)
it's the rocks, stupid!


How NASA kept the lunar rocks safe
(Science News)
from contamination...
... and some
 surprises they found


4 innovations from the Apollo missions
(The Conversation)
and we're not talking Tang!


The man who
knew the way
to the Moon
(Audible book)
John Houbolt, who invented the lunar lander


and The unsung hero who made it happen
(1A 35-min podcast)
an interview with the author


To the Moon and back with your smartphone?
(The Conversation)
apparently


remembering Apollo

Best books on Apollo and the Moon landings
(Smithsonian)

Books that go beyond a small step
(Science News)

on TV

The video of the first 2 minutes of the first moonwalk
(Sky & Telescope)
is still fuzzy


Chasing the Moon
(American Experience, PBS)
a 3-part history of
 the  space race
...free to watch on
PBS until 9/11/19
and  a review
(Physics Today)


Apollo 11
(CNN)
airing 7/20, 9 and 11 pm

review: Apollo 11 gets the documentary it deserves
(Physics Today)



Apollo: Missions
to the Moon

(National Geographic)
2-hour documentary premieres on the
NatGeo channel
... free to watch with a sign-up account



8 Days: To the
Moon and Back

(PBS)
airs/streams July 17
a 'dramatization'


Back to the Moon
(1-hr NOVA, PBS)
...free to watch on
PBS until 9/11/19



Apollo's Moon Shot
(Smithsonian Channel)
a 6-part series


1998's From Earth to the Moon is the best fictional re-telling?
(Vox)


Apollo 11: a giant leap for movies, too
(ABC News)


The best movies & podcasts to watch to remember
Apollo 11

(NY Times)


going back

So why are we going back to the Moon, anyway?
(The Guardian)
you knew the moonwalkers were all male, but did you know they were all mid-westerners, all eldest children, and all (but 1) former Boy Scouts?


Can NASA return people to the
Moon by 2024?

(Nature)
right now: no rocket, no lunar orbiting station, no lander, and a tepid Congress


Quo Vadis, NASA:
Moon, Mars, or both?

(Physics Today)
the technological issues that need
to be solved



A crucial test of NASA's Orion spacecraft, on Tuesday 7/2/2019

(Washington Post)
was successful

 
--------------------

Saturn & Titan

The habitability of Titan and its ocean
(Astrobiology)
a nice review


NASA approves Dragonfly
(Washington Post)
which will land a drone on Saturn's moon Titan


the NASA
announcement


Dragonfly:
exploring Titan

(Simons Foundation)
30-min talk by Dragonfly's designer


Bathtub rings around Titan's lakes and seas?
(Earth & Sky)
might be due to acetylene-butane crystals

--------------------
 

Hayabusa-2 lands again on Ryugu

(NY Times)
and takes another sample

plus  some touchdown selfies
(Science News)


Ceres is wrinkling
(Space)
as it shrinks

published article
(Nature Astronomy)
free to read, but not to save


The natural history of 'Oumuamua
(Nature Astronomy)
the last word: it is not an alien spacecraft


Insight's 'Mole' is still immobile on Mars
(NASA)

--------------------
 

total solar eclipse
Tuesday, July 2nd

post-eclipse

Replay
(YouTube)
complete eclipse (partial & total) in real time (I think)
with magnification

Another replay
(WaPost YouTube)
as above, but with people (clapping & hooting, of course)


15 photos from
Chile or Argentina
(The Atlantic)


pre-eclipse

Into the dark:
in Chile/Argentina
(Astronomy)

livestream it here
(
Exploratorium)
if you can't be there...
4 pm EDT and after

or via
Weather Channel app

NASA eclipse flyer

How this eclipse will be different from the 2017 Great American one
(Science News)
and what it means
for science



yes, solar eclipses are a shock to plants, too
(NY TImes)
they're stressed by the sun's sudden reappearance


--------------------

🔥
yes, the climate
is changing
🔥


Earth had warmest June on record
(Washington Post)
and, so far, it's the hottest-ever July

2019 on track to be 3rd hottest ever
(Climate Central)


The end of the world as we know it
(Mother Jones)
the burden of being a climate scientist


Is climate change an 'existential' threat or only a
'catastrophic' one?

(Vox)


Better estimates of polar ice loss and sea-level rise
(Eos)
by measuring
Earth's shape



climate problems

Are we accidentally geoengineering the oceans?
(Climatewire via SciAm)
with iron dust


Rising high-tide flooding in American cities
(Science News)
says a NOAA report


Climate as a risk factor for armed conflict
(Nature)
it's complicated
paywall


European heat wave linked to global warming
(Science News)

The human contribution to
Europe's 2019
summer heat wave

(World Weather Attribution)
and it's deadly

What coal did to West Virginia
(Vox)
is now happening to Wyoming
vulture capitalism runs rampant

Fastest-warming town on Earth
(The Guardian)
Longyearbyen, the world's northernmost town,
is 4 °C hotter than in 1971


About-to-be-built fossil-fuel plants
threaten 1.5
C goal
(Science News)
China is 40%+ of the problem; green energy must take over electricity production

accelerated preview
(Nature)


climate solutions

Giant batteries and solar power are pushing fossil fuels off the grid
(Science)
because the former are now cheaper


The case for public R&D spending
(Vox)
the most neglected climate change solution


Will flight-shaming work in the U.S.?
(Washington Post)


How (some) cities
are owning up to their climate impacts

(Vox)

forest restoration?

Restoring forests: the most powerful weapon against climate change?
(Vox)

published article: 
The global tree restoration potential
(Science)

and as a means to many other ends
paywall

and
the costs are low
(Nature)
paywall

wait, say others,
planting more
trees won't solve
climate change

(Discover)
"not all areas that could be forested should be forested"

and worse,
There are real risks in exaggerating the benefits of forestation
(The Conversation)
it deters taking climate action now


----------------------

Making fuel out of thin air
(Science)
turning CO2 into gasoline with renewable energy

paywall


climate politics

Democrats, the people, the climate, & a Green New Deal
(American Prospect)
present (and past) demons


The consequences of the Trump rollback of fuel standards
(Carbon Brief)
including a comparison to the Obama standards


The case for declaring a national climate emergency
(New Yorker)
right now


a climate debate?

A climate summit for 2020 candidates
(Gizmodo)
9/23/19 in NYC
...
but will they come?

sponsored by a coalition
of organizations



10 questions to ask in a climate debate
(Vox)
and some questions that shouldn't be asked
well, at least a Democratic-candidate climate debate


Has White House shelved 'adverserial'
climate review?

(Science)
if so, thanks for small favors

but they're removing mentions of bad climate news from USGS reports
(Science)


environment

What lurks in the hearts of city dwellers
(The Guardian)
billions of air pollution particles

Another recent review

(CHEST)
shows that their in every organ and virtually every cell of humans


U.S. produces far more waste than other developed countries
(The Guardian)
part of The United States of Plastic series


Why are the merging black holes found by LIGO are so (unexpectedly)
massive?

(AAS Nova)
are there 2 different formation processes for stellar black holes?


A new site for the s-process?
(Astrobites)
some massive stars can produce elements beyond bismuth
s-process produces half the heavy elements


Detecting gravitational waves from core-collapse supernovas?
(AAS Nova)
maybe with LIGO, but odds are better with a future detector

published article:
Characterizing the gravitational-wave signal from core- collapse supernovas
(ApJ Letters)


Left behind?
(MNRAS)
3 runaway stars that are survivors of a supernova
paywall


Cannonballs on the Sun's surface
(Astrobites)
+ spicules & surges
Astrobites is back!



The fireworks of
η Carinae
(Hubble)
falsely colored red, white, & blue for the occasion?


A possible connection between solar activity and planetary tides

(Eos)


and more on the Lunar time machine
(Astrobites)
is the Sun's history is written in Moon rocks?

Unraveling the formation history
of hot Jupiters

(AAS Nova)


Adjacent planets in exoplanet systems have similar sizes/masses
(Astrobites)
explainable by
observational bias?


Gaps in protoplanetary
disks may not always mark newborn planets

(Science News)
but there sure is diversity in protoplanetary disks


A cosmic cheat-sheet for exoplanet evolution
(Cornell University)


A moon-forming disk around a distant exoplanet
(Rice University)


A surprise in the
atmosphere of a
mid-size exoplanet

(NASA Goddard)
"so poor in heavy elements that its composition resembles the H/He-rich composition of the Sun."
so maybe this hot Neptune
formed in situ?



Lost in Transits
(Esrth & Sky)
The Random Transiter:
28 dips of light, and
no repeats
even more bizarre than Boyajian's star

pre-published paper
(arXiv)


Are 'ploonets' real?
(Science News)
moons that escape their planets


ET life

Do asteroids play a key role in spreading life?
(Harvard University)


A peek at possible life on other planets
(U Washington)
in super-salty sub- zero Arctic water


Key early steps for origin of life occur in a variety of simulated atmospheres
(Penn State U)


If aliens call...
(Vox)
what should we do?



Are We Alone?
(1-hr NOVA, PBS)
...free to watch on
PBS until 9/11/19



read with caution

What's wrong with our definition of 'planet'?
(Starts With a Bang)
a few nice diagrams, but mostly a lot of whining

Where are the intermediate-mass black holes?
(LIGO)


H0LiCOW: a new
independent measure of H0

(Astrobites)
from gravitational time-delay data, it agrees with the
'late universe' value from Cepheids and Type I SN
H0 = 73.3 (+ 1.8) km/s/Mpc

preprint
(arXiv)
with a discussion of cosmological implications
submitted to MNRAS



And another new method on the horizon
(NRAO)
using gravitational waves from neutron-star mergers


A pair of SMBHs
about to merge?

(EurekAlert)
gravitational waves from similar mergers  to arrive 'soon'?


Weighing a
galaxy's parts
(Science Daily)
the sum of gas and stars in galaxy clusters is a nearly fixed fraction of the dark matter mass
validating predictions of the  Λ-CDM model

published article:
An anti-correlation between hot and cold baryons in galaxy clusters
(Nature Communications)


2nd FRB located in massive galaxy
(Astronomy)
1st ID happened
only 
last week

and now a 3rd
(Sky & Telescope)
the puzzle of their origin deepens



quantum

A first?:  Imaging Bell- violating quantum behavior
(Science Advances)


The visible effects of virtual particles
(Starts with a Bang)


First evidence for
Klein tunneling

(Scientific American)
making barriers transparent in SmB6


Quantum trajectory theory beats out the
Schr
ödinger version?
(Quanta)
in explaining the reversal of  "a quantum jump in midflight"
midflight? maybe mid-jump?


nuclear


Where do neutrons
(in a nucleus) reside?
(Physics Today,
July 2019 issue)

investigating neutron-
rich matter in the heavens and on Earth



relativity

How
(relatively) simple symmetries underlie
our expanding universe

(Quanta)


Why gravitational waves travel at the speed of light
(Starts with a Bang)


other

Are The laws of physics the same and backwards in time?
(Starts with a Bang)
spoiler alert: no


no-evidence 'physics'

Prospect for contact of string theory with experiment?
(Not Even Wrong)
whoops, apparently not

rats, foiled again


Why the 'multiverse' is religion, not science
(BackReaction)
or equivalent to
believing in god



just 2 of Hawking's unverified predictions

(Where) are the primordial black holes?
(Astronomy)
but no evidence for such

Black holes aren't really black
(Starts with a Bang)
'sorry', there is absolutely zero evidence

----------------------


read with great caution

The magnon
(Space)
another day, another dark-matter solution


An anti-matter rocket to the stars?
(Starts with a Bang)


Chameleon theory
(Earth & Sky)
(another) alternative
to Einstein's GR


not politics

"Why don't they
go back ..."
(NY Times)
fanning ... a racial fire


46 years of racism
(Vox)
from "the least racist person ... ever"


Do not tiptoe around racism
(Washington Post)
report the truth

The world
speaks out
even Boris Johnson
but, the
GOP, not so much
(Washington Post)
and
the
cowardice of Jared Kushner
(Washington Post)


politics

The 10 Senate seats most likely flip in 2020
(Washington Post)
7 held by GOP;
3 by the Dems


A crowded 2nd place in the 2020 Dem primary polls
(538)


The Dems VP shortlist
(Real Clear Politics)
a prediction

isnt it too early?


Pelosi-AOC 'feud'?
(The Atlantic)
overhyped
and only relevant to twitter-nuts

-------------------

failure is an option

Failure to assimilate
(The Atlantic)
Tucker Carlson, star


Failure to oppose under-age sex-trafficking
(Washington Post)
Alex Acosta
the resigned
how many Trump cabinet firings/resignations now?
 7? 8? 13?
(Cabinet approved positions: 26)
Obama at same point: 0
GW Bush at same point: 1


Failure of leadership
(Sen. Tina Smith)
Mitch McConnell


Failure to tell the truth in the census question case
(Bloomberg)
the Trump administration
and 10,000 more lies


Failure to unite
(NY Times)
the Democrats
except about Trump


why Swalwell's campaign failed
(538)
16+ more need to follow... soon
and why aren't O'Rourke,  Hickenlooper, & Bullock running for Senate instead of preening for President?

-------------------
 
gerrymandering &
political power


A symposium: Partisan gerrymandering after Rucho
(Election Law Blog)
links to 18 posts


The Evenwel gambit
(Balkanization)
the real point of the
citizenship question is to redistrict by citizenship


Optimism on overturning gerrymandering
(Washington Post)
is totally misplaced


More on the better-late-than-never Holder campaign
(Mother Jones)
a very long read


Republicans dominate state legislatures
(Vox)
and therefore political power in America


The power to draw maps is at stake
in 2020

(NY Times)
Dems need to focus on this as much as dumping Trump


and in North Carolina

Common Cause
v. Lewis:
NC gerrymandering trial opens in Wake County Superior Court

(News & Observer)
and a summary of the opposing arguments

Superior Court judges: open the Hofeller files on  gerrymandering
(WRAL)
voters should see the depth of GOP electoral manipulation

 ---------------------

Another newspaper folds; we all lose
(Washington Post)
in Youngstown, OH


average Americans

Left behind
(NY Times)
African-Americans, auto workers, rural America, & more


The moochers of
middle America

(NY Times)
umm... this is irony,
maybe even sarcasm


What middle-class families want politicians to know

(NY Times)
7 stories


The perfect answer to complaints about
'white privilege'

(Vox)


'This doesn't look like the best economy ever'
(Washington Post)
40% of Americans struggle to pay bills


The economy:
everyday Americans
vs. 'the experts'

(BankRate)
quite different views


The people who believe the most in pulling themselves up by their bootstraps are the least able to
(NY Times)
and they're mostly southerners

------------------------

July 4th

Read the Declaration of Independence
(U.S. Archives)
or
have it read to you

(YouTube)


Earth is farthest from the Sun today
(at 6:11 pm EDT)

(Earth & Sky)
notice how cool
it is
!?!



 40th Festival
for the Eno
(Enofest)
July 4 and 6


Fireworks and parades in the Triangle
(Triangle on the Cheap)


Fireworks!
(Washington Post)
America's favorite
face-exploding, dog- torturing, bird-killing way to celebrate


Why the American revolution was a mistake
(Vox)
3 reasons that
July 4th should be
 a day of mourning
yes, he's serious


the 4th now turned into a political rally

There will be tanks
(Rolling Stone)
at Trump's July 4th
DC celebration, along with the fireworks
but  they won't be rolling down PA avenue, and
there won't be Sherman tanks  sad!

while
stealing millions from US Park Service entrance fees
(Washington Post)
meant for park improvements
elections have consequences


Time to make American great again?
(NY Times, 5 minute audio/video)
because it sure isn't right now
we are #1 at opiate abuse, prison population, gun ownership,
TV watching, military spending, & mass shootings, among others


U.S. drops to
48th in World Freedome Index

(Reporters without Borders)
below South Africa, Slovenia, and
Burkino Faso


The biggest threat to America -- and future anniversary celebrations - is us
(NY Times)
not China, not Russia

-------------------

immigrants at the border
is this really America?

The end of asylum at the border
(NY Times)
at least for Central American migrants

 The world is 'deeply shocked'  by our treatment of migrants
(Vox)
why aren't we?


Ticking time bomb
(NY Daily News)
headline says 'Shameful'

A crime by any other name
(The Atlantic)

Squalid conditions in border detention centers
(NY Times)
Trump administration watchdog says

DHS finds 'disgusting border conditions'
(BuzzFeed)
for detained children

Grim realities of
the border crisis

(Washington Post)

The secret Fbook group of CBP agents
(ProPublica)
that makes fun of migrants, Hispanics, & liberal congress
members
CBP responds

--------------------

Central Park 5

When They See Us
(Netflix)
5-hr fictionalization, by Ava Duvernay

is it
Truth or Fiction?
(TV Guide)
overwhelmingly true?

What the above leaves out
(Washington Post)
with links to stories, statements, and trial testimony at the time it happened...
and the liberties it takes with facts

In defense of the Central Park 5 prosecution
(NY Law Journal)
by Linda Fairstein
NYLJ requires registration

2-hr documentary
(Amazon Prime)
by Ken Burns (2013)

The "real story" behind the CP5
(Radio Times)
an interview with Jim Dwyer, who covered the story at the time

Collection of articles on the CP5 going back to 1989
(NY Times)
 

-------------------

foreign policy

Ending endless war
(Vox)
Soros  +  Koch?


U.S.-Saudi relations
(The Atlantic)
on the brink


Trump has appointed the worst people
(Washington Post)
no wonder his foreign policy is a mess

--------------------
 
books

American Carnage

How Paul Ryan earned his badge of shame
(The Nation)
Ryan lies to himself -- and everyone else

Ryan now claims he resigned only to get away from Trump
(Vanity Fair)
but he was a fraud all along

and
how Republicans made peace  with Trump
(NY Times)
the ultimate devil's bargain
bonus: "Pence's talent for bootlicking (is) ... obscene"

Congratulations,
Mr. President

(New Yorker)
you've mastered sycophancy



wait... who's trashing whom?
(The Guardian)
Trump responds, with name-calling & lies
par for the course

---------------------

Factfulness:
Ten Reasons Why We're Wrong about the World

(Skeptical Inquirer)
or Why Things Are Better Than You Think


Inside the five-sided box
(Washington Post)
Ash Carter's time at the Pentagon



Africa's lost kingdoms
(NY Books)
5 books reviewed



The Weather Machine
(New Yorker)
why weather-forecasting keeps getting better

--------------------
 
art/museums/trips

The 25 works of art that define the contemporary age
(NY Times)
are even more embarrassing than you'd expect
not to mention pretentious


Why are Ethiopia's treasures still in London?
(The Atlantic)
particularly at
the V&A and the  British Museum



Apollo's Muse: The Moon in the Age of Photography
(Metropolitan Museum of Art)
7/3/19  -  9/22/19


Living in a Gaudi
house

(NY Times)


Jews, money, myth
(NY Books)
terribly durable

an exhibition at the
London Jewish Museum
until 10/17/2019
 

science

anthro/bio

The late exploration and settlement of the Americas
(Science)
by humans during
the Pleistocene

and not before 17.5 ka ago


Humans reached Europe 210,000 yrs ago?
(Washington Post)
based on the oldest human fragment found
outside Africa
but some are cautious


How many extinct
hominids did our ancestors encounter?

(Discovery)
spoiler alert: 7


Moonlight shapes the movement, growth, and songs of animals
(Science News)


The end of frankincense?
(NY Times)
due to overuse

and whatever happened
to myrrh?



The great insect die-off
(Monga Bay)
how to save insects and ourselves


The epic journey of an Arctic fox

(NY Times)
2175 miles in 76 days



Why did Earth's O2-rich atmosphere lag the start of photosynthesis
by billions of years?

(Georgia Tech)


physics

The quantum physics that makes fireworks possible
(Starts with a Bang)


Time is running
out for sand

(Nature)
(a nice title pun)
  and fortunately, Greenland is melting -- and awash with sand
(NY Times)


An MRI of a signle titanium atom
(NY Times)


science, sort of

What is truth?
(Starts with a Bang)
to a scientist
not Pontius Pilate

The war to free science
(Vox)
from paywalls



What happens when a scientific theory can't be tested?
(The Guardian
26-min podcast)

here's looking at you, string theory


What the measles epidemics says about America
(The Atlantic)
historical amnesia, declining faith in institutions, lack of concern for the public good
what about poor science literacy?


The equation that predicts the end of humanity
(Vox)
the Second Coming of Gott's equation


education

Are NC grades unfair?
(News & Observer)
legislators may change them
don't NC legislators have better things to do?



The failure of elementary education?
(The Atlantic)
emphasizing reading skills over knowledge


The education deserts of rural America
(The Atlantic)
and the growing gap in college completion between urban and rural America


Faster and cheaper degrees
(News & Observer)
a 3 on an AP test now gets you college credit in UNC system
yes, this is embarrassing


bad tech

FTC fines Fbook
$5 billion

(NY Times)
for mishandling personal information

Wall Street loves it because it won't change Fbook's business model
(Vox)
since it's such
a tiny drop in the bucket



Trump invites
right-wing extremists to WH social-media summit

(CNN)
a dilemma: which is worse: Trump or social media?


Conservatives pretend to be suppressed

(Vox)
by social-media-dominated social media


Why are US.mobile speeds so slow?
(Vox)
and how to make it better than Turkey's
(or even just Iran's)


bad tech solutions?

DASHBOARD act
(The Conversation)
making tech companies tell you how much your personal data worth


limited time?  read the most important stories from late June 2019:

1)  The Moon gets a lot of attention as the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 nears

2) 
U.S. Supreme Court abdicates on gerrymandering

3) 
An updated understanding of what we're seeing in the ETH image of the M87 SMBH

4)  Origin of the universe's gold is still up in the air

5) your choice of climate news:

solutions carbon taxes; solar passes coal; transition to green energy

bad news: melting ice in Greenland and Himalayas and melting permafrost

arguing with climate-change deniers

6)  exoplanet newsstraddling the radius gap and formation

7) 
should we be worried about election security?

8)
  the Democratic Presidential candidates debate




learn more about
neutrinosdark energy, the multiverse,   climate change,
exoplanet biosignatures (1) and exoplanet biosignatures (2),
Hubble tension


previous astro/culture updates

from 2019:

january-february 2019          march-april 2019          may-june 2019


from 2018:

july-august 2018           september-october 2018           november-december 2018
 
january-february 2018         
march-april 2018            may-june-2018


from 2017:

july-august 2017          september-october 2017          november-december 2017

january-february 2017         march-april 2017          may-june 2017           


 from 2016:

july-august 2016          september-october 2016             november-december 2016

                  may-june 2016          march-april 2016          january-february 2016  


 from 2015:

november-december 2015          september-october 2015          july-august 2015

may-june 2015          march-april 2015         
january-february 2015


 from 2014:

november-december 2014          september_october 2014          july-august 2014

may-june 2014          march-april 2014          january-february 2014


from 2013:

november-december 2013         
september-october 2013         july-august 2013