Beneath your feet in the depths of our planet, there’s an unbelievably vast ecosystem teeming with life. In recent years, a massive international team of scientists revealed how billions upon billions of microorganisms live miles beneath Earth’s subsurface.

Presenting their work at the American Geophysical Union's annual meeting in 2018, the researchers calculated the size of this mysterious treasure trove of life for the first time – and it was way bigger than they expected.

They reported that approximately 70 percent of the total number of microbes on the planet live underground. In total, these microbes represent around 15 to 23 billion tonnes of carbon – hundreds of times greater than the carbon mass of all humans on the surface.

Scientists have barely scratched the surface when it comes to describing these microorganisms. However, first glances suggest that the genetic diversity of life below the surface might be comparable to, or perhaps even exceed, life above the surface. This is why nicknamed the ecosystem the "subterranean Galapagos.”

However, don’t expect any giant tortoises down there. Bacteria and their evolutionary cousins – archaea – seem to dominate beneath the surface, although the researchers also noted a fair number of eukarya down there too. For example, researchers described an unidentified nematode over 1.4 kilometers (0.8 miles) deep in a South African gold mine. 

"Ten years ago, we had sampled only a few sites – the kinds of places we'd expect to find life," Karen Lloyd, study author and Associate Professor of microbiology at the University of Tennessee, said in a statement in 2018.

“Now, thanks to ultra-deep sampling, we know we can find them pretty much everywhere, albeit the sampling has obviously reached only an infinitesimally tiny part of the deep biosphere," added Professor Lloyd.

To reach the findings, the team brought together dozens of studies that looked at samples brought up from drilling between 2.5 and 5 kilometers (1.55 to 3.1 miles) into the Earth’s crust, both in the seafloor and the inland continents. Also, to their surprise, they discovered that the subsurface deep biosphere is almost twice the volume of all oceans.

Subjected to intense heat, crushing pressures, no light, and scarcely any nutrients, this is hardly where you would expect to find a diverse bank of life. Nevertheless, the researchers said that this ecosystem could answer many questions about the limits of life on Earth – and beyond.

"Our studies of deep biosphere microbes have produced much new knowledge, but also a realization and far greater appreciation of how much we have yet to learn about subsurface life," added Rick Colwell, microbial ecologist at Oregon State University.

"For example, scientists do not yet know all the ways in which deep subsurface life affects surface life and vice versa. And, for now, we can only marvel at the nature of the metabolisms that allow life to survive under the extremely impoverished and forbidding conditions for life in deep Earth."

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Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), also known as "forever chemicals", are a large family of substances that have an enormous industrial application. They are so widespread that they have started to leach into the environments, and from there to humans and other animals. There are several health risks associated with the accumulation of these substances, and it is not easy to get rid of them once they enter the environment.

A new method to clean drinking water of these substances has now been unveiled by engineers at the University of British Columbia. The filters consist of an adsorbing material – and that's not a typo. Unlike absorbing material that gets soaked through, an adsorbing one keeps molecules on its surface. That's where the magic happens: The material can trap PFAS, and by using electric currents and chemical reactions powered by light, those molecules are destroyed for good.

"Our adsorbing media captures up to 99 percent of PFAS particles and can also be regenerated and potentially reused. This means that when we scrub off the PFAS from these materials, we do not end up with more highly toxic solid waste that will be another major environmental challenge," engineering professor Dr Madjid Mohseni, who developed the technology, said in a statement.

There are several places in the world that no longer manufacture the chemicals – but given how unreactive they are, they simply accumulate, so even in those locations contamination might be high. Dr Mohseni’s research group also focuses on developing water solutions for rural, remote, and Indigenous communities, and this approach doesn’t require massive filtering facilities.

"Our adsorbing media are particularly beneficial for people living in smaller communities who lack resources to implement the most advanced and expensive solutions that could capture PFAS," added Dr. Mohseni. "These can also be used in the form of decentralized and in-home water treatments."

The next step for this research is to be tested in the real world. From this month onward, Dr Mohseni and his team will be going to a number of locations in British Columbia to see how well the system works with regular water supplies.

"The results we obtain from these real-world field studies will allow us to further optimize the technology and have it ready as products that municipalities, industry and individuals can use to eliminate PFAS in their water," explained Dr. Mohseni.

The study is published in the journal Chemosphere.

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When methane is released from decaying organic matter at the bottom of the lake, bubbles are released. Image credit: CoolPhoto2/Shutterstock.com 

This article first appeared in Issue 6 of our free digital magazine CURIOUS. 

If you can brave the freezing temperatures of Abraham Lake in January, you’ll be rewarded with one of nature’s great curiosities as you walk above thousands of frozen bubbles. The diaphanous spheres are beautiful, but they also pack a punch, formed from a highly flammable and potent form of greenhouse gas.

The bubbles of methane form on the bed of the lake where microbes feed on decomposing organic matter, like dead animals and plants, releasing gases. Methane doesn’t like to stay trapped in water, so it forms bubbles that float to the surface. In summer, they are released, contributing to Earth’s methane emissions, but in winter they can get trapped on their way to the surface.

If you’re a smoker, it’s worth noting that hanging around with open flames anywhere there’s methane is a bad idea. There are some cool videos online that demonstrate what can happen when these frozen bubbles release their methane burps in the presence of fire, so leave your lighters at home.

The bubbles eventually go out without much of a bang when the temperature warms in spring and the ice melts. Provided no unsuspecting passersby have chosen the moment of melt to light up a cigar, the gas will seep silently out of the ice and into the atmosphere. Here, they become a bit of a problem.

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Abraham Lake isn’t alone in burping out methane during its annual thawing. There are lakes all over the globe doing it, but some of the greatest concentrations of stored methane sit in Arctic ice, which is under threat from the ongoing climate crisis.

So, if you find yourself in Canada at this frosty time of year for the country, take a stroll across nature’s frozen lava lamp. These bubbles are a remarkable quirk of nature, and a reminder that there’s work to be done if we’re to have frozen microbe burps to admire in the future.

The best time to see the frozen bubbles is in January and February. Strolling on ice always comes with its challenges, but there are online guides to help you explore safely. 

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Representation of the constellation Scorpio, after restoration and re-coloring. Image credit: Ahmed Emam, Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities

"The zodiac was used to decorate private tombs and sarcophagi and was of great importance in astrological texts, such as horoscopes found inscribed on pottery sherds," explained Dr Daniel von Recklinghausen from the University of Tübingen in a statement. "However, it is rare in temple decoration: apart from Esna, there are only two completely preserved versions left, both from Dendera.”

At the Temple of Esna, all that remains is a large sandstone vestibule that was placed in front of the main structure by the Roman Emperor Claudius in the first century CE.  Over the past few years, von Recklinghausen and his colleagues have been painstakingly revealing and restoring the many incredible paintings that adorn the chamber.

Despite their age, the colorful decorations remain in fantastic condition thanks to the layer of mud that has protected and preserved them for around two millennia. Of course, this coating has also obscured the images from view, and researchers are working as delicately as possible to remove the dirt in order to reveal the illustrations without damaging them.

Representation of decans, zodiac signs used to measure the twelve hours of the night. Image credit: Ahmed Emam, Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities

In 2020, the team succeeded in uncovering an inscription that revealed the previously-unknown names of the ancient Egyptian constellations. The Big Dipper, for example, was named after the malevolent god Seth and was depicted in the shape of a bull’s leg.

The constellation we know as Orion, meanwhile, was associated with the deity Osiris, while Sirius – the brightest star in the night sky and part of the Canid Majoris constellation – was named after the Egyptian goddess Isis.

Further restoration efforts in 2022 revealed a series of stunning frescoes representing the vulture goddess Nekhbet and the serpent goddess Wadjet. Alongside the newly-uncovered zodiac, researchers also found images of fanciful creatures including a snake with a ram’s head and a four-winged bird with the tail of a snake and the head of a crocodile.

More than half of the structure’s ceiling has now been restored – although, with plenty of mud still to remove, it’s likely the team will uncover yet more incredible paintings over the coming years.

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Even today, thousands of years after it was built, hundreds of people gather at Stonehenge to witness it align with the Sun on the solstices. While it's crystal clear that the prehistoric site was built with astronomical alignment in mind, a new study argues that it isn’t the perfect Stone Age calendar it’s sometimes made out to be. 

An argument for the “Stonehenge calendar” theory was published last by Timothy Darvill, an archaeologist at Bournemouth University in the UK. He put forward the view that the numerology of the giant sarsen stones at Stonehenge acts as a perpetual calendar based on a tropical solar year of 365.25 days. 

Replying to this bold claim, a duo of archaeologists says this idea is unsubstantiated baloney based on “astronomical error and unsupported analogy.”

They believe that the builders of Stonehenge undoubtedly had a sharp interest in the solar cycle, which was most probably related to the connection between the afterlife and winter solstice in Neolithic cultures. This is evident because the monument neatly aligns with the sun on both the summer solstice sunrise and the winter solstice sunset.

They say, however, we shouldn’t get carried away and believe the monument was used as a giant calendrical device.

The “Stonehenge calendar” rests on the idea that each of the 30 upright sarsen stones, which perhaps formed an outer circle of stones, represent a solar day within a repeating 30-day month. To reach 365, as in the number of days in a year, you times 30 by 12 to reach 360. 

The next five days are then represented by the five inner-circle trilithons (made by two upright stones with a third laying on top). Leap years, which occur every four years, are accounted for by the four “station stones” at the site.

If you think this sounds like a bit of a stretch, the new study would agree with you. They note that a "key number" of the alleged calendar, 12, is not recognizable anywhere at the site, leaving a gaping hole in the theory. 

Furthermore, most ancient cultures did not use a solar-anchored calendar and instead opted for lunisolar calendars, with the notable exceptions of the ancient Egyptians and the Maya.

“Having more or less precise solar alignments could perhaps be used to anchor lunar New Year’s Eves but would hardly be sufficient to develop an operative solar calendar. For this, before the invention of the telescope, one would have needed devices as precise as the sundial at the Jantar Matar in Jaipur. Stonehenge is, evidently, not such a device,” the study authors conclude.

Archaeoastronomy is constantly striving to understand the relationship between people of the past and the celestial bodies of space. It’s hard to deny it's a field that’s full of fascinating ideas. However, as this new study contends, we should be very cautious about drawing big conclusions. 

The study is published in the journal Antiquity. 

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This article first appeared in Issue 6 of our free digital magazine CURIOUS. 

Astrology (not to be confused with astronomy) still has plenty of fans, some of whom even base major life decisions on planetary movements. Yet it’s also so widely disreputable it’s the most common point of comparison to dismiss something as baseless.

However, not everyone who holds astrology in contempt knows why. Although physics and astronomy have undermined any plausible mechanism by which astrology might work, it is social sciences such as psychology that have bridged the gap between incredulity and demonstrated failure.

It wasn’t always like this. Johannes Kepler, one of the greatest astronomers of all time, was an astrologer as well, and probably wouldn’t have made his discoveries without his astrological investigations. Until Kepler published his work in the 17th century, planets were widely thought to travel on crystal spheres, possibly pushed by angels, so the idea they controlled events on Earth wasn’t such a leap. Consulting a doctor also often came with a side serving of astrology.

 “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves” 

William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

 

Even then, however, not everyone was convinced – in a play written when Kepler’s work was just beginning, Shakespeare had Cassius say: “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves”. The more we learned about the heavens, the less sense astrology made. The discovery that stars lie at vastly different distances, with the closest thousands of times further away than any planet, makes constellations a handy fiction. How then could a planet’s movements “through” the Zodiac have any significance? Moreover, known forces all weaken with distance, yet astrologers treat Venus and Saturn as wielding equal, albeit different, influence over our lives.

These and other astronomical lessons justifiably encouraged skepticism among those aware of such things, but on their own do not amount to disproof. After all, the argument for Earth’s “continental drift” suffered decades of ridicule primarily for lack of a plausible mechanism, only for one to be found at mid-Oceanic ridges. Carl Sagan refused to sign a statement by leading astronomers called “Objections to Astrology”, in part because the absence of a mechanism alone was insufficient to prove it false.

How do you test astrology?

Many scientists, with varying views on astrology’s merits when starting, have set out to test its claims. Doing so, however, runs up against one of the key issues that made people suspicious of astrologers even before Galileo and Newton: the vagueness and contradictions in astrologers’ claims.  

If a dozen astrologers all make different predictions based on planetary motions, it’s a fair bet some will be right. Even if testing proves they on average did no better than chance, those who picked right will announce they are the true keepers of the sacred knowledge, and the rest are charlatans and fools.

Such claims are hard to test, since most people can see a bit of themselves in vague and largely complimentary descriptions, such as those typically provided by horoscopes.

 

That hasn’t stopped scientists from trying, though. When predicting events for the year ahead, astrologers have consistently failed to outperform people merely extrapolating from the past. Beaten on this account, astrology’s defenders moved to safer ground, claiming their practice tells us about personality, but not fate.

Such claims are even harder to test, since most people can see a bit of themselves, or their loved ones, in vague and largely complimentary descriptions, such as those typically provided by horoscopes.

Nevertheless, scientists have found innovative ways to add a little rigor. A few such studies do appear to provide support for astrology’s claims. Even in these cases, however, a deeper look tends to encourage skepticism.

An attempt to see whether personality variations between twins could be explained by astrology claimed success, for example, but a second look found an abundance of flaws in the study. When these were removed, the effect disappeared.

Three Indian psychiatrists provided the birth dates, times, and places of 150 people, half of whom had been diagnosed with mental illness, to four astrologers. Based on birth details and gender alone, the astrologers were challenged to predict which birthdates belonged to those who had been diagnosed, their symptoms, and the state of their mental illness at the time. The astrologers did perform better than chance in predicting who had suffered mental illness at some point, and who was suffering at the time. They failed, however, at predicting specific symptoms. More significantly perhaps, the astrologers showed little agreement with each other in their predictions, normally a requirement for science.

More frequently, studies that report astrological influences fail the replication of results. A famous example was the so-called “Mars Effect”, when astrologer and psychologist Michel Gauquelin claimed French athletes were more likely than the general population to be born when Mars is rising or peaking. Similar tests have found no such effect in the United States.

Big data steps in

Some astrological claims, however, can be tested using enormous databases. One such study looked to see whether the star signs people marry are randomly distributed, or if they match astrologers’ compatibility advice. "If there is even the smallest tendency for Virgos to fancy Capricorns, or for Libras to like Leos, then we should see it in the marriage statistics," the University of Manchester’s Dr David Voas said in a statement. By Leos, Voas presumably meant those born between July 23 and August 22, rather than those who share their name with a famous actor.

Despite a 20 million-person sample size he referred to as a “giant magnifying glass”, Voas found no patterns at all.

Indeed, even the more plausible astrology-adjacent claims tend to fail such large sample tests. People who scoff at the power of planets may have no trouble with reports of the influence of the full Moon. Yet before becoming an Australian parliamentarian, Professor Andrew Leigh conducted a study to see if lunar cycles correlated with births, deaths, or even conceptions. Over a 29-year period, even modest effects were ruled out.

A meta-analysis of 37 studies testing the influence of the Moon on everything from crisis calls to mental hospital admissions showed lunacy is a misnomer. The few studies that reported a link had failed to control for other cycles, or failed other basic forms of analysis.

If even the Moon, close enough to rule the tides, has no measurable effect, it is hard to see how the planets could exert an influence.

All in the timing

Complicating matters is the fact that the timing of your birth can influence your fate in ways that have nothing to do with astrology. Rates of schizophrenia are higher among people born in early spring, at least far from the equator. Several studies have indicated this is due to fetal vitamin D deficiency during a key stage of development. The fact it occurs during different months in Tasmania and Scotland proves the issue is the amount of sunlight, not the stars behind the Sun at the time.

Athletes are more likely to be born just after the cut-off point for sporting age brackets, January or July. At elementary school, being the oldest by even a few months makes it easier to excel at sport, and it seems the effect lasts. Astrologers, however, might argue Capricorns and Cancers are just naturally athletic, although, strangely, that only applies to those born in the latter part of the horoscope period.

Can astrology be a self-fulfilling prophecy?

There is, however, one entirely plausible way astrology could influence our lives; if our beliefs make it so. Some online dating websites ask for people’s star signs, presumably because at least a few of their users are paying attention. If people read enough columns telling them they’re incompatible with those born in particular months, it might indeed reduce the chances of them ending up with such a person, making it slightly surprising Vaos found no such effect.

One prominent study that claimed to show evidence for astrology reported that people whose Sun was in certain signs were more extroverted than those in the other six signs. Numerous papers by the senior author of the original study, Hans Eysenck, have since been classified as “unsafe” because of errors and possible manipulation of data, so when Jan van Rooij of the University of Leiden attempted to replicate the work it wouldn’t have been surprising if he found nothing. However, van Rooij added a twist by asking the subjects how familiar they were with astrology. He found that those who knew the characteristics assigned to people of their sign did indeed match the predictions, while those who did not know what was expected of them showed no such pattern.

Nevertheless, most tests of astrology don’t even find that sort of indirect effect.

Moreover, advances in astronomy have offered some opportunities to test astrology on top of psychological ones. Neptune, for example, was discovered because of its gravitational tug on Uranus. Astrologers quicky adopted it and assigned significance to its position in the sky when people were born. Yet not one of them made a prediction of a previously undetected planet, based on observing some shift in the collective psyche every 13.7 years as Neptune moves to a new Zodiac segment.

Astronomers are on the hunt to find a possible Planet X based on the movements of comets and other outer-Solar System objects whose orbits may have been shaped by its gravity. Don’t hold your breath for astrologers finding its location first based on working backward from social observations.

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The Office for National Statistics (ONS) saw this jump from 16.8% in January, with the increase driven by price movements such as the rise in cost of vegetables last month.

This saw select fruit and vegetables rationed in UK supermarkets, due to shortages caused by bad weather conditions in the South of Europe and Northern Africa and many growers having to cut back due to rising costs of heating greenhouses.

While this has since eased, the price movements resulted in an annual rate of 18% for vegetables in the year to February 2023, the highest rate since February 2009.

Bread and cereals, chocolate and confectionary, ready-meals and sauces, as well as hot beverages were each also at the highest rate since at least 2008.

“The curve is yet to break for inflation. Today’s inflation figures will be disappointing news for households across the country. Food and non-alcoholic beverages prices are running at record levels,” McKinsey partner, Kevin Bright said.

“This is eating into a significant proportion of disposable income,” he added, explaining that “a large portion are being driven by those containing grains, eggs, oil and certain proteins.”

Bread was up 20.8%, with pasta products and couscous up 25.3%, eggs rose by 32.5%, margarine and fats up 30.4% and pork up 22.4%.

“Today’s figures mean that many consumers will be further forced to make difficult decisions about what they can put in their baskets, with ever increasing pressure on the price of fresh food.”

Bright said that in the long-term, “retailers can explore opportunities to improve productivity, review their relationships and network of suppliers and take an intelligent approach to pricing and promotions.”

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There’s a simpler answer to ‘Oumuamua’s weird orbit: Outgassing hydrogen

South-east Asia is becoming a magnet for foreign retirees, professionals and high net-worth individuals looking for an idyllic place with friendly people to live in, not least because governments here provide incentives for them to do so. But are there trade-offs for locals and how are these mitigated?

‘Live like a king’: South-east Asia’s special visas lure wealthy and highly skilled foreigners

PHOTO: COURTESY OF STEVEN JOHNSON

American Steven Johnson often sits inside a wooden hut in Cavite, a province south of the capital Manila, as he records videos teaching other expatriates what they need to do to live the rest of their days in warm and sunny Philippines.

Mr Johnson, 59, was a school safety officer in the United States. But since moving to this South-east Asian country five years ago after retiring from his day job, he has become a YouTuber running “The Philippine Info Channel” catering to mostly Westerners hoping to retire in the Philippines.

He also leads a support group of about 150 foreign retirees, some of whom are raising children with their Filipina partners like himself.

Penang’s easy living is big draw for expats looking to retire

PHOTO: AFP

It may not be a fantasy island, but Malaysia’s Penang, touted as one of the best places to retire in the world, lures foreign expatriates with its relatively low cost of living, beautiful beaches and seafront properties, a relaxed pace of life, and friendliness to tourists.

Where the island has a leg up over other destinations in Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam, is also its excellent health infrastructure, the preponderance of English-speaking people and a long-term visa option for non-Malaysians wanting to retire.

Ms Marie Luxa, an Australian who retired in Penang in 2016, said those reasons led her and her husband to choose this northern Malaysian city over other options.

Indonesia refines digital nomad rules, aiming for wealthier expats

PHOTO: ISTOCKPHOTO

Indonesia is recalibrating the visas it offers to expatriates working remotely as part of an effort to attract highly skilled and monied foreigners.

This is because of worries that the current crop of young, not-so-well-off digital nomads are abusing their visas to ride roughshod over local mores and work illegally.

In December, the government introduced its Second Home visa allowing foreign nationals that can deposit 2 billion rupiah (S$174,869.18) in one of the country’s state-owned banks stays of up to a decade.

Steady interest in Singapore’s One Pass, Global Investor Programme

ST PHOTO: LIM YAOHUI

There is steady interest for both a new work pass aimed at top foreign talent, and a scheme that awards permanent residency to major foreign investors, as Singapore plays to its strengths over those of its neighbours.

These talents and investors are drawn to the Republic for its business opportunities in cutting-edge sectors, good governance and high quality of life, despite employment and investment schemes with onerous rules and a higher cost of living, said immigration and talent watchers.

Since Jan 1, top foreign talent who earn $30,000 in gross monthly salary or more from a single employer, among other criteria, are able to apply for the Overseas Networks and Expertise (One) Pass, unveiled by Minister for Manpower Tan See Leng in August 2022.

Ticket to paradise: Special visas offered to foreigners in South-east Asia

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION: PEXELS

With tropical weather and a largely low cost of living, South-east Asia is a popular destination for foreigners looking for a place to retire in or work remotely from. Countries are also making it more attractive for them to come by offering special visas.

Here’s a look at some of the visas being offered.

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You can eat and drink in front of me – that is what a Malaysian man hopes all non-Muslims will understand, as the country welcomed the month of Ramadan on Thursday.

Mr Shukri Saleh, who goes by the handle @ShukClimbWalls on Twitter, reassured non-Muslims around him that they can eat or drink, without either act being disrespectful. He also said there is nothing wrong with doing so.

During Ramadan, Muslims around the world are supposed to refrain from eating and drinking from sunrise to sunset. They also are not allowed to engage in sexual activities, use obscene language or smoke during that period of the day.

They are exempted from fasting if they are unwell.

Mr Shukri added in subsequent tweets that he has non-Muslim friends who used to hide from him to consume food or drinks. He said: “You don’t need permission from us (Muslims) to eat and drink.”

His tweets regarding Ramadan came a day before Malaysia’s Education Minister said that school canteens need not close during Ramadan.

Speaking at an event, Ms Fadhlina Sidek said it would be unfair for non-Muslim students to fast, just because their Muslim classmates are fasting, said news outlet Astro Awani in a report.

She also said non-fasting students should be given a proper space to eat and drink, and have the support and respect of their school while doing so.

“In the Malaysia Madani concept, we should be inclusive when it comes to respecting the Ramadan month so we need to let children know that Ramadan is a month of worship,” she said, referring to the “Civil Malaysia” slogan introduced by Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim.

“At the same time, the process to understand other students should also begin, but it doesn’t mean they should be marginalised and leave no room for the children to eat,” Ms Fadhlina added.

“I don’t want a situation where students eat in the storeroom or by the drain.”

In previous years, some Malaysian schools have been known to ostracise the non-Muslim community during Ramadan.

In 2010, the headmistress of a school in Kedah told Chinese students that they were being “insensitive” after they were found eating in the school compound.

In another incident in 2013, non-Muslim students at a Selangor primary school were made to eat in the shower room, which also doubled as a toilet.

Mr Shukri, whose tweets were laced with humour, said he wanted to spread the word and meaning of Ramadan, instead of the non-Muslim community being stuck with the notion that they were being insensitive.

“Unless you’re eating Kenny Hills Bakers’ peach strudel in front of my face, then it’s an issue for me,” he said.

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Mathematics is the language that lets us describe the universe. Galileo Galilei was already convinced of that in the 16th century. But even everyday phenomena such as the melting of an ice cube in a glass of water can lead to equations that are so complex that they overwhelm those with high levels of mathematical expertise. That has not stopped Argentine mathematician Luis Caffarelli from devoting himself to precisely such problems during his research career, however. The Norwegian Academy of Sciences and Letters has now honored Caffarelli with this year's Abel Prize, the highest honor in mathematics.

Caffarelli was born in Buenos Aires in 1948. Early in his career, he primarily dealt with the properties of polynomials, algebraic expressions with multiple terms, until he completed his doctorate at the University of Buenos Aires. When Caffarelli took a position as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Minnesota in 1973, he started to devote himself to the broad field of differential equations.

Differential equations are formulas that contain derivatives, which describe properties such as the rate of change in a physical system. Although all this sounds complicated and abstract, it is these kinds of equations that describe the constant physical flux of the world around us.

Differential equations explain how certain variables change over time and space. They allow us to glimpse into the future because they predict how a system will change temporally and spatially. Suppose you throw a ball in the air: the parabolic trajectory that it follows can be represented as the solution of a differential equation.

Many natural phenomena—the speed of a river’s flow or the direction of wind—depend on the time and position of a system being observed. This makes differential equations very difficult to solve because they contain both time and space derivatives. Caffarelli began his research by initially devoting himself to static problems—those that do not change over time. One example involves the skin of a soap bubble stretched over a surface. The skin of the bubble is known as a minimal surface because it constantly tries to make itself as small as possible. In order to calculate the shape of such minimal surfaces, one needs differential equations. Caffarelli was interested in what minimal surfaces look like when they encounter an obstacle.

One of the most important questions when considering this problem is the size of the surface of the region where the bubble and the obstacle touch. Intuitively one would say that the bubble’s contact surface has a smooth boundary without corners or edges. But proving this mathematically is quite difficult because you have to calculate the resulting minimum area for all kinds of obstacles that requires solving an extremely large number of extremely complicated differential equations. Caffarelli set about tackling this problem in the 1970s by examining the properties of the differential equations and found that the boundary of the contact surface has no cracks or corners—if the obstacle is also smooth.

This work enabled him to focus on more complicated phenomena, such as describing the melting of an ice cube in water. Slovenian-Austrian physicist Josef Stefan had already paved the way in the late 19th century by tackling this problem and deriving two formulas. The first describes the flow of heat from the water to the ice, causing the ice to heat up and begin to melt. The second is dedicated to the vanishing contact surface between the water and ice. Both equations interact: the strength of the heat transfer depends on the surface of the ice, while the heat flow determines how quickly the surface shrinks. These so-called Stefan equations had seemed to describe the problem well.

Until the 1970s it was unclear whether they could provide abstract solutions that were divorced from the real world. The equations could predict an ice cube shape resembling a fractal, which has never been observed in nature. This was much more difficult to investigate than just looking at soap skins. The melting of ice cubes contains a temporal and spatial component. Moreover peaks, corners and edges can occur on an ice cube during the melting process, even if the cube’s original shape was smooth. You only have to imagine an ice cube in the shape of an hourglass: as soon as the connecting piece melts, two objects with a pronounced point are formed, at least for a short time.

After these achievements, Caffarelli went on to address one the most stubborn problems in physics: the well-known Navier-Stokes equations used to describe fluid flows. These are differential equations that describe the flow of liquids. The equations have raised debates among mathematicians for centuries. It is not even known whether they always give a finite and smooth solution. This means it is unclear whether the flow velocity can suddenly increase at one place or point in time to another—or whether it can even assume infinitely large values. This question is one of the seven Millennium Prize problems, for which the Clay Mathematics Institute offered awards in 2000: $1 million for the solution to each.

While walking through New York City’s Chinatown in 1980, Caffarelli and his colleagues Robert Kohn and Louis Nirenberg decided to look into the Navier-Stokes equations. Two years later they achieved a result that represents the biggest breakthrough in that field to date: If the Navier-Stokes solutions should actually contain singularities—fluid flows that exhibit jerky changes or infinitely fast speeds—that would mean that the singularities were destined to immediately disappear. This finding doesn’t solve the relevant Millennium Prize problem, but it does guarantee that, according to the equations, fluids will only behave in this strange way, if they do so at all, over a short period—a great relief to an airplane or car designer.

To this day, the 74-year-old Caffarelli continues to work tirelessly on a range of research topics and publishes several papers every year—in total, he has authored more than 320 publications over the course of his career.

This article originally appeared in Spektrum der Wissenschaft and was reproduced with permission.

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That's according to MIT Professor Li-Huei Tsai, a neuroscientist who focuses on diseases like Alzheimer's and directs The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory.

She told Insider that the keys to maintaining healthy brain function and memory as you age are no secret.

"I think people actually know what they should be doing to stay healthy and to preserve their memory," Tsai said.

She said that common expert advice – exercise, be socially and intellectually active, and maintain a healthy diet – are important to implement into our lives. The harder part is maintaining those habits.

"I think that if you just keep a routine, you know, you do it," Tsai said. "I mean, I think that's the only way to do it."

A recent study published in The BMJ that followed almost 30,000 people in China for 10 years found that those who followed more "healthy lifestyle factors" had slower memory decline than those who did not.

Researchers in the study looked at many of the same factors that Tsai called out: a healthy diet, regular exercise, regular social contact, cognitive activities, and abstaining from both smoking and alcohol.

Tsai is now working on a medical device that's intended to slow the progression of Alzheimer's disease. It creates a show of light and sound for the wearer, and is designed to stimulate their brain.

Tsai said she knows it's important to maintain her routine even when conditions are less than favorable.

"I just have to really discipline myself," she said.

"For instance, exercise in the winter: it's really painful when you look at outside temperature below zero and there's ice and snow on the ground. I just try to discipline myself."

This article was originally published by Business Insider.

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With this decision, European policies are promoting the electric vehicle (EV) as the solution for reducing GHG emissions in the transport sector. Today, the sale of EVs is rising swiftly, accounting for almost 10% of private car sales in Europe. The current evolution of the automobile market and the urgency of the climate crisis seem to be in line with the 2035 deadline.

While this rapid change generates a sense of inevitability, it’s ultimately too simple a change in relation to such complex planetary problems. We must be aware not only of environmental consequences but also economic and social issues.

Car pollution, but not just from the exhaust

From an environmental point of view, multiple studies have compared the GHG emissions of internal combustion cars with those of their electric equivalents. Emissions during the use of an electric car depend directly on the emissions level of the electricity mix used to charge the vehicles.

In the case of France, a large share of electricity comes from low-carbon sources because of the country’s significant use of nuclear power, which is not the case in all European countries. However, the construction of EVs, and especially the fabrication of their batteries, emits high levels of GHG, and the environmental benefits can only be offset if the car is driven enough. This undermines the argument for restrained use, which is a major lever for climate mitigation.

In 2022, electric cars accounted for 12% of sales in France but less than 1% of the total automotive fleet. Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP

By only considering emissions released within the national borders, carbon-accounting methods are not adapted to solutions that result in pollution emitted in other countries. According to these techniques, VEs appear to be effective in reducing the national carbon footprint. The desire to adopt them in France is therefore understandable but their virtue does not extend to the global level.

Besides climate challenges, the ban on the sale of internal combustion vehicles in 2035 must respond to the issue of air quality in most of the world’s major cities, with impacts on the local economy and public health.

The transport sector is a major source of this pollution and VEs are an alternative solution to help reduce these emissions – a reduction that is nevertheless mitigated by the release of particles linked to the abrasion of tyres, breaks and roads, which remains high.

By enforcing low-emission zones, many European cities are obliging owners of the most polluting cars to buy newer cars, or even electric vehicles, which emit fewer local pollutants.

Oil-related tax loss and EV subsidies

The all-electric transformation of vehicle fleets by 2035 will necessarily revolutionise the entire road-infrastructure economic system. With the reduction in fossil fuel consumption, revenue from the French domestic consumption tax on energy products (TICPE) will also decrease.

This tax generated 33.3 billion euros in 2019 and is central to both the national budget and that of local authorities. Replacing the TICPE with a tax on electricity could make up for some of the tax losses but would affect all households, including those who travel less by car.

The subsidy system in place (bonuses and the conversion bonus) has strongly contributed to the current level of EV use but is set to become increasingly expensive. In 2020, it cost 700 million euros, with a 20% market share, including hybrid vehicles. In comparison, the 2018 “bike and active transport” plan allocated 350 million euros over seven years for cycling infrastructures.

Tax benefits and subsidies for the purchase of electric vehicles are currently more beneficial for users in urban areas, where this technology is adopted quicker thanks to the favourable conditions. Rural and peri-urban areas are more of a challenge in this race toward the all-electric transformation, as those living there have no choice but to use a car.

Tense markets and very uncertain costs

The government will therefore have to make significant contributions to support businesses and individuals in this transformation, and it remains to be seen what political choices will be made to redistribute this cost among taxpayers. Despite the installation of new electric generators, the rise in demand will greatly increase the electricity bill of French households, especially if the residential sector also uses electricity for heating.

On a global scale, lithium and many other metals have become strategic resources for electric mobility. However, high demand and the geographical imbalance of deposits and exploitation create tensions that will weaken the supply and push up the prices of raw materials.

A quick fix for the climate, but far cry from an ecological solution

The all-electric transformation of vehicle fleets is a headlong rush that relies on an innovation that does not call into question the way our society works. If EVs are part of the strategy for carbon neutrality by 2050, they will not be enough by themselves and will continue to maintain an unstable system dependent on a high level of construction and land artificialisation and the abundant consumption of resources and energy.

The urgency related to climate change, with ambitious targets for 2030 and 2050, makes solutions viable that are beneficial in the short term, such as EVs, but these will no longer be feasible in 2100, in particular due to a lack of natural resources beyond 2050.

With the overselling of its ecological benefits, the electric vehicle stifles potential action to change our car-centred system. Promoting restrained use is the safest and most natural solution and offers multiple environmental and social benefits.

Transport systems, spatial planning and lifestyles are caught up in a decades-old inertia focussed on speed and consumption. Despite the urgent need to end this “ecocidal” model, reflection on the future of currently car-based territories, between urban centres and rural areas, are wanting.

The end of the internal combustion engine car in 2035 should not be synonymous with their systematic replacement by electric cars, but rather with a profound questioning of the place of the vehicle in our daily lives.

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A research team led by Flinders University Professor Stuart Brierley, based at the SA Health and Medical Research Institute, with Nobel Laureate Professor David Julius, Professor Holly Ingraham and Dr. James Bayrer at the University of California San Francisco, has shown evidence of a specific pathway of cells and nerves linking the gut to the brain that may be responsible for the chronic gut pain.

Chronic gut pain is commonly experienced by 11% of the global population currently living with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and associated psychological conditions, including anxiety and depression.

Described in a new article in Nature, the team used genetic and pharmacologic tools in pre-clinical models to manipulate signals between gut epithelial cells and associated nerve fibers to determine how this pathway stimulates chronic gut pain and anxiety.

"We've found that the gut microbiome produces short chain fatty acids that act on the lining of the gut and trigger a particular cell type to release neurotransmitters," says Professor Brierley.

"The nerves connecting to those cells become active and directly send pain signals to the brain via the gut-brain axis. Activation of these nerves also increases anxiety indicators.

"This mechanism is chronically overactive in females, which could explain why two-thirds of those who experience IBS are women and why IBS patients report symptoms of chronic gut pain and anxiety."

The research suggests IBS, anxiety and depression can all be driven by signaling within the intestinal tract and people with overactive communication between the gut and brain are more susceptible to experiencing pain.

Professor Brierley says added stress can make the symptoms even worse by further activating these mechanisms in the gut.

"There's a variety of ways in which your susceptibility to pain can be altered on a daily-basis.

"Stress, infections, changes in diet and disruptions to the microbiome caused by medications, such as antibiotics, can mess with the way your gut signals to your brain."

Researchers are striving to address the current lack of treatments for chronic gut pain and anxiety and now that the mechanisms involved in driving these conditions have been discovered, specific interventions can be developed to block communication between the cells and nerves responsible.

"Theoretically we should be able to find a way to stop gut pain at the source and simultaneously reduce feelings of anxiety.

"These future interventions are likely to include drug treatments, microbiome treatments and diet-based treatments."

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The researchers say increased intake of magnesium-rich foods such as spinach and nuts could also help reduce the risk of dementia, which is the second leading cause of death in Australia and the seventh biggest killer globally.

The study of more than 6,000 cognitively healthy participants in the United Kingdom aged 40 to 73 found people who consume more than 550 milligrams of magnesium each day have a brain age that is approximately one year younger by the time they reach 55 compared with someone with a normal magnesium intake of about 350 milligrams a day.

"Our study shows a 41 percent increase in magnesium intake could lead to less age-related brain shrinkage, which is associated with better cognitive function and lower risk or delayed onset of dementia in later life," lead author and Ph.D. researcher Khawlah Alateeq, from the ANU National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, said.

"This research highlights the potential benefits of a diet high in magnesium and the role it plays in promoting good brain health."

It's believed the number of people worldwide who will be diagnosed with dementia is expected to more than double from 57.4 million in 2019 to 152.8 million in 2050, placing a greater strain on health and social services and the global economy.

"Since there is no cure for dementia and the development of pharmacological treatments have been unsuccessful for the past 30 years, it's been suggested that greater attention should be directed towards prevention," study co-author Dr. Erin Walsh, who is also from ANU, said.

"Our research could inform the development of public health interventions aimed at promoting healthy brain aging through dietary strategies."

The researchers say a higher intake of magnesium in our diets from a younger age may safeguard against neurodegenerative diseases and cognitive decline by the time we reach our 40s.

"The study shows higher dietary magnesium intake may contribute to neuroprotection earlier in the aging process and preventative effects may begin in our 40s or even earlier," Ms Alateeq said.

"This means people of all ages should be paying closer attention to their magnesium intake.

"We also found the neuroprotective effects of more dietary magnesium appears to benefit women more than men and more so in post-menopausal than pre-menopausal women, although this may be due to the anti-inflammatory effect of magnesium."

Participants completed an online questionnaire five times over a period of 16 months. The responses provided were used to calculate the daily magnesium intake of participants and were based on 200 different foods with varying portion sizes. The ANU team focused on magnesium-rich foods such as leafy green vegetables, legumes, nuts, seeds and wholegrains to provide an average estimation of magnesium intake from the participants' diets.

The research is published in the European Journal of Nutrition.

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However, while Lula oversaw a more than 70% drop in deforestation during his first run as president in the early 2000s, the rainforest’s future remains deeply uncertain.

That’s in part because Brazilian administrations, whether of the right or left, have all promoted an ambitious project to boost exports and the economy called the Initiative for the Integration of the Regional Infrastructure of South America, or IIRSA.

The initiative focuses on new roads, dams and industry that can threaten the region’s fragile rainforest ecosystem – and harm the world’s climate in the process.

Trucks along the BR163 highway, a major transport route that has contributed to deforestation. Nelson Almeida / AFP via Getty Images

The problem with infrastructure in the forest

At first glance, IIRSA might sound like progress. Its goal is to improve Amazonia’s economy by developing its resources and establishing better access to global markets. To accomplish this, the initiative plans to rehabilitate and extend the existing highway system and build dams, ports, industrial waterways and railroads.

However, evidence from my research in the Amazon over the past 30 years and by other scientists shows that new roads lead to more deforestation, putting extreme pressure on the rainforest. Outside of protected areas, nearly 95% of all deforestation occurs within 3.4 miles (5.5 kilometers) of a road or less than two-thirds of a mile (1 km) from a river.

Deforestation rates fell during Lula’s first presidency, primarily because Brazil expanded its protected areas program and enforced environmental laws. However, deforestation began to rise again during the administration of his protégé, President Dilma Rousseff.

Both Lula and Rousseff furthered the IIRSA agenda by building dams on the Madeira River and on the Xingu River, where the Belo Monte dam diverted streamflow vital to the survival of Indigenous communities.

They also downsized protected areas to make way for their projects. Rousseff even downsized Amazon National Park, the first such park in Amazonia. In all, 181 square miles (469 square kilometers) were removed, close to 5% of the total area. The most scenic park landscape along the Tapajos River shoreline was taken to make way for dam construction.

Now back in office, Lula has signaled his approval of a key IIRSA project: the revitalization of BR-319, a federal highway between Porto Velho and Manaus.

If this project is completed, it will open the central Amazon basin to even more deforestation.

I believe this should cause alarm. Research shows too much deforestation could push the forest over a tipping point from which it can’t recover. No one knows exactly where the line is, but the vast Amazon that people picture today with its extraordinary biodiversity and dense forests would be no more. Such a catastrophe once seemed the bad dream of doomsayers, but there is mounting evidence that the forest is in trouble.

The Amazonian tipping point

The tropical rainforest sustains itself by recycling rain to the atmosphere through evapotranspiration, which makes more moisture available. Rainfall recycling accounts for about 50% of the basin’s precipitation today.

Too much deforestation could leave too little rainfall recycling to sustain the forest.

Scientists initially estimated the tipping point would occur once about 40% of the Amazon was deforested. That estimate has slipped downward over time given the intensification of fires and the onset of observable climate change in the basin itself.

Moreover, the forest shows diminishing resilience, meaning it is less able to recover from climate extremes. Scientists have already observed widespread shifts to more drought-tolerant tree species.

Given the evidence, scientists have revised the tipping point to deforestation as low as 20% to 25%. Even if only a fifth of the forest is lost, the remainder could quickly degrade into an ecosystem of fire-adapted grasses and shrubby trees that look nothing like the massive ones native to the rainforest.

NASA satellite images show the expansion of deforestation as roads are built in the Amazon.

Deforestation across all the Amazonian nations now stands at a little over 16%. In my view, this is far too close for comfort, especially with the momentum of the IIRSA program.

More than one tipping point?

The deforestation problem isn’t the only pressure on the forest – the Amazon is also dealing with the heat and drought of global warming.

Evidence suggests that global climate change may be enough to push large parts of the rainforest to the brink. One concern is that the dry season is getting longer, a shift that appears to be driven by global warming. This affects annual precipitation by reducing the number of rainy days and makes fire more damaging by extending the season when trees can easily burn.

Currently, dry season lengthening is most pronounced in the Southern Basin. However, changes in the southern rainfall pattern can reduce precipitation in the wettest parts of the basin to the west. One estimate suggests dry season lengthening could cause a tipping point transition by 2064.

What can be done?

Averting Amazonia’s looming tipping point catastrophe will require effort by the global community. In the past, Brazil has controlled deforestation through its forest code and by designating protected areas.

To step back from the brink, Lula would have to begin enforcing the forest code again, which limits deforestation on private property. He would also have to persuade the Brazilian Congress to stop creating incentives for land grabs – the taking of public land for private uses.

Although Lula would have a difficult time reclaiming already grabbed land, expanding protected areas could reduce deforestation. Obviously, downsizing Amazonia’s existing protected areas would have to stop.

Finally, Lula would need to revisit the IIRSA program and pursue only those projects that bring economic development without excessive deforestation.

Research I am currently working on with colleagues in the Ecuadorian Amazon focuses on a particular type of protected area, the Indigenous Territory. We argue that safeguarding Indigenous territorial rights provides Amazonia’s national governments with effective conservation allies. This is because Indigenous peoples want to defend their homelands. Unfortunately, national governments are not always supportive of Indigenous rights, especially when their territories contain mineral wealth.

Slowing global climate change, however, will require international collaboration on an unprecedented scale. Luckily, a forum for this already exists with the Paris Agreement.

The people of the Amazon

The Amazon Basin is home to 35 million people, many of whom live in poverty. They have every right to desire a better life, and that’s one reason that IIRSA has a great deal of local support.

However, while the initiative might bring short-term benefits, it also risks destroying the very resources it was intended to develop. And that could leave the region in a state of poverty that cannot be alleviated.

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Jaron Lanier, the godfather of virtual reality and the sage of all things web, is nicknamed the Dismal Optimist. And there has never been a time we’ve needed his dismal optimism more. It’s hard to read an article or listen to a podcast these days without doomsayers telling us we’ve pushed our luck with artificial intelligence, our hubris is coming back to haunt us and robots are taking over the world. There are stories of chatbots becoming best friends, declaring their love, trying to disrupt stable marriages, and threatening chaos on a global scale.

Is AI really capable of outsmarting us and taking over the world? “OK! Well, your question makes no sense,” Lanier says in his gentle sing-song voice. “You’ve just used the set of terms that to me are fictions. I’m sorry to respond that way, but it’s ridiculous … it’s unreal.” This is the stuff of sci-fi movies such as The Matrix and Terminator, he says.

Lanier doesn’t even like the term artificial intelligence, objecting to the idea that it is actually intelligent, and that we could be in competition with it. “This idea of surpassing human ability is silly because it’s made of human abilities.” He says comparing ourselves with AI is the equivalent of comparing ourselves with a car. “It’s like saying a car can go faster than a human runner. Of course it can, and yet we don’t say that the car has become a better runner.”

I flush and smile. Flush because I’m embarrassed, smile because I’m relieved. I’ll take my bollocking happily, I say. He squeals with laughter.

“Hehehehe! OK. Hehehehe!” But he doesn’t want us to get complacent. There’s plenty left to worry about: human extinction remains a distinct possibility if we abuse AI, and even if it’s of our own making, the end result is no prettier.

Lanier, 62, has worked alongside many of the web’s visionaries and power-brokers. He is both insider (he works at Microsoft as an interdisciplinary scientist, although he makes it clear that today he is talking on his own behalf) and outsider (he has constantly, and presciently, exposed the dangers the web presents). He is also one of the most distinctive men on the planet – a raggedy prophet with ginger dreads, a startling backstory, an eloquence to match his gargantuan brain and a giggle as alarming as it is life-enhancing.

Although a tech guru in his own right, his mission is to champion the human over the digital – to remind us we created the machines, and artificial intelligence is just what it says on the tin. In books such as You Are Not a Gadget and Ten Reasons For Deleting Your Social Media Accounts, he argues that the internet is deadening personal interaction, stifling inventiveness and perverting politics.

We meet on Microsoft’s videoconference platform Teams so that he can show a recent invention of his that enables us to appear in the same room together even though we are thousands of miles apart. But the technology isn’t working in the most basic sense. He can’t see me.

Doubtless he’ll be pleased in a way. There’s nothing Lanier likes more than showing technology can go wrong, especially when operated by an incompetent at the other end. So we switch to the rival Zoom.

Lanier’s backdrop is full of musical instruments, including a row of ouds hanging from the ceiling. In his other life, he is a professional contemporary classical musician – a brilliant player of rare and ancient instruments. Often he has used music to explain the genius and limitations of tech. At its simplest, digital technology works in a on/off way, like the keys on a keyboard, and lacks the endless variety of a saxophone or human voice.

“From my perspective,” he says, “the danger isn’t that a new alien entity will speak through our technology and take over and destroy us. To me the danger is that we’ll use our technology to become mutually unintelligible or to become insane if you like, in a way that we aren’t acting with enough understanding and self-interest to survive, and we die through insanity, essentially.”

Now I’m feeling less relieved. Death by insanity doesn’t sound too appealing, and it can come in many forms – from world leaders or terrorists screwing with global security AI to being driven bonkers by misinformation or bile on Twitter. Lanier says the more sophisticated technology becomes, the more damage we can do with it, and the more we have a “responsibility to sanity”. In other words, a responsibility to act morally and humanely.

Lanier was the only child of Jewish parents who knew all about inhumanity. His Viennese mother was blond and managed to talk her way out of a concentration camp by passing as Aryan. She then moved to the US, working as a pianist and stocks trader. His father, whose family had been largely wiped out in Ukrainian pogroms, had a range of jobs from architect to science editor of pulp science-fiction magazines and eventually elementary-school teacher. Lanier was born in New York, but the family soon moved west. When he was nine, his mother was killed after her car flipped over on the freeway on her way back from passing her driving test.

Both father and son were left traumatised and impoverished; his mother had been the main breadwinner. The two of them moved to New Mexico, living in tents before 11-year-old Lanier started to design their new house, a geodesic dome that took seven years to complete. “It wasn’t good structurally, but it was good therapeutically,” he says. In his 2017 memoir, Dawn of the New Everything, Lanier wrote that the house looked “a little like a woman’s body. You could see the big dome as a pregnant belly and the two icosahedrons as breasts.”

He was ludicrously bright. At 14, he enrolled at New Mexico State University, taking graduate-level courses in mathematical notation, which led him to computer programming. He never completed his degree, but went to art school and flunked out. By the age of 17 he was working a number of jobs, including goat-keeper, cheese-maker and assistant to a midwife. Then, by his early 20s, he had became a researcher for Atari in California. When he was made redundant, he focused on virtual reality projects, co-founding VPL Research to commercialise VR technologies. He could have easily been a tech billionaire had he sold his businesses sensibly or at least shown a little interest in money. As it stands, he tells me he has done very nicely financially, and obscene wealth wouldn’t have sat with his values. Today, he lives in Santa Cruz in California with his wife and teenage daughter.

Although many of the digital gurus started out as idealists, to Lanier there was an inevitability that the internet would screw us over. We wanted stuff for free (information, friendships, music), but capitalism doesn’t work like that. So we became the product – our data sold to third parties to sell us more things we don’t need. “I wrote something that described how what we now call bots will be turned into these agents of manipulation. I wrote that in the early 90s when the internet had barely been turned on.” He squeals with horror and giggles. “Oh my God, that’s 30 years ago!”

Actually, he believes bots such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard could provide hope for the digital world. Lanier was always dismayed that the internet gave the appearance of offering infinite options but in fact diminished choice. Until now, the primary use of AI algorithms has been to choose what videos we would like to see on YouTube, or whose posts we’ll see on social media platforms. Lanier believes it has made us lazy and incurious. Beforehand, we would sift through stacks in a record shop or browse in bookshops. “We were directly connected to a choice base that was actually larger instead of being fed this thing through this funnel that somebody else controls.”

Talking at an IT fair in Hanover, Germany, in 2018. Photograph: Dpa Picture Alliance/Alamy

Take the streaming platforms, he says. “Netflix once had a million-dollar prize contest to improve their algorithm, to help people sort through this gigantic space of streaming options. But it has never had that many choices. The truth is you could put all of Netflix’s streaming content on one scrollable page. This is another area where we have a responsibility to sanity, he says – not to narrow our options or get trapped in echo chambers, slaves to the algorithm. That’s why he loves playing live music – because every time he jams with a band, he creates something new.

For Lanier, the classic example of restricted choice is Wikipedia, which has effectively become the world’s encyclopedia. “Wikipedia is run by super-nice people who are my friends. But the thing is it’s like one encyclopedia. Some of us might remember when on paper there was both an Encyclopedia Britannica and Encyclopedia Americana and they provided different perspectives. The notion of having the perfect encyclopedia is just weird.”

So could the new chatbots challenge this? “Right. That’s my point. If you go to a chatbot and say: ‘Please can you summarise the state of the London tube?’ you’ll get different answers each time. And then you have to choose.” This programmed-in randomness, he says, is progress. “All of a sudden this idea of trying to make the computer seem humanlike has gone far enough in this iteration that we might have naturally outgrown this illusion of the monolithic truth of the internet or AI. It means there is a bit more choice and discernment and humanity back with the person who’s interacting with the thing.”

That’s all well and good, but what about AI replacing us in the workplace? We already have the prospect of chatbots writing articles like this one. Again, he says it’s not the technology that replaces us, it’s how we use it. “There are two ways this could go. One is that we pretend the bot is a real thing, a real entity like a person, then in order to keep that fantasy going we’re careful to forget whatever source texts were used to have the bot function. Journalism would be harmed by that. The other way is you do keep track of where the sources came from. And in that case a very different world could unfold where if a bot relied on your reporting, you get payment for it, and there is a shared sense of responsibility and liability where everything works better. The term for that is data dignity.”

It seems too late for data dignity to me; the dismal optimist is in danger of being a utopian optimist here. But Lanier soon returns to Planet Bleak. “You can use AI to make fake news faster, cheaper and on greater scales. That combination is where we might see our extinction.”

In You Are Not a Gadget, he wrote that the point of digital technology was to make the world more “creative, expressive, empathic and interesting”. Has it achieved that? “It has in some cases. There’s a lot of cool stuff on the internet. I think TikTok is dangerous and should be banned yet I love dance culture on TikTok and it should be cherished.” Why should it be banned? “Because it’s controlled by the Chinese, and should there be difficult circumstances there are lots of horrible tactical uses it could be put to. I don’t think it’s an acceptable risk. It’s heartbreaking because a lot of kids love it for perfectly good reasons.”

As for Twitter, he says it has brought out the worst in us. “It has a way of taking people who start out as distinct individuals and converging them into the same personality, optimised for Twitter engagement. That personality is insecure and nervous, focused on personal slights and affronted by claims of rights by others if they’re different people. The example I use is Trump, Kanye and Elon [Musk, who now owns Twitter]. Ten years ago they had distinct personalities. But they’ve converged to have a remarkable similarity of personality, and I think that’s the personality you get if you spend too much time on Twitter. It turns you into a little kid in a schoolyard who is both desperate for attention and afraid of being the one who gets beat up. You end up being this phoney who’s self-concerned but loses empathy for others.” It’s a brilliant analysis that returns to his original point – our responsibility to sanity. Does Lanier’s responsibility to his own sanity keep him off social media? He smiles. “I always thought social media was bullshit. It was obviously just this dumb thing from the beginning.”

There is much about the internet of which he is still proud. He says that virtual reality headsets now used are little different from those he introduced in the 1980s, and his work on surgical simulation has had huge practical benefits. “I know many people whose lives have been saved by the furtherance of this stuff I was demonstrating 40 years ago. My God! I’m so old now!” He stops to question whether he’s overstating his influence, stressing that he was only involved at the beginning. There is also huge potential, he says, for AI to help us tackle climate change, and save the planet.

But he has also seen the very worst of AI. “I know people whose kids have committed suicide with a very strong online algorithm contribution. So in those cases life was taken. It might not be possible from this one human perspective to say for sure what the giant accounting ledger would tell us now, but whatever that answer would be I’m certain we could have done better, and I’m sure we can and must do better in the future.”

Again, that word, human. The way to ensure that we are sufficiently sane to survive is to remember it’s our humanness that makes us unique, he says. “A lot of modern enlightenment thinkers and technical people feel that there is something old-fashioned about believing that people are special – for instance that consciousness is a thing. They tend to think there is an equivalence between what a computer could be and what a human brain could be.” Lanier has no truck with this. “We have to say consciousness is a real thing and there is a mystical interiority to people that’s different from other stuff because if we don’t say people are special, how can we make a society or make technologies that serve people?”

Lanier looks at his watch, and apologises. “You know what, I actually have to go to a dentist’s appointment.” The real world intervenes and asserts its supremacy over the virtual. Artificial intelligence isn’t going to fix his teeth, and he wouldn’t have it any other way.

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• New Starbucks CEO Laxman Narasimhan plans to work a shift once a month at the company’s cafes.

• He underwent 40 hours of barista training and donned the green apron after joining Starbucks in October.

• Narasimhan said he plans to keep up his barista skills to stay close to the company’s culture and customers.

Starbucks CEO Laxman Narasimhan told employees Thursday that he’ll work a half day every month at one of the coffee giant’s locations.

Narasimhan took the helm on Monday and will lead the company’s shareholder meeting Thursday. He joined Starbucks in October, spending months learning the business. That included 40 hours of barista training and donning the baristas’ iconic green apron.

But he’s not hanging up the apron just yet.

“To keep us close to the culture and our customers, as well as to our challenges and opportunities, I intend to continue working in stores for a half day each month, and I expect each member of the leadership team to also ensure our support centers stay connected and engaged in the realities of our stores for discussion and improvement,” he wrote in a letter to employees Thursday morning.

His pledge comes at a rocky time for the company’s relationship with its baristas. As of Friday, more than 190 company-owned Starbucks locations have voted to unionize, according to National Labor Relations Board data. Workers have cited unsafe working conditions, understaffing and unreliable scheduling as some of the reasons why they’re in favor of a union.

Before joining Starbucks, Narasimhan was chief executive of Reckitt, which owns brands like Lysol and Durex. Previously, he worked at PepsiCo
and McKinsey.

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There's no doubt that Ford is embracing electrification. It was first to market with an electric pickup truck for the US market, and a darn good one at that. It has a solid midsize electric crossover that's becoming more and more common on the road, even if it does still upset the occasional Mustangophile. And there's an electric Transit van for the trades. But its electric vehicle division will lose $3 billion this year as it continues to build new factories and buy raw materials.

The news came in a peek into Ford's financials released this morning. As we reported last year, Ford has split its passenger vehicle operations into two divisions. Electric vehicles fall under Ford Model e, with internal combustion engine-powered Fords (including hybrids and plug-in hybrids) falling under Ford Blue. The move was in large part to placate investors and analysts, no doubt starry-eyed during a time when any EV-related stock was booming.

"We've essentially 'refounded' Ford, with business segments that provide new degrees of strategic clarity, insight, and accountability to the Ford+ plan for growth and value," said Ford CFO John Lawler. "It's not only about changing how we report financial results; we're transforming how we think, make decisions and run the company, and allocate capital for highest returns."

Ford Model e should be treated as a startup, Lawler explained. "As everyone knows, EV startups lose money while they invest in capability, develop knowledge, build (sales) volume, and gain (market) share," he said. It took Tesla until 2021 to have a profitable year.

Indeed, Model e has lost money: $900 million in 2021, $2.1 billion in 2022, and an expected $3 billion in 2023. And it's easy to see why: It is doubling the production rate of the Mustang Mach-E to 210,000 a year, and tripling the number of F-150 Lightnings it will build to 150,000. On top of that, it is building a battery development center in Michigan and battery factories in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Michigan and has secured mineral contracts for 600,000 EVs a year.

But the other two divisions—Ford Blue and Ford Pro (which makes commercial vehicles and services)—are expected to bring in more than enough cash, with an expected pre-tax profit of between $9–11 billion, with a free cash flow of $6 billion. So there's little chance Ford will scale back its EV ambitions rather than absorb Model e's losses for the time being.

Ford says that it expects Model e should achieve an 8 percent profit margin before interest or taxes by the end of 2026 and that overall, Ford will have a 10 percent EBIT margin by then.

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ALASKA ISN’T SUPPOSED to be an inferno—but its summers are now so warm that apocalyptic wildfires are almost inevitable. In June 2022, lightning strikes set the drought-stricken land ablaze, winds whipped up flames, and long curtains of fire soon ripped through previously untouched tundra, pushing plumes of thick smoke up into the atmosphere. Firefighters were powerless to contain the blazes. More than 1.8 million acres were scorched in just a month. 

Now, less than a year later, US president Joe Biden has just approved a massive, 600-million-barrel oil-drilling project in the north of the state, which will further heat the world and deepen Alaska’s descent into an age of fire. Fuels extracted by the Willow Project on Alaska’s north slope will generate emissions equivalent to 66 coal-fired power plants.

The incongruity is hard to stomach. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has this month spelled out unequivocally that keeping global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius is rapidly becoming impossible, and that staying under 2 degrees will require “deep and rapid reductions” in CO2, methane, and other greenhouse gas emissions. The IPCC’s new synthesis report, which pulls together the findings of its most recent scientific reports, underlines that Alaska’s fate is just a fragment of the picture of what’s happening worldwide. Emissions continuing to rise will mean more heat waves, floods, droughts, and sea level rises—more biodiversity losses, epidemics, and food insecurity. 

And yet so many governments—Norway, Australia, and the United States, to name just a few—are still approving new fossil fuel projects. The IPCC has found early signs that mitigation efforts are starting to work. Yet more public and private money is still being spent on financing fossil fuels than on climate change mitigation and adaptation in its entirety.

The problem is “the world isn’t acting as one—it’s all of these individual national interests,” says Frank Jotzo, a member of the core writing team for the synthesis report and a professor of environmental economics and climate change economics at the Australian National University in Canberra. “It is a global good to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” Jotzo says. “But from any individual nation’s perspective, there is a free-rider incentive to let others go ahead and hang back.”

Just last month, Australia showed off this selfish behavior. Its new-ish federal government—voted in through an election dominated by concerns about climate change—gave mining company Santos approval to sink up to 116 new gas wells in the northeastern state of Queensland. This is despite Australia’s east coast experiencing two record-breaking floods last year that proved to be the most expensive in Australian history, costing insurers around AU$3.35 billion (US$2.24 billion). The deluges were almost undoubtedly climate-change-related.

Part of the problem is that the international climate change regime is built on the concept of territorial greenhouse emissions—those that result from activities within a nation’s borders, Jotzo says. The current system doesn’t hold one nation to account for exporting fossil fuels to another nation, just as it doesn’t credit them for the export of renewable energy.

“We see that play out perfectly in Australia: strong attention on reducing domestic emissions, and policy shying away completely from addressing the export side of things,” says Jotzo. The Australian government elected in 2022 has set a target of net zero emissions by 2050, but it refuses to ban any new coal or gas projects. It has promised hundreds of millions of dollars for community batteries, solar banks, and EV charging, yet the nation is the second-largest exporter of coal in the world and has the third-largest coal reserves.

Given recent record-breaking droughts, temperatures, bushfires, and floods, one might expect the Australian government to rethink its continued extraction of coal, oil, and gas. But Polly Hemming, director of the climate and energy program at independent think tank the Australia Institute in Canberra, says the government is too beholden to industry to do that. “Climate policy has been completely subverted. Industry sets the climate standards that they want from governments,” she says. That influence is wielded through political donations, industry lobbyists (who are frequently themselves former politicians and political staffers), and scare campaigns against government actions on climate change. “Fear is a much more powerful motivator than hope or optimism, and so governments just step right back,” Hemming says.

There’s no economic logic to this. The Australian government subsidizes fossil fuels to the tune of around AU$11 billion (US$7.36 billion) each year, while the fossil fuel industry employs fewer people than McDonald’s. Most of the companies extracting and selling Australia’s fossil fuel reserves are foreign owned and pay little tax into Australian coffers, and most of what is extracted is exported, Hemming says. Yet this “incredibly small handful of really powerful corporate interests” still holds sway.

Which is ironic, given that the IPCC authors state that the economic and social benefits of climate change mitigation will far exceed the costs. The economic cost of air pollution alone—estimated in 2018 to be around US$2.9 trillion dollars worldwide, as well as claiming 4.5 million lives that year alone—far exceeds the costs of climate change action. Mitigation options such as wind and solar energy, green infrastructure, energy efficiency, electrification of urban systems, and reduced food waste are increasingly cost-effective compared to business as usual.

Despite the urgency of the need to decarbonize, a multitrillion-dollar energy sector can’t just turn on a dime, says Samantha Gross, director of the Energy Security and Climate Initiative at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC. “We need to feed the system we have while we transform it,” Gross says. “The energy system that uses those fossil fuels isn’t changing fast enough that we don’t need them.” Gross says the recent gas crisis precipitated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has illustrated this, with some European countries restarting old coal-fired power stations to fill the energy gap that still exists, despite rising renewable energy deployment. 

And Gross argues that as long as there’s demand for fossil fuels, industry will provide the supply. “It’s going be really hard to fight climate change from the supply side, the reason being that fossil fuels are plentiful,” she says. She argues for a focus on the demand side of that equation: more policies and regulations that drive a shift away from fossil fuels, such as even greater investment in renewable energy, bigger and quicker moves to electrify the transport sector, and using carbon pricing mechanisms to encourage and support uptake of low-emissions technologies.

It’s not just governments that have to mitigate. Individuals—especially those in high-emitting households that contribute an outsized proportion of emissions—also need to change. The challenge is overcoming the psychological barriers to climate action, says Lorraine Whitmarsh, an environmental psychologist and director of the Centre for Climate Change and Social Transformations at the University of Bath in the UK. “People perceive climate change through the lens of what they already believe and what they value, and particularly their political ideology,” Whitmarsh says. Too many people can still convince themselves that reducing emissions isn’t something they have to try to do. 

Reducing emissions is also a slow-moving challenge that can get shoved to one side by more immediate, present concerns. “We’re sort of hardwired to focus more on the here and now, on the local, on the visible, on what’s certain,” Whitmarsh says. “That also means that climate change will tend to be deprioritized in the face of things like the cost-of-living crisis.”

But change is happening, both at the individual and political level. Whether it’s people changing their diets to those with less environmental impact or buying EVs in higher-than-expected numbers, consumer habits are starting to make a difference. “Most people don’t need persuading that climate change is an issue anymore,” she says. “It is just the political will to really ramp some of this stuff up.”

Some governments have the will. The IPCC’s synthesis report notes that 18 countries have achieved sustained, absolute reductions in CO2 emissions for more than a decade. “The picture is very clear: Policy to reduce emissions is effective,” Jotzo says. What’s really needed now is to get all governments acting to reduce emissions, and to call out and stamp out the free riders.

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Seriously, it looks like that. Image credit: Danita Delimont / Shutterstock

Image credit: Filip Fuxa / Shutterstock

Blue

The spring’s bubbling deep blue center is the hottest part of the feature. These near-boiling temperatures aren’t fit to sustain most bacterial life. The only bacteria able to survive in these conditions feed on hydrogen gas and other inorganic chemicals rather than organic matter. 

For this reason, the deep blue shade of the spring’s center is caused by the same thing that makes the ocean blue, the scattering of blue wavelengths.

This incredibly clear and deep-blue colored water has little interference from murky contaminants, so as light waves pass through it, red wavelengths are absorbed quickly while blue wavelengths travel to the depths of the spring. Water molecules scatter blue wavelengths and reflect them back to the eye, making the water appear a consistent blue shade.

Yellow

Surrounding the blue center is a ring of yellow. The water in this area sits at around 74°C (165°F), which is still largely uninhabitable with the exception of one type of cyanobacteria called Synechococcus.

The Synechococcus group of unicellular cyanobacteria are fairly widespread in marine environments where their photosynthetic pigments make them appear in a variety of different colors. 

Their color is produced by photosynthetic pigments: In the spring’s waters, Synechococcus has lower levels of chlorophyll pigment, which usually appear green, and higher levels of carotenoid pigments, which appear orange or yellow.

The use of carotenoid pigment protects the Synechococcus from the direct and constant sunlight on the spring. Carotenoids are able to absorb harmful ultraviolet rays and continue the photosynthesis process.

Orange

As the water cools further in the next layer, more bacteria are able to survive and join Synechococcus in a colorful soup of bacteria. The water temperatures at this stage are around 65°C (149°F), which is cool enough to support Chlorobacteria.

Chlorobacteria, or Chloroflexi bacteria, are a diverse phylum that thrive in high temperatures and produce energy through photosynthesis.

While all the bacteria at this level still get their color through photosynthesis, specifically through the carotenoid pigment, they all produce slightly different shades of red through to yellow. This is what causes the murkier appearance of the orange ring, as it’s a combination of a number of different shades of bacteria.

Red

The final ring on the Grand Prismatic Spring sits at a more comfortable 55°C (131°F). At this temperature, a larger variety of bacteria are able to survive and thrive, adding to the murkiness of the previous layer to create a reddish-brown color.

With as many as 4 million visitors flocking to see the Grand Prismatic Spring in some years, unsurprisingly the National Park Services urges visitors to view with caution due to the water’s severe temperatures.

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The Liberty Lifter aims to change the complexion of amphibious warfare. Image: DARPA

The US has unveiled concepts for a new type of amphibious flying boat, revitalizing an old idea that it hopes will revolutionize amphibious warfare.

This week, The Debrief reported that the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is pursuing the so-called “Liberty Lifter” X-Plane program to develop a large, long-range experimental flying boat with ground-effect capability for seaborne strategic and tactical heavy-lift purposes.

By flying close to the water’s surface, the ground effect reduces drag and makes detection by missile radars harder due to radar clutter from the water’s surface.

The report notes that the Liberty Lifter is envisioned to fly at a maximum altitude of 3,000 meters and a range of 7,400 kilometers. While in ground effect mode, it has a projected speed of 460 kilometers per hour and can carry 90 tons of cargo which it can offload using nose or tail ramps.

DARPA has selected General Atomics and Aurora Flight Sciences to develop designs for the Liberty Lifter in a US$55 million conceptual phase.

The report notes that General Atomics’ design is a twin-hull, mid-wing design employing a distributed propulsion system using 12 turboshaft engines. In contrast, Aurora Flight Sciences will use a more traditional flying boat design, with a single hull, high wing and eight turboprops for primary propulsion.

DARPA hopes to select one of the designs for fabrication and assembly by 2026, start flight testing by the end of 2027 and transfer the Liberty Lifter to operational military service by 2028, as noted by the source.

Interestingly, the US has explored an ad hoc solution to fill the capability gap addressed by the Liberty Lifter.

Photo: Liberty Lifter concept via General Atomics-Aeronautical Systems, Inc / DARPA

For example, in a September 2021 article for Forbes, David Axe mentioned that the US Special Operations Command had developed removable floats for its MC—130J Commando II transports, turning the aircraft into improvised seaplanes capable of taking off and landing from any reasonably smooth stretch of water to drop off or extract special forces teams.

Axe also mentions that while the US extensively operated seaplanes during World War II, they fell out of favor after the war, as the advent of the helicopter, extended range of fixed-wing aircraft, and the US’ extensive network of island bases in the Pacific seemed to make seaplanes obsolete.

However, China and North Korea’s advances in missile technology have forced the US to disperse the deployment of its forces to increase survivability and reduce vulnerability. In that connection, Asia Times reported in December 2022 that the US is building a “missile wall” consisting of land-based missile launchers stretched across its Pacific outposts and regional allies to deter China.

These outposts must be defended and incessantly resupplied to maintain a constant and high rate of fire against enemy targets. However, Axe mentions that some US island outposts lack airstrips and that helicopters lack the range and payload of fixed-wing planes, which makes seaplanes invaluable for supplying them.

Apart from resupply operations for island outposts, the Liberty Lifter may address one of the biggest challenges in mounting amphibious operations.

As noted by Guillaume Garnier in a February 2014 IFRI report, the greatest vulnerability for an amphibious attacker occurs during the ship-to-shore transfer, wherein a defender can halt an amphibious assault by destroying the attacker’s landing craft, thus preventing the attacker from organizing tactically and establishing a beachhead.

Garnier also notes that the defender has the advantage in amphibious operations, as it has multiple options to repel an amphibious assault such as static defenses, counterattacks against an enemy beachhead and defense-in-depth to wear down an attacker via attrition.

Advances in weaponry have potentially made seaborne amphibious assaults costly to the point of infeasibility. For example, in a June 2014 article for The Diplomat, Zachary Keck points out that in amphibious operations, the attacker has to fight out in the open against a well-entrenched defender with precision-guided munitions such as anti-ship missiles and anti-tank guided missiles.

That, Keck notes, forces the attacker to station ships and disembark landing forces ashore, which extends the vulnerable period between ship-to-shore transfer.

However, amphibious operations are still the most forceful way of taking military operations into an adversary’s territory. Over-the-horizon (OTH) amphibious operations may be the key to minimizing such operations’ vulnerabilities and enormous costs.

Such considerations for OTH amphibious operations are not new, as Jerome Bierly and Thomas Seal discussed in a June 1991 article for the US Marine Corps Association.

Photo: Liberty Lifter concept via Aurora Flight Sciences / DARPA

In contrast to traditional amphibious operations, Bierly and Seal note that in OTH amphibious operations beaches and landing zones are just points for entry and control measures for landing forces, emphasizing that the concept’s point is to get mobile, combined arms teams ashore quickly, merge them into combat formations while on the move and drive deep into the enemy’s rear positions.

They note that OTH amphibious operations remove the need to set up a beachhead to organize land combat and prepare for a massive logistics buildup, depriving the enemy of a lucrative target and eliminating the operational pause associated with landing on the beachhead and advancing to seize inland objectives.

The Liberty Lifter may thus add another dimension to the US Marine Corps’ current OTH amphibious assault capabilities that are built around hovercrafts, amphibious assault vehicles and rotary-wing aircraft, complementing the strengths of these assets while offsetting their weaknesses.

In a 2020 study for the US Marine Corps University, Steven Yeadon notes that while hovercrafts are the only surface connectors that can carry heavy equipment at high speed, they are relatively fragile and lack the firepower and protection to assault a defended beach.

Yeadon also mentions that while amphibious assault vehicles have armor and weapons for opposed landings, they lack the range and speed for OTH operations, have insufficient protection against anti-tank weapons and are too lightly armed to take on main battle tanks.

He also says that air superiority is only sometimes assured in amphibious operations, and the threat of anti-aircraft defenses may preclude or limit aircraft use.

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Recent research into the “facial feedback hypothesis” using Botox injections to the forehead has found that the injections can change the way the brain interprets and processes other people’s emotions. This may mean people's ability to understand the expression of emotions is temporarily impaired due to disruption to neuromuscular feedback. 

The facial feedback hypothesis states that, when we see an angry or happy expression on another person’s face, we flex or contract the muscles in our own face in order to simulate the expression. This is an unconscious process. As our facial muscles mimic another person’s smile or scowl, signals are sent to our brains to help us interpret them. This is thought to not only assist in our ability to identify other people’s emotional states, but to experience them ourselves. 

The idea is often believed to have started with Charles Darwin when he conjectured over the origins of emotions. Darwin hypothesized that the expression or repression of emotions on one’s face would directly affect the experience of said emotion. 

For some, this has led to the idea that emotions are expressed in universal ways across the human race, though this has been hotly debated. Nevertheless, the facial feedback hypothesis suggests that there is a connection between muscle memory in the face and the processing of emotions in our brains. 

A team of researchers from the University of California, Irvine, published a study that investigated the feedback hypothesis by using Botox injections on a group of 10 female participants, each aged between 33 and 40. They injected the women to induce temporary paralysis in the glabellar muscle (which is responsible for frowning) and then measured their brain activity while they observed images of emotional faces. 

During functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scan sessions – one prior to their injections and one two weeks after the procedure – the participants were shown photos of happy and sad faces, along with neutral expressions. 

The researchers found that activity in the amygdala, the center of our brains responsible for emotional processing, showed signs of change when seeing happy and angry faces after the Botox injections. They also saw alterations in the fusiform gyrus, part of the inferior temporal cortex that helps with object and facial recognition, when the participants saw happy expressions. 

The results show that preventing frowning through Botox injections inhibits the way the brain processes emotional faces. Botox paralyzes muscle movement, which seems to disrupt the modulation of activity between the face, the amygdala, and the fusiform gyrus. 

There have been other studies into the impacts Botox has on emotional processing. A 2011 study found that people who received Botox injections to the forehead and area around the eyes where crow’s feet form experienced significant impairment in emotion perception, compared to others who only underwent procedures that do not affect feedback (such as dermal filler). 

Another study found that people took longer to read sentences containing emotional language.  

Yet other research has found that the inability to frown could also help patients suffering from depression. Although the underlying therapeutic mechanism for why this treatment helps ease depression symptoms is still not clear, it appears to be a potentially safe and effective means of managing depression. More research is of course needed before we draw any conclusions.

The study is published in Scientific Reports.

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The best time to see auroras is most likely Friday night, March 24, but keep an eye out Thursday and Saturday too. Image credit: Simon'spassion4Travel/Shutterstock.com

A major coronal hole has opened up in the Sun's atmosphere and is now pointing almost straight at us. Such events are usually associated with an increase in solar wind speed and interplanetary magnetic field strength. If the location on the Sun is right, this can lead to geomagnetic storms and auroral activity as the charged particles encounter the Earth’s magnetic field. NASA is anticipating a G2 (moderate)-sized storm for the night of March 24.

Although there is always some uncertainty associated with such events, the closest comparable past coronal holes have led to aurora being seen as far south as New York and Seattle. No serious damage is anticipated, however. This is no Carrington event. 

The most likely time to see auroras will be on Friday night this week, but G1-level geomagnetic storms on Thursday and Saturday could create a show for those closer to the Earth’s magnetic poles.

Then again, some places are already getting in early.

The Sun has a number of forms of activity that can cause sudden interference in the Earth’s magnetosphere. Solar flares are probably the best known, while coronal mass ejections (CMEs) can be particularly disruptive. Coronal holes are less well known, partly because they are seen in the extreme ultraviolet and X-ray part of the spectrum, not in visible light, and were not detected until the 1960s. Nevertheless, they’re influential enough that solar observers of solar activity take careful note.

Although coronal holes are quite common, most are restricted to near the Sun’s poles, where their activity has little effect on Earth. As this video below of the current hole shows, some expand towards the equator and become more likely to send their activity our way.

Just as sunspots mark cooler regions on the Sun itself, coronal holes are composed of lower-than-usual temperature plasma in the Sun’s atmosphere, known as its "corona" because it looks like a crown during a solar eclipse. The holes look dark in images taken at appropriate wavelengths.

Instead of the Sun’s magnetic field forming loops that impede charged particles’ escape, during coronal holes the field reaches into space, and charges can escape along the field lines. The result is a coronal hole high-speed stream that can rush out rapidly and be funneled by the magnetic fields of any planets lucky enough to have them toward their poles.

As with sunspots and other sorts of solar activity, coronal holes can happen at any time, but are affected by the 11-year solar cycle. However, their frequency, at least near the solar equator, is counter-cyclical, peaking near the solar minimum when other sorts of solar activity drop off. 

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