For months in the spring of 1921, a women’s-only private dorm at the University of California, Berkeley was rocked by a crime wave. College Hall, located on the northeastern corner of campus, where Hearst Avenue began to climb into the hills, was home to 90 young, mostly affluent women—18- and 19-year-olds, whose possessions kept disappearing.

It started small: silk undergarments, books, registered letters, items whose absence could be attributed to carelessness. The housemother was reluctant to involve the authorities, so she brought all the residents together for a meeting and demanded the thief come forward. When that didn’t work, she launched her own investigation. All she discovered was that the robberies seemed to be concentrated in one corner of the dorm.

Then, on the night of March 30, 1921, Ethel McCutcheon, a sophomore from Bakersfield, returned to her room to find her evening dresses had been removed from her closet and spread out on the bed. A textbook with $45 tucked inside had been taken, and her bureau had been ransacked. McCutcheon was not the only victim that evening. Rita Benedict, a freshman from Lodi, had more than $100 in jewelry and cash go missing. Margaret Taylor, a first-year student from San Diego, couldn’t find her diamond ring. It was worth $400 (more than $6,500 today). Taylor had no choice but to contact the police.

“I am really doing what all of the 90 girls in our dormitory didn’t want anyone to do,” she told the desk sergeant at the Berkeley Police Department. She seemed embarrassed to have to ask for help. “We do not want publicity, but this thing really can’t go on.”

Taylor might have wanted to avoid attention, but the police department was all too eager for publicity in those days. Its police chief, August Vollmer, had an unorthodox approach—and a journalist embedded in the department to tout his achievements. A gray-eyed veteran who had served in the Philippines, Vollmer was the first police chief in the country to treat crime as a problem that could be attacked with science. He hired experts in fingerprinting and handwriting analysis and put together a “morgue book” comprising images of corpses, weapons, and wrecked cars that he thought could prove useful in future forensic investigations. He also provided his officers with the latest technology, installing a rudimentary signaling system around Berkeley so they could call for backup. He was the first to equip his officers with vehicles: first bikes, then motorcycles and cars. And he slowly replaced the uneducated brutes who dominated policing with fresh-faced rookies hired from the university. The newspapers disparaged them as “college cops,” but these diligent young men, armed with degrees and committed to justice, quickly got results. Berkeley’s crime rate started to fall, even though the town’s population had almost doubled since the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire. As a result, Vollmer is to this day considered the father of modern policing. 

After Taylor contacted the station, Vollmer assigned the College Hall case to Jack Fisher, a seasoned veteran, and Bill Wiltberger, a college cop who had joined the force just four months earlier. While Fisher questioned the young women at the dorm, Wiltberger toured Berkeley and Oakland’s secondhand stores, used bookshops, and pawnshops in search of the missing items. Fisher found no shortage of suspects: The dorm’s residents were quick to spread rumors and fire contradictory accusations at one another.

As the investigation dragged on, the housemother began to worry that the repeated visits from the police—conspicuous in their sharp uniforms—might start to tarnish the reputation of College Hall.

At the same time, Fisher was growing impatient, so he asked Chief Vollmer to bring in John Larson, a college cop with a background in science. He thought the strange device Larson was building for the force might be able to help wrap up the case.

Larson was an awkward 29-year-old with a doctorate in physiology who had joined the police force in search of real-world experience before embarking on a career in criminology. But he was a terrible cop. He crashed cars and let suspects get away, and the stubborn obsessiveness that made him a good scientist led to several altercations with his colleagues, at least one of which culminated in a wrestling match at police HQ. 

A few weeks before the College Hall case landed at the station, Vollmer had called Larson into his office to tell him about a paper he’d just read by William Moulton Marston, a Harvard psychology student. Marston had come up with a new method for detecting lies using a person’s vital signs after he noticed that the heart rate and blood pressure of his fellow students would rise when he asked them to tell deliberate falsehoods. (Marston would go on to create Wonder Woman and her Lasso of Truth.) Vollmer wondered whether Larson might be able to refine Marston’s method—which simply used a blood pressure cuff and stopwatch—and turn it into an objective measurement whereby a suspect’s emotional responses to questions could be recorded and referred back to. 

Larson was relieved to step away from daily policing. After a few weeks of tinkering, and with the help of a lab technician at the university, he came back to Vollmer with an ugly device made of a series of rubber tubes and a roll of charcoal-blackened paper attached to a wooden board. When wrapped around a suspect’s arm and chest, the tubes would swell and contract with the motion of their heart. That movement was then transferred to two pens that scratched out a record of their emotions on the scrolling paper, white lines against black. 

Larson named his device the “cardio-pneumo-psychograph,” but of course it would go down in history as the polygraph machine—the lie detector. Soon, Larson was running tests of his invention on his colleagues, as well as experiments on undergraduates. With each examination, he sharpened his technique and became better at telling when subjects were lying. But he knew that a real-world test would be the only way to properly validate the technology. “Aside from a few experimental tests, no real cases had been run, that is, cases in which the suspect repressed the truth through fear of the consequences,” Larson wrote. Until the day Vollmer called him in.

“John, I think we’ve got a real case to work on,” said the chief, his deep voice brimming with excitement. He suggested Larson take his apparatus to the dormitory and test all 90 residents. “It’s a great opportunity to see what the machine can really do.”

This is how the seemingly trivial case of a missing ring at a college dorm became a pivotal moment in the history of the justice system—a public debut for the now infamous lie detector.

John Larson was slightly wary of his new assignment. He had been hoping for something a little more straightforward, with fewer suspects to test, for his invention’s first outing. But he knew the College Hall case would be the make-or-break test for the science of lie detection, so he approached it with care. He was, after all, a meticulous planner.

After securing permission from the housemother, he called all the women together and asked them to vote on whether they’d be willing to be tested on the new machine. They all agreed—perhaps because refusing to take part would have seemed like a clear indication of guilt.

Larson’s experimental method—largely the same as the one still used by polygraph examiners today—involved comparing the body’s response to innocuous control questions with how it reacted to questions relating to the crime or the subject being investigated.

“The questions should be simple and not too involved,” Larson wrote. Each one was designed to be answered just “yes” or “no” to minimize differences between people. This was meant to be an examination, not an interrogation—a scientific test, not a fishing expedition.

On April 19, 1921, just three weeks after the $400 ring was stolen, the machine was ready for its debut in a criminal case. To start with, 14 young women from the dorm—a mix of suspects and control subjects—were asked to come to the physiology lab at the university.

The women waited in an antechamber and were summoned into the room one by one. First up was Margaret Taylor, the owner of the missing diamond ring. She wasn’t really considered a suspect (in fact, she’d been helping Fisher with his inquiries), but it was worth ruling out the possibility that the complaint had been faked.

Larson called the 20-year-old Taylor into the lab. As she took a seat, her bright blue eyes took in the strange contraption on the table next to her. Larson took in her pretty face and the golden ringlets cascading down to her shoulders.

Fisher loomed moodily in the background. But Vollmer, standing at the back, was eager to see how the machine performed. The two watched as Larson wrapped a blood pressure cuff around Taylor’s bare arm and pumped it up until it pinched tightly against her pale skin.

Then he wound a rubber hose around her chest to measure her breathing and told her to hold still as he switched on all the instruments. The drums began to spin, and as Taylor’s breath rose and fell, the tubes around her chest swelled and shrank, translating the beating of her heart into white lines etched on the black paper. The room was silent but for the whir of the machinery and the slow scrape of the stylus.

It was an odd situation, and Larson could perhaps sense Taylor’s tension. He broke the ice, according to Reader’s Digest, with some “charming conversation.” Per this account, which was based on correspondence between Larson and the writer decades later, the detective quickly forgot the control questions he’d planned to ask, and the two began talking instead about Taylor’s favorite books and music, and her parents.

She asked about his work. He told her about his interest in fingerprinting and criminology, how he wanted to prevent crimes instead of solving them. Despite the nine-year age gap, Larson “found her intelligent and witty, as well as lovely … She told him he was wonderful to be doing so much and to be so ambitious.”

But soon he remembered that he was supposed to be conducting a police investigation. “Now,” he said, with a smile, “shall we get down to business?” Over the next six minutes or so—any longer and the blood pressure cuff started to hurt—Larson worked his way through a list of eight questions, starting with the innocuous (“Do you like college?” “Are you interested in this test?”) and progressing to the targets (“Did you steal the money?”). The drums spun, the pens scratched, and Margaret Taylor’s inner life was etched forever onto a roll of black paper. At the end of the test, Larson paused to examine the records, scanning the waving lines for swings in blood pressure and heart rate that might indicate deceit. He’d take a closer look later.

For the rest of the day, as a light drizzle slicked the paths and parks of Berkeley, Larson attached his machine to woman after woman, repeating his list of questions again and again. Then he came to Helen Graham.

Graham was slightly older than most of the other residents of College Hall. She had trained as a nurse before enrolling at Berkeley. In her yearbook photo, she’s turned away from the camera, looking back at the lens with a smirk, her dark hair cut into a flapper bob. Graham’s roommates were suspicious of her clothing and fine jewelry—which, one of them told Detective Fisher, seemed out of step with her modest Kansas family. “She is of the highly nervous type and has been suspected of being a hophead,” Fisher reported, using slang for an addict or drinker. She was one of his main suspects.

Graham showed no emotion as Larson worked his way through the list of questions—until he got to ones about the missing money and jewelry. “Did you take Miss Taylor’s ring?” Larson asked. After she answered a quick “no,” he glanced at the chart.

“The test shows you stole it,” he said flatly.

Graham seemed to stop breathing. She glared at Larson. “I think all these questions are an insult,” she said. “Just because I’m excited and mad at being asked all these questions, the needle jumps, and you think I’m lying.” Her eyes burned with rage. She started shouting. “It’s the third degree, that’s what it is. The needle shoots up and I’m a liar!”

“No one has said you are a liar,” Larson said in a low voice, trying to defuse the situation.

“You’re trying to make me out a thief—that’s what you’re doing. I won’t stand for it.”

As Larson leaned forward to take Graham’s blood pressure reading, she burst out of the chair and charged over to the spinning drums of the polygraph, which were still tracing her body’s increasingly violent movements. Larson and Fisher jumped up and had to hold her back from destroying the equipment as she railed against the men and their machine. Her blood pressure and heart rate were still going up as she tore the cuff off her arm.

“Are you through with this crazy stunt?” she spat.

“Yes, we’re through,” Larson replied.

But Graham was already charging out of the room. Outside, she told one of the other women she had wanted to tear up the charts, and that if she hadn’t been restrained by the equipment she would have “smashed Officer Fisher in the face.”

Inside, Larson and Vollmer exchanged glances. “That isn’t the girl the housemother suspected, but I’m betting she’s the one,” Larson said.

“I don’t think there is any doubt of it, but we have no confession,” Vollmer said. “I’ll have the girl watched. Maybe we’ll get some real evidence.”

Overnight, Larson found out more about Graham from the other women in the dorm. They told Larson and Fisher that Graham had been entangled in several passionate affairs and that she’d once induced an abortion by taking the anti-malaria drug quinine—hardly relevant to the case, but a cause for suspicion by the attitudes of the time.

The next day, Graham turned up at the police department, demanding to speak to Larson and asking to see the chart. Larson and Fisher then interrogated her for 12 hours while she continued to maintain her innocence. Eventually, though, she broke into “an attack of sobbing,” and said that yes, it was possible she might have taken the items in her sleep.

Graham then offered to replace the missing ring and the money if it meant the police would stop investigating her. Larson, always inclined to pursue the truth at any cost, told her that if she was genuinely innocent she shouldn’t make that offer. Fisher, by contrast, told her if she was guilty, she’d be prosecuted whether she replaced the items or not.

They sent Graham home, but she turned up at the police station every day that week, begging to be seen. It was only when she threatened to hurt herself that Larson relented. “During the interview she threatened suicide unless the case was cleared up at once,” Larson wrote, adding that Graham displayed a “very unstable personality.”

But the police still didn’t have a clear confession. Larson arranged another interrogation, and on April 30, at the Berkeley Police Department in the basement of City Hall, he and Fisher supplemented the lie detector with a more traditional interview technique. “Officer Fisher played the role of ‘hard-boiled cop’ with his usual adroitness, and I was her friend,” Larson remembered.

Over the course of the interview, the policemen learned that Graham’s life wasn’t simple, but was, in fact, traumatic: She’d been sexually abused as a child and felt intensely guilty about an affair she’d had with a married medical student before coming to California. After several hours, Fisher rose suddenly to his feet, threatened Graham with the prospect of imprisonment in San Quentin (which still housed women until 1933), and then stormed out of the room. 

While Fisher was gone, Graham finally admitted to taking the money and the ring, as well as some items of clothing. In exchange for the confession, she wanted guaranteed immunity from prosecution and to avoid being named publicly.

When Fisher returned, Graham signed a written confession. The lie detector had solved its first case. Vollmer was delighted. He was eager to roll it out on more hardened criminals. “The problem of lying, the bane of the human race for hundreds of years, could now be dealt with,” is how one biographer summarized Vollmer’s thoughts at the time. 

But Graham was devastated. She dropped out of university and moved out of College Hall into a hotel while she got ready to go home to her parents’ farm. When she got back to Kansas, she wrote Larson a letter recanting her statement, “saying that she had been told that she was a fool for confessing,” he recalled. “She even denied her guilt and intimated that she had been tricked into a confession.”

As Larson worked on more cases that year—many involving sororities and college students—he started to realize that the inner rumblings of the body were more complicated than they seemed; that a change in blood pressure was not necessarily a telltale sign of deceit. As we know well now, a lie detector test is inherently stressful, and being asked about a theft or a murder weapon can cause an emotional response whether a person is guilty or not. Over the past 100 years, those flaws have proliferated as the use of the machine has spread across the world. In fact, despite being repeatedly debunked by numerous scientific studies, polygraph tests are still widely used to screen government employees and to pressure suspects to confess. Test results are hugely biased by who is running the test, and who is being tested.

The College Hall investigation was the start of a pattern of misuse and power imbalance that has continued for more than a century, altering the justice system and our relationship with the truth in ways that are still being felt today. New forms of lie detection are coming to the fore, powered by brain scans and artificial intelligence: In India, EEG scanning was used to sentence a woman to life in prison (this was overturned on appeal); in the European Union and the United States, AI-based lie detectors are being tested for use at border crossings. Despite the biases baked into these new technologies, their inventors still say they’re impartial, objective, and infallible—the same claim John Larson and his colleagues once made about the polygraph machine.

Larson often found himself investigating people who, like Heather Graham, felt desperately guilty—just not of the crime he was investigating. Over the next few years, he “unmasked midnight poker games, petty shoplifters, pregnancies, and attempted abortions, often without solving the original crime itself,” writes Ken Alder in The Lie Detectors, which gives a thorough account of the sorority case. Ultimately, Larson had mixed feelings about the College Hill case. Yes, Graham had eventually confessed, but only after a month of being ostracized by her peers and hounded by the police. Larson began to sympathize with the young woman. “I am very sorry that you have been feeling blue and wish that I could do something to make you feel better,” he wrote to her in May 1921.

As Larson’s work with the lie detector progressed, he tried to rule out external factors that might influence or even throw off the tests. He started to suspect that in some cases it might be the questioner and not the questions that elicited an emotional response.

To test this theory, he asked Margaret Taylor to come back to the lab for a follow-up experiment. “I thought you’d told me that I had passed,” she said when she arrived. “Now what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he said. “But I’ve got a new question here that’s not on the list I first prepared.”

Seating Taylor in front of the lie detector again, he went through the preamble of the experiment. Then he asked her to lie to him on purpose, and he tried to tell when she was doing it. Their rapport was light, easy.

Before Larson let Taylor go, there was one more thing he wanted to know. “There’s a special question that I want you to be sure to answer truthfully,” he said, according to Reader’s Digest. (In a letter to Marston written years later, Larson dismissed this aspect of the account as “pure hooey,” although he did not seek any corrections to the piece when he corresponded with its author before publication.)

His voice had acquired a strange quality. “It’s here on the list. Go ahead, please.” Taylor took the piece of paper from the detective. Her eyes widened as she read the four words scribbled in Larson’s spidery handwriting. She could feel the blood rushing to her face.

Larson had discovered during his experiments that short, basic queries were the best questions to ask. The one he had written down for Taylor could not have been more simple: “Do you love me?”

She quickly said no, but Larson didn’t need a machine to tell that she was lying. For a moment, she looked across at the rookie detective, his eyes fixed on hers. Then her gaze flicked over to the rolling drums of the apparatus and the black paper that had opened a window to her heart. According to The San Francisco Examiner, “the wings of the ‘lie detector’ trembled, fluttered, waved a frantic SOS.” That story was published 16 months later, on the day of Larson and Taylor’s wedding. 

In time, Larson would remember this moment fondly. He marveled at the possibilities of the device—not only could it solve crimes, but it could shine a light on the deepest secrets of the soul, uncover hidden longings and dark impulses. But while his romance with Taylor blossomed, his relationship with the machine that brought them together quickly turned sour.

Larson had hoped the polygraph would predict crimes before they happened and bring science and reason to the brutal business of justice. Instead, he came to see the lie detector as an experiment that had spun out of control—a “Frankenstein’s monster” that he had inadvertently unleashed.

Excerpted from Tremors in the Blood: Murder, Obsession, and the Birth of the Lie Detector by Amit Katwala. Copyright © 2023 Amit Katwala. Published in the United States by Crooked Lane Books, an imprint of The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC. First published in the UK by Mudlark. Reproduced by arrangement with the publisher. All rights reserved.

The Lie Detector Was Never Very Good at Telling the Truth

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There's still no conclusive theory on how the pyramids of Egypt were built. Image credit: Simon Clay/Shutterstock.com

The corridor is located behind a stone chevron structure on the north face of the pyramid. The role of the chevon is unclear, but some believe it played an architectural role and helped provide structural integrity to the pyramid. By understanding them a bit better, it’s hoped the “enigmatic” chevrons could provide some insight into how the pyramids were built.

“Khufu’s Pyramid is the first pyramid, in history, that uses a Chevron technique to cover internal structures and prevent them from collapsing. We can find Chevron on the North Face, in the queen’s chamber ceiling and above the king’s chamber. The construction process of the oldest of the seven wonders of the ancient world is one of the most important archaeological mysteries. Any discovery of previously unknown internal structures could contribute to the knowledge on the construction of this Pyramid,” the study authors write. 

The Great Pyramid of Giza was built about 4,500 years ago and is one of the largest ancient monuments in the world. Formed of over 2.3 million stone blocks that were quarried from all around Egypt, its construction was commissioned by Pharoah Khufu, aka Cheops, and served as his final resting place. 

When the pyramid was cracked open and explored by archaeologists in the 19th century, they discovered a number of chambers, including the so-called Queen's Chamber and King's Chamber, as well as an abandoned subterranean chamber beneath the ground. 

Oddly, however, the body of Khufu was never discovered. While some suspected grave robbers had looted the mummy, there’s speculation that his body remains in the pyramid, hidden in a long-lost tomb. 

The new study was published in the journal Nature Communications.

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After flying four astronauts into orbit, SpaceX makes its 101st straight landing

Back in 2019, a diamond within a diamond was unearthed at a mine in the Sakha Republic of Siberia by the Russian mining company ALROSA. Owing to its unusual features, it was named the "Matryoshka Diamond" after Russia's iconic stacking dolls.

Inside the lentil-sized diamond, measuring just 4.8 by 4.9 by 2.8 millimeters (0.189 by 0.193 by 0.110 inches), there is an internal cavity that contains another diamond measuring just 1.6 cubic millimeters (0.0000976 cubic inches). As you can see in the GIF below, the internal diamond is totally loose and free to rattle around the cavity inside the other diamond.

When first found, it was the only known example of a "double diamond," but another one was later found in Australia in 2021. 

“This is really a unique creation of nature, especially since nature does not like emptiness. Usually, some minerals are replaced by others without cavity formation,” Oleg Kovalchuk, deputy director for innovations at ALROSA's Research and Development Geological Enterprise, said in a statement. 

Amazed by their discovery, the mining company approached their division of Research and Development Geological Enterprise to study the diamonds using infrared spectroscopy and X-ray microtomography.

Since this had never been seen before, the researchers were not certain how the diamonds were created in such an unusual formation. Nevertheless, they put forward a few theories. 

"The most interesting thing for us was to find out how the air space between the inner and outer diamonds was formed," explained Kovalchuk. "We have two main hypotheses. According to the first version, a mantle mineral captured a diamond during its growth, and later it was dissolved in the Earth's surface."

“According to the second version, a layer of porous polycrystalline diamond substance was formed inside the diamond because of ultra-fast growth, and more aggressive mantle processes subsequently dissolved it. Due to the presence of the dissolved zone, one diamond began to move freely inside another on the principle of matryoshka nesting doll,” he added

A fair number of diamonds contain other small crystals or flecks of minerals. Typically, these features are considered flaws as they render the diamond imperfect. However, according to scientific analysis by ALROSA, this internal object is actually another diamond, not an impurity.  

Given their uniqueness, these features are only likely to make the diamond even more prized, although there are no details on how much the one-of-a-kind gem may be worth.

Their analysis also showed that the diamond could be over 800 million years old. That’s actually pretty young for a diamond, as most natural diamonds have ages between 1 billion and 3.5 billion years. The majority of them were forged deep in the Earth's mantle, some 150 to 250 kilometers (93-155 miles) beneath the ground under intense heat and crushing pressure.  

An original version of this article was first published in October 2019.

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A team of researchers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the state of Michigan, and the Ocean Exploration Trust have found and explored the wreck of the Ironton, confirming tragic reports of the ship's demise.

The Ironton, a three-masted wooden schooner that transported goods through the Great Lakes, sank in September, 1894. The larger steamer ship Charles J. Kershaw, which dragged other ships along with it, was sailing across Lake Huron on September 26 when one of its engines failed. To avoid potential collisions with the ship adrift, the crew cut ties to the Ironton and other smaller barges. 

The crew attempted to get control of the ship, using the steam engine and sails, but ended up veering into the path of another ship.

"At this time we sighted a steamer on our starboard bow," a surviving crew member of the Ironton, William Wooley, told local news after his rescue. "She came up across our bow and we struck her on the quarter about aft of the boiler house. A light was lowered over our bow and we saw a hole in our port bow and our stem splintered."

The Ironton had hit the steamer ship Ohio. Both ships would sink, with all of the crew of the Ohio reaching lifeboats quickly. But nearby ships involved in the rescue effort lost track of the badly-damaged Ironton as it drifted away. 

The crew of the Ironton got in their own lifeboat, but didn't notice that the boat was still secured by a rope to the sinking ship. Sure enough, over a century later, researchers exploring the wreckage of the Ironton found that lifeboat, still lashed to the ship that sank it.

Two of the crew – Wooley and William Parry – were able to cling to debris from the wreckage, and were spotted and rescued by a the steamer Charles Hebard. Five other crew members, including Captain Peter Girard, died at sea.

Researchers mapped the lake bed in 2017 and found the Ohio, but the Ironton was nowhere to be seen. Another project in 2019 expanded the search area, and located the ship on sonar. 

Since then, the ship has been filmed and photographed up close, and confirmed as the wreckage of the Ironton.

"The discovery illustrates how we can use the past to create a better future," Jeff Gray, Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary superintendent, said in a statement. "Using this cutting-edge technology, we have not only located a pristine shipwreck lost for over a century, we are also learning more about one of our nation's most important natural resources – the Great Lakes. This research will help protect Lake Huron and its rich history."

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When Sebastian “Ted” Hinton was a child, his father, a Princeton mathematician, built a cubic bamboo grid in the family’s backyard to teach Hinton and his siblings to visualize space in three dimensions as they moved through the structure. But the kids were more drawn to climbing and swinging on the bars. Reflecting on this experience years later, Hinton envisioned a variant on his father’s design—a cubic metal playground frame fashioned like “a kind of forest top through which a troop of children may play in a manner somewhat similar to that of a troop of monkeys.” On October 23, 1923, Hinton—a patent attorney—was awarded the first of a series of U.S. patents for his “jungle gym,” and the monkey bars were born.

These days, hardly anyone is aware of the scientific reasoning behind this playground standby. “Climbing is the natural method of locomotion which the evolutionary predecessors of [humans] were designed to practice,” Hinton argued in his first patent, “and is therefore almost ideally suited for children.” Research has borne out Hinton’s ideas. In recent decades, anthropologists have shown that play-climbing is a universal behavior among young primates. Other researchers have found ample evidence of climbing in the fossilized bones of human ancestors. Further, healed fractures in living apes suggest frequent, but largely non-fatal, falls.

Today, Hinton’s invention continues to fuel a debate about children’s health, in part because monkey bars result in more injuries than any other playground structure. Various versions of the apparatus sent half a million children to U.S. hospital emergency rooms from 2009 to 2014.

Children enjoy one of New York City’s first sets of monkey bars c. 1935. George Rinhart via Getty Images

Young primates have always invited serious injury by play-climbing and falling. Primatologists view these behaviors as a critical means of fine-tuning fundamental motor skills. And despite the rise of “ultrasafe” playgrounds in the 1990s, many developmental psychologists contend that risky play is essential for healthy growth and development in children, perhaps because risk-taking helps kids regulate their fears, providing a kind of blueprint for responding effectively to real-life danger.

Such experts join Hinton in extolling the benefits of play-climbing—or cultivating in children the “monkey instinct,” as Hinton put it in 1923, recalling the bamboo poles that had taught him so much.

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On December 7, 185 CE, during the Han dynasty, Chinese astronomers recorded the appearance of a "guest star" appearing in the vicinity of Alpha Centauri. "Guest star" is the name that these ancient astronomers used for luminous transient events. Today, we call them supernovas. SN 185 is the oldest recorded supernova, and now a new image shows the supernova remnant in glorious detail. 

The object itself is located 8,000 light-years from Earth, and it has the name RCW 86. Observing this object is not easy. It is very faint as there’s only the gas shell remaining of the event. And it is actually very large. It would be wider than the full moon if you could see it with the naked eye. 

The size actually had astronomers questioning whether RCW 86 was truly related to SN 185. They thought it would have taken five times as long for your average supernova to get that big. But SN 185 was not your common or garden stellar explosion.

Observations of the gas shell were able to measure how quickly it is expanding, and it is consistent with a supernova that took place about 2,000 years ago. 

RCW 86 as seen by the Dark Energy Camera. Image credit: CTIO/NOIRLab/DOE/NSF/AURA T.A. Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage/NSF’s NOIRLab), J. Miller (Gemini Observatory/NSF’s NOIRLab), M. Zamani & D. de Martin (NSF’s NOIRLab)

To understand what made the explosion so special that it expanded at such speed, the team used the Chandra X-Ray observatory to study the object. This allowed them to study the exact speed of the fastest-moving shockwave. It moves at 2,700 kilometers per second (or over six million miles per hour). That is fast. There are particles in the supernova remnant that are being accelerated with more energy than we can currently achieve in our particle accelerators. 

And the observations also revealed the presence of iron, which suggests it was a specific type of supernova that exploded. They are called Type Ia supernovas and they involve some stellar thievery. They happen when a star is losing material to its companion, but not just any companion: a white dwarf. 

A white dwarf is the exposed core of a star like the Sun, which after becoming a red giant did not have enough mass to collapse into a supernova. This white dwarf siphons material away from its companion until it is so heavy that collapses into itself in a dramatic supernova explosion. Given that the mass limit is standard for all white dwarfs, Type Ia supernovas all have the same luminosity and are used as “standard candles”, a way to measure distant galaxies. 

The supernova remained visible for eight months as described in the Book of Later Han. It is possible that there is also a mention of the supernova in Latin literature, but the Romans at the time might have all been busy watching Emperor Commodus fighting gladiator matches. 

The beautiful new image of RCW 86 was taken by the Dark Energy Camera mounted on the Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. 

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Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS), Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Letters (MNRASL), and Geophysical Journal International (GJI) will join RAS Techniques and Instruments (RASTI), a new journal launched by the Society in 2021, in being fully OA. The RAS journals portfolio will continue to publish alongside Astronomy & Geophysics, the RAS’s magazine for its Fellows, which will see no change.

All articles published in the RAS journals portfolio, from the very first volumes published in 1827 to the latest articles, will be free to read in their entirety. As the scientific community works ever harder to ensure barriers to cutting edge science are eliminated, facilitating openness, dissemination, and reproducibility of impactful academic research, the Society is excited to be a key contributor to the open science movement, helping to drive discoverability and change.

With this move to OA the journals will no longer charge subscription fees and will instead be supported by Article Processing Charges (APCs), with the infrastructure to ensure that authors continue to face no financial barrier to publishing their science in the RAS journals.  

The Society will support authors during the transition with an information hub on each of the journal websites, which can be accessed via the links below:

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

Geophysical Journal International

RAS Executive Director Philip Diamond said: “The RAS is taking active strides in facilitating transparency, inclusivity, and accessibility of its high-quality research output to the advancement of science and the worldwide community of astronomers and geophysicists we strive to support, including our 4,000 Fellows.”

“Astronomy and geophysics research has vast applications. Our move to Open Access will help to ensure that we all benefit from the impact of this ground-breaking work being done by scientists all over the world.”

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In the early morning of July 16, 1945, the world’s first atomic bomb detonation ripped through the dusty deserts of New Mexico, shooting an 11,500-meter (~38,000-foot) mushroom cloud into the air. Amidst the untold destruction caused by the nuclear test, known as Trinity, the explosion also created something quite remarkable: “forbidden” quasicrystals that challenge some of the old assumptions about the atomic structure of matter.

In a study published in 2021, an international team of scientists documented the discovery of the never-before-seen type of quasicrystal.

“Until today we knew that natural quasicrystals formed under extreme conditions of temperature and pressure: the only two that have been documented, icosahedrite and decagonite, had been found, thanks to my previous research, in fragments of a meteorite that fell into the Koryak mountains, far east of Russia, about 15,000 years ago,” Luca Bindi, lead study author and professor at the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Florence, said in a statement.

“The conditions under which the two quasicrystals had formed, probably in collisions between asteroids in space at the beginning of the solar system, are comparable to those produced in atomic explosions. This is why I decided to study the material formed in the Trinity test,” continued Bindi.

July 16, 1945: Photograph taken at 9 seconds after the initial Trinity detonation shows the Mushroom cloud in New Mexico. Image credit: Everett Collection/Shutterstock.com

The Trinity bomb test saw an atomic bomb being detonated atop a 33-meter (100-foot) steel tower. Subjected to an ungodly amount of heat energy, the sand in the crater below was fused into a green (and occasionally red) glass-like material known as trinitite. 

Using a range of high-tech imaging techniques, the researchers looked at some of the samples of trinitite forged by the test. It revealed that the sample of trinitite contained strange metallic blobs that were made of an unknown composition of icosahedral quasicrystal, Si61Cu30Ca7Fe2.

Quasicrystals have previously been found in meteorites and synthesized in labs, but this was thought to be the first example of a human-made quasicrystal made by an atomic bomb explosion. The quasicrystal found in New Mexico has fivefold, threefold, and twofold symmetries, a pattern that violates the symmetry rules of normal crystals. 

A typical crystal refers to a material that has atoms that are symmetrically ordered in a periodic, repeating pattern. In quasicrystals, however, the atoms are still ordered but the pattern is not repeated. This results in a bizarre asymmetric and non-repeating atomic structure that’s not seen in typical crystals and is known as "forbidden symmetry". 

Daniel Shechtman, an Israeli material scientist, first discovered quasicrystals in the 1980s. The work initially garnered criticism and even outright mockery, but it eventually landed him the 2011 Nobel Prize in chemistry. That’s one way to silence your haters.

An original version of this article was first published in May 2021.

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Clean energy technologies are essential to achieve the decarbonization targets set in the Paris Agreement. Critical minerals — including lithium, nickel, cobalt, graphite, copper and rare earth elements — are vital to produce clean energy products like solar panels, wind turbines and power batteries for electric vehicles (EVs).

Demand for lithium, a key component in lithium-ion batteries, has soared over the past three years as the clean energy transition accelerates. Though abundant, lithium is unevenly distributed and non-renewable.

And until an alternative material for or approach to power batteries becomes available, lithium looks set to be at the center of geopolitical tensions over the control of critical resources.

The top three producing countries process over 80% of the most critical minerals used in lithium batteries. China dominates the processing of almost all minerals, with more than 50% of total market share — except for nickel and copper — of which China controls 35% and 40%, respectively.

Technology-intensive industries rely on interdependencies between countries with different endowments. This works well during periods of geopolitical stability and cooperation but the high concentration of processing in the lithium battery supply chain means that it is vulnerable to disruption by war, global pandemics, natural disasters or geopolitical tensions.

Australia has the world’s largest battery-grade lithium deposits, and export revenues have skyrocketed, with lithium becoming Australia’s sixth most valuable commodity export. Australia needs to consider how to profit from the boom and what role it can play in the lithium race.

Lithium battery production relies on a global supply chain composed of mineral extraction and production, mineral refinement and processing, and battery-cell production and battery-pack assembly. This supply chain is a complex network of organizations, people, activities, information and resources.

Australia and China complement each other in this supply chain. Australia supplies 46% of lithium chemicals and a large proportion goes to Chinese processing facilities and then to Chinese battery and EV makers.

China produces 60% of the world’s lithium products and 75% of all lithium-ion batteries, primarily powering its rapidly growing EV market, which accounts for 60% of the world’s total.

Image of lithium batteries of various sizes. Photo: Stock / Getty Images

The severity of supply chain vulnerability is different for Australia and China. China relies on imports of lithium chemicals from Australia for downstream productions, but it can source lithium from other channels, including its domestic supplies or from South America.

Yet China’s dominance in lithium processing means that few countries could absorb Australia’s supply if China looks to alternative sources. Long lead times in building lithium processing facilities limit the speed at which new production can be ramped up to meet rapid demand increases.

Building such capabilities requires capital investment, skilled workers, and an ecosystem where complementary suppliers of components, equipment and services are clustered to minimize costs.

Prioritizing national security over economic benefits, the United States and European Union aim to increase their self-sufficiency in the lithium supply chain out of a concern about potential disruption to battery supplies stemming from China’s dominance of production. China could face the possibility of being cut off from the US-led supply chain system.

Australian Industry and Science Minister, Ed Husic, commented: “Australia has globally significant deposits of essential battery materials and strong local innovation and research capabilities. By drawing on these strengths, Australia can take its place in the profitable global battery supply chain.”

He implied that faced with the geopolitical tensions of lithium, Australia should move from low-value-adding “digging it and shipping it” to a higher value-adding position, including lithium chemical processing and even battery manufacturing.

While Australia has not suffered a “resources curse” in the traditional sense, its resources boom in iron ore and natural gas in the past thirty years has led to the appreciation of the Australian dollar, which has lowered the competitiveness of other exports, especially in manufacturing. In 2021, value-added in manufacturing dropped to less than 6% of Australia’s GDP, down from almost 14% in 1990.

Australia moving up the value chain would require investment and technology, and bear a significant environmental cost. Without scale advantages, Australian-made products will fail to achieve global competitiveness. Australia must consider long-term industrial policies that enable the country to play a role in fighting against climate change rather than being caught between the superpower competition.

Australia is entangled in the superpower competition between China and the United States over the control of lithium.

Contemporary Amperex Technology Co (CATL) is the world’s largest lithium-ion battery manufacturer for e-vehicles. Photo: catl.com

Chinese EV and battery manufacturers want to invest in Australia’s lithium production, including technology and talent development — as indicated by a deal between Ford and battery manufacturer CATL that will build a battery plant using China’s technology in the United States. But the United States expects Australia to be on board its friend-shoring of supply chains.

Whether Australia can beat the “resources curse” and benefit from the “Great Lithium Boom” will be a delicate balancing act between many factors.

Politicians and policymakers are responsible for making the right choice to balance national and economic security concerns, emergent and incumbent stakeholders as well as current and future needs. Lithium should provide a path to a clean future, not a tool for supremacy of great power competition.

Marina Yue Zhang is an Associate Professor at the Australia-China Relations Institute, University of Technology Sydney.

This article, republished with permission, was first published by East Asia Forum, which is based out of the Crawford School of Public Policy within the College of Asia and the Pacific at the Australian National University.

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The World Obesity Federation's 2023 atlas predicts that 51% of the world, or more than 4 billion people, will be obese or overweight within the next 12 years.

Rates of obesity are rising particularly quickly among children and in lower income countries, the report found.

Describing the data as a "clear warning", Louise Baur, president of the World Obesity Federation, said that policymakers needed to act now to prevent the situation worsening.

"It is particularly worrying to see obesity rates rising fastest among children and adolescents," she said in a statement.

"Governments and policymakers around the world need to do all they can to avoid passing health, social and economic costs on to the younger generation."

The report found that childhood obesity could more than double from 2020 levels, to 208 million boys and 175 million girls by 2035.

The cost to society is significant as a result of the health conditions linked to being overweight, the federation said: more than $4 trillion annually by 2035, or 3% of global GDP.

However, the authors said they were not blaming individuals, but calling for a focus on the societal, environmental and biological factors involved in the conditions.

The report uses body mass index (BMI) for its assessments, a number calculated by dividing a person's weight in kilograms by their height in metres squared. In line with the World Health Organization's guidelines, a BMI score over 25 is overweight and over 30 is obese.

In 2020, 2.6 billion people fell into these categories, or 38% of the world's population.

The report also found that almost all of the countries expected to see the greatest increases in obesity in the coming years are low or middle-income countries in Asia and Africa.

The data will be presented to United Nations policymakers and member states next week.

(Reporting by Jennifer Rigby; Editing by Kim Coghill)

Copyright 2023 Thomson Reuters.

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Eli Lilly cuts insulin prices after years of outrage

NASA’s DART impactor shows how planetary defense can work

Unity in diversity is the principle on which Kazakhstan, home to over 19 million people and at least 130 different ethnicities, has built its strong inter-ethnic and inter-religious agenda.

March 1 is the date that was chosen not by coincidence. March 1 is when the Assembly of People of Kazakhstan was established in 1995 to become a consultative and advisory body to the President of Kazakhstan, composed of representatives from various ethnic, cultural, and religious groups living in Kazakhstan.

The assembly is responsible for promoting inter-ethnic harmony, preserving the cultural diversity of Kazakhstan, and facilitating the integration of all ethnic groups into Kazakhstan’s society.

«This holiday embodies everlasting values of friendship, kindness, and solidarity, which are deeply rooted in our national identity. This Day of Gratitude reminds us that our people have preserved unity and solidarity in the hardest times, remained committed to high humanistic ideals, and have always shown mercy and compassion,» said President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev in his congratulatory statement today.

Photo credit: pavlkraimuz.kz

Mutual support and responsibility of every citizen for a common future has acquired a «special meaning,» he said, at a time when the world is facing unprecedented global challenges, and the country itself is in the midst of large-scale transformations,

«I am convinced that by strengthening the national unity, we can overcome difficulties and build a fair and prosperous Kazakhstan,» he said.

What is the reasoning behind the Day of Gratitude?

The Day of Gratitude reflects the historical events that Kazakhstan has witnessed over the past century. The events of the twentieth century significantly affected the nation.

Many ethnicities found themselves departed to Kazakh steppes under the harsh policies of the Soviet regime. In the 1930s-1950s, Kazakhstan was one of the Soviet Union countries affected by the policies of forced deportations carried out by the Soviet authorities.

The enormous migration flow came at a time when the tragic page of history for the Kazakh people has still been fresh. Between 1928 and 1938, a sharp and significant decline in the Kazakh population was caused by collectivization, Asharshylyq (famine), and Stalinist political repression.

According to historical records, it is estimated that between 1920 and 1954, over 1.5 million people were deported to Kazakhstan from various regions of the Soviet Union, including ethnic groups such as Germans, Chechens, Ingush, Kalmyks, Crimean Tatars, among others.

Photo from open sources

In 1936, the first Soviet deportation of the Poles and Germans took place, followed by the deportation of the Koreans from the Far East in 1937. At the same time, Kurds, Armenians, and Turks were deported from the southern borders of the Soviet Union to Kazakhstan.

The most significant deportation occurred during World War II when Stalin ordered the deportation of entire national groups, including the Chechens and Ingush in 1944 and the Crimean Tatars in 1944-1945. These groups were accused of collaborating with the Nazis, and their deportation was collective punishment.

It is difficult, however, to provide an exact number of people who were deported to Kazakhstan during the Soviet period as official records are incomplete, and some data was deliberately destroyed or suppressed by the Soviet authorities.

Man and woman playing national game. Photo credit: assembly.kz

Yet, it is clear that the policy of forced population transfers and deportations significantly impacted Kazakhstan's demographic and social makeup and continues to shape the country's history and identity today.

The essence of the Day of Gratitude lies in the kindness and mercy Kazakhs showed to people, welcoming them with warmth and compassion, despite their own challenging circumstances.

There are numerous stories of how Kazakhs shared their last loaf of bread and lent a helping hand to people for whom Kazakhstan was a new country back then.

Generations later, many Germans, Koreans, Poles, and Jews, among many deported ethnicities, call Kazakhstan home.

«An elderly Kazakh placed them in a room in one of the houses. Ignatsiy found his family after 3-4 days, but his health deteriorated badly. A day later, the grandfather died. He was buried by local aksakals [elderly people] near a large cotton field. Sofia and her small children were left alone.

It seemed like the end of the world and starvation ahead. But soon, people began coming into their room, speaking in Kazakh that they did not understand. Each one brought something to eat - meat, flatbread, kurt [dried milk] and some dried fruit. Such visits continued all the time. The Kazakhs welcomed the Polish family as they shared a piece of bread with them,» wrote Anatoliy Grib from Semei, sharing the story of his grandfather Ignatsiy Grib in a documentary collection on the stories of deportations published by the Archive of the President of Kazakhstan in 2019.

People celebrating the Constitution Day. Photo credit: assembly.kz

Today’s relevance of the Day of Gratitude

Gennady Shipovskikh, a deputy of the Senate, an upper house of the Kazakh Parliament, said the holiday is «very important and special» for all people in Kazakhstan.

«On this day, representatives of all ethnic groups express their gratitude to the Kazakh people. Once, the Kazakh people have shown their generosity and help during a difficult winter period,» he said in a comment for this story.

Heroes of today should also be thanked, said the deputy.

«We would like to thank the doctors who helped us stay safe during the pandemic, the firefighters who rushed to our aid in an emergency, and the members of the military who keep our country safe. As the head of state said, every citizen who serves the country is a hero. So we are grateful to our ordinary citizens,» he added.

For Vladimir Chepel, a chief specialist at the Qapal rural district’s municipality in the Zhetisu region, Gratitude Day is a «sign of respect for shared history and appreciation for the sacred Kazakh land.»

«For me, this holiday is a day of endless gratitude to the Kazakh land and Kazakh people. Because we can say that the Kazakh people shared their last bread, regardless of nationality and religion. Other ethnic groups trapped by fate and finding shelter on Kazakh soil are extremely grateful to the Kazakh people. They found warmth and shelter,» said Chepel.

An inter-ethnic peace and accord is an aspect that characterizes Kazakhstan well and its people. It is also something the nation should cherish and protect, given the geopolitical turmoil and the ever-growing confrontation between states. Yet, it can also serve as a model for other countries seeking to build multi-ethnic and multi-cultural societies.

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The article just published in Biology Letters adds another twist to the colorful and varied evolution and ecology of hundreds of native bee species that rely on cooperative colonies to survive often harsh environments.

The bee in focus, Amphylaeus morosus (known as the "Capricious Masked Bee"), is characterized by a social system involving one highly reproductive female "queen" and non-reproductive female "guards," which makes it a model species for studying social evolution in insects.

Ever since the days of Darwin, one of the big biological mysteries has been how sterile workers evolve in cooperative social species; how can genes for sterility persist when sterile individuals have no offspring?

"We now know that problem is largely explained by kin selection, where workers can pass on copies of their genes via brothers and sisters, instead of having their own offspring," says lead researcher, Flinders Ph.D. and entomologist Dr. Lucas Hearn.

But why do sterile workers evolve in some kinds of animals, like ants, bees and wasps, and only rarely in others?

"Part of the answer is the weird genetic system of Hymenoptera (ants, bees and wasps), where females are more closely related to their sisters than to their own babies, but much less related to their brothers.

"If female workers can rear their sisters, instead of their own babies or their brothers, this can provide a genetic 'edge' that favors sterility," he says.

However, it turns out that things are not always this simple.

Upon closer examination of the social bee A. morosus, Flinders University researchers have revealed an intriguing situation where queens, supported by helpful or "altruistic" guards in their nests, lay more offspring, but those extra offspring are always males.

"This is great for the queen, but not so good for the female guards because those extra offspring are her brothers and not closely related," says Dr. Hearn.

"However, the more guards in a population, the more excess males are produced and the less genetic value they have."

This could serve to illustrate the pinnacle of a very long evolutionary pathway which makes it unable to progress to a stage of further social complexity known as "eurosociality," which features nests with a single queen and a number of workers that don't reproduce.

This follows earlier research by Flinders showed that while altruistic guarding behavior in A. morosus can be explained by kin selection, guarding behavior was puzzlingly rare.

"Studying the benefit of these guards within the colony has also revealed unexpected complexity in social behavior that challenges the notion that sociality evolves in a linear and gradual way.

"This latest research provides an explanation for that puzzle, namely altruistic guarding behavior is only rewarding when it is rare. When it becomes common, all the excess male offspring become less valuable," say co-authors Flinders University Associate Professor Mike Schwarz and University of Adelaide Associate Professor Mark Stevens, a senior research scientist at the South Australian Museum.

"The Australian bee Amphylaeus morosus seems to have landed in a 'Goldilocks zone': not too little collective sociality and not too much—just the right amount," the researchers conclude.

Amphylaeus morosus makes its nests in the broken fern fronds of the rough tree fern Cyathea australis, which are densely spread throughout the Dandenong Ranges and Central Highlands regions of Victoria and more sporadically throughout montane habitats along the east coast of Australia.

It is the only known social species within the highly diverse Colletidae bee family, making it an ideal species to investigate how social behavior in insects first evolved.

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In September of last year, after years of careful planning and development, NASA crashed a spacecraft smack into a rock drifting through the Solar System, just minding its own business.

It wasn't for the sheer hatred of space rocks, or the joy of collisions; the motive behind this exercise was to test our ability to knock an asteroid off-course, in the interest of Earth's safety. And now we know we're onto something. The measurements have come in, and the rock's course changed by significantly more than expected.

A series of five papers describing this course deflection, and the mechanisms behind it, have been published in Nature.

Right now, the planet beneath our feet appears to be sailing serenely through empty space. But there happen to be a lot of big space rocks out there, and if one were to hit us, we'd be in for a rough time. Just ask the dinosaurs.

One way we might deflect any large asteroids coming our way is by smashing into approaching rocks with a speeding spacecraft. The transfer of momentum from the spacecraft to the asteroid could alter its trajectory through space just enough to steer it away from its destiny with Earth's surface.

The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) was an attempt to see if this was feasible. The target was carefully chosen: Dimorphos, a moonlet orbiting a larger asteroid called Didymos. Because the orbital period of the two objects has been well characterized, any change in Dimorphos' trajectory would be detectable as a change in its orbital period.

At around 160 meters (525 feet) across, Dimorphos orbits the 780 meter-wide Didymos roughly once every 11.9 hours. The DART impact was expected to alter this orbital period by around 7 minutes.

As described in a paper led by planetary astronomer Cristina Thomas of Northern Arizona University, the change in orbital period was much more dramatic: Dimorphos now orbits Didymos 33 minutes faster than it did prior to the impact. Two separate measurements of the orbit using different methods found the same result.

That larger-than-expected change to the orbital period of the binary asteroid system can't be accounted for by the transfer of momentum from the DART spacecraft alone.

A paper led by astronomer Jian-Yang Li of the Planetary Science Institute makes a detailed study of the ejecta – the material that was ejected from the asteroid as a result of the explosive impact. It wasn't just the immediate kaboom: for nearly two weeks after the impact, Dimorphos continued to spew out tails of dust, like a very dry comet.

A third paper, led by astronomer Ariel Graykowski of the SETI Institute in the US, studied the light reflecting off Dimorphos before, during and after the impact. A little over three weeks after the collision, Dimorphos's brightness returned to its normal, pre-impact levels. The level of the brightness over that period suggested that the asteroid lost 0.3 to 0.5 percent of its total mass.

According to a paper led by astronomer Andrew Cheng of Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, that ejecta was responsible for most of the change in the binary asteroid's orbit. That escaping material transferred more momentum to Dimorphos than was transferred by the DART spacecraft during its moment of impact.

"DART's impact," they write, "demonstrates that the momentum transfer to a target asteroid can significantly exceed the incident momentum of the kinetic impactor, validating the effectiveness of kinetic impact for preventing future asteroid strikes on the Earth."

Finally, a team led by planetary scientist Terik Daly of Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory reconstructed the impact event from the collected data, including the timeline leading up to the impact, a detailed characterization of the impact site, and the size and shape of Dimorphos.

Their findings are promising. Humanity can successfully deflect an asteroid from its course with limited knowledge of its composition and surface conditions, without conducting an expensive and lengthy reconnaissance mission first.

An asteroid deflection mission, ideally, would be conducted decades in advance of the projected impact. Fortunately, time is a resource we have plenty of right now: no asteroids that we know of will threaten Earth for at least 100 years. This gives us time for a number of reconnaissance missions to any peripheral threats, which would improve the chances of successful deflection should anything change in the far future.

In light of that, the information we have from DART is invaluable. It will contribute towards modeling and planning future asteroid deflections, if we need them, for better predictions of the outcomes of exploding spaceships into space rocks.

"The successful impact of the DART spacecraft with Dimorphos and the resulting change in Dimorphos's orbit," Daly and his team write, "demonstrates that kinetic impactor technology is a viable technique to potentially defend Earth if necessary."

The research papers have been published in Nature. They can be found here, here, here, here, and here.

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Researchers at the University of Calgary's Hotchkiss Brain Institute in Canada and the University of Exeter in the UK explored the relationship between vitamin D supplementation and dementia in more than 12,388 participants of the US National Alzheimer's Coordinating Center, who had a mean age of 71 and were dementia-free when they signed up. Of the group, 37 percent (4,637) took vitamin D supplements.

In the study, published in Alzheimer's & Dementia: Diagnosis, Assessment & Disease Monitoring, the team found that taking vitamin D was associated with living dementia-free for longer, and they also found 40 percent fewer dementia diagnoses in the group who took supplements.

Across the entire sample, 2,696 participants progressed to dementia over ten years; amongst them, 2,017 (75%) had no exposure to vitamin D throughout all visits prior to dementia diagnosis, and 679 (25%) had baseline exposure.

Professor Zahinoor Ismail, of the University of Calgary and University of Exeter, who led the research, said, "We know that vitamin D has some effects in the brain that could have implications for reducing dementia, however so far, research has yielded conflicting results. Our findings give key insights into groups who might be specifically targeted for vitamin D supplementation. Overall, we found evidence to suggest that earlier supplementation might be particularly beneficial, before the onset of cognitive decline."

While Vitamin D was effective in all groups, the team found that effects were significantly greater in females, compared to males. Similarly, effects were greater in people with normal cognition, compared to those who reported signs of mild cognitive impairment—changes to cognition which have been linked to a higher risk of dementia.

The effects of vitamin D were also significantly greater in people who did not carry the APOEe4 gene, known to present a higher risk for Alzheimer's dementia, compared to non-carriers. The authors suggest that people who carry the APOEe4 gene absorb vitamin D better from their intestine, which might reduce the vitamin D supplementation effect. However, no blood levels were drawn to test this hypothesis.

Previous research has found that low levels of vitamin D are linked to higher dementia risk. Vitamin D is involved in the clearance of amyloid in the brain, the accumulation of which is one of the hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease. Studies have also found that vitamin D may provide help to protect the brain against build-up of tau, another protein involved in the development of dementia.

Co-author Dr. Byron Creese, at the University of Exeter, said, "Preventing dementia or even delaying its onset is vitally important given the growing numbers of people affected. The link with vitamin D in this study suggests that taking vitamin D supplements may be beneficial in preventing or delaying dementia, but we now need clinical trials to confirm whether this is really the case. The ongoing VitaMIND study at the University of Exeter is exploring this issue further by randomly assigning participants to either take vitamin D or placebo and examining changes in memory and thinking tests over time."

The VitaMIND study is run via PROTECT, an online study open to people aged 40 and over. In PROTECT annual questionnaires on detailed lifestyle factors combine with cognitive testing, to determine what keeps the brain sharp in later life. To find out more or to sign up, visit their website. In Canada, CAN-PROTECT, is a linked online study on aging, in people aged 40 and over, with an additional focus on caregiving in dementia.

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Also, significantly more Americans are being diagnosed with advanced stages of the disease, the cancer society says.

As of 2019, 20% of colon cancer cases occurred in adults under age 55—up from just 11% in 1995, according to the new report.

Moreover, researchers found that the proportion of people diagnosed with advanced-stage cancer reached 60% in 2019, up from 52% in the mid‐2000s. The rate of advanced disease was 57% in 1995 before widespread screening was available.

Cancer experts are baffled, especially since numbers are declining in the overall population.

"We don't know what is driving the increase in colorectal cancer among young people," said senior researcher Dr. Ahmedin Jemal, senior vice president for surveillance and health equity science at the cancer society.

"There is a lot of research going on. Some people say it's probably obesity or changes in diet over the past decades that might be a reason, but really, we don't know exactly what causes this rapid rise in colorectal cancer incidence rates," he said.

This year more than 153,000 Americans will be diagnosed with colon cancer and 52,550 will die from the disease, the researchers note.

Screening is the best protection against colon cancer, Jemal said.

The cancer society recommends that screening start at age 45 for people at average risk. But Jemal said only 4 in 10 adults are being screened.

"If we were to raise colorectal cancer screening up to 80%, we estimated tens of thousands of cases could be averted, and thousands of lives could be saved," he said.

Your doctor can provide you with a fecal blood test or refer you for colonoscopy screening, Jemal said. The advantage of the colonoscopy is that it needs to be done only every 10 years, while the other should be done yearly.

Barriers to screening include being uninsured and not getting a recommendation for screening from a primary doctor, he said.

Even though younger adults are developing colon cancer, Jemal doesn't anticipate the recommended age for screening will get lower.

"It is very unlikely because there will be a cost-benefit analysis and among all colorectal cancer cases that occur under age 50, 43% occur in ages 45 to 49. So it is very unlikely that it would have any benefit if we were to go to a younger age," Jemal said.

Dr. John Ricci, chief of colorectal surgery at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in Great Neck, N.Y., said he treats many younger colon cancer patients nowadays.

"Where it used to be almost unheard of to see somebody in their 30s with colon cancer, now we're seeing it fairly frequently, unfortunately," Ricci said.

Patients have to be aware of their family history, Ricci said.

"It's not only cancers in your family history, it's also high-risk polyps," he said. If close family members have had more than three polyps or big polyps, you would qualify for an early colonoscopy, Ricci said. Polyps can turn into cancers if they are not removed.

Changes in bowel habits and bleeding—symptoms of colon cancer—are reasons to be evaluated by your gastroenterologist. "When you have symptomatic cancer, it's usually further along," Ricci said.

Doctors need to recommend screening and patients need to be proactive and ask their doctor about screening, he added.

"You just have to be cognizant that colorectal cancer is not an old person's disease anymore," Ricci said. "It's a middle-aged people's disease now. And it seems not enough people are getting screened."

For the report, Jemal's team used data available through 2019 from 50 states and the District of Columbia from the U.S. National Cancer Institute and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

They found that incidence of colon cancer and related deaths declined from 3%-4% a year during the early 2000s to 1% a year and 2% a year, respectively, in the past decade.

Colon cancer rates were 33% higher in men (41.5 per 100,000) than in women (31 per 100,000) from 2015 to 2019, likely due to differences in risk factors, such as excess body weight, eating processed meats and smoking, the researchers note.

Rates of colon cancer have declined for those 65 and older and have stabilized for people 50 to 64, but have increased by 2% yearly in people younger than 50 and those 50 to 54.

Moreover, deaths from colon cancer have increased since about 2005 by 1% a year in people younger than 50 and by nearly 1% in people 50 to 54, the researchers say.

The highest rates of colon cancer are among Alaska Natives (88.5 per 100,000), American Indians (46 per 100,000) and Black people (41.7 per 100,000). Among white people, incidence is 35.7 per 100,000. Death patterns are similar, with the highest among Alaska Natives, American Indians and Black people.

The report was published online March 1 in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians.

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If nuclear fission is associated with catastrophe, nuclear fusion is associated with delay and fraud. The joke about fusion, the synthesis of lab-grown stars, is that it’s always 10 years away. Or 20. Two lonely little isotopes, each with a pathetically low mass, are joined in holy electromagnetism in a massive artificial thunderclap. The remaining nucleus is smaller than the mass of the reacting nuclei, and the leftover mass is converted into light or heat by virtue of E = mc².

But what a utopia fusion seems to promise. Even with the jokes and equivocation and scams, it’s hard to be blasé about fusion’s stellar possibilities. So let’s indulge: Once fusion arrives, handmade suns, sources of unlimited clean energy, would—will—wipe out all human problems in a go. Our glorious pet stars, requiring only everyday hydrogen to whip up in a lab, won’t belch out carbon or radioactive waste. Instead they’ll exhale helium. Helium! That nonrenewable resource that’s already running low! Fusion, my friends, means not just infinite carbonless energy but more balloons.

Fusion will, of course, rescue the environment and decarbonize planet Earth in a cool afternoon. It will also—don’t stop me now—render irrelevant all the dead-eyed petroleum kleptocracies and trade wars and real wars waged in their name. When energy can be produced anywhere, with common household ingredients, authoritarian states will no longer derive despotic authority by accidents of geography, but will, whoosh, become secular democracies, the better to share fusion-reactor tips and tricks in happy glasnost and savor the collective joy and peace of a burning, flooding planet restored to tranquil shades of green and blue.

Even leaving aside the Shangri-la, fusion is exciting here and now. In December 2022—a solid century since physicists first identified fusion as the source of star power—American scientists at the National Ignition Facility in Livermore, California, where ignition is a way of life, had a breakthrough. They’d aimed 192 lasers at the inside of a pearl-sized gold can called a hohlraum, creating a radiation bath that heated up the outside of a peppercorn-sized spherical nubbin of hydrogen coated in diamond in the center of the little can.

Atoms flew off the nubbin, forcing it to implode at a speed of nearly 400 kilometers per second—about four times a bolt of lightning. This created 100 million-degree plasma under hundreds of billions of atmospheres of pressure—a gas so hot that electrons were freed from atomic nuclei. At 1:03 am on December 5, humanity hit the threshold for fusion ignition in a lab. The first flash of a handmade sun. Though it blinked out rather quickly, after less than 100 trillionths of a second, the reaction created 3.15 megajoules of energy when a mere 2.05 went in—a glorious 150 percent return on investment.

Somewhat discouragingly, the first thought of the US Department of Energy, which its publicity team spelled out in an admittedly cool sci-fi video, was that this fusion ignition could somehow “support” the government’s project to extend the lifespan of nuclear weapons. But never mind. With at least 30 private fusion companies across the world promising clean energy built on the Livermore breakthrough, the air is supercharged with Kennedy-era electrons of hope. According to a survey from the Fusion Industry Association, most of these companies believe fusion electricity will be on the grid by the 2030s. It’s time to fall in love with fusion as if we’ve never been hurt before.

But it’s always good to keep your wits about you when it comes to fusion promises. Whenever both paradise and vast riches are at hand, fraudsters make their move. On March 23, 1989, before an audience of feather-haired University of Utah students and at least one member of the presiding bishopric of the Church of Latter-Day Saints, electrochemists Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann declared—no peer-reviewed nothing in sight—that they had “established a sustained nuclear fusion reaction.” Holding up something that looked like a baby’s bottle with a pen in it, Pons told the room that they had driven deuterium into a metal rod at room temperature using garden-variety electrochemical techniques. Presto, they’d formed a new atom. “There is a considerable release of energy,” Pons said. “We’ve demonstrated that this could be sustained. In other words, much more energy is coming out than we’re putting in.”

OK, then.

Lest anyone doubt that these chemists (curious: not nuclear physicists) had really made their own atom, Pons assured the audience that he and Fleischmann had found nuclear reaction byproducts: evidence of fusion. What’s more, the heat generated by their tabletop experiment was attributable to those byproducts alone. It “cannot be explained by any chemical process that is known,” he said, with a note of irritation.

Almost immediately, other electrochemists aimed to replicate the results. They failed. Other (known) chemical processes seemed to be generating the heat. When Pons and Fleischmann published a paper at last, their work was savaged as a sham. They’d misrepresented their byproducts. The two men fled for France, where they worked for a Toyota research lab; they were never fined or even sidelined from science. But the abracadabra hypothesis of “cold fusion” came under a pall. Today, those who keep faith in it have formed a kind of aggrieved mini-cult. In the curious state of mind that anti-vax doctors are known for, the cold-fusion crew dug in, and its members now grouse about having been blackballed from elite journals and reputable conferences.

The latest Livermore discoveries are carefully described as hot fusion.

To those in whose dreams fused nuclei dance, the cold-hot distinction is consoling. The lukewarm nothingburger of the George H. W. Bush era seems worlds away from real fusion, the white-hot variety produced by Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm’s avant-garde DOE. What’s a homemade sun without otherworldly heat?

The National Ignition Facility is a 10-story laser complex the width of three football fields, and its imposing size makes the Pons-Fleischmann tabletop charade even more laughable. And this time with fusion, the renowned physicists—including Tammy Ma, a plasma physicist; Annie Kritcher, an experimental physicist; and Kim Budil, a laser physicist and the director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory—did not jump the gun with a prepublication press conference and set off a failed replication jam among peer scientists. Instead, for decades, scientists at the National Ignition Facility have been piling up papers, detailing most recently how ignition via fusion was possible (in August 2021) and then how it happened (in December 2022).

Along the way, statements to the media from LLNL have offered more science than prophecy. Kritcher, the lead designer of one of the 2021 experiments and first author on one of the resulting papers, explained how her team brought fusion to the threshold of fusion ignition. She concentrated not on grandiose promises but on the crucial challenge to anyone trying to fuse atomic nuclei: The laser energy must make it into the beams and hit the hydrogen target. One improvement? “Reducing the coasting-time with more efficient hohlraums compared to prior experiments was key in moving between the burning plasma and ignition regimes,” she said.

Heat, light, matter: It’s supremely satisfying when the most advanced technology on earth is also the most elemental. I’m here to enlist in this ignition regime, especially if it means the reign of nuclear fusion and the simultaneous twilight of carbon and kleptocracy. But you know me: I’m in anyway, even if the ignition regime is, for now, just an ongoing spark of hope that humans can still improve the world somehow by studying hot plasma and beaming lasers into gold cans.

It’s Time to Fall in Love with Nuclear Fusion—Again

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Is the future of computing biological?

What if the world had no nuclear bombs? It’s a fanciful dream and one that will likely never occur now that the technology is so widespread and so integral to many nations’ territorial defense strategy – but at one point in time, it was a possibility. There was one algorithm, one method of decoding a single signal, that almost prevented the entire nuclear arms race.

Stopping nuclear tests

The US had just dropped two atomic bombs on Japan, ending World War II and causing astonishing destruction that is still noticeable generations on. The world had its eyes opened to the power of these bombs, magnitudes higher than any explosion that had ever been seen before, and the US demonstrated that such devices could be dropped anywhere, any time. However, the US understood that while they had the immediate advantage, it would not be long before rival nations made their own, and the stage would be set for a standoff that could eradicate humanity. 

As a result, the US held talks with the Soviets and other nuclear-capable nations with the ultimate goal of stopping the development of nuclear arms, but (predictably) the nations were unable to trust each other enough to accept an agreement. The US continued to test nuclear bombs and other nations made their own, creating an arms race that made devices bigger and more dangerous than before. 

One US test famously went awry in Bikini Atoll, raining radioactive matter on nearby islands and fishing vessels and causing acute radiation poisoning, forcing the nuclear nations to the negotiating table once more; this time, they were to agree never to test nuclear arms again. To do so, each nation must have the technology to identify that a test was happening – hydrophones could detect them under the sea and residual atoms could be identified in the sky from ground-based tests. But underground tests? These posed the greatest challenge. 

The Discrete Fourier Transform

Enter one of the most important algorithms in the history of technology. Be it a phone signal, Wi-Fi – or, as it so happens, the seismological readings of a nation doing an underground nuclear test – within a complex signal, there are many sine waves of different frequencies all contributing to form the final result, and this can be decoded if we can isolate each frequency. Think of it like a song: the drums, guitar, and vocals all join to create it, but within that song are instruments and individual notes that can be isolated. 

The Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) was the first to be able to do this to a complex signal by taking the number of samples (N) in a signal and multiplying them by sine and cosine waves of frequencies that fit within that signal. It is a bit more complicated than that and Veritasium does a great explainer on just how that works, but essentially, the more samples within a signal, the better resolution the result will be, but also the more calculations we will have to make.

For example, if a signal has 8 samples, then each sample needs to be multiplied by 8, resulting in 64 calculations. This is called an O(N2) algorithm (N2 because N numbers need to be multiplied N times). O(N2) algorithms are not very efficient, because when you scale a signal up to thousands or millions of samples, the number of calculations needed becomes overwhelming and even computers of today can begin to struggle, let alone computers in the mid-1900s.  

How does this relate to our nuclear tests? Well, underground nuclear tests can be identified with seismometers, but they must somehow be isolated from the background noise of small earthquakes, of which there are many each day. The Discrete Fourier Transform can do this for us, but computers at the time would take years to decode each signal, which doesn’t really work well for accountability. 

The Fast Fourier Transform - an algorithm for the history books

James Cooley and John Tukey, scientific and mathematical advisors to the US President at the time, developed a new type of DFT, which they called the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT). 

As you may guess from the name, the FFT is significantly faster than a DFT by identifying that waves from samples overlap at specific points, so this can be used to eliminate useless calculations. Instead of being O(N2), the FFT is now Nlog2(N), making it exponentially faster. If there were 64 calculations to be done using the DFT, there are now just 24, and this gets even better as the samples become much bigger – if there are thousands of samples, there are magnitudes fewer calculations needed than with a DFT. 

Tragically, though, the FFT was published in a paper by these two scientists in 1965, by which point other major nations had joined the US and Soviet Union in becoming nuclear powers. It was now too late to sign a comprehensive test ban, and nuclear tests were forced underground, where testing ramped up to a remarkable rate of around once per week.  

The FFT has since found new uses in almost every single communications and data signalling application humans have created, making it one of the most important algorithms ever designed. However, it had the potential to be much greater – it was almost the algorithm that stopped the nuclear arms race, had it come just a few years prior. 

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Deep beneath Namibia, there lies a flooded cavern known as Dragon's Breath Cave that’s home to the largest non-subglacial underground lake on planet Earth. The true size of this body of water was not known for decades as explorers could only dive so far, but recent technological advances have forced the cavern to give up some of its ancient secrets. 

Recent surveys have sent robots into the bowels of the Dragon's Breath Cave and shown it has a depth of over 200 meters (656 feet). Reliable scientific estimates of its total area are hard to come by, but it's often cited to be larger than the "Lost Sea" under Tennessee, the largest non-subglacial underground lake in the US. 

Namibia is a coastal country in southern Africa that’s sometimes called “the land that God made in anger” owing to its spectacular yet desperately arid landscapes. The name Namibia itself stems from the local Nama word “Namib,” which means a vast and empty place. 

This gives you some idea of the strange and intense geology that can be found in this unique part of the world. The African country has at least 124 caves, a significant number of which are found in the Otjozondjupa Region, including Dragon's Breath Cave.

The cave is thought to have picked up its name from a warm gust of humid air that greets visitors at its entrance. Light is almost totally absent from most parts of the cave past its narrow entrance. The waters of the lake are said to be perfectly clear and, perhaps surprisingly, they do harbor life in the form of tiny shrimp and worm-like creatures.

A clip from David Attenborough’s BBC documentary Africa claims that the Dragon’s Breath Cave is home to the golden catfish, an oddly beautiful and critically endangered species of airbreathing catfish. However, others say this species actually inhabits a similar cave in Namibia called Aigamas Cave. 

Regardless, we still do not know the full catalog of biodiversity that dwells in this bizarre ecosystem as biological studies of the cave appear to be few and far between. 

The first documented instances of people exploring the cavern emerged in the 1980s. As per the book "The Darkness Beckons" by Martyn Farr, one of the first attempts to formally explore the cave was by a team of divers and cavers from the South African Speleological Association in 1986.

Some early estimates from this time suggested the underground lake held waters there were at least 150 meters (492 feet) deep, but an expedition in 2019 by Stone Aerospace used an autonomous underwater vehicle to prove it was significantly deeper. They found the water surface was some 59 meters (193 feet) below the cave entrance and it ended at a ground depth of 264 meters (866 feet), meaning the body of water has a total depth of over 200 meters (656 feet). 

The mini-submarine cruised into the depths of the cavern and mapped it out using lasers and high-resolution sonar. Along with revealing a vast new chamber near the entrance, it showed the cavern is shaped like a pointy shoe that gently angles downwards before pinching off at the end. 

You can see the 3D visualization of Dragon’s Breath Cave produced by the mission right here. 

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Have you ever looked at a clock suddenly and noticed that the second hand stood still for longer than you think it should have? Maybe a touch longer than a second?

You have probably already experienced the "stopped clock illusion", but if not, it's as simple as not looking at a clock or stopwatch, and then quickly moving your eyes to look at a clock or stopwatch. Have we all tried that now? Good, now what is going on?

Well, the effect has been the subject of research published in Nature in 2001.  In the study, participants were asked to move their eyes towards a counter, with this eye movement beginning the timer. The first number to flash up on the counter displayed for between 400 and 1,600 ms, with the participants asked to say whether they had viewed the first digit for more or less time than subsequent digits (all displayed for one second each). The initial eye movement (referred to as a "saccade") made by the participants was either 22 or 55 degrees.

"Interestingly, there was an almost exact agreement between the extra time taken for the eyes to move over the longer distance (139-72 = 67 ms) and the difference in the time intervals that subjects matched to 1 [second] (880-811 = 69 ms), suggesting that the illusion of chronostasis is linked to the time taken to move the eyes," the team wrote in their paper.

"In fact, subjects appeared to extend the time that they thought they had seen the first target back in time to approximately 50 ms prior to the start of eye movement."

So others experience it, and it is related to the time it takes to move your eyes. What's happening? The illusion is the result of your brain trying to fill in the gaps left as you move your eyes, and the blur that involves.

"When the saccade shifts the eyes from one stationary viewpoint to another, vision is degraded and it is not possible to say with certainty whether there are any changes in the position of objects during movement," the team explains. "However, if the saccadic target is fixated accurately at the end of the saccade, subjects can assume that it occupied approximately the same place throughout the eye movement."

You feel like the first second you look at on the clock is longer as your brain fills in the "gaps" caused when your eye was moving and your vision was blurred with the information it saw at the end, making it feel longer.

"Since there is no other competing percept (because vision is blurred during the saccade), the assumption of a constant target position is linked to an extended temporal perception of the object as seen at the end of the saccade."

One claim often repeated on the Internet is that you are technically "blind" for 40 minutes per day, as that is how long you spend making eye movements, where saccadic masking fills in gaps in your vision. While it's not clear where this specific claim came from, people are estimated to make 20,000 saccadic movements per day, which is a fair amount of time per day spent not really seeing the world directly.

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Laws of physics often enjoy a place of privilege and certainty, but every once in a while, a new study comes along that challenges our understanding of these laws.

Physicists from the West Virginia University have provided novel insight into the first law of thermodynamics, expanding its scope and thus its explanatory power.

The first law of thermodynamics states that the total amount of energy within the universe always remains the same. Energy can neither be created nor be destroyed; it can only be converted from one form to another.

“Suppose you heat up a balloon, the first law of thermodynamics tells you how much the balloon expands and how much hotter the gas inside the balloon gets,” Paul Cassak, the lead author of the study, said in a press release. “The key is that the total amount of energy causing the balloon to expand and the gas to get hotter is the same as the amount of heat you put into the balloon.”

The researchers’ paper, published in the journal of Physical Review Letters, focuses on how the first law can be applied more widely than previously thought.

The first law hinges on the fact that it is valid only in systems where temperatures can be defined properly — i.e. systems that can reach a measurable equilibrium. When hot water is mixed with cold water in a cup, the mixed water will reach an in between and final temperature.

Throughout the years, the first law has only been able to be applied when there isn’t much of a difference in the temperatures between the systems and not when there is a large difference in temperature.

The new study attempted to remedy this by examining how energy is converted in superheated plasmas in space. “We generalised the first law of thermodynamics for systems that are not in equilibrium,” said Dr. Cassak. “We did a pencil and paper calculation to find how much energy is associated with matter not being in equilibrium, and it works whether the system is close to or far from equilibrium.”

The researchers realised that in order to apply the first law of thermodynamics more broadly, they needed to find a way to quantify all the energy conversion that didn’t involve expansion and heating. And they did.

“The result represents a really large step of our understanding,” according to Dr. Cassak.

The development is theoretical but has potentially immense practical applications. A better understanding of the law will help astronomers understand plasmas in space and thus better understand space weather, which — when it goes awry — can affect satellite communications and trigger power outages on earth.

The team also expects that their work will help other physicists understand issues in quantum computers and galaxy evolution better.

The new study is part of work being conducted at the PHAse Space MApping experiment (or PHASMA) at in the WVU Centre for KINetic Experimental, Theoretical and Integrated Computational Plasma Physics.

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So, the third annual Mental State of the World Report has dropped, and once again we’re all depressed and nobody likes us. Okay, that may not strictly be true: there’s a smattering of good news in among the concerning findings. But overall, the world is in a similar situation to the past two years – the only difference being that we seem to be less stressed about COVID now, and more upset about our home lives.

But what exactly have we learned from this massive, multi-national mental health survey? Who fares best? Who’s suffering most? And most importantly: is there anything we can do about it?

The good news: our mental health has (just about) stopped deteriorating

Since 2020, the world’s mental health has seemed to only be going in one direction: down. In 2022, though, that trend seems to have changed – perhaps not reversing, but at least stalling.

“The data… provides a barometer for how our global society is faring as we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic,” the report notes. “We find that in 2022, the needle on this barometer stayed steady, with no further decline in mental wellbeing, but also no signs of a recovery to pre-pandemic levels.”

Data collected from 407,959 respondents from 64 countries, all of whom responded to the open online anonymous Mental Health Quotient, or MHQ, survey, found that the global average MHQ for 2022 was a fairly respectable 64. That puts the average Internet-enabled Earthling at a “managing” level of mental health – better off than those who are “distressed”, “struggling”, or “enduring”, but not quite at “succeeding” or “thriving” levels.

It's the same score, in fact, as last year’s result – and worryingly, the percentage of those in the world reporting “distressed” or “struggling” levels of mental health has increased, albeit only by a single percentage point.

While the picture is very slightly more positive for the English-speaking world, there are two countries in particular that seem to buck the trend: the UK and South Africa. These came dead last in global MHQ scores – an “enduring” 46.2 and 47.5 respectively – and had the highest proportions of distressed or struggling people among their populations. The happiest place in the world, on the other hand, seems to be Swahili-speaking Sub-Saharan Africa – that’s where the average MHQ score was highest, and the percentage of those distressed or struggling was lowest.

A word of advice, however: that’s also one of the regions surveyed where internet access is still pretty rare. “In these regions the Internet-enabled populations are not reflective of the overall population of the country,” the report cautions, “but instead represent individuals who typically have greater levels of education and come from higher socioeconomic groups.”

The bad news: younger generations are struggling more

“One of the most prominent trends in the Mental Health Million data over the years is the declining mental wellbeing with each successively younger generation. This is reflected in decreasing MHQ scores and a corresponding increase in percentage Distressed or Struggling with significant mental health challenges in each younger age group.”

“This trend is apparent in the Internet-enabled populations of every country measured from Africa to Asia, Europe to the Americas,” the report continues. “There is not a single region or language group or country where the decline in mental wellbeing across successively younger generations is not apparent.”

Just how bad is it? Put it this way: if you’re a newly-fledged adult in Latin America or South Asia, there’s about a one in two chance your mental health is bad enough to qualify for professional help. Over 55s in those same areas, on the other hand, have a one in 10 chance of the same – meaning they’re only a fifth as likely as their grandchildren’s generation to be distressed or struggling.

But breaking down mental health as a whole into six subcategories – adaptability and resilience, social self, mind-body connection, drive and motivation, cognition, and mood and outlook – shows exactly where our inner turmoil is strongest.

The good news: scores were highest across the global Internet-enabled population for the first category in the list, adaptability and resilience. With an average score of 85 on the scale from -100 to 200, that means that people the world over are most confident in their abilities to shift their behavior and outlook in response to changing circumstances and cope with challenges and setbacks.

At the other end of the spectrum, we’re struggling most with our mood and outlook, the report finds. But perhaps more concerning is the second-lowest scoring category: social self, or how we interact with, relate to, and see ourselves with respect to others.

Coming only three points higher than mood and outlook, social self is the dimension of mental function that shows the steepest drop between generations: according to the data, those aged between 55-64 score nearly 70 points higher than 18–24-year-olds in this category.

That’s concerning. Poor social self is known to correlate with national rates of suicide, physical assault, and sexual abuse – things which, in turn, contribute to a poor sense of social self. In other words, as the report explains, “our deteriorating Social Self [is] a self-reinforcing feedback loop.”

Our relationships are more fractured – and that’s bad news for mental health

With such a large decrease in our sense of social self – that is, how we relate to others – it may not come as a surprise that our familial relationships are suffering. “Our first relationships are with our family,” the report points out, “and many studies have shown a link between strong family relationships and happiness as well as other outcomes of life success.”

Once again, the picture is particularly dire for the younger generations. Globally, the percentage of people who consider themselves close to their family decreased with each younger generation: only slightly more than one in five adults aged 18-24, compared with twice as many adults aged 75 or above. Conversely, one in 10 18 to 24-year-olds reported being so distant that they would prefer not to see their family at all – more than three times the number of those aged 75 or older that said the same thing.

If you’re wondering why such a stark pattern would emerge, there are clues in some of the supporting data. With each generation, the report found, there was a steady increase in the number of people who reported a childhood in which their parents provided everything they needed materially and were very invested in their academic and other accomplishments. At the same time, though, the percentage reporting a stable and loving childhood home decreased dramatically with younger generations – and the numbers reporting traumas such as family breakups, violence, and emotional abuse, or neglect only increased.

Unsurprisingly, these results are not happy news for the world’s mental health, with those reporting both instability and emotional distance during childhood being more than three times as likely to suffer mental health challenges than those from stable and loving homes.

Still, at least we can still count on our friends to help us through, right? Well, yes – but once again, that’s more likely to be true for those of us in an older age bracket.

“Across age groups the average number of friends decreased with younger generations, flattening out after age 45,” the report finds. “The generation aged 75+ reported 4.7 close friends on average while those under 45 reported an average of 3 to 3.2 friends.”

Meanwhile, almost one in eight 18–24-year-olds reported having no close friends at all – twice as many as the number of over 75-year-olds saying the same.

Most unfortunately of all, those friendships are lacking precisely for those who need them most: while the vast majority of us do seem to have at least one pal to keep us going, being distant with your family increases your chances of not having any close friends by a factor of more than three. Those of us close with our families can expect to have around two more close friends than those estranged from them, in fact – and growing up in a loving and stable home correlates with more friends than growing up in an emotionally distant or unstable environment.

All combined, it’s very bad news for those of us without those firm bonds of family and friendship. “The risk of mental health challenges is 10 times lower for those with a large number of both close family relationships and friendships,” the report concludes.

The takeaway: has the internet doomed us all?

So, in conclusion: mental health is highest if you’re older and live somewhere where cultural bonds are still strong. But what’s to blame for the poor outlook given to the rest of us?

For the authors of the report, there’s one pretty big reason we’re all feeling so bad: the internet. “With its command of our individual attention for an average of seven to 10 hours a day, it leaves little time for the effort required to nurture social bonds,” they write. “Like team sports, getting good at navigating social situations and building relationships requires putting in the time on the field.”

Not only is our collective social intelligence suffering, the report suggests, but all this time online has a double whammy effect – because with more internet inevitably comes more doomscrolling and cyberbullying. This latter experience, the authors note, “appears to have an equal impact on [the] adult mental wellbeing as childhood sexual abuse; a further testament to the profoundly relational nature of our psyches.”

So what’s the lesson from this year’s Mental State of the World report? Perhaps we need to take a step back and remember what made us human in the first place.

“If there is one clear message in this data, it is that we must more explicitly acknowledge our inherently relational nature and its crucial role in our collective wellbeing,” the authors conclude.

“We have perhaps not appreciated the degree to which we are evolved as social beings. As much as we may believe that we are each independent, our wellbeing is profoundly relational in nature.”

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