The tarmac in Madrid was around 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) by 2.30 pm, the time José Antonio González started his shift as a street cleaner on July 16. The 60-year-old didn’t arrive at work in the middle of Europe’s heat wave unprepared. He carried with him two 2-liter water bottles and a homemade water sprayer to keep himself cool, his son told Spanish newspaper El Pais. But it wasn’t enough. Three hours into his shift, he collapsed from heatstroke. He died later in a hospital.

González worked for the cleaning company Urbaser, which had already been warned about making street cleaners work in the heat by Spain’s labor inspectorate. Urbaser declined to comment. However Mark Barnhill, a partner at Urbaser’s parent company, Platinum Equity, said: “Our hearts go out to the family, friends, and colleagues of the Urbaser team member, and to the thousands of other people who have suffered heat-related deaths during the record-breaking heat wave that gripped Europe this month.” Across Spain alone, there were 510 deaths linked to high temperatures between July 10 and July 16, according to the Carlos III Health Institute, a public health research body.

González’s death sparked an overhaul of the rules among the companies that clean Madrid’s streets. In agreement with the city and local unions, the companies banned working in temperatures hotter than 39 degrees Celsius (102 Fahrenheit) and pushed shifts back from 2.30 pm to 5 pm. Despite Spain’s reputation for long lunch breaks, this is usually more common for office workers, says Ángel Olmedo Jiménez, a partner in the Madrid office of law firm Garrigues. “It’s not that common for blue collar workers to have two or two and a half hours in order to have lunch.”

Street cleaning is not the only industry rethinking its working hours after blistering heat waves pushed temperatures across Europe above 40 degrees—far above the 16- to 24-degree window (60-75 Fahrenheit) that unions say is optimum for work. In response, workers across Europe have been calling for the working day to be restructured to suit a warming world. These calls are not just emerging out of southern Europe but also from traditionally cooler countries: A construction union in Germany is campaigning for longer lunch breaks so workers can avoid the hottest part of the day, while one garden center in the Netherlands is already taking them.

But in doing so, these workers’ groups are proposing echoing the jornada partida—the split working day—which allows people to take a break, have a long lunch, or enjoy a siesta (Spanish for nap). This daily structure has long proved controversial in Spain. The system means many employees in Spain take a two-hour lunch break during the hottest part of the day, but as a result, they end up working late into the evening. Around 30 percent of Spanish employees work until 7 pm, and 10 percent are still at their desks at 9 pm, according to the most recent government survey on working hours, done in 2010.

Typical working hours in Spain still follow that pattern, says Marta Junqué, coordinator at Time Use Barcelona, an association that campaigns against the jornada partida, adding that people in Spain usually start work around 9 am then take a two- or three-hour break at lunchtime, before returning to work for a second shift between 4 pm and 7 pm. It’s a misconception that this schedule was designed to avoid the heat, Junqué says. “The reason that Spain has this schedule is because when we had a dictatorship with Franco, most people needed two jobs to survive, one in the morning and in the afternoon.”

For years, there have been concerns in Spain that this is not the best way to do business. In 2016, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy tried to abolish the long lunch break, to bring the country’s working hours more in line with its neighbors. There are also concerns that the system is not ideal for work-life balance. “In Spain, people spend around 12 to 14 hours outside their home,” says Junqué. “They might only be working eight hours with a pause in the middle, but most people don’t have the capacity to go home [during their lunch break] because they live far away from where they are working.”

But unions in Belgium and Germany believe longer lunch breaks would ensure that workers stay safe during the heat. At temperatures above 24 degrees celsius (75 fahrenheit), workers are not only at risk of heatstroke, the risk of workplace accidents also rises as people begin to feel lethargic, says Claes-Mikael Stahl, deputy general secretary of Brussels-based NGO the European Trade Union, which is campaigning for the European Commission to introduce a law that would set a uniform, maximum temperature limit for work.

Right now, advice across the bloc varies wildly. For outdoor work, the maximum temperature is 36 degrees Celsius (97 Fahrenheit) in Montenegro, 28 (82 Fahrenheit) in Slovenia, and 18 (64) in Belgium, while some countries, like France, have no temperature cap at all.

“The reason that most people work outside in the heat is because it's work that has to be done. But it doesn't have to be done exactly at that time when it is hottest,” says Stahl. If a temperature cap was introduced, he believes employers could respond by readjusting working hours. “If you go to countries in southern Europe with a long experience of heat, you will find that they do have siestas” he says. “I think that reflects generations of wisdom, and I think we need to listen to that wisdom.”

As temperatures rise, a union in Germany is also advocating for a longer lunch break so construction workers can avoid the hottest part of the day. “Climate change is here, and the number of hot days will increase in the next few years,” said Carsten Burckhardt of the Industrial Union for Construction, Agriculture and the Environment (IG BAU) in a statement. “We should think about a much longer lunch break. In Spain this is called a siesta.” In high temperatures, construction workers are exposed to heat stroke as well as skin damage, and they also have to handle very hot materials, he adds. A roof tile, for example, can get as hot as 80 degrees (176 Fahrenheit) in the sun.

Rescheduling not only protects employees from heat stress, it can also boost productivity, says Lars Nybo, a professor of human physiology at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, adding that this is what he found when he studied agricultural workers in Italy.

Yet Nybo recognizes that the longer lunch break comes with trade-offs, something Spain has already realized. “From the physiological point of view, it makes perfect sense,” he says. “But in a practical setting, it may make more sense to see if you can start two or three hours earlier and end the day sooner.”

“I disagree that the solution is the normalization of jornada partida,” says Junqué, who also believes it would be better to start and finish the working day earlier. And if Northern Europe does want to adopt a Spanish-style working day, she urges them not to forget the questions longer lunch breaks raise in other parts of society: How do you sync working hours with schools? Does that mean shops have to stay open later? And will people get paid for these long lunch breaks?

How Siestas Might Help Europe Survive Deadly Heat Waves

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Why space debris keeps falling out of the sky—and will continue to do so

Over the last 15 years, from 2007 to 2021, insurance claims for Lyme disease diagnoses have exploded by 357 percent in rural areas. Although people typically encounter disease-carrying ticks in the woods and tall grassy areas, researchers from FAIR Health say urban communities are seeing a surge as well. The non-profit says urban areas across the U.S. have seen a 65-percent rise in Lyme cases since 2007.

Study authors analyzed a database of more than 36 billion privately-billed healthcare claims to discover this alarming trend.

From 2016 to 2021, Lyme disease diagnoses increased by 60 percent in rural America, while urban America saw a 19-percent increase. These cases typically reach their peak in June and July each year — as the country moves into the heart of summer. With more people outside in fields, parks, and other grassy areas, it’s no surprise more people in rural areas develop Lyme after a tick bite during these months.

Interestingly, the team found that there are more cases of Lyme in urban areas between November and April.

Where are Americans encountering ticks?

Historically, ticks are a major problem in the Northeast and upper Midwest, but the new study found that map may be growing in recent years. In 2017, the highest rates of Lyme diagnoses were found in New Jersey, Connecticut, North Carolina, Rhode Island, and Vermont — with North Carolina (third-highest) coming as a surprise to researchers.

In 2021, however, North Carolina did not make the top five. New Jersey continued to rank as the state with the greatest proportion of Lyme disease diagnosis claims in the United States. Vermont, Maine, Rhode Island, and Connecticut rounded out the top five. Researchers for FAIR Health add that the addition of Maine to the top five is also concerning, suggesting that disease-carrying ticks are now an issue in that state as well.

Lyme still a problem after treatment

The study also notes that Lyme disease can still affect patients long after a doctor treats the bacterial infection. While antibiotics can treat the illness, some patients can develop long-term symptoms, including fatigue, muscle and joint pain, and cognitive dysfunction.

“Lyme disease remains a growing public health concern. FAIR Health will continue to use its repository of claims data to provide actionable and relevant insights to healthcare stakeholders seeking to better understand the ongoing rise of Lyme disease cases,” says FAIR Health President Robin Gelburd in a media release.

Most cases of Lyme are mild, and some may not even know they’re sick. The tell-tale sign you’ve been bitten by a tick is a bullseye-like rash at the sight of infection. These cases are usually treatable with antibiotics.

In more serious and untreated cases however, Lyme can spread to the heart, joints, nervous system, and other major organs. These patients can develop neurological problems, weeks or even months after infection. Serious side-effects include inflammation of the brain (meningitis), temporary paralysis of the face, and weakness in the limbs.

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• A different pattern of laser pulses could make quantum computers way more stable.
•  New research uses a Fibonacci-inspired, non-repeating sequence to keep qubits spinning.
•  This creates a quasicrystal effect, with support in two dimensions instead of just one.

In new research, scientists have trained atoms to exhibit two forms of time at the same, well, time. While the phenomenon is not bending time away from what you’d expect looking at the clock, the matter shows behaviors from two different time modes, giving it special properties. Scientists believe this odd, double-time phenomenon could represent a new phase of matter.

Researchers from a few American universities, as well as Honeywell quantum-computing spinoff Quantinuum, collaborated on the new paper, which appeared late last month in the journal Nature. The experimental setup is made up of lasers and ytterbium atoms. Ytterbium is a metallic element whose arrangement of electrons makes it unusually suited to respond to laser treatments in a particular area of the wave spectrum. To trigger the new “dynamical topological phase,” scientists first hold ytterbium atoms in place using an electric ion field—like a tiny magnet—then bombard them with the right wavelength of laser to supercool the ytterbium.

Broomfield, Colorado-based Quantinuum studies a particular quantum computer that’s made of ten ytterbium atoms in a shared system. It’s these ten atoms, held by the electric fields mentioned above, that do the computing. A group of atoms can be entangled— meaning they’re intrinsically linked into a group that acts as one piece, despite being ten separate pieces. And within that, individual atoms can be tuned to reflect different information.

Think of how we write numbers. In binary, the largest ten-digit number is 1111111111, and that’s just 1,023 total. But you can write ten digits in base 10, our usual counting numbers, and get 9,999,999,999. That’s accomplished by simply increasing the number of possibilities that each digit can dial to from (0, 1) all the way up to to (0, 1, . . . . 8, 9). So what about a system where, theoretically, each of ten atoms could be positioned anywhere on the dial?

If that sounds amazing, you’re not wrong! There are multiple reasons why scientists and industry speculators around the world are watching the field of quantum computers with bated breath. But there’s still a very big catch, and that’s where this research comes in. The atoms in the quantum computer, known as quantum bits, or qubits, are really vulnerable, because we don’t yet have a great way to keep them in the quantum state for long.

That’s because of the observer principle in quantum physics: measuring a particle in a quantum state changes, and can even destroy, the quantum state. In this case, that means unhooking all the atoms from the shared yoke of entanglement. And even worse, the “observer” can be anything happening in the complex soup of air and forces and particles all around the quantum computer.

Back to the new experiment. While the ten atoms are in an entangled state, they’re fragile, and need to be more stable. Enter three of the scientists from this research team. In 2018, they theorized that that they could train the ytterbium atoms to kind of exist in two flows of time at once. They took inspiration from the Fibonacci sequence. In math, it’s a sequence of integers that starts with zero and follows a simple rule: that each number is equal to the sum of the previous two numbers. The beginning of the sequence would be 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, etc. The team pulsed the atoms with lasers that alternated in a pattern similar to the Fibonacci sequence, where the repetition of pulses grows by including pieces that came before. But, critically, no piece fully repeats.

By alternating pulses in this way, they created a quasicrystal, a term for a pattern that is not as regular or repeating as a true crystal, but that has many of the same qualities. The quasi-crystal occurs in two dimensions, by including both the idea of an alternating pulse and also a “magnitude” of the pulse pattern from the Fibonacci sequence, like an (x, y) plot of lines. Those two dimensions each come with their own version of the flow of time. And both are flattened, and included, in the single dimension of just one laser pulsing on and off.

Having the extra “support” of an added, virtual dimension of time helps to make the quantum computer a lot more stable, the researchers have confirmed four years after first theorizing it. That’s because instead of just one mode of time symmetry, something introduced by a rhythmic pulsing of lasers, this system has two modes. Like a throat singer, it’s “resonating” in two different patterns at the same time.

The results of this experiment really speak for themselves. With the traditional, single-mode laser blasts, the quantum computer stayed in the quantum state for 1.5 seconds, which is high for this kind of test. But when the researchers switched on the Fibonacci-inspired quasicrystal pulses, the system stayed in the quantum state for 5.5 seconds—a lifetime in quantum computing.

Quantinuum and its researchers are excited about the finding, but there is still a lot of work to be done. Next for them will be finding a way to merge this technology with a quantum computing system that is actually doing some computing. Hopefully, the increased stability will help support the system while its qubits are vulnerable to the observer effect.

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Two cosmic anomalies tell us that something big is missing from our model of the Universe. First, stars in the outer regions of a typical galaxy are orbiting the centre too fast for the galaxy’s gravity to hold onto them. By rights, they should fly off into intergalactic space.

The second anomaly is that you are reading these words – that is, galaxies like the Milky Way, and therefore you, exist. According to the standard picture of galaxy formation, regions of the cooling debris of the Big Bang that were slightly denser than average would have had slightly stronger gravity and pulled in material faster, enhancing their gravity so they pulled in matter even faster, and so on.

But this process – akin to the rich getting ever richer – could not have built galaxies as big as our Milky Way in the 13.8 billion years that the Universe has existed.

Confronted with these anomalies, most astronomers postulated that the Universe contains about five times as much invisible matter as visible stars and galaxies. It is the extra gravity of such ‘dark matter’, they claim, that holds onto stars in galaxies and sped up galaxy formation. However, an equally logical possibility is that, on cosmic scales, gravity is stronger than Newton would have predicted.

In 1981, the Israeli physicist Prof Mordechai Milgrom found that the anomalously orbital motion of stars in the outer regions of galaxies could be explained if they were experiencing a stronger form of gravity.

This would mean that gravity weakens less quickly with distance than the Newtonian theory of gravity predicts, and ‘switches’ to this form when the stars are experiencing a particular threshold acceleration towards the centre of their galaxies. Thus was born the hypothesis known today as modified Newtonian dynamics, or MOND.

Israeli physicist Prof Mordechai Milgrom first proposed the idea of MOND in 1981. © Weizmann Institute of Science

Stars are always experiencing an acceleration towards the centre of a galaxy. This is called centripetal acceleration. Gravity must provide this acceleration to keep them in orbit. The point is that in MOND, gravity switches to the stronger form at a threshold acceleration of 10-10 m/s2, which is generally found in the outer regions of big galaxies.

The majority of astronomers, however, persisted with the dark matter idea, and it has become an integral part of the standard model of cosmology, known as Lambda-CDM. Lambda refers to the mysterious ‘dark energy’ that is speeding up the expansion of the Universe, and CDM to ‘cold’ dark matter.

Because CDM consists of particles moving sluggishly, it is gathered into clumps by gravity – clumps which then pull in ordinary matter to make visible galaxies.

Now, physicists led by Dr Indranil Banik at St Andrews University in Scotland are claiming that observations of the Universe can, in fact, be better explained by a modification of our current theory of gravity than by dark matter.

Lambda-CDM is very good at explaining what we observe, they say. “But this is usually after the event,” says Banik. “MOND has been better at predicting things in advance of observations.”

One apparent shortcoming of MOND is that it still needs an element of dark matter to explain the motions of galaxies in galaxy clusters – possibly a hypothetical heavy particle known as a sterile neutrino. However, Banik does not see this as necessarily a problem.

“In our Solar System, the anomalous orbits of two planets required new explanations,” he says. “For Uranus, it was the pull of a new planet, Neptune – the original dark matter. For Mercury, it was a new theory of gravity, namely Einstein’s.”

The main thesis of Banik and his St Andrews colleague is that there are several observations that dark matter cannot explain, but that modified gravity can. For instance, the former predicts that satellite galaxies should be distributed spherically, like a swarm of bees – but in many galaxies, including our own, they orbit in a single plane.

Also, the bar-shaped structures made of stars that are seen in the heart of some spiral galaxies should be slowed by a ‘dark matter bar’ rotating just behind them. “However, in 42 bars whose speeds have been measured, this has not been seen,” says Banik.

Proponents of dark matter, on the other hand, see these things as discrepancies that will eventually be explained, not as fatal flaws in the paradigm.

“A lot of interlinked observations make sense only with dark matter,” says Prof James Peebles of Princeton University, who won the Nobel Prize for the cold dark matter theory.

“That is not to say that the Lambda-CDM theory is the whole truth; but it is a good approximation.”

Banik disagrees. However, he does not think experimenters looking for dark matter particles on Earth should give up; merely that they should design future experiments so that, even if they fail to find dark matter candidates, they reveal something important about nature.

“For instance, a search for sterile neutrinos, even if they are not found, will tell us about neutrinos,” Banik says.

“Since their properties are not predicted by the Standard Model of particle physics, anything we discover would give us hints at the deeper Theory of Everything, of which the Standard Model is thought to be an approximation.”

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Consciousness researcher Robert Prentner and cognitive psychologist will tell a prestigious music and philosophy festival in London next month that great physicist Donald Hoffman, quantum physicist Erwin Schrödinger (1887–1961) believed that “The total number of minds in the universe is one.” That is, a universal Mind accounts for everything.

In a world where many scientists strive mightily to explain how the human mind can arise from non-living matter, Prentner and Hoffman will tell the HowtheLightGetsIn festival in London (September 17–18, 2022) that the author of the famous Cat paradox was hardly a materialist:

In 1925, just a few months before Schrödinger discovered the most basic equation of quantum mechanics, he wrote down the first sketches of the ideas that he would later develop more thoroughly in “Mind and Matter”. Already then, his thoughts on technical matters were inspired by what he took to be greater metaphysical (religious) questions. Early on, Schrödinger expressed the conviction that metaphysics does not come after physics, but inevitably precedes it. Metaphysics is not a deductive affair but a speculative one.

 Robert Prentner, Donald Hoffman, “Schrödinger and the conscious universe” at IAI News[ (July 25, 2022)

Inspired by Indian philosophy, Schrödinger had a mind-first, not matter-first, view of the universe. But he was a non-materialist of a rather special kind. He believed that there is only one mind in the universe; our individual minds are like the scattered light from prisms:

A metaphor that Schrödinger liked to invoke to illustrate this idea is the one of a crystal that creates a multitude of colors (individual selves) by refracting light (standing for the cosmic self that is equal to the essence of the universe). We are all but aspects of one single mind that forms the essence of reality. He also referred to this as the doctrine of identity. Accordingly, a non-dual form of consciousness, which must not be conflated with any of its single aspects, grounds the refutation of the (merely apparent) distinction into separate selves that inhabit a single world.

 Robert Prentner, Donald Hoffman, “Schrödinger and the conscious universe” at IAI News[ (July 25, 2022)

But in Mind and Matter (1958), Schrödinger, we are told, took this view one step further:

Schrödinger drew remarkable consequences from this. For example, he believed that any man is the same as any other man that lived before him. In his early essay “Seek for the Road”, he writes about looking into the mountains before him. Thousands of years ago, other men similarly enjoyed this view. But why should one assume that oneself is distinct from these previous men? Is there any scientific fact that could distinguish your experience from another man’s? What makes you you and not someone else? Similarly as John Wheeler once assumed that there is really only one electron in the universe, Schrödinger assumed that there really is only one mind. Schrödinger thought this is supported by “the empirical fact that consciousness is never experienced in the plural, only in the singular. Not only has none of us ever experienced more than one consciousness, but there is also no trace of circumstantial evidence of this ever happening anywhere in the world.”

 Robert Prentner, Donald Hoffman, “Schrödinger and the conscious universe” at IAI News[ (July 25, 2022)

Most non-materialists will wish they had gotten off two stops ago. We started with Mind first, which — when accounting for why there is something rather than nothing — has been considered a reasonable assumption throughout history across the world (except among materialists). But the assumption that no finite mind could experience or act independently of the Mind behind the universe is a limitation on the power of that Mind. Why so?

It’s not logically clear — and logic is our only available instrument here — why the original Mind could not grant to dogs, chimpanzees, and humans the power to apprehend and act as minds in their own right in their natural spheres — not simply as seamless extensions of the universal Mind.

With humans, the underlying assumptions of Schrödinger’s view are especially problematic. Humans address issues of good and evil. If Schrödinger is right, for example, Dr. Martin Luther King, and Comrade Josef Stalin are really “only one mind” because each experienced only his own consciousness. But wait. As a coherent human being, each could only have experienced his own consciousness and not the other man’s.

However, that doesn’t mean that they were mere prisms displaying different parts of the spectrum of broken light. The prism analogy fails to take into account that humans can act for good or ill. Alternatively, it is saying that good and evil, as we perceive them, are merely different colors in a spectrum.

As noted earlier, many of us should have got off two stops ago…

In any event, Schrödinger’s views are certain to be an interesting discussion at HowLightGetsIn.

Schrödinger was hardly the only modern physicist or mathematician to dissent from materialism. Mathematician Kurt Gödel (1906–1978), to take one example, destroyed a popular form of atheism (logical positivism) via his Incompleteness Theorems.

The two thinkers held very different views, of course. But both saw the fatal limitations of materialism (naturalism) and they addressed these limitations quite differently. In an age when Stephen Hawking’s disdain for philosophy is taken to be representative of great scientists, it’s a good thing if festivals like HowLightGetsIn offer a broader perspective — and corrective.

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Solidified in the 1970s, the Standard Model consists of 17 fundamental particles that make up a big chunk of (but not quite all) matter in the universe. There are two main camps these 17 particles can be sorted into:“fermions” and“bosons.” Roughly speaking, you can think of fermions as the “stuff” of matter and bosons as the forces moving that stuff around. Within the fermion family there are six“leptons,” which includes electrons, and six particles called“quarks.”

© MARK GARLICK/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY - Getty Images

Conceptual illustration showing the Standard Model particles with their heavier superpartners introduced by the supersymmetry (SUSY) principle. In supersymmetry, force and matter are treated identically. Using supersymmetry, physicists may find solutions for a bunch of problems like the weakness of gravity, the low mass of the Higgs boson, the unification of forces, or even dark matter.

While we’re taught in school that matter is made up of protons, neutrons, and electrons, only one of these particles is considered “fundamental,” meaning it cannot be broken into smaller pieces. Because of this, only electrons can be classed as a fundamental lepton particle, and protons and neutrons are instead represented by their respective quarks. In particular, protons and neutrons are both a mix of “up” and “down” quarks.

In the wild, it’s these up and down quarks that physicists observe most often, but there are also four other variations of these quarks that are increasingly heavier and less stable. Related to up, you also have “charm” and “top” quarks, and for down, you have “strange” and “bottom” quarks.

The lepton family also includes a kind of “superlight” particle, called a “neutrino,” that comes in three flavors associated with the other non-quark leptons: tau neutrino, muon neutrino, and electron neutrino. (“Flavor” is the name that physicists give to different versions of the same kind of particle.) Neutrinos are often referred to as a “ghost” particle because they rarely interact with other matter and can only be spotted through the tracks they leave behind.

Together, leptons and quarks make up all matter we interact with in our universe. However, these particles would be nothing without bosons to ferry them around or stick them together. For all 12 fermions, there are only five known bosons:

•  Photons, which carry the electromagnetic force

•  Gluons, which hold quarks to each other with the strong force to help create atoms

•  W and Z bosons, which are responsible for the weak force and radioactive decay

•  Higgs, the most recent addition to the group, which gives mass to other particles

Altogether, these bosons create four out of five fundamental forces, with gravity being a glaring exception. Because gravity’s effect at the subatomic level is so tiny, it cannot easily fit into the framework of the Standard Model—despite physicists’ best efforts.

Gravity’s omission from this family picture is just one of several problems with the Standard Model, leading more and more physicists to believe that its reign as the ultimate physics theory may be waning. In addition to failing to incorporate gravity, the Standard Model also doesn’t offer up an explanation for the massive amounts of dark energy and dark matter that make up 95 percent of the universe, according to NASA.

There are also rumblings through other sectors of particle physics, like neutrino research, of observations of particle behavior not quite adding up with the Standard Model’s predictions. Does this mean the whole model should be thrown away? Probably not. However, it does mean that physicists are becoming more interested in moving “beyond” Standard Model physics—that is, looking to uncover which kinds of unknown forces may also be tugging on these particles. In its third run, which began earlier this month, the LHC will be looking for some of these incongruities.

Depending on what physicists find in the years to come, our understanding of the subatomic world, and the universe itself, may be about to change forever.

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A new species of panda has been uncovered by scientists who state it is currently the last known and “most evolved” European giant panda. It lumbered through the forested wetlands of Bulgaria around six million years ago.

Unearthed from the bowels of the Bulgarian National Museum of Natural History, two fossils of teeth originally discovered in the eastern European nation in the late 1970s, provide new evidence of a sizable relative of the modern giant panda. Unlike today’s iconic black and white bear, however, it was not purely reliant on bamboo for sustenance.

“Although not a direct ancestor of the modern genus of the giant panda, it is its close relative,” explains the Museum’s Professor Nikolai Spassov, whose findings are published today (August 1, 2022) in the peer-reviewed Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

“This discovery shows how little we still know about ancient nature and demonstrates also that historic discoveries in paleontology can lead to unexpected results, even today.”

The teeth, an upper carnassial tooth and an upper canine, were originally cataloged by paleontologist Ivan Nikolov. He added them to the museum’s trove of fossilized treasures after they were unearthed in northwestern Bulgaria decades ago. This new species is named Agriarctos nikolovi in his honor.

“They had only one label written vaguely by hand,” recalls Professor Spassov. “It took me many years to figure out what the locality was and what its age was. Then it also took me a long time to realize that this was an unknown fossil giant panda.”

The coal deposits in which the teeth were found – which have imbued them with a blackened hue – suggest that this ancient panda inhabited forested, swampy regions.

There, during the Miocene epoch, it likely consumed a largely vegetarian diet – but not purely reliant on bamboo!

Fossils of the staple grass that sustains the modern panda are rare in the European fossil record, especially in the Bulgarian late Miocene period. Additionally, the cusps of the teeth do not appear strong enough to crush the woody stems.

Instead, it likely fed on softer plant materials—aligning with the general trend toward increased reliance on plants in this group’s evolutionary history.
Sharing their environment with other large predators likely drove the giant panda lineage toward vegetarianism.

“The likely competition with other species, especially carnivores and presumably other bears, explains the closer food specialization of giant pandas to vegetable food in humid forest conditions,” states Professor Spassov.

A. nikolovi’s teeth nonetheless provided ample defense against predators, the paper speculates. In addition, the canines are comparable in size to those of the modern panda, suggesting that they belonged to a similarly sized or only slightly smaller animal.

The authors propose that A. nikolovi may have become extinct as a result of climate change, probably because of the ‘Messinian salinity crisis’. This event, in which the Mediterranean basin dried up, significantly altered the surrounding terrestrial environments.

“Giant pandas are a very specialized group of bears,” Professor Spassov adds. “Even if A. niklovi was not as specialized in habitats and food as the modern giant panda, fossil pandas were specialized enough and their evolution was related to humid, wooded habitats. It is likely that climate change at the end of the Miocene in southern Europe, leading to aridification, had an adverse effect on the existence of the last European panda.”

Co-author Qigao Jiangzuo, from Peking University, China, was primarily responsible in helping to narrow down the identity of this strange beast to belonging to the Ailuropodini – a tribe within the Ursidae bear family. While this group of animals is best known by its only living representative, the giant panda, they once ranged across Europe and Asia. Intriguingly, the authors propose two potential pathways for the distribution of this group.

One possible evolutionary trajectory has the Ailuropodini heading out of Asia and concluding in A. nikolovi in Europe. However, Professor Spassov does add caution to this hypothesis, stating that the paleontological data show that “the oldest members of this group of bears were found in Europe.” This suggests that the group may have developed in Europe and then headed to Asia, where the ancestors of another genus, Ailurarctos, developed. These early pandas may then have later evolved into Ailuropoda—the modern giant panda.

Reference: “Discovery of a late Turolian giant panda in Bulgaria and the early evolution and dispersal of panda lineage” 1 August 2022, Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

DOI: 10.1080/02724634.2021.2054718

Funding: Second Tibetan Plateau Scientific Expedition and Research, Chinese Natural Science Foundation Program, Strategic Priority Research Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Key Frontier Science Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences

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Signals buried deep in data from gravitational wave observatories imply a collision of two black holes that were clearly born in different places.

Almost all the spacetime ripples that experiments like the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, or LIGO, see come from collisions among black holes and neutron stars that are probably close family members (SN: 1/21/21). They were once pairs of stars born at the same time and in the same place, eventually collapsing to form orbiting black holes or neutron stars in old age.

Now, a newly noted marriage of black holes, found in existing data from U.S.–based LIGO and its sister observatory Virgo in Italy, seems to be of an unrelated pair. Evidence for this stems from how they were spinning as they merged into one, researchers report in a paper in press at Physical Review D.

Black holes that are born in the same place tend to have their spins aligned, like a pair of toy tops spinning on a table, as they orbit each other. But the pair in this case have no correlation between their respective spins and orbits, implying that they were born in different places.

“This is telling us we’ve finally found a pair of black holes that must come from the non-grow-old-and-die-together channel,” says Seth Olsen, a physicist at Princeton University.

Previous events that have turned up in gravitational wave observations show back holes merging that aren’t perfectly aligned, but most are close enough to strongly imply family connections. The new detection, which Olsen and colleagues found by sifting through data that the LIGO-Virgo collaboration released to the public, is different. One of the black holes is effectively spinning upside down.

That can’t easily happen unless the two black holes come from separate places. They probably met late in their stellar lives, unlike the black hole littermates that seem to make up the bulk of gravitational wave observations.

In addition to the merger between unrelated black holes, Olsen and his collaborators identified nine other black hole mergers that had slipped through the prior LIGO-Virgo studies (SN: 8/4/21).

“This is actually the nice thing about this type of analysis,” says LIGO scientific collaboration spokesperson Patrick Brady, a physicist at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee who was not affiliated with the new study. “We deliver the data in a format that can be used by other people and then [they] will have access to try out new techniques.”

To compile so many new signals in data that had already been gone over by other researchers, Olsen’s group lowered the analytical bar a little.

“Out of the 10 new ones,” Olsen says, “there are about three of them, statistically, that probably come from noise,” rather than being definitive black hole merger detections. Assuming that the merger of black holes strangers is not among the errant signals, it almost certainly tells a tale of black hole histories distinct from the others seen so far.

“It would be [extremely] unlikely for this to come from two black holes that have been together for their whole lifespan,” Olsen says. “This must have been a capture. That’s cool because we’re finally able to start probing that region of the [black hole] population.”

Brady notes that “we don’t understand the theory [of black hole mergers] well enough to be able to confidently predict all of these types of things.” But the recent study may point to new and interesting opportunities in gravitational wave astronomy. “Let’s follow this clue to see if it really is reflecting something rare,” he says. “Or if not, well, we’ll learn other things.”

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Patients will notice missing areas in peripheral vision. In a bilateral occipital lobe stroke, a patient may experience profound loss of vision in both eyes.

When the carotid artery in the neck or in the head is blocked from a clot, this clot may spread to the artery supplying the retina and can cause vision loss.

There are certain areas in the brain which operate as perceptual segments of the visual pathway. When this is affected through stroke there may be impaired visuospatial function, impaired visual attention or deficits in visual recognition.

When the brain stem is affected, a patient may experience double vision since it can affect cranial nerves that control eye movements. Eyes will be misaligned in such cases.

Stroke can sometimes cause darting movements of the eye called nystagmus. Some strokes can cause unequal pupils.

Are there warning signs of a stroke that affect your eyes?

A person should be concerned if they have the following symptoms:

1.  Transient loss of vision in one or both eyes.
2.  Sudden severe vision loss in one or both eyes.
3.  Missing areas in the peripheral field.
4.  Right or left sided loss of peripheral vision.
5.  Double vision.
6.  Symptoms of dizziness.
7.  Darting eye movements.

 What should I do if I experience these symptoms?
 

If you experience the above symptoms, seek immediate attention. Do not wait for symptoms to resolve or improve on their own. You should get your eyes urgently checked with your local eye doctor. If you are unable to get an immediate eye exam, please get yourself evaluated in the nearest emergency room as soon as possible.

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Following this and with 45 cases in Australia, Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly declared last week that monkeypox is now a "communicable disease incident of national significance."

So what is monkeypox? And who's eligible for a vaccine?

Most cases in the current global outbreak are occurring among men who have sex with men. How can this group and others who are at risk protect themselves?

What is monkeypox?

Monkeypox is not a new disease, it was found in the late 1950s in lab primates in Denmark, and was first diagnosed in humans in an infant in the 1970s in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

In the past, monkeypox has mainly been transmitted from infected animals to humans (it is a zoonotic disease), and has been endemic to West and Central Africa. Transmission can occur through contact with infected animals including rodents, mice, rats, squirrels, monkeys and other primates.

But in this outbreak we're seeing human-to-human transmission.

There are two distinct strains of monkeypox. These are the Central African and the West African types, the latter of which is believed to be one linked to the current global outbreak.

According to U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data, 23,620 cases have been reported since May in 80 countries, with 73 countries that had no previous reported monkeypox cases.

There have been at least seven deaths.

Most of the cases in Australia have been in New South Wales and Victoria, among returned travelers and men who have sex with men, and in the age group 21–40 years.

The declaration that monkeypox is now a disease of national significance means the outbreak requires national policies, interventions and public health messaging, with the deployment of more resources to assist affected areas and groups most at risk.

 "I literally screamed out loud in pain': my two weeks of monkeypox hell https://t.co/aP1p3igug7

 — The Guardian (@guardian) July 24, 2022

Symptoms and transmission

The incubation period—the time taken to develop the disease after exposure to the virus—is usually around 6–13 days.

Transmission generally requires close contact with an infected person. It can be transmitted via respiratory droplets.

It can also be transmitted through direct contact with body fluids or the rash ("lesions"), often through skin-on-skin contact, or indirect contact such as through contaminated clothing or bedding.

Transmission may occur from people without symptoms, or with barely-detectable symptoms.

Symptoms are similar to smallpox, though less severe. They can include:

•  fever

•  headache

•  aches

•  fatigue

•  sweats and chills

•  cough and sore throat

•  a rash that can look like blisters or pimples, which can be painful. These "lesions" typically go through several stages before eventually falling off.

The CDC says most people who get the virus will develop the rash.

A study in the British Medical Journal published last week also found 88% of 197 people with monkeypox in London had lesions on their genitals or anus.

Symptoms generally last between two and four weeks, and the disease usually resolves on its own. Most adults with a healthy immune system won't have severe illness and won't experience long-term harmful effects.

There's no specific treatment for monkeypox yet. People with the infection should be given supportive treatment and light dressings on the rash, depending on the symptoms. Antivirals such as "tecovirimat" have been made available to patients in some countries who have or are at high risk of severe disease, such as being immunocompromised.

People with the infection should isolate immediately for the duration of the illness—usually two to four weeks, until the lesions heal.

Higher risk groups

Monkeypox can affect anyone. But men who have sex with men are at higher risk at the moment. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said 98% of cases so far are among men who have sex with men.

It's important we provide as much information about the virus as possible, and it's absolutely crucial we do this in a way that is not stigmatizing.

This outbreak is seeing cases spread via close prolonged contact from sexual activity in the LGBTIQ+ group. Many from this group want to take proactive actions to help their community.

Specific actions governments can take include:

•  prioritizing vaccines as a matter of urgency for those most at risk

•  targeting public health messaging so the LGBTIQ+ community can make informed decisions.

Actions individuals can take include:

•  maintaining contact details of sexual partners in case of need to follow up

•  avoiding sex if you have a rash until you get tested

•  considering avoiding skin to skin contact during large gatherings

•  if diagnosed with monkeypox, avoiding close physical contact, including sexual contact, with other people for the duration of the illness.

The CDC says condoms may help lower the risk of spread if the lesions are confined to the genital and/or anal region, but they're likely not enough to prevent transmission on their own.

Who should have the vaccine?

Australia has secured small supplies of two smallpox vaccines, which provide protection against monkeypox.

The vaccine advisory body, the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunization (ATAGI), has recommended key risk groups be administered the vaccines.

They include:

•  those identified as a high risk monkeypox contact in the past 14 days

•  men who have sex with men who are at high risk of exposure. This includes those living with HIV, or with a recent history of a high number of sexual partners or group sex

•  sex workers, with clients in high-risk categories

•  and anyone in the risk categories planning travel to a country experiencing a significant outbreak, with vaccination recommended four to six weeks prior to leaving.

ATAGI has stated that vaccination within four days of exposure to someone who's infectious with monkeypox will provide the highest chance of preventing disease.

Avoiding close contact with people who have the infection can help prevent transmission. Monkeypox doesn't spread as easily as the coronavirus and can be kept under control if we are cautious.

The need for vaccine equity and global health leadership

We can't repeat the "vaccine nationalism" we've seen during COVID with rich countries hoarding vaccine doses, as this will unjustly prolong the outbreak.

Currently, according to The Lancet medical journal, a smallpox vaccine sold as "Jynneos" in the US costs around US$100 a dose. The WHO has called on countries and manufacturers to ensure the vaccines, as well as diagnostics and therapeutics, are made available "at reasonable cost" where most needed.

Thus we have major political and policy challenges ahead and will need strong global health leadership going forward.

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A diagnosis of breast cancer is traumatic and life altering for women and their loved ones. This potentially deadly disease is often treated by surgical removal of the breast cancer tumor followed by chemotherapy. Side effects associated with chemotherapy can be severe and tumor recurrence may result in a shortened lifespan for vulnerable women.

In an encouraging development, researchers from the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine at the National University of Singapore (NUS Medicine) have succeeded in using a plant-derived nutrient supplement to shrink breast cancer tumors in preclinical models. The team at NUS Medicine used a novel nanotechnology to repurpose a nutritional component in plants to become a potent treatment for breast cancer.

As the nanotechnology converts the plant nutrient into chemotherapy only at the site of the tumor, the treatment is both potent and free from side effects at the same time. Although the study was performed in preclinical models using the new technology, human breast cancer cells were used as the target: these responded with a complete remission. The researchers hope to next apply the technology in clinical trials and for additional solid tumors which are difficult to treat or are difficult to remove via standard surgery.

The use of plant-based natural products transformed by a process called 'bioorthogonal catalysis' to shrink breast cancer tumors is ground-breaking technology, said Chester Drum, Assistant Professor at NUS Medicine and Senior Consultant in the Department of Cardiology, National University Heart Centre, Singapore. In essence, a benign nutritional supplement, IAA, was repurposed to become a potent treatment for breast cancer tumors. IAA is present in the everyday diet and thus has no side effects.

"In the new approach, following administration of the plant-derived molecule, an engineered nanotechnology converts the molecule into a potent chemotherapeutic only at the site of cancer, meaning that side effects in the rest of the body can be avoided," added Assistant Professor Drum. Because the chemical conversion of natural product to chemotherapy is not normally present in the human body, it is called 'bioorthogonal catalysis'.

Although the study treated breast cancer tumors derived from human patients, preclinical models were used as the experimental cancer host as the technology is still too early to be used in hospital clinics. The researchers plan to next develop a simple gel which can be placed at the site of a tumor removal after a surgery and require the patient to only eat a nutritional supplement to prevent recurrence of the cancer.

The paper was published in ACS Nano.

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Detergents play a role in everyday life, from removing tough stains and cleaning messy hands to fixing sticky locks. On the nanoscale, they are extremely destructive, and only a few droplets in water can rupture and kill living organisms. This property has led to their widespread use and many soap formulations have been developed to kill disease-carrying viruses, including COVID-19.

Disease

Dr. Steve Quinn, from the School of of Physics, Engineering and Technology at the University of York, said: "Understanding the precise molecular-level mechanisms through which detergents work may help us better design antiviral agents that can combat disease at the earliest possible stage."

"We realized that the same tools and techniques we developed to understand how proteins disrupt cell membranes in Alzheimer's disease could also be used to understand the general mechanisms of detergents. This now opens up an exciting avenue of research, and gives us an opportunity to identify types of different membrane structures that may be detergent resistant."

Protective

For the study, the scientists looked at the detergent Tween-20, which is a key protective ingredient in many products such as handwashes.

Detergent molecules like Tween-20 are shaped like an ice cream cone. At the top of the cone is a region that interacts strongly with water, and at the bottom a group of atoms repel water and form a pointed tail. When you wash your hands with soap, an army of detergent molecules surround the bacteria and viruses on your skin, and in an attempt to escape the surrounding water, they scurry towards and bombard them, tails first, squeezing their membrane envelopes and breaking them apart.

The chemical properties of detergents have been studied in detail, but until now the precise, molecular level details of the interaction have been difficult to assess because of a lack of tools and techniques capable of capturing the entire process.

Interactions

Dr. Quinn and his research team have now developed a series of methods to try and learn more about these important interactions. His team create a series of highly-controllable membrane balls, and they use a molecular nanoruler known as single-molecule FRET (fluorescence resonance energy transfer), to measure how constituents of the membranes move apart during their interaction with detergents.

The team discovered that after Tween-20 binds to the membranes, the balls expand significantly and pores form on their surface before they completely fragment.

To confirm their findings, the researchers used computer simulations to model how the membranes evolved.

Hidden

Dr. Quinn added: "The experimental results from different approaches matched up extremely well, and the molecular dynamics simulations allowed us to extract otherwise hidden physics governing the process. The culture of interdisciplinarity within the Physics of Life group at York was truly pivotal for this work.

"The idea that only a handful of detergent molecules could cause such dramatic shape changes was really quite surprising."

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The major parties were virtually silent on the issues of gender equity and climate change throughout the 2022 election campaign. Yet, both issues proved to be turning points for the Australian electorate.

Climate change—one of the key platforms on which the teal candidates successfully campaigned—is central to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's parliamentary agenda. A bill to enshrine a climate target into Australian law was among the first introduced to parliament last week.

Women are on the front line of climate change impacts, which makes our experiences and leadership critical at decision-making tables. From Barbados to Finland, we've seen women's leadership on climate bring fair, innovative and ambitious policies. We hope a new era in Australian climate policy is upon us, too.

Women and climate change

Women around the world are disproportionately impacted by climate change due to existing systemic inequalities. For example in Africa, when disaster strikes, women may find it more difficult to evacuate their homes as primary caregivers, be unable to read written warnings, or be overlooked in rescue attempts in favor of men.

Australia's experience is no exception. For example, researchers note sharp surges in domestic violence in the wake of disasters, such as bushfires.

Women also have a critical role to play in achieving ambitious and innovative climate action. As the Women's Leadership statement at last year's Glasgow climate summit noted: "Despite increased vulnerability to climate impacts, we recognize that women and girls have been creating and leading innovative climate solutions at all levels."

There are scores of examples of female climate leadership and the benefits that follow when women and girls are afforded the opportunity to take a lead on climate action, throughout recent history.

Notable examples include Christiana Figueres, who steered international climate negotiations to a successful outcome in 2015, with the adoption of the Paris Agreement.

Greta Thunberg's vigil to sit outside the Swedish Parliament every Friday protesting inadequate climate action inspired a youth climate protest movement.

Other young women such as National Director of Seed Mob Amelia Telford in Australia, and Pacific Climate Warriors founding member Brianna Fruean are at the forefront of First Nations' climate advocacy efforts.

An OECD Working Paper released this year notes that women's participation in decision-making often leads to the development of comparatively strong and sustainable climate policies and goals.

Case in point, Finland, under leadership of progressive Prime Minister Sanna Marin, recently committed to one of the most ambitious climate targets, legislating net zero by 2035 and carbon negative by 2040.

Meanwhile, Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley aims to phase out fossil fuels by 2030 and is a passionate advocate for developing nations vulnerable to climate change.

In the private sector, women's participation is also crucial. The OECD cites evidence that when women occupy at least 30% of board seats they bring about change to climate governance within companies.

An end to Australia's climate wars?

The Australian government's sharp focus on climate change is a far cry from the "climate wars" that have been a roadblock to meaningful climate policy in this country for the past decade.

But Australia wasn't always a problem country in international climate negotiations. At times, we've been a climate leader.

Under Julia Gillard's Labor government, for example, Australia was one of the first countries to introduce a national legislated carbon price in 2011. This changed in 2013, when the newly elected Prime Minister Tony Abbott swiftly repealed this landmark law. Almost a decade of inaction on climate change by the federal government followed.

Signs of progress on climate change began to take shape at the 2019 federal election, when conservative but green Independent MP Zali Steggall ousted Tony Abbott from his long-held seat of Warringah.

The May election then brought a teal wave of female independents, along with gains for Greens and Labor women candidates. These women—such as Kate Chaney, Zoe Daniels, Monique Ryan, Sophie Scamps, Kylea Tink, Zali Steggall and Allegra Spender—are set to play a transformative role in our politics and society.

They campaigned on a climate and integrity platform, calling for stronger 2030 climate targets, increased renewable energy generation and passing a Climate Change Act to legislate and lock in emissions reduction targets.

Labor's Climate Change Bill was one of the first pieces of legislation to be introduced to the new parliament, and negotiations are now well underway between Labor, the Greens and the female independents to pass it.

An early success borne from these negotiations has been establishing that Labor's current target—43% emissions reduction by 2030—is a floor, not a ceiling, for ambition.

Still, as Kate Chaney put it in her first speech, "we need to go further." This includes addressing questions about accountability for achieving the target, and a mechanism to ensure future governments continue to lift their ambition.

Toward a positive climate future

The success of the teal independents represents the enormous groundswell of anger and frustration felt by many people who might have, in the past, voted for the Coalition government.

This immense transformation points to the need for Australia to place gender equity, climate action and integrity at the center of our decision-making.

As our national climate laws and policies take shape, we watch with anticipation to see how Albanese will navigate two houses occupied by women with strong, clear climate objectives and unprecedented support from their electorates.

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NASA recently awarded the University of Nebraska-Lincoln $100,000 through the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) at the University of Nebraska Omaha to ready the surgical robot for a 2024 test mission aboard the International Space Station.

"NASA has been a long-term supporter of this research and, as a culmination of that effort, our robot will have a chance to fly on the International Space Station," Farritor said.

Farritor is co-founder of Virtual Incision, a startup company based on Nebraska Innovation Campus. For nearly 20 years, he and his colleagues have been developing the tiny surgical robot known as MIRA, short for "miniaturized in vivo robotic assistant." The company thus far has attracted more than $100 million in venture capital investment since its founding in 2006.

During the next year, Farritor and engineering graduate student Rachael Wagner will write software, configure MIRA to fit inside a space station experiment locker and exhaustively test the device to make sure it's robust enough to survive launch and its systems will perform as anticipated in space. Then, they will wait a year or so for the robot to get its turn aboard the station.

Wagner, who is from Lincoln, began working with Farritor as an undergraduate student and took a position with Virtual Incision after completing her bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering in 2018. A second graduate student may join the team later in 2022.

MIRA has two key advantages. First, it can be inserted through a small incision, enabling doctors to perform abdominal surgery in a minimally invasive manner. In previous tests, surgeons have successfully used the device to perform colon resections.

Secondly, the technology could enable surgeons to work remotely—perhaps someday repairing an astronaut's ruptured appendix on a mission to Mars or removing shrapnel from a soldier injured by an IED thousands of miles distant. In a previous experiment, retired NASA astronaut Clayton Anderson took the robot's controls while at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, directing MIRA to perform surgery-like tasks in an operating room 900 miles away at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha.

During its trip aboard the space station, MIRA will work autonomously, without the guiding hand of a doctor or an astronaut. Inside a microwave oven-sized experiment locker, it will cut tautly stretched rubber bands and push metal rings along a wire, gestures that simulate those used in surgery.

"These simulations are very important because of all the data we will collect during the tests," Wagner said.

It will be the most autonomous operation of the robot so far. Although Farritor anticipates MIRA will function on its own in 50 to 100 years, this mission's goal is not autonomy, but to fine-tune the robot's operation in zero gravity.

The device is being programmed to work autonomously to conserve space station communications bandwidth and to minimize the amount of time astronauts spend with the experiment.

"The astronaut flips a switch, the process starts and the robot does its work by itself," Farritor said. "Two hours later, the astronaut switches it off and it's done."

Farritor, who is David and Nancy Lederer Professor of Engineering, serves as chief technology officer of Virtual Incision, founded with former University of Nebraska Medical Center professor of surgery Dmitry Oleynikov. In April 2022, Farritor was named the inaugural winner of the University of Nebraska system's intellectual property award, the Faculty IP Innovation and Commercialization Award.

Both NASA and the U.S. Army have provided funding for Farritor's robotics research.

"As people go further and deeper into space, they might need to do surgery someday," Farritor said. "We're working toward that goal."

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Fireballs Aotearoa, a collaboration between astronomers and citizen scientists which aims to recover freshly fallen meteorites, has received a lot of questions about these events. One of the most frequent is about the bright green color, and whether it is the same green produced by auroras.

A bright green meteor. (Greg Price)

Green fireballs have been reported and filmed in New Zealand regularly. Bright meteors often signal the arrival of a chunk of asteroid, which can be anywhere between a few centimeters to a meter in diameter when it comes crashing through the atmosphere.

Some of these asteroids contain nickel and iron and they hit the atmosphere at speeds of up to 60 km (37 miles) per second. This releases an enormous amount of heat very quickly, and the vaporized iron and nickel radiate green light.

But is this the same as the bright green of an aurora? For the most recent meteor, the answer is mainly no, but it's actually not that simple.

An Aurora Australis observed from the International Space Station. (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-ND)

The colors of a meteor trail

The green glow of the aurora is caused by oxygen ions in the upper atmosphere, created by collisions between atmospheric oxygen molecules and particles ejected by the sun.

These oxygen ions recombine with electrons to produce oxygen atoms, but the electrons can persist in an excited state for several seconds. In an energy transition known as "forbidden" because it does not obey the usual quantum rules, they then radiate the auroral green light at 557 nm wavelength.

A meteor can also shine by this route, but only if it's extremely fast. Very fast meteors heat up in the thin atmosphere above 100 km where auroras form.
If you want to see a green auroral wake from a meteor, watch out for the Perseid meteor shower, which has now started and will peak on August 13 in the Southern Hemisphere.

Also arriving at about 60 km per second, the Perseids are extremely fast bits of the comet Swift-Tuttle. Some Perseids trail a beautiful, glowing and distinctly green wake behind them, particularly at the start of their path.

Once the Canterbury meteor hit on July 22, the capricious winds of the upper atmosphere twisted the gently glowing trail, resulting in a pale yellow glow towards the end (as seen in the GIF below, also recorded by Greg Price for an earlier meteor).

This is caused by sodium atoms being continually excited in a catalytic reaction involving ozone.

(Greg Price)

Are we being bombarded by meteors?

Yes and no. The arrival of big, booming green meteors and the dropping of meteorites isn't rare in New Zealand, but it is rare to recover the rock. Fireballs Aotearoa is working to improve the recovery rate.

In an average year, perhaps four meteorites hit New Zealand. We're encouraging citizen scientists to build their own meteor camera systems so they can catch these events.

By comparing the meteor against the starry background and triangulating images caught by multiple cameras, we can pin down the meteor's position in the atmosphere to within tens of meters.

The July 22 meteor as seen by a specialized meteor camera. (Campbell Duncan/NASA/CAMS NZ)

Not only does that help us find the rock, but it tells us what the pre-impact orbit of the meteoroid was, which in turn tells us which part of the solar system it came from. This is a rather efficient way of sampling the Solar System without ever having to launch a space mission.

(Fireballs Aotearoa and International Meteor Association)

Above: Witness reports and high-resolution meteor cameras help to calculate a meteor's trajectory. This map shows the approximate trajectory of the July 22 meteor at the top of the red shape in the center.

Fireballs Aotearoa is rapidly populating Otago with meteor cameras and there are half a dozen more in other parts of the South Island. The North Island isn't well covered yet, and we're keen for more people (in either island) to build or buy a meteor camera and keep it pointed at the sky.

Then next time a bright meteor explodes with a boom above New Zealand, we may be able to pick up the meteorite and do some good science with it.

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Nineteen-year-old Jean Hilliard's car had stalled while returning to her parents' house after a night out. Dressed in little more than a winter coat, mittens, and cowboy boots, she set out into the minus 30 Celsius (minus 22 Fahrenheit) night air to seek her friend's assistance.

At some point, she tripped and lost consciousness. For six hours, Hilliard's body lay in the cold, warmth draining away to leave her – by several accounts – "frozen solid".

"I grabbed her by the collar and skidded her into the porch," Nelson would report years later in a Minnesota Public Radio interview.

"I thought she was dead. Froze stiffer than a board, but I saw a few bubbles coming out of her nose."

If not for Nelson's prompt response, Hilliard might have just become one of the thousands of deaths chalked up to hypothermia each year. Instead, her tale has become a part of medical lore and a scientific curiosity.

How could a body survive being frozen solid?

Stories of people surviving freezing temperatures are unusual enough to be newsworthy but aren't exactly rare either. In fact, medical specialists in cold climates have a saying: "Nobody is dead until warm and dead."

The realization that extreme hypothermia isn't necessarily the end of a life has become the basis of therapy in itself. Under controlled conditions, lowering body temperature can cool down the metabolism and reduce the body's insatiable hunger for oxygen.

In medical settings, or on rare occasions elsewhere, a chilled body can put the brakes on the whole dying process long enough to deal with a low pulse, at least for a while.

Where Hilliard's account stands out is the extreme nature of her state of hypothermia.

Forget the fact her body temperature was barely 27 degrees Celsius, a full 10 degrees below that of a healthy human. She was – apparently – frozen. Her face was ashen, eyes solid, and her skin reportedly too hard to be punctured by a hypodermic needle.

In the words of George Sather, the physician who treated her, "The body was cold, completely solid, just like a piece of meat out of a deep freeze."

Yet within just a few hours, warmed by heating pads, Hilliard's body returned to a state of health. She was talking by noon, and with little more than some numb, blistered toes, was soon discharged to live an unremarkable life unaffected by her night as a human popsicle.

To friends and family in her community, it was all thanks to the power of prayer. But where does biology stand on the matter?

Unlike many materials, water takes up a greater volume as a solid than it does as a liquid. This expansion is bad news for body tissues caught in the cold, as their liquid contents risk swelling to the point of rupturing their containers.

Even a few stray ice crystals blooming in the wrong place can pierce cell membranes with their needle-like shards, reducing extremities to blackened patches of dead skin and muscle, or what we commonly know as frostbite.

Various animals have evolved some nifty adaptations to deal with the dangers of sharp, expanding ice crystals in sub-freezing conditions. Deep-sea fish known as Antarctic blackfin icefish produce glycoproteins as a kind of natural antifreeze, for instance.

The wood frog turns the contents of its cells into a syrup by flooding its body with glucose, thus resisting freezing and dehydration. Outside of their cells, water is free to turn into a solid, encasing tissues in ice and making them look, for all purposes, as solid as frog-shaped ice cubes.

Without anything more to go on than external observations, it's hard to say for sure how Hilliard's body withstood being frozen. Was there something unique about her body chemistry? Or even the make-up of her tissues?

Maybe. A far more important question is what exactly 'frozen' means in this case. Although low, Hilliard's core body temperature was reportedly still far above freezing. There's a world of difference between a metaphorical 'chilled to the bone' and literal solidified water in the veins.

The fact Hilliard's body felt solid is a common sign of severe hypothermia, as muscle rigidity increases to such an extent, it can even resemble rigor mortis, the stiffening that happens to a dead body.

That the surface of her body was cold and white, and even her eyes appeared glassy and 'solid', might also be less than surprising. The body will close off channels to blood vessels under the skin to keep organs functioning, to the point a body will look ashen and remain remarkably cold to the touch.

For medical staff persistent enough to try their luck using a smaller gauged hypodermic on heavily constricted veins, especially if they're covered by thin layers of dehydrated skin pressed tight against rigid muscles, we might even imagine a bent needle or two could result.

With little to go on other than a few surprised accounts, we can only speculate whether Hilliard's 'frozen' body was typical, if shocking, or indeed strangely unique in its ability to withstand such an extreme change of state. There can be no doubt, however, that she was fortunate.

The more we learn about the amazing things the human body can achieve, the less we might rely on good fortune to save lives like hers in the future and more on advances in medicine and rapid responses.

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We’re about to enter the heart of the Atlantic hurricane season

They say you can't put a price on friendship, but loneliness costs Australians $2.7 billion a year according to a report by the Bankwest Curtin Economics Center. It's an epidemic that's continued to grow during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Since the start of the pandemic, feelings of loneliness have increased all across Australia. Fortunately, Western Australian residents were feeling relatively alright. We had the second-highest score when it came to "social connectivity," just behind the Australian Capital Territory. In contrast, the states of Queensland and South Australia scored lowest in social connectedness.

The term 'loneliness' itself is only a few hundred years old. The negative connotations attached to being lonely don't appear in literature until the end of the 18th century.

While the word is relatively new, it's hard to say when the emotional experience of loneliness became common. In Shakespeare's All's Well That Ends Well, loneliness conflates with lovesickness. In Hamlet, Ophelia may have drowned herself due to loneliness.

Loneliness is mentioned in the ancient D'harawal dreaming story Bah'naga and Mun'dah (The Goanna and the BlackSnake)—retold by Sydney botanist Frances Bodkin.

So have we placed modern emotions into ancient tales or did communal cultures suffer from loneliness too?

The gender gap in loneliness

In Australia, the economic cost of loneliness is greater for women than men.

Curtin University's Associate Professor of Economics Astghik Mavisakalyan reports on the economic impacts of loneliness. She says it's difficult to pinpoint why women feel lonelier than men.

"It's likely that there are multiple and complex reasons behind the gender gaps in loneliness," says Astghik.

"Data on loneliness is self-reported. It is possible that women simply face less stigma and are more comfortable to report that they are lonely."

Astghik says one factor may be that men have more opportunities to socialize through work. This often occurs during the years in which many women stay at home to care for their children.

According to the study, Australian women are most likely to feel lonely at the age of 17. And while reports of loneliness decrease during adulthood, they suddenly increase for women above the age of 65.

As for Australian men, reports of loneliness peak around the age of 50.

What does loneliness feel like?

When we experience a high level of momentary loneliness, it triggers the body to release more cortisol. And prolonged feelings of loneliness correlate to higher mean cortisol levels.

Cortisol, known as the stress hormone, prepares your body for a fight-or-flight response. It triggers your body to produce more glucose for extra energy. This increase in stress, and the unpleasant feelings associated with loneliness, may do two things.

For a social species like us, being lonely means being vulnerable to attack. The fight-or-flight response may be priming us for this attack. Secondly, the emotional pain associated with loneliness provides us with a biological hunger to connect with others.

This leads to a phenomenon Dr. Tim Dean describes as 'evolutionary mismatch'. This mismatch occurs when behaviors that evolution ingrained in us for survival turn unhealthy in modern society. For example, our hunger for carbohydrates has turned into an obesity epidemic.

The physical implications

The 2018 Australian Loneliness Report found 25% of Australians feel lonely, while 30% feel they don't have a group of friends.

So how does this emotional experience impact our physical health? Loneliness correlates with a range of health issues. It's linked to cognitive decline (about 2% decrease in IQ over time) and an increase in dementia risk.

In fact, the majority of the estimated $2.7 billion price tag is a result of medical costs associated with decreasing health.

But does chronic disease cause loneliness or does loneliness simply increase the risk of disease?

Professor Tegan Cruwys researches community psychology and mental health at the Australian National University. She says they are separate phenomena, which are often caused by similar social factors.

"The overlap in who experiences depression and loneliness speaks to the fact that the social ills that lead to the experience of loneliness—exclusion, discrimination and disadvantage—are also critical determinants of clinical depression."

Astghik's research suggests loneliness is likely to lead to poor health outcomes and behaviors.

"More than half of women and men aged 65 who feel lonely most of the time report poor health," says Astghik.

"[This is] around twice the rate of those who do not feel lonely."

Chronic loneliness triggers behavioral changes and kickstarts the immune system's inflammation response. Chronic inflammation contributes to a range of diseases including Alzheimer's, diabetes, cancer, arthritis and heart disease.

Both Tegan and Astghik say the best way to combat loneliness is to participate in a community. If individualism helped create the loneliness epidemic, rediscovering our communities may stop it.

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At the meeting, he was quoted as saying:

 “There are real concerns that our productivity as a whole is not where it needs to be for the headcount we have. [We need to] create a culture that is more mission-focused, more focused on our products, more customer focused. We should think about how we can minimize distractions and really raise the bar on both product excellence and productivity.”

To ensure employees stay on board with the plans, Pichai solicited feedback from employees. The firm will take ideas until August 15th via an internal survey. Some questions on the survey included:

•  What would help you work with greater clarity and efficiency to serve our users and customers?
•  Where should we remove speed bumps to get to better results faster?
•  How do we eliminate waste and stay entrepreneurial and focused as we grow?

Suspecting that efficiency meant lay-offs, employees asked whether the firm was looking at sacking people. Chief People Officer Fiona Cicconi responded, saying that the company is not looking to reduce the overall workforce, but it can’t be sure it won’t in the future if the economy gets worse.

To reassure staff, she pointed out that Google was still hiring new people for “critical roles”.

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My name is Shelley Rosen. I’m the Adult Services Librarian at the Walnut Street West Branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia, Philadelphia’s public library. I am writing in a last ditch effort to communicate to you a constant systemic problem we face at public libraries around the world every single day, which is caused specifically by Google’s sign-in and account recovery systems.

The way Google’s two-factor authentication system is designed, sets up poor and elderly people to be locked out of their accounts again and again, and without access to their email, they lose their welfare benefits, their housing, and struggle to find work.

As you know, GMail is the #1 email provider in the nation, and many of our patrons use GMail for their personal and professional email addresses. You are also certainly aware that Google now requires two-factor authentication any time a user logs in from a new device.

What you may or may not know is that there are a great number of people in this country who exclusively access the internet from the Public Library and nowhere else. 13.6% of the country has no home internet access whatsoever; neither cellular nor DSL nor anything else (according to the U.S. Census). However, this number is not evenly distributed across regions and demographics.

In Philadelphia, that number is 28.4%; keeping in mind that this includes having a data plan for your cell phone. We also have patrons who own a phone with data plan, but the library is still their exclusive access to computers, especially because they depend on library staff to guide them through the interface as many are not tech literate. All-in-all, a third or more of Philadelphia exclusively uses the public library to access their GMail accounts. In certain zip codes and neighborhoods, up to 60% of people exclusively use the public library to access the internet. Elsewhere in the country, there are counties and towns and the library is the only access anyone has to the internet; but despite this they still require the use of computers to interface with today’s society. Many government welfare forms, housing applications, and jobs applications these days require the use of the internet exclusively with no option to fill things out in person.

For security reasons, our computers wipe all session information after a patron logs off. This is standard practice at all libraries. What this means is that Google consistently recognizes our patrons as logging in from a “new location” every single time they log into their email account; thus requiring two-factor authentication every single time.

However, it is very common for poor working-class people to have their cellular service shut-off due to a missed payment on their phone bill. Often, they have had to sell their phone to make rent, or their phone has been stolen or broken and they cannot afford a new one and when they do finally get a new one they are unable to get their old phone number transferred over. Many people get their phones from a social service organization which will not replace a lost phone, or which will issue them a completely different phone number if they lose access to the old phone. Many never own a phone to begin with.

When this happens, patrons are locked out of their accounts, sometimes permanently, with no support line to turn to. It is a daily occurrence, if not multiple times a day, where I am tasked with trying to get someone back into their Google account only to hit a dead end with nothing we can do. Today, July 19th 2021, an old woman came in to print out paystubs from her email that she needed in order to re-certify her income for her subsidized housing.

The certification was due by the end of the day. Because she did not have her old phone and phone number, we were completely unable to get her back into her email. Because she could not get into her account, we could not get access to her paystubs, and she will not be able to recertify her income. If she does not recertify her income, she could lose her low-income housing. This elderly woman, looked to be in her 70s, might lose the roof over her head, due to being unable to log into her Google account, because she lost her old phone and with it, her phone number. She was very distraught and I had to explain to her that there was nothing we could do because Google does not have any kind of support line and logging in required her phone number. The only options given for account recovery involved her phone. Even when we clicked “I don’t have my phone” it asked her to open the Google app from the phone that she does not have. And this is a daily occurrence at the public library.

This happens every day. People lose job opportunities, lose housing, lose food stamps, people become in violation of their parole, or lose access to their children; because they could not log into their Google account due to a missed phone bill payment or a lost phone, and some sort of important paperwork could not be sent to the right person or access or something. And it’s not just our branch. Other librarians I’ve talked to have all said that this is a common occurrence at libraries around the country even in less impoverished areas of the country.

This is a systemic problem which disproportionately affects poor people and people of color. In 2015, the U.S. Census found that 36.4% of Black Americans had no broadband and no computer. Only 49.3% had their own computer and phone with broadband internet access at home. That’s less than half of Black Americans nationwide living the kind of lifestyle that Google’s account security requires you to live in order to easily log into your account without constantly being locked out.

I haven’t even mentioned the problems we face when an elderly person forgets their password and tries to enter it too many times. There doesn’t seem to be any warning given that if they fail too many times they may permanently lose access to their account; given that the other recovery options require a phone or phone number they do not have access to.

 As a member of the Library Freedom Project, I do know about the importance of two-factor authentication in keeping accounts safe and secure. I regularly educate patrons on two-factor authentication and the importance of two-factor authentication and how to prevent themselves from getting locked out and how to create strong memorable passwords. But no matter how much I try to prevent it, every day there is someone who faces some sort of terrible life situation because a private company in California we have no way of contacting decided that every single person surely owns an expensive piece of technology that they will never lose or have disconnected. I wish sometimes I could purchase thousands of YubiKeys to give to patrons to keep with their house keys; which would prevent lockouts, but unfortunately I would require 450,000 YubiKeys to get one to everyone in Philadelphia who needs it, which is simply not in our budget.

 I have written this letter and taken unconventional means to try and get in touch with you because I am sick of watching patrons become frustrated and dejected at being unable to get into their email accounts and facing severe material consequences because of it. Having to explain that I have no ability to change Google’s website and no matter how much they explain to me why they couldn’t afford their phone bill or how they lost their phone that there’s simply nothing I can do because I can’t even call Google and talk to a person about it.

 Today I decided I would try to change Google. There simply must be a way to change how Google handles two-factor authentication which does not constantly lock out poor people who use the public library to access their email. It must be possible to make it so we do not constantly reach these dead-ends where Google tells patrons to endlessly loop through “I don’t have my phone” and “Try another way” until their account becomes locked permanently due to too many failed attempts. Some way to contact customer support, or answer a security question, or something else. Perhaps even a way of saying “I’m using the library computer!” or even maybe at account creation checking off “I always log in from public computers” or “I don’t have consistent access to a phone” and opting-in to a different form of verification. Something.

I am not asking for money, or compensation of any kind. I just want you to fix this systemic issue so that my patrons will have one less barrier trapping them in poverty. I am pleading to you to consider how your designs and decisions affect the 30% of Philadelphians who do not and cannot live your tech-centered lifestyles. If you wish to contact me to discuss the details of which screens patrons get stuck on, etc. my contact information is:

SHELLEY ROSEN
Adult/Teen Librarian
Walnut Street West Branch
215-685-7671 - rosenS@freelibrary.org
201 S 40th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104
(She/her/hers -or- They/them/theirs)

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Natural light is critical for a healthy circadian rhythm, which is important for a person’s eating and sleeping patterns. However, being constantly subjected to blue light disrupts sleep and causes circadian disorders. Jaga Giebultowicz, a researcher in the OSU College of Science who studies biological clocks, notes people are exposed to increasing amounts of light in the blue spectrum because LEDs emit a high fraction of blue light.

“This technology, LED lighting, even in most developed countries, has not been used long enough to know its effects across the human lifespan,” says Giebultowicz in a university release. “There are increasing concerns that extended exposure to artificial light, especially blue-enriched LED light, may be detrimental to human health. While the full effects of blue light exposure across the lifespan are not yet known in humans, accelerated aging observed in short-lived model organism should alert us to the potential of cellular damage by this stressor.”

Oregon State researchers analyzed the survival rates of common fruit flies kept in darkness and then moved at older ages to an environment of constant blue light from LEDs. The fruit fly was used because it shares cellular and developmental mechanisms with other animals, including humans.

The flies were transitioned from darkness to light at the ages of two, 20, 40 and 60 days. The study involved blue light’s effect on the mitochondria of the flies’ cells. Researchers say mitochondria act as a cell’s power plant, creating adenosine triphosphate, a chemical energy source.

Previous research showed that prolonged exposure to blue light affected flies’ longevity, including whether or not it shined in their eyes. Flies had shorter lives after being exposed to daily cycles of 12 hours in light and 12 hours in darkness, compared to flies kept in total darkness or those kept in light with blue wavelengths filtered out.

Researchers say flies had impaired locomotion because blue light damaged their retinal cells and brain neurons. They had diminished ability to climb the walls of their enclosures.

“The novel aspect of this new study is showing that chronic exposure to blue light can impair energy-producing pathways even in cells that are not specialized in sensing light,” says Giebultowicz. “We determined that specific reactions in mitochondria were dramatically reduced by blue light, while other reactions were decreased by age independent of blue light. You can think of it as blue light exposure adding insult to injury in aging flies.”

Researchers suggest, to combat blue light, people should get eyeglasses with amber lenses. This filters out blue light and protects your retinas. You can also set your phones, laptops and other devices to block blue emissions.

The study is published in Nature Partner Journals Aging.

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The announcement Saturday by Mayor Eric Adams and health Commissioner Ashwin Vasan said as many as 150,000 city residents could be at risk of infection. The declaration will allow officials to issue emergency orders under the city health code and amend code provisions to implement measures to help slow the spread.

In the last two days, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul declared a state disaster emergency declaration and the state health department called monkeypox an "imminent threat to public health."

New York had recorded 1,345 cases as of Friday, according to data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. California had the second-most, with 799.

"We will continue to work with our federal partners to secure more doses as soon as they become available," Adams and Vasan said in the statement.

"This outbreak must be met with urgency, action, and resources, both nationally and globally, and this declaration of a public health emergency reflects the seriousness of the moment."

The World Health Organization declared monkeypox a global health emergency on July 23 and San Francisco's mayor on Thursday announced a state of emergency over the growing number of cases.

Healthcare workers with New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene help people register for the monkeypox vaccine at one of the City's vaccination sites, Tuesday, July 26, 2022, in New York. The World Health Organization recently declared that the expanding monkeypox outbreak is a global emergency.

Credit: AP Photo/Mary Altaffer

The once-rare disease has been established in parts of central and west Africa for decades but was not known to spark large outbreaks beyond the continent or to spread widely among people until May, when authorities detected dozens of epidemics in Europe, North America and elsewhere.

To date, there have been more than 22,000 monkeypox cases reported in nearly 80 countries since May, with about 75 suspected deaths in Africa, mostly in Nigeria and Congo. On Friday, Brazil and Spain reported deaths linked to monkeypox, the first reported outside Africa. Spain reported a second monkeypox death Saturday.

The virus spreads through prolonged and close skin-to-skin contact as well as sharing bedding, towels and clothing. In Europe and North America, it has spread primarily among men who have sex with men, though health officials emphasize that the virus can infect anyone.

The type of monkeypox virus identified in this outbreak is rarely fatal, and people usually recover within weeks. But the lesions and blisters caused by the virus are painful.

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"With the continued spread of monkeypox in Europe, we will expect to see more deaths," Catherine Smallwood, Senior Emergency Officer at WHO Europe, said in a statement.

Smallwood emphasized that the goal needs to be "interrupting transmission quickly in Europe and stopping this outbreak".

However, Smallwood stressed that in most cases the disease heals itself without the need for treatment.

"The notification of deaths due to monkeypox does not change our assessment of the outbreak in Europe. We know that although self-limiting in most cases, monkeypox can cause severe complications," Smallwood noted.

The Spanish health ministry recorded a second monkeypox-related death on Saturday, a day after Spain and Brazil reported their first fatalities.

The announcements marked what are thought to be the first deaths linked to the current outbreak outside Africa.

Spanish authorities would not give the specific cause of death for the fatalities pending the outcome of an autopsy, while Brazilian authorities underlined that the man who died had "other serious conditions".

"The usual reasons patients might require hospital care include help in managing pain, secondary infections, and in a small number of cases the need to manage life-threatening complications such as encephalitis," Smallwood explained.

According to the WHO, more than 18,000 cases have been detected throughout the world outside of Africa since the beginning of May, with the majority of them in Europe.

The WHO last week declared the monkeypox outbreak a global health emergency.

As cases surge globally, the WHO on Wednesday called on the group currently most affected by the virus—men who have sex with men—to limit their sexual partners.

Early signs of the disease include a high fever, swollen lymph glands and a chickenpox-like rash.

The disease usually heals by itself after two to three weeks, sometimes taking a month.

A smallpox vaccine from Danish drug maker Bavarian Nordic, marketed under the name Jynneos in the United States and Imvanex in Europe, has also been found to protect against monkeypox.

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Chronicles from the Middle Ages say King Harald "Bluetooth" Gormsson of Denmark acquired his nickname courtesy of a tooth, probably dead, that looked bluish. One chronicle from the time also says the Viking king was buried in Roskilde, in Denmark, in the late 10th century.

But a Swedish archaeologist and a Polish researcher recently claimed in separate publications that they have pinpointed his most probable burial site in the village of Wiejkowo, in an area of northwestern Poland that had ties to the Vikings in Harald's times.

Marek Kryda, author of the book "Viking Poland," told The Associated Press that a "pagan mound" which he claims he has located beneath Wiejkowo's 19th-century Roman Catholic church probably holds the king's remains. Kryda said geological satellite images available on a Polish government portal revealed a rotund shape that looked like a Viking burial mound.

But Swedish archaeologist Sven Rosborn, says Kryda is wrong because Harald, who converted from paganism to Christianity and founded churches in the area, must have received an appropriate grave somewhere in the churchyard. Wiejkowo's Church of The Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary stands atop a small round knoll.

A view of a 2014 stone with runic inscription in memory of Danish 10th century King Harald “Bluetooth” Gormsson, in Wolin, Poland, Saturday, July 30,2022. More than 1,000 years after his death in what is now Poland, a Danish king whose nickname is known to the world through the Bluetooth technology is at the center of an archeological dispute. A Polish researcher and a Swedish archeologist claim that they have pinpointed the probable burial site for King Harald Bluetooth Gormsson in a small village in northwestern Poland, an area that once had ties with the Vikings.

Credit: AP Photo Monika Scislowska

Historians at the Danish National Museum in Copenhagen say they are familiar with the "suggestion" that Wiejkowo is Harald's burial place.

Rosborn detailed his research in the 2021 book "The Viking King's Golden Treasure" and Kryda challenged some of the Swede's findings in his own book published this year.

Harald, who died in 985, probably in Jomsborg—which is believed to be the Polish town of Wolin now—was one of the last Viking kings to rule over what is now Denmark, northern Germany, and parts of Sweden and Norway. He spread Christianity in his kingdom.

Swedish telecommunications company Ericsson named its Bluetooth wireless link technology after the king, reflecting how he united much of Scandinavia during his lifetime. The logo for the technology is designed from the Scandinavian runic letters for the king's initials, HB.

A view of a 2014 stone with runic inscription in memory of Danish 10th century King Harald “Bluetooth” Gormsson, in Wolin, Poland, Saturday, July 30,2022. More than 1,000 years after his death in what is now Poland, a Danish king whose nickname is known to the world through the Bluetooth technology is at the center of an archeological dispute. A Polish researcher and a Swedish archeologist claim that they have pinpointed the probable burial site for King Harald Bluetooth Gormsson in a small village in northwestern Poland, an area that once had ties with the Vikings.

Credit: AP Photo Monika Scislowska

Rosborn, the former director of Sweden's Malmo City Museum, was spurred on his quest in 2014 when an 11-year-old girl sought his opinion about a small, soiled coin-like object with old-looking text that had been in her family's possession for decades.

Experts have determined that the cast gold disk that sparked Maja Sielski's curiosity dated from the 10th century. The Latin inscription on what is now known as the "Curmsun disk" says: "Harald Gormsson (Curmsun in Latin) king of Danes, Scania, Jomsborg, town Aldinburg."

Sielski's family, who moved to Sweden from Poland in 1986, said the disk came from a trove found in 1841 in a tomb underneath the Wiejkowo church, which replaced a medieval chapel.

The Sielski family came into the possession of the disk, along with the Wiejkowo parish archives that contained medieval parchment chronicles in Latin, in 1945 as the former German area was becoming part of Poland as a result of World War II.

The Roman Catholic church where it is believed that Danish King Harald Gormsson was buried, in Wiejkowo, Poland, Saturday, July 30, 2022. More than 1,000 years after his death in what is now Poland, a Danish king whose nickname is known to the world through the Bluetooth technology is at the center of an archeological dispute. A Polish researcher and a Swedish archeologist claim that they have pinpointed the probable burial site for King Harald Bluetooth Gormsson in a small village in northwestern Poland, an area that once had ties with the Vikings.

Credit: AP Photo Monika Scislowska

A family member who knew Latin understood the value of the chronicles—which dated as far back as the 10th century—and translated some of them into Polish. They mention Harald, another fact linking the Wiejkowo church to him.

The nearby Baltic Sea island and town of Wolin cultivates the region's Viking history: it has a runic stone in honor of Harald Bluetooth and holds annual festivals of Slavs and Vikings.

Kryda says the Curmsun disk is "phenomenal" with its meaningful inscription and insists that it would be worth it to examine Wiejkowo as Harald's burial place, but there are no current plans for any excavations.

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