Free Republic

Yes, COVID-19 is real, and it’s dangerous. The virus can be deadly, very deadly, to the elderly, people with co-morbidities, and seemingly random people since it, unlike most viruses we know of, appears to manifest itself wildly differently in people with no, at least as of yet, discernible pattern. That being said, there are some aspects of the pandemic that deserve, really require, serious conversations and examination by both the medical profession and the public. But that’s not being allowed to happen by the media and the medical profession. That should concern everyone. A recent newsletter from Johns Hopkins raised...

When Americans object to lockdowns and mandatory masks, Leftists cry “trust the science.” This phrase reveals just how little they actually know about science. Einstein, who did know something about science, said “the most important thing is to never stop questioning;” he did not say “never stop trusting.” Americans need to recognize that the leftists’ mantra is not about science but about silence. It is a fundamental tenet of science to doubt everything, including political statements. Science is an ever-changing field where competing ideas are hypothesized, tested, and then followed by vigorous challenges that frequently overturn earlier findings. Science has...

No, really. It has signed a contract to make this happen in 2025The European Space Agency has formalised its plan to dispose of space junk by using an orbiting claw to grab an old bit of rocket before dragging both the claw and the junk to a fiery doom.The agency announced the plan in late 2019 when it revealed it had asked Swiss startup ClearSpace to fully scope the mission.The paperwork was due in March and found favour with ESA's Ministerial Council, which has approved funding for an €86 million contract to fund the mission.The goal remains the same: fly...

Earth Is a Whole Lot Closer to Our Galaxy's Supermassive Black Hole Than We Thought MICHELLE STARR 27 NOVEMBER 2020 It seems that Earth has been misplaced. According to a new map of the Milky Way galaxy, the Solar System's position isn't where we thought it was. Not only is it closer to the galactic centre - and the supermassive hole therein, Sagittarius A* - it's orbiting at a faster clip. It's nothing to be concerned about; we're not actually moving closer to Sgr A*, and we're in no danger of being slurped up. Rather, our map of the Milky...

White dwarf stars in globular cluster NGC 6397. (NASA, ESA, and H. Richer/University of British Columbia) SPACE ====================================================================== When stars like the Sun reach the end of their lives, the object that remains is a white dwarf. This is the star's shrunken, naked core, no longer capable of nuclear fusion. It shines, but only with residual heat, slowly cooling over billions of years until it's completely cold and dark. But not all white dwarfs cool the same way. Last year, astronomers found a certain type of massive white dwarf stars cool more slowly than others, as though they have...

Artist’s conception of the dust and gas surrounding a new planetary system. Credit: NASA ========================================================================= A long time ago — roughly 4.5 billion years — our sun and solar system formed over the short time span of 200,000 years. That is the conclusion of a group of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists after looking at isotopes of the element molybdenum found on meteorites. The material that makes up the sun and the rest of the solar system came from the collapse of a large cloud of gas and dust about 4.5 billion years ago. By observing other stellar systems...

Just after sunset on the evening of December 21, 2020, Jupiter and Saturn will appear closer together in Earth’s night sky than they have been since the Middle Ages, offering people the world over a celestial treat to ring in the winter solstice. Jupiter and Saturn have been approaching one another in Earth’s sky since the summer. From December 16-25, the two will be separated by less than the diameter of a full moon. Though the best viewing conditions will be near the equator, the event will be observable anywhere on Earth, weather-permitting. Hartigan said the planetary duo will appear...

The Wow! signal represented as "6EQUJ5". Credit: Big Ear Radio Observatory and North American AstroPhysical Observatory (NAAPO) ====================================================================== Amateur astronomer and YouTuber Alberto Caballero, one of the founders of The Exoplanets Channel, has found a small amount of evidence for a source of the notorious Wow! signal. In his paper uploaded to the arXiv preprint server, Caballero describes searching the Gaia database for possible sun-like stars that might host an exoplanet capable of supporting intelligent life. Back in 1977, astronomers working with the Big Ear Radio Telescope—at the time, situated in Delaware, Ohio—recorded a unique signal from somewhere in space....

BIRMINGHAM, United Kingdom — As winter arrives, hot tea and cocoa naturally become popular drink choices with a lot of people. A new study finds drinking cocoa is not just the popular choice, it may also be the “smart” choice as well. Researchers at the University of Birmingham say consuming flavanol-rich products, such as cocoa, increases one’s mental performance. Flavanols are a group of molecules which occur naturally in fruits and vegetables. They’re a member of the plant flavonoid family and are common in cocoa, grapes, apples, tea, berries, and even wine. While previous studies reveal these molecules can improve...

The U.S. government will start distributing Regeneron Pharmaceuticals' newly authorized COVID-19 antibody combination on Tuesday, beginning with over 30,000 treatment courses, a health official said on Monday... ...U.S. officials on a call with reporters said doses will be allocated based on which states have the highest numbers of confirmed cases and hospitalizations... ...Regeneron has said it expects to have enough REGEN-COV2 for about 80,000 patients by the end of this month. It expects to have enough doses to treat about 200,000 patients by the first week of January, rising to some 300,000 patients in total by ...

The world-famous Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, known for helping scientists peer into deep space and listen for distant radio waves, is set to be decommissioned and demolished after engineers concluded that the facility’s structure is at risk of a collapse. While teams will try to salvage some parts of the observatory, the decommission will bring an end to the popular 57-year-old telescope, which has been featured in numerous films and television shows. The decision comes after two major cables failed at the facility within the last few months, causing significant damage to the observatory. The National Science Foundation (NSF),...

Wow. A low-flying space rock set a record last Friday (appropriately, the 13th), when 2020 VT4 passed just under 400 kilometers (250 miles) over the Southern Pacific. The asteroid was spotted by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) survey at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii in the early morning hours of Saturday, November 14, just 15 hours after approach. This is not uncommon for fast-movers, especially asteroids that are coming at the Earth from our sunward blind-spot, like 2020 VT4. Newly-discovered asteroid A10sHcN approached Earth yesterday, passing only a few hundred miles above the South Pacific Ocean. This...

The National Science Foundation announced Thursday that it will close the huge telescope at the renowned Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico in a blow to scientists worldwide who depend on it to search for planets, asteroids and extraterrestrial life. The independent, federally funded agency said it’s too dangerous to keep operating the single dish radio telescope — one of the world’s largest — given the significant damage it recently sustained. An auxiliary cable broke in August and tore a 100-foot hole in the reflector dish and damaged the dome above it. Then on Nov. 6, one of the telescope’s main...

Where has the coronavirus gone? Nowhere. The pandemic has gained a second wind, even as it is mysteriously scarcer in post-election headlines. If anything, COVID-19 seems more contagious as cold temperatures arrive, people stay in indoors and perhaps their vitamin D levels taper off. Whatever one's views on the virus -- whether it remains an existential threat or, contrarily, prompts overreactive lockdowns that are more harmful and maybe even deadlier than the virus itself -- nothing much has changed since Election Day. Or did viral perceptions suddenly change? The pandemic certainly no longer serves as an election lever to demagogue...

If you were lucky enough to attend America’s premier academic institution, Harvard University, you would receive most days, as I do, the Harvard Gazette. The Gazette generally cloaks its pieces in the mantle of “news”; but really its principal function is to find ways for us Harvard people to congratulate ourselves on how brilliant we are, while at the same time heaping scorn and derision on the the ignorant deplorables who are always getting in the way of our plans to perfect the world. You only need to read a few of these things before you start to realize that...

Explanation: What's creating these long glowing streaks in the sky? No one is sure. Known as Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancements (STEVEs), these luminous light-purple sky ribbons may resemble regular auroras, but recent research reveals significant differences. A STEVE's great length and unusual colors, when measured precisely, indicate that it may be related to a subauroral ion drift (SAID), a supersonic river of hot atmospheric ions thought previously to be invisible. Some STEVEs are now also thought to be accompanied by green picket fence structures, a series of sky slats that can appear outside of the main auroral oval that...

NASA, ESA, J. Hester, A. Loll (ASU) ===================================================================== Supernovas may have affected the Earth’s climate in the last 40,000 years. Tree-ring data suggests supernovas caused spikes in radiocarbon. Could the next nearby supernova cause a collapse of civilization? ====================================================================== Dendrochronology is a fancy word for tree-ring dating, where the age of a tree can be determined by the number of growth rings across its trunk. But there’s a lot more to learn from looking at a tree’s rings than simply its age. Like fingerprints, tree rings give scientists clues to what the world was like when a tree was alive....

On Thursday, a new study came out warning that even if we stopped emitting carbon dioxide, the world has reached the “point of no return” for climate change. The paper claims that’s because Arctic permafrost—carbon-rich, permanently frozen earth made of rocks, water, and dead wildlife—is melting irreversibly, and it could continue to heat the planet for centuries by releasing carbon dioxide. Terrifying, right? The only solution, the authors indicate, is to suck carbon out of the air with carbon capture, which is yet unproven to work at scale, or to employ even more dangerous geoengineering technologies. The study’s results and...

Artist’s impression of the cold brown dwarf BDR J1750+3809. The blue loops depict the magnetic field lines. Charged particles moving along these lines emit radio waves that LOFAR detected. Some particles eventually reach the poles and generate aurorae similar to the northern lights on Earth. Credit: ASTRON/Danielle Futselaar ========================================================================== Gemini North and IRTF Confirm LOFAR Discovery For the first time, astronomers have used observations from the LOFAR radio telescope, the NASA IRTF, operated by the University of Hawai‘i, and the international Gemini Observatory, a Program of NSF’s NOIRLab, to discover and characterize a cold brown dwarf. The object, designated BDR...

Explanation: This cosmic close-up looks deep inside the Soul Nebula. The dark and brooding dust clouds near the top, outlined by bright ridges of glowing gas, are cataloged as IC 1871. About 25 light-years across, the telescopic field of view spans only a small part of the much larger Heart and Soul nebulae. At an estimated distance of 6,500 light-years the star-forming complex lies within the Perseus spiral arm of our Milky Way Galaxy, seen in planet Earth's skies toward the constellation Cassiopeia. An example of triggered star formation, the dense star-forming clouds in the Soul Nebula are themselves sculpted...