Scientists spot potential ‘interstellar object' in our solar system
If confirmed, this would be only the third instance of an interstellar object ever spotted.
The object has been temporarily named A11pl3Z and is being tracked by telescopes worldwide.
The two previously confirmed interstellar visitors were ʻOumuamua in 2017 and 2I/Borisov in 2019.
Researchers anticipate discovering more such objects in the future with the help of new, powerful telescopes.
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The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Extreme heatwaves may cause global decline in dairy production, scientists warn
Dairy production will be threatened by the increasing frequency and intensity of heatwaves, a study has found. Drawing on records from more than 130,000 cows over a period of 12 years, the researchers report that extreme heat reduces dairy cows' ability to produce milk by 10%. Just one hour of wet-bulb temperature – a measure that combines air temperature and humidity – above 26C can reduce a cow's daily milk production by 0.5%. Exposure to high temperatures also has a prolonged effect, with milk production still lower than typical levels up to 10 days after the initial hot day. Using temperature projections for 2050, the report shows that by mid-century, average daily milk production could be reduced by 4% as a result of worsening heat stress. The researchers, from the Universities of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Chicago, said this drop would be felt particularly by the 150 million households dependent on milk production globally. The damaging effects of heat stress on dairy farms will be especially severe in south Asia, which is expected to account for more than half of global growth in milk production over the coming decade. As fossil fuel burning continues to accelerate, the region is set to become increasingly vulnerable to debilitating heatwaves, further exacerbating the impact on milk yields. Cattle are responsible for about a third of human caused-methane emissions, that, like carbon dioxide, accelerates global heating. Farmers are already implementing adaptation strategies, not least in Israel, the location of the study, where almost all farms employ some form of technology to reduce heat stress. Adaptation methods include ensuring cows have access to shade, as well as cooling cattle directly through ventilation or sprinklers. However, the researchers found on days that exceeded 24C, these cooling strategies were only able to inhibit 40% of the impact of extreme heat on dairy production. Claire Palandri, the lead author of the study published in the journal Science Advances, has urged policymakers to 'look into more strategies to not only cool cows but reduce stressors, like confinement and calf separation. Stressors make cows more sensitive to heat and less resilient.'
The Independent
2 hours ago
- The Independent
Your holiday cookout could be killing you
Could your Fourth of July cookout lead to an early death? Estimates from the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council show Americans consume some 150 million hot dogs during the holiday weekend. Now, researchers say that eating any processed meat and other foods leaves Americans at a heightened risk for chronic conditions, including type 2 diabetes, ischemic heart disease, and colorectal cancer. The conditions result in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people each year. 'Habitual consumption of even small amounts of processed meat, sugary drinks, and trans fatty acids is linked to increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes, ischemic heart disease and colorectal cancer,' Dr. Demewoz Haile, a research scientist at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in Seattle, told CNN this week. Analyzing data from more than 60 previous related studies, the researchers found that eating processed meat – as little as just one hot dog a day – was associated with at least an 11 percent average increase in type 2 diabetes risk and a 7 percent increase in colorectal cancer risk. Those who drank a sugar-sweetened beverage had an 8 percent average increase in type 2 diabetes risk and a 2 percent increase in ischemic heart disease risk. The study builds on years of research tying processed foods to higher risks of obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and even cancer. The Dietary Guidelines recommend limiting these foods and drinks, including sodas, hot dogs, and sausages. Although, researchers say it remains unclear exactly what aspects of processed foods pose potential health risks. It could be due to inflammation, Dr. Minyang Song, an associate professor of clinical epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan Schoo of Public Health, told CNN. He was not involved in the latest study. Processed meats also often contain chemicals known as nitrates nitrites that serve as a preservative and give the meat its rosy color. 'Nitrates convert to nitrites, and in the stomach's acidic environment, nitrites interact with certain components concentrated in meat to form N-nitroso compounds, which are potential carcinogens,' according to Harvard Medical School. Dr. Walter Willett, a professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, points out that processed meats contain other additives and are high in sodium, which is a risk factor for high blood pressure and heart disease. Dr. Ashkan Afshin, an assistant professor at the institute who was not a co-author of the new study, previously found that poor diet is responsible for more deaths globally than tobacco, high blood pressure, or any other health risk. "Poor diet is an equal opportunity killer," he said in 2019. "We are what we eat and risks affect people across a range of demographics, including age, gender, and economic status."
The Independent
2 hours ago
- The Independent
Fossils reveal why earth was extremely hot for millions of years
Some 252 million years ago, almost all life on Earth disappeared. Known as the Permian–Triassic mass extinction – or the Great Dying – this was the most catastrophic of the five mass extinction events recognised in the past 539 million years of our planet's history. Up to 94 per cent of marine species and 70 per cent of terrestrial vertebrate families were wiped out. Tropical forests – which served, as they do today, as important carbon sinks that helped regulate the planet's temperature – also experienced massive declines. Scientists have long agreed this event was triggered by a sudden surge in greenhouse gases which resulted in an intense and rapid warming of Earth. But what has remained a mystery is why these extremely hot conditions persisted for millions of years. Our new paper, published in Nature Communications, provides an answer. The decline of tropical forests locked Earth in a hothouse state, confirming scientists' suspicion that when our planet's climate crosses certain 'tipping points', truly catastrophic ecological collapse can follow. A massive eruption The trigger for the Permian–Triassic mass extinction event was the eruption of massive amounts of molten rock in modern day Siberia, named the Siberian Traps. This molten rock erupted in a sedimentary basin, rich in organic matter. The molten rock was hot enough to melt the surrounding rocks and release massive amounts of carbon dioxide into Earth's atmosphere over a period as short as 50,000 years but possibly as long as 500,000 years. This rapid increase in carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere and the resulting temperature increase is thought to be the primary kill mechanism for much of life at the time. On land it is thought surface temperatures increased by as much as 6°C to 10°C – too rapid for many life forms to evolve and adapt. In other similar eruptions, the climate system usually returns to its previous state within 100,000 to a million years. But these 'super greenhouse' conditions, which resulted in equatorial average surface temperatures upwards of 34°C (roughly 8°C warmer than the current equatorial average temperature) persisted for roughly five million years. In our study we sought to answer why. The forests die out We looked at the fossil record of a wide range of land plant biomes, such as arid, tropical, subtropical, temperate and scrub. We analysed how the biomes changed from just before the mass extinction event, until about eight million years after. We hypothesised that Earth warmed too rapidly, leading to the dying out of low- to mid-latitude vegetation, especially the rainforests. As a result the efficiency of the organic carbon cycle was greatly reduced immediately after the volcanic eruptions. Plants, because they are unable to simply get up and move, were very strongly affected by the changing conditions. Before the event, many peat bogs and tropical and subtropical forests existed around the equator and soaked up carbon. However, when we reconstructed plant fossils from fieldwork, records and databases around the event we saw that these biomes were completely wiped out from the tropical continents. This led to a multimillion year 'coal gap' in the geological record. These forests were replaced by tiny lycopods, only two to 20 centimetres in height. Enclaves of larger plants remained towards the poles, in coastal and in slightly mountainous regions where the temperature was slightly cooler. After about five million years they had mostly recolonised Earth. However these types of plants were also less efficient at fixing carbon in the organic carbon cycle. This is analogous in some ways to considering the impact of replacing all rainforests at present day with the mallee-scrub and spinifex flora that we might expect to see in the Australian outback. Finally, the forests return Using evidence from the present day, we estimated the rate at which plants take atmospheric carbon dioxide and store it as organic matter of each different biome (or its 'net primary productivity') that was suggested in the fossil record. We then used a recently developed carbon cycle model called SCION to test our hypothesis numerically. When we analysed our model results we found that the initial increase in temperature from the Siberian Traps was preserved for five to six million years after the event because of the reduction in net primary productivity. It was only as plants re-established themselves and the organic carbon cycle restarted that Earth slowly started to ease out of the super greenhouse conditions. Maintaining a climate equilibrium It's always difficult to draw analogies between past climate change in the geological record and what we're experiencing today. That's because the extent of past changes is usually measured over tens to hundreds of thousands of years while at present day we are experiencing change over decades to centuries. A key implication of our work, however, is that life on Earth, while resilient, is unable to respond to massive changes on short time scales without drastic rewirings of the biotic landscape. In the case of the Permian–Triassic mass extinction, plants were unable to respond on as rapid a time scale as 1,000 to 10,000 years. This resulted in a large extinction event. Overall, our results underline how important tropical and subtropical plant biomes and environments are to maintaining a climate equilibrium. In turn, they show how the loss of these biomes can contribute to additional climate warming – and serve as a devastating climate tipping point. Zhen Xu was the lead author of the study, which was part of her PhD work. Andrew Merdith is a DECRA Fellow at the School of Earth Sciences, University of Adelaide. Benjamin J. W. Mills is a Professor of Earth System Evolution at the University of Leeds. Zhen Xu is a Research Fellow at the School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds.
