Mystery oxygen source discovered on the sea floor — bewildering scientists — Nature
Something is pumping out large amounts of oxygen at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, at depths where a total lack of sunlight makes photosynthesis impossible.
The phenomenon was discovered in a region strewn with ancient, plum-sized formations called polymetallic nodules, which could play a part in the oxygen production by catalysing the splitting of water molecules, researchers suspect. The findings are published in Nature Geoscience1.
“We have another source of oxygen on the planet, other than photosynthesis,” says study co-author Andrew Sweetman, a sea-floor ecologist at the Scottish Association for Marine Science in Oban, UK — although the mechanism behind this oxygen production remains a mystery. The findings could also have implications for understanding how life began, he says, as well as for the possible impact of deep-sea mining in the region.
What Kamala Harris’s historic bid for the US presidency means for science — Nature
As senator, Harris co-sponsored efforts to improve the diversity of the science, technology, engineering and medicine (STEM) workforce. She introduced legislation to aid students from under-represented populations in obtaining jobs and work experience in STEM fields … As vice-president, Harris has been chair of the National Space Council, which advises the president on US space policy and strategy. Under her leadership, the body has focused on international cooperation — for example, with the Artemis mission, which aims to send astronauts to the Moon …
…Harris has long promoted action on climate as well as environmental justice, says Leah Stokes, a climate-policy researcher at the University of California, Santa Barbara. As San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general, Harris became a champion for communities on the front lines of fossil-fuel pollution, Stokes says, and she followed a similar path with work on public health and the environment as a senator from 2017 to 2021.
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Kepler’s 1607 pioneering sunspot sketches solve solar mysteries 400 years later — Phys.org
Using modern techniques, researchers have re-examined Johannes Kepler’s half-forgotten sunspot drawings and revealed previously-hidden information about the solar cycles before the grand solar minimum. […]
Kepler, renowned for his historical achievements in astronomy and mathematics, made one of the earliest datable instrumental records of solar activity in the early 17th Century, before the earliest telescopic sunspot drawings. He used an apparatus known as a camera obscura, consisting of a small hole in a wall to project the sun’s image on to a sheet of paper, which allowed him to sketch visible features on the sun.
In May 1607, he recorded what he mistakenly interpreted as a transit of Mercury across the sun, later clarified to be a sunspot group sighting. […]
“Since this record was not a telescopic observation, it has only been discussed in the context of the history of science and had not been used for quantitative analyses for the solar cycles in the 17th century,” he said. “But this is the oldest sunspot sketch ever made with an instrumental observation and a projection.”
A rediscovered soil archive – more than a century old – could show how years of farming alters soil — NPR
”Soil science is a relatively new field and becoming more critical in the work to keep soil healthy and productive. The discovery of century-old soil samples at a land-grant university could offer big clues into how soil has changed over time.”
An old dilapidated barn, slated for demolition, held a treasure trove for one researcher.
On a tip from his department head, University of Illinois soil scientist Andrew Margenot drove out to the campus’ agricultural research farm in the summer of 2018.
Even in daylight, he had to strap on a headlamp to see his way around the dark barn.
“I realized within about five minutes of walking through these cobwebs and very dark hallways, that there were row upon row, shelf upon shelf of soils,” Margenot remembers. “And that there were the original soils taken in the mapping of this state.”
The barn contained thousands of soil samples, stored in mason jars and other sealed containers from nearly every county in the state. Some of the samples went back as far as the 1860s, while most of the collection dated from the early 1900s.
California tortoiseshell second brood 2024
We may finally know the source of mysterious high-energy neutrinos — Science News
Supermassive black holes at the hearts of active galaxies may be churning out a lot of the universe’s high-energy neutrinos.
Two teams using data from IceCube, the world’s premier neutrino observatory located in Antarctica, have independently identified a common type of these active galaxies, called Seyfert galaxies, as likely neutrino producers. These findings, reported in Physical Review Letters and arXiv.org, bolster some astronomers’ view that the cores of such active galaxies could churn out the majority of the cosmic neutrinos seen streaming across the universe.
Trees reveal climate surprise: Microbes living in bark remove methane from the atmosphere — Phys.org
Tree bark surfaces play an important role in removing methane gas from the atmosphere, according to a study published 24 July in Nature.
While trees have long been known to benefit the climate by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, this new research reveals a surprising additional climate benefit. Microbes hidden within tree bark can absorb methane—a powerful greenhouse gas—from the atmosphere.
Effort to ‘Trump-proof’ US science grows, but will it succeed? — Nature
Earlier this month, the union representing thousands of scientists and engineers at the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) signed a new contract that includes protections for government workers who stand up for scientific integrity. A similar provision was included in a union contract at the US Department of Agriculture last year, and negotiators for the union representing more than 5,000 early-career scientists at the National Institutes of Health are following suit. A contract could be signed in the next several months.
These collective bargaining agreements are the latest front in an ongoing effort to shield US science agencies from political interference. The administration of US President Joe Biden, who this week bowed out of the race for November’s presidential election, has already crafted legal protections for government scientists and other workers. It is now rushing to finalize scientific-integrity policies at dozens of federal agencies.
Cancer Risk From Pesticides Comparable To Smoking For Some Cancers — Forbes
”Food security comes with a steep price: the strongest associations between pesticides and cancer was for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, leukaemia, and bladder cancer”
Communicating numbers boosts trust in climate change science, research suggests — Phys.org
The intuition to distill hard numbers like “90 percent” into words like “almost all” may help make science and statistics more accessible, but new research shows that isn’t necessarily the best way to engage people online.
Researchers from the University of Oregon, Michigan State University and Ohio State University have found that people tend to share and trust social media posts that contain numbers more than those without. The researchers particularly looked at tweets and Reddit posts related to climate change, one of the most pressing issues that requires using and communicating numeric information … “The majority of the American public at this point do believe that climate change is real and happening, but what’s missing is people engaging with it and understanding what actions can be done,” Peters said.
When Peters and her team analyzed tweets from approximately 1,500 climate scientists, only 23 percent of posts contained numbers. Yet those few numerical tweets were more likely to be shared than non-numerical tweets.
NASA’s Perseverance rover finds its first possible hint of ancient life on Mars — Science News
NASA’s Perseverance rover has bagged its first hint of ancient microbes on Mars.
“We’re not able to say that this is a sign of life,” says Perseverance deputy project scientist Katie Stack Morgan of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, Calif. “But this is the most compelling sample we’ve found yet.”
The rover drilled up the sample on July 21 from a reddish rock, dubbed Cheyava Falls after a feature at the Grand Canyon. It is the first piece of Mars that Perseverance has examined that contains organic molecules, the building blocks of life, project scientist Ken Farley of Caltech reported July 25 at the 10th International Conference on Mars in Pasadena.
It’s not just us: Other animals change their social habits in old age — Ars Technica
A recent study by Albery and colleagues in Nature Ecology & Evolution found that older deer reduce their contacts more than you’d expect if their shrinking range was the only cause. That suggests the behavior may have evolved for a reason—one that Albery prosaically summarizes as, “Deer shit where they eat.”
Gastrointestinal worms are rampant on the island. And though the deer do not get infected through direct contact with others, being at the same place at the same time probably does increase their risk of ingesting eggs or larvae in the still-warm droppings of one of their associates.
“Younger animals need to put themselves out there to make friends, but perhaps when you’re older and you already have some, the risk of disease just isn’t worth it,” says study coauthor Josh Firth, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Oxford.
In addition, says ecologist Daniel Nussey of the University of Edinburgh, another coauthor, “there are indications that the immune system of aging deer is less effective in suppressing worm infections, so they might be more likely to die from them.”
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