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Update On 2002 NT7 - Flew Past At A Great Distance, 16.50 UTC Today 13th January - That's Further Away Than Mars At Its Closest

Update On 2002 NT7 - Flew Past At A Great Distance, 16.50 UTC Today 13th January - That's Further Away Than Mars At Its Closest

Jan 13 2019 | comment(s)

2002 NT7 is closest at 16.50 today, UTC time. It will be 61 million kilometers away and they know the distance exactly to within 127 kilometers, and the time of the flyby accurate to the nearest minute. It is no risk to Earth.

It is already well above our orbit though, it crossed the orbit of Earth several days ago on the 8th. And 61 million kilometers is further away than Mars at its closest. It is not very close.

Earth's orbit in blue, 2002 NT7 in white.

More details here

Space Weather Has A Bigger Impact Than Many Realize, Better Forecasting Will Help

Space Weather Has A Bigger Impact Than Many Realize, Better Forecasting Will Help

Jan 11 2019 | comment(s)

Space weather and its changes to earth's magnetic fields has an outsized impact in Arctic regions through effects on electricity networks, mining operations and shipping.

A new technique called Fractional Derivative Rate (FDR) published in Space Weather has been used for analyzing fluctuations in the Earth’s magnetic field and found dramatic differences at different latitudes and different times of day.

The northernmost stations were more geomagnetically active at midday, while the activeness at the southernmost stations was highest at midnight. The largest differences between different times of day was observed in the northernmost measurement zone, in the Arctic Circle. 
Why You Don’t Need To Worry About Asteroid 2002 NT7

Why You Don’t Need To Worry About Asteroid 2002 NT7

Jan 10 2019 | comment(s)

It actually crossed our orbit already on the 8th. It is already moving upwards away from our orbit. Earth is catching up on it from behind and is closest on the 13th at 61 million kilometers. That's further away than Mars at its closest, and much further away than Venus at its closest.

The red top tabloids and other sensationalist press and YouTube videos are going wild about this, in many different languages too. It is my most often asked question at present from scared people, whether their lives are at risk because of this asteroid. It doesn't matter if they say it or write it in Russian, Spanish, or whatever language it is, or enlist the services of clairvoyants or astrologers to pronounce about it - it is still utter nonsense.

Choosing Models By Eye

Choosing Models By Eye

Jan 10 2019 | comment(s)

Given the use that people do of Google searches nowadays, and the rather special nature of my usual readership, I feel I may need to first of all apologize for the deceiving title of this post to the 80 to 90% of the visitors, who came to this page by searching for ways to become a member of a selection committee of miss Universe.  Sorry, you had it wrong - we are going to discuss parametric models here, not top models. But if you are happy to hear about the issues of fitting data with different functional forms, you are welcome to read on.

"All Five Major Health Certifications": Drake’s Organic Spirits Wants You To Think Its Booze Is Better For You

Jan 10 2019 | comment(s)

Drake’s Organic Spirits is touting it is the "first and only spirits line in the world to receive all five major health certifications." By "health", for four of them they simply mean manufacturing or cultural preferences; kosher, vegan, Non-GMO Project, and USDA Organic. (1) For the health-related one, gluten-free, there is no gluten in rum (sugar/molasses) anyway and since they use the same ingredients for their vodka as their rum, there is no gluten in that either.

And finally, by "spirits line" they mean the mixes that go in their rum and vodka, not the alcohol itself.
A Baltic Lesson For The US In How To Counter Russian Disinformation Tactics

A Baltic Lesson For The US In How To Counter Russian Disinformation Tactics

Jan 09 2019 | comment(s)

As the new Congress begins, it will soon discuss the comprehensive reports to the U.S. Senate on the disinformation campaign of half-truths, outright fabrications and misleading posts made by agents of the Russian government on social media in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election.

In 2021, Beans Will Be Grown In Space

In 2021, Beans Will Be Grown In Space

Jan 09 2019 | comment(s)

Traveling to Mars is a ridiculous idea outside anything but "adventure" yet the U.S. administration under President Obama scrubbed his predecessor's return to the moon and replaced it with a program bearing his name, going to the red planet.

Whether or not that actually happens, science and technology are using that potential to experiment with growing food in space. 
California, Get Rid Of Paper Receipts But Don't Use Anti-Science Scaremongering As The Reason

California, Get Rid Of Paper Receipts But Don't Use Anti-Science Scaremongering As The Reason

Jan 09 2019 | comment(s)

A California lawmaker wants to ban paper receipts - those annoying long things that immediately get lost in a grocery bag - but instead of promoting the legitimate reason to get rid of them, they are useless, he invoked chemical scaremongering.
Cancer Deaths Continue To Fall But A Crisis May Still Be On The Horizon

Cancer Deaths Continue To Fall But A Crisis May Still Be On The Horizon

Jan 09 2019 | comment(s)

Death rates from cancer have been falling for 25 years, but the next generation may cause a tick back up.

Cancer is the second leading cause of death, behind heart disease. Both have age as risk factors but also behavioral components. For cancer, smoking has been the second greatest risk factor overall (and number one for lung cancer) but heart disease is also greatly impacted by fitness. And many cancers can be directly linked to metabolic problems. The current levels of obesity among young people mean that cancer deaths could be at a plateau and set to rise again in 20 years.
FTC Cracks Down On Osteopath Bryn Jarald Henderson And Shady Stem Cell Therapies

FTC Cracks Down On Osteopath Bryn Jarald Henderson And Shady Stem Cell Therapies

Jan 09 2019 | comment(s)

Bryn Jarald Henderson, D.O. (osteopath), claimed his stem cell treatments at Regenerative Medical Group and Telehealth Medical Group using amniotic fluid from women who have given birth via C-section could cause the lame to walk and cure kidney disease and whatever else. 

That was enough to get slapped down by the Federal Trade Commission and rightly so. Though the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has been forced to allow all manner of suspect claims in the food and supplement industry due to President Clinton's 1994 Dietary Supplement Health and Education Law exempting supplement hucksters from any real oversight, overtly lying to  is another animal.
LIGO's Computing Power, Explained Simply By Linus Tech Tips

LIGO's Computing Power, Explained Simply By Linus Tech Tips

Jan 08 2019 | comment(s)

Explaining something simply is not easy.  Linus Tech Tips has done the best job I have seen of breaking down the computational aspects of how a project like LIGO works.  It helps to have a small video production studio to create good visual aids.  Physicist like me are most interested in the pure physics-based challenges in such a project.  Isolating a signal from all of various types of environmental noise involved in detecting tiny distortions in the distance between points, the space time metric (which is what gravitational waves are.)

Gravitational Waves

So, what is a metric?  In non-technical terms it is a measuring stick that gives the distance between objects in space-time. 

Environmental Antibiotic Resistance Linked To Feces - Evolution Or Sewage Plants?

Environmental Antibiotic Resistance Linked To Feces - Evolution Or Sewage Plants?

Jan 08 2019 | comment(s)

Fecal pollution can explain a lot of the increase in resistant bacteria where humans live, but not all of it. In some cases resistance genes were common without the presence of “crAssphage”, a bacteriophage common in human feces  - environments polluted with high levels of antibiotics from manufacturing, according to a new paper.
Open Access Promotes Scientific Discovery - Efforts Like Canada's Aggressive New Copyright Dates Hold It Back

Open Access Promotes Scientific Discovery - Efforts Like Canada's Aggressive New Copyright Dates Hold It Back

Jan 08 2019 | comment(s)

As European science-related institutions, such as the European Research Council, have shown their growing preference for Open Access, e.g., via the Plan S, the primary rationale for this is the positive effect on the discovery of new knowledge that various models of Open Access can be expected to have.

Green Liver: Houseplant Genetically Modified To Filter Even Toxic Levels Of Home Air

Green Liver: Houseplant Genetically Modified To Filter Even Toxic Levels Of Home Air

Jan 08 2019 | comment(s)

House plants can help clean a home's air, but unless you live in a greenhouse a mechanical high-efficiency particulate (HEPA) air filter is the way to go, because it forces pet dander, pollen (even cigarette smoke if you still do that) or pollen through a mesh that traps those. 
Akkadia: How Climate Change Doomed The World’s First Empire

Akkadia: How Climate Change Doomed The World’s First Empire

Jan 07 2019 | comment(s)

Gol-e-Zard Cave lies in the shadow of Mount Damavand, which at more than 5,000 metres dominates the landscape of northern Iran. In this cave, stalagmites and stalactites are growing slowly over millennia and preserve in them clues about past climate events. Changes in stalagmite chemistry from this cave have now linked the collapse of the Akkadian Empire to climate changes more than 4,000 years ago.

A Science Mystery 700 Years In The Making: Origin Of Plant Sperm Uncovered

A Science Mystery 700 Years In The Making: Origin Of Plant Sperm Uncovered

Jan 07 2019 | comment(s)

An ancient genetic mechanism needed for plant fertility is helping to solve a science mystery 700 million years in the making.

The researchers discovered how a gene called DUO1 known to control sperm production inside pollen grains of flowering plants, is also used by primitive land plants to produce free-swimming sperm. They found that the gene originated in the stoneworts, an ancient group of aquatic algae that diverged from land plants over 700 million years ago.

The paper suggests that it was a simple change in the DUO1 gene sequence that allowed the algal ancestors of land plants to produce small swimming sperm to increase the chances of fertilization in an aquatic environment.
If You Want To Write About Water Supplies, Food Production, And Global Warming, Apply For The Metcalf Institute Science Immersion Workshop

If You Want To Write About Water Supplies, Food Production, And Global Warming, Apply For The Metcalf Institute Science Immersion Workshop

Jan 07 2019 | comment(s)

The University of Rhode Island’s Metcalf Institute is looking for journalists who want to write about water supplies, water quality, food production and climate change.

They are accepting applications for their 21th Annual Science Immersion Workshop for Journalists, June 2-7, 2019. Ten journalists will be awarded Workshop fellowships, which include tuition, room and board, and travel support. Two of the ten slots will be awarded to journalists based outside of the U.S.
The Golden Globes Did Something Pro-Science, And Anti-Vaxxers Were Enraged

The Golden Globes Did Something Pro-Science, And Anti-Vaxxers Were Enraged

Jan 07 2019 | comment(s)

When I first began writing about the anti-vaccine issue, California was the home of the movement (1). The state had more philosophical exemptions than the rest of the country combined, and they were primarily wealthy white elites living on the coast.

You know, like Hollywood.
4 Lessons The AIDS Epidemic Taught Us About How To Deal With The Opioid Addiction Crisis

4 Lessons The AIDS Epidemic Taught Us About How To Deal With The Opioid Addiction Crisis

Jan 07 2019 | comment(s)

Medicine is not going to be enough. That was the first lesson that the world learned when Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) raged across cultures in the 1980s. Though its cause was learned to be Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) its transmission was social. In some undeveloped countries, unprotected sex, infidelity, and sometimes even rape were points of pride. In wealthier nations, risky behavior in sub-cultures was touted as freedom.
Kevin Hart, Must Apologize. There Are Gay Jokes, Then There Is Hate Speech. A Scientist Opinion

Kevin Hart, Must Apologize. There Are Gay Jokes, Then There Is Hate Speech. A Scientist Opinion

Jan 05 2019 | comment(s)

On Kevin Hart, Eddie Murphy could show him what an apology for past anit-gay jokes looks like.  Eddie Murphy managed to do this  in nineteen-hundred and ninety-six.  Kevin Hart never ever did apologize at all.