Science, it's full of surprises. But I am most excited when the scientists themselves are the ones surprised. The two most exciting words I can read in the news are "scientific accident", and you'll see them below.
First up, a long-time mystery of the universe, swept under the rug by Einstein himself, some might even call it Einstein Fudge. You know it as the cosmological constant, and it says that the universe is constantly expanding. We don't understand why the cosmological constant is there or what it's really doing, but we can't make sense of the universe without it. Until now.
Image credit: Light Bulb Fail, Milos Jokic, Getty Images, 2019
New study proposes expansion of the universe directly impacts black hole growth
Nov 2021, phys.org
Black holes grow along with the expansion of the universe. Black holes gain mass from the expansion of the universe itself. Masses of black holes could grow in lockstep with the universe, a phenomenon that Croker and his team call cosmological coupling.The most well-known example of cosmologically-coupled material is light itself, which loses energy as the universe grows. "We thought to consider the opposite effect," said research co-author and UH Mānoa Physics and Astronomy Professor Duncan Farrah."It was a such a simple idea, I was surprised it worked so well."
via University of Hawaii at Manoa, University of Chicago, and University of Michigan at Ann Arbor: Kevin S. Croker et al, Cosmologically Coupled Compact Objects: A Single-parameter Model for LIGO–Virgo Mass and Redshift Distributions, The Astrophysical Journal Letters (2021). DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/ac2fad
Granddaughters and great-granddaughters of men who start to smoke before puberty, have more body fat than expected
Jan 2022, phys.org
I'm just saying, how the do you even figure this out. Who is sitting there right now putting this hypothesis together in their head.
via University of Bristol: Human transgenerational observations of regular smoking before puberty on fat mass in grandchildren and great-grandchildren, Scientific Reports (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-04504-0
What we knew about water was right after all
Feb 2022, phys.org
Like the discovery of lead in the air - when something is everywhere, it's hard to notice it at all. In this case, it seems the fact that this experiment was never done in a desert environment is all that was keeping us from the answer.
Frankenpaste:
Probing chemical transformations at the air-water interface is challenging due to the lack of surface-specific techniques or computational models, but now they found water spontaneously transforms into 30–110 micromolar hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) as microdroplets. The textbook understanding of water is thus challenged by how the mild temperature and pressure conditions, together with the absence of catalysts, co-solvents and significant applied energy, could break covalent O–H bonds; it was previously thought to be from ultrahigh electric fields.It was ambient ozone -- Although ozone minimally dissolves in water, the enhanced surface area of microdroplets allows more ozone to be dissolved and quickly react to form H2O2.
"There had to be something related to the geography of the place, an environmental difference between our location in Saudi Arabia and California," Gallo Jr says.
via King Abdullah University of Science and Technology: Nayara H. Musskopf et al, The Air–Water Interface of Water Microdroplets Formed by Ultrasonication or Condensation Does Not Produce H2O2, The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters (2021). DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpclett.1c02953
Life may actually flash before your eyes on death
Feb 2022, BBC News
First-ever recording of a dying brain discovered by accident.
"This was actually totally by chance, we did not plan to do this experiment or record these signals."
-BBC
This is also one of the reasons why it is important to care for every human equally, regardless of what happened to them. You're born without an immune system? We're keeping you alive. Paraplegic? We're giving you wifi for your body.
You have epilepsy? We're going to slap some electrodes to your head and monitor your brainwaves for a really, really long time, and figure out how to help you. Unless you have a heart attack in the headset, in which case we'll watch what happens, and use your accident to further the advancement of science.
via Department of Neurosurgery, Henan Provincial People’s Hospital, Division of Neurosurgery, Vancouver General Hospital: Vicente Raul et al. Enhanced Interplay of Neuronal Coherence and Coupling in the Dying Human Brain. Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience 14 2022. DOI: 10.3389/fnagi.2022.813531.
Researchers report game-changing technology to remove 99% of carbon dioxide from air
Feb 2022, phys.org
Just some very clever thinking.
Hydroxide exchange membrane (HEM) fuel cells, an economical and environmentally friendly alternative to traditional acid-based fuel cells used today, have a shortcoming that has kept them off the road—they are extremely sensitive to carbon dioxide in the air. Essentially, the carbon dioxide makes it hard for a HEM fuel cell to breathe. This defect quickly reduces the fuel cell's performance and efficiency by up to 20%, rendering the fuel cell no better than a gasoline engine."Once we dug into the mechanism, we realized the fuel cells were capturing just about every bit of carbon dioxide that came into them, and they were really good at separating it to the other side," said Brian Setzler, assistant professor for research in chemical and biomolecular engineering and paper co-author.While this isn't good for the fuel cell, the team knew if they could leverage this built-in "self-purging" process in a separate device upstream from the fuel cell stack, they could turn it into a carbon dioxide separator.They found a way to embed the power source for the electrochemical technology inside the separation membrane. The approach involved internally short-circuiting the device.
via University of Delaware: Lin Shi et al, A shorted membrane electrochemical cell powered by hydrogen to remove CO2 from the air feed of hydroxide exchange membrane fuel cells, Nature Energy (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41560-021-00969-5
Unrelated Post Script:
Parasite that replaces a fish's tongue caught at Texas state park
Oct 2021, phys.org
The tongue-eating louse makes its way into the fish's mouth through its gills, where it consumes the mucus that forms on the inside of the fish's mouth, and completely replaces the organ in another creature, although it doesn't harm its host.
Also, it has eyes; the parasitic zombie tongue has its own eyes.
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