Science

Search for aliens intensifies, new techniques announced to determine ‘whether we are alone in the universe’

Following the news that scientists discovered a fast radio burst from deep space that is “repeating” every 16 days, experts are increasing their efforts to look for alien life.

Scientists at the SETI Institute announced they are working on new techniques to spot “technosignatures” that could potentially indicate the presence of an advanced civilization. SETI will use the Very Large Array (VLA) telescope in New Mexico for their work and provide data to the search system.

“The SETI Institute will develop and install an interface on the VLA, permitting unprecedented access to the rich data stream continuously produced by the telescope as it scans the sky,” said Andrew Siemion, Breakthrough Listen principal investigator and Bernard M. Oliver Chair for SETI, in a statement. “This interface will allow us to conduct a powerful, wide-area SETI survey that will be vastly more complete than any previous such search.”

Artist’s concept of a nearby civilization signaling Earth after observing our planet crossing in front of the sun. Astronomers have now scanned 20 nearby stars in the Earth transit zone in search of such signals. (Credit: UC Berkeley, Breakthrough Listen)

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Technosignatures are defined as “potentially detectable signatures and signals of the presence of distant advanced civilizations,” according to NASA.

National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) Director Tony Beasley added that as the VLA conducts its normal observations, the new system will allow for additional use cases of the data already being collected.

“Determining whether we are alone in the universe as technologically capable life is among the most compelling questions in science, and NRAO telescopes can play a major role in answering it,” Beasley explained.

The news comes as the Breakthrough Listen Initiative released its second data dump earlier this month that, so far, has not found any evidence of extraterrestrial life.

Two petabytes of data were released, including radio emissions from the “plane of the Milky Way Galaxy, the region around its central, 4-million-solar-mass black hole, and observations of the interstellar comet 2I/Borisov,” Breakthrough wrote in a separate statement.

Comet 2I/Borisov is the second interstellar object ever discovered — after Ouamuamua — and was spotted on Aug. 30, 2019, by astronomer Gennady Borisov. Some scientists have theorized it may be carrying water from beyond the Solar System.

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Included in the new data set is the study of 20 nearby stars that are aligned with the plane of Earth’s orbit, known as the Earth Transit Zone. No technosignatures were discovered, former UC Berkeley undergraduate Sofia Sheikh said in a statement.

“Because I purposely looked at nearby targets, my search was sensitive enough to locate a transmitter on par with the strongest transmitters on Earth,” Sheikh explained. “We can infer that there is nothing as strong as our Arecibo telescope beaming a signal toward us.”

The raw data has yet to be fully analyzed by researchers — approximately only 20 percent, according to Axios — with Siemion adding the galactic center is of utmost importance for the group.

“It is there that an advanced civilization might somehow harness the energy of the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy to signal its existence,” Siemion added.

NASA: ANCIENT MARS OASIS COULD HAVE SUPPORT LIFE

Russian billionaire Yuri Milner, who is backing the $100 million, 10-year Breakthrough Initiative, said that all humanity “could do was speculate” because of the limited amount of data in the search for life outside of Earth.

“Now, as we are getting a lot of data, we can do real science and, with making this data available to [the] general public, so can anyone who wants to know the answer to this deep question,” Milner added.

Earlier this month, a fast radio burst (FRB) that repeats a pattern every 16 days was discovered coming from a galaxy 500 million light-years from Earth. Known as FRB 180916.J0158+65, this FRB sends out radio wave bursts for a period of four days, stops for a period of 12 days, then repeats itself. The initial 28 patterns were first observed between September 2018 and October 2019.

It’s unknown how common FRBs actually are and why some of them repeat and others do not; most of their origins are also mysterious in nature.

Some researchers have speculated they stem from an extraterrestrial civilization, but others, including SETI, have said that explanation “really doesn’t make sense.” They come from all over space “and arranging cooperative alien behavior when even one-way communication takes many billions of years seems unlikely — to put it gently,” SETI wrote in a September 2019 blog post.

First discovered in 2007, FRBs are relatively new to astronomers. According to ScienceAlert, some of them can generate as much energy as 500 million suns in a few milliseconds.

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One-of-a-kind pink manta ray spotted swimming off Great Barrier Reef

A photographer has captured remarkable images of what is believed to be the only pink manta ray on Earth.

Photographer Kristian Laine took the pictures while diving off Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. Nicknamed Inspector Clouseau after the inspector in “The Pink Panther” media franchise, the ray measures 11 feet and was first discovered in 2015.

In an interview with ScienceAlert, Laine said he had “never even heard of a pink manta” and initially believed it was his camera malfunctioning. “Only later that night I saw a photo of a pink manta on the restaurant’s notice board and thought it was a joke until I rushed to check the belly patterns in my camera,” Laine told the news outlet.

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It’s unclear at this point why the flattened fish has its pink hue, but experts have theorized it could be linked to its diet.

“There has not been a thorough investigation into diet or stable isotope analysis, but given the stability of the white ‘birthmark’ (clearly seen in the second image) and pink color over time we think diet can be ruled out,” Asia Armstrong of Project Manta said in a Facebook post. “The working theory is that it is just a different and very unique expression of the melanin, but that is still to be confirmed.”

National Geographic reported that the ray has only been seen 10 times since it was first spotted in 2015.

Manta rays, which can weigh as much as 5,300 pounds, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), are found “worldwide in tropical, subtropical, and temperate bodies of water and is commonly found offshore, in oceanic waters, and near productive coastlines,” according to NOAA.

They are also closely related to sharks and, like their relatives, are solitary animals and graceful swimmers.

In June 2018, scientists discovered a site off the Texas coast that they believe is the world’s first known manta ray nursery. Two months later, a photographer in Maryland captured a remarkable image of a manta ray breaching the water.

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Fox News’ James Rogers and Madeline Farber contributed to this story.

Perfectly preserved 6,000-year-old leaf that fell from elm tree discovered by archaeologists

A leaf that fell from an elm tree more than 6,000 years ago was discovered intact by archaeologists in the United Kingdom.

Scientists found the leaf — along with a selection of Stone Age tools and pottery — when they were clearing a piece of land outside of Blackpool along the coast of northern England.

Lead archaeologist Fraser Brown told The Daily Mail that the finds were of national significance.

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A perfectly-preserved leaf (seen above) that fell from an elm tree 6,000 years ago has been discovered intact.
(Highways England/SWNS)

“We have found extensive deposits of peat and marine clays which have helped preserve ancient plant remains and which yield information on the local vegetation, water, climate, and human activity,” he explained to the British publication.

“We’ve also found pottery, stone tools and charred remains providing direct evidence for Mesolithic hunter-gatherers foraging, and possibly camping, at the water’s edge and later on, Neolithic and Bronze Age farmers living on the fringes of a salt marsh,” Brown added.

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Rare pottery and tool fragments found at the site include (on the left) parts of a Carinated Bowl. On the right, from the same site, are some ancient twigs and hazelnuts.
(Highways England/SWNS)

The haul of items found at the site reportedly also includes wood, leaves, hazelnuts and ancient pollen.

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Ancient Rome stunner: Sarcophagus dedicated to Romulus discovered

A shrine dedicated to the legendary founder of Rome, Romulus, has been discovered after archaeologists excavated the Roman Forum and stumbled upon the discovery.

The shrine includes an underground chamber containing a 55-inch sarcophagus, and what experts believe may be an altar. The sarcophagus dates to the 6th century B.C., according to experts.

“This is an extraordinary discovery,” Alfonsina Russo, director of the Colosseum Archaeological Park, told The Times of London. “The forum never ceases to yield amazing fresh treasures.”

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Mayor Virginia Raggi praised the discovery, tweeting: “Rome always marvels with its treasures. Inside the Roman Forum new exciting archaeological discovery: a hypogeum with a tuff sarcophagus from the 6th century BC. Thanks to a team of scholars who conducted the research.”

The discovery will be unveiled on Friday by the Colosseum Archaeological Park, which is overseeing the excavations. However, no remains were discovered in the coffin, which makes it difficult, if not impossible, to verify the claim.

The Forum was the center of public life in ancient Rome, the Associated Press reported. The monument is near the main complex of public buildings, which include the senate and the rostra — the speaker’s podium where all important pronouncements were made.

According to legend, Romulus founded the city in 735 B.C. after he murdered his twin brother Remus following an argument over where the city should be built.

The Roman Empire continues to reveal its secrets. Researchers, for example, recently discovered that some Vesuvius victims “baked” as they died. Experts also recently discovered ancient brain matter that was turned into glass as a result of the volcanic eruption that devastated the city.

The Roman city of Pompeii was devastated following the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D. Pompeii was quickly buried by volcanic ash, killing about 2,000 of the city’s residents, according to History.com.

In October, a pair of 2,000-year-old scrolls believed to have belonged to the family of Julius Caesar were virtually “unwrapped” for the first time.

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The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Huge bird migration spotted on weather radar

A huge migration of birds was picked up on a National Weather Service radar in Key West.

“Key West radar has had a busy night, but not because of weather! The most impressive display of migratory birds so far this year occurred overnight,” tweeted National Weather Service Key West on Monday.

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The massive bird migration was picked up by a National Weather Service radar.
(National Weather Service Key West)

In a Facebook post, NWS Key West explained that the birds are migrating from Cuba. “The birds first appear on radar as they depart from Cuba and emerge in the Florida Straits, disappearing below the radar towards dawn as they reach mainland Florida,” it said. “The time lapse imagery spans 10.5 hours. If you look closely you can see a smaller batch of birds depart the Keys at the beginning of the loop.”

The Tampa Bay Times reports that the migration is a normal occurrence at this time of year, as more than 118 species of birds return to North America after spending the winter in the warmer climes of Central and South America, as well as the Caribbean.

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This is not the first time that birds have appeared on National Weather Service radar. Thousands of roosting birds, for example, have been detected on a number of occasions by NWS Doppler Radar in Wilmington, Ohio.

“Beginning around the middle of summer, curious expanding doughnut patterns often appear just before sunrise on NWS Wilmington, Ohio’s Doppler radar imagery,” explained the National Weather Service’s Forecast Office in Wilmington. “These features, known as ‘roost rings,’ occur when the radar beam detects thousands of birds taking off from their roosting sites around dawn to forage for insects.”

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Antarctica just saw its all-time hottest day ever

Pictured above, a blue ice area in Antarctica. (UNSW/AntarcticScience.com)
(UNSW/AntarcticScience.com)

Antarctica just experienced its single hottest day ever recorded, hitting a high of 69.35 degrees Fahrenheit (20.75 degrees Celsius) on Feb. 9, a team of Argentine researchers reported.

This is the first time the temperature on the continent has exceeded 20 degrees C (68 F), the researchers told news site AFP.com, but not the first time the continent has seen a new record-breaking high this month. On Feb. 6, a research station on the Antarctic Peninsula (the continent’s northwest tip, closest to South America) reported a high of 64.9 F (18.3 C) — surpassing the previous record of 63.5 F (17.5 C), set in March 2015.

The new 69-degree high was recorded at Argentina’s Marambio research base, located on Seymour Island, part of an island chain off the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula. The peninsula is one of the fastest-warming regions on Earth, according to the World Meteorological Organization — an agency of the United Nations (UN) — with average temperatures rising 5.4 F (3 C) over the last 50 years.

At the same time, annual ice loss from the Antarctic ice sheet increased more than sixfold. As the surrounding ocean warms, huge chunks of ice break off and enter the sea, slowly diminishing the continent’s icy coastline. If a glacier retreats faster than new ice can form to replace it, that glacier could collapse, potentially spilling billions of tons of ice into the water and contributing to sea level rise. According to NASA, Antarctica’s two fastest-shrinking glaciers — the Pine Island Glacier and Thwaites Glacier — contain enough vulnerable ice between them to raise sea levels by 4 feet (1.2 meters).

The new record-breaking temperature also fits with global warming trends over the past decade. According to the U.N., 2010 to 2019 was the single hottest decade on record, with 2019 ranking as the second-hottest year ever (the hottest was 2016).

The warming trend is already continuing into the new year: January 2020 was rated the hottest January in the 141-year climate record.

Originally published on Live Science.

Ancient Biblical era temple discovered in Israel

An international team of archaeologists has uncovered an ancient Biblical era temple in Israel.

The ruins of the Canaanite temple were discovered within a large Bronze Age settlement in what is now National Park Tel Lachish. The temple, which dates back to the 12th century B.C., was once part of the ancient Canaanite city of Lachish.

Professor Yosef Garfinkel of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Professor Michael Hasel of Southern Adventist University in Tennessee led a team of researchers that uncovered the temple.

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Lachish was built around 1800 B.C., destroyed and rebuilt on a number of occasions over the following centuries, according to Hebrew University.

“The settlement is mentioned in both the Bible and in various Egyptian sources and was one of the few Canaanite cities to survive into the 12th century BCE,” it explained in a statement.

Aerial view of the ancient Canaanite temple.
(IAA/Emil Eljem)

The city’s deliverance “into Israel’s hands,” for example, is described in the Book of Joshua.

The ancient Canaanite civilization, which created the first alphabet and is mentioned frequently in the Bible, has long fascinated historians.

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“This excavation has been breath-taking,” said Garfinkel in a statement. “Only once every 30 or 40 years do we get the chance to excavate a Canaanite temple in Israel. What we found sheds new light on ancient life in the region. It would be hard to overstate the importance of these findings.”

A bronze cauldron discovered at the site. (Credit: T. Rogovski)

The temple’s layout is similar to other Canaanite temples that have been discovered in northern Israel, according to the archaeologists. Researchers also unearthed a host of artifacts from the site, including bronze cauldrons, jewelry inspired by the ancient Egyptian goddess Hathor, daggers and ax-heads decorated with images of birds and scarabs, which are ancient beetle-shaped carvings. A gold-plated bottle inscribed with the name of Pharaoh Rameses II was also discovered, along with two bronze figurines of armed “smiting gods” and a pottery sherd engraved with an ancient Canaanite script.

The piece of pottery bears the Hebrew letter “samech” marked by an elongated vertical line crossed by three perpendicular shorter lines. “This makes it the oldest known example of the letter and a unique specimen for the study of ancient alphabets,” explained Hebrew University in the statement.

ANCIENT ‘NEW YORK’ DISCOVERED IN ISRAEL AS ARCHAEOLOGISTS UNCOVER LOST BRONZE AGE CITY

Pottery sherd with the letter “samech” highlighted. (Credit: T. Rogovski)

The discovery is described in the journal Levant.

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The temple at Tel Lachish
(Courtesy of the Fourth Expedition to Lachish)

Israel continues to shed new light on its rich history. In another project, an Iron Age temple complex discovered near Jerusalem is shedding new light on an ancient Biblical city.

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Elephants mourn their dead in a way that ‘sends chills up one’s spine’

Elephants are considered one of the smartest species of mammal in the animal kingdom, but a new study says they mourn their dead, even if they did not have a strong relationship with them.

The research, published in the scientific journal Primates, notes that elephants are able to use their keen sense of smell to identify other elephants that have died. They’ve even been observed vocalizing or attempting to lift or pull elephants that have recently died, according to the findings.

“The most commonly recorded behavior of elephants toward their dead included touching, approaching the dead animal and investigating the carcass,” said the study’s lead author, Shifra Goldenberg, in a statement.

FILE PHOTO: A herd of elephants gathers at a water hole in Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park, August 1, 2015. REUTERS/Philimon Bulawayo

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Goldenberg continued: “The motivations underlying observed behaviors are hard to know, but clearly varied across circumstances and individuals. For example, some elephants made repeated visits to a carcass, and it’s possible that temporal gland streaming by a young female at the site of her mother’s carcass is associated with heightened emotion.”

The researchers studied 32 different elephant carcasses from 12 different regions across Africa to come up with their findings.

It’s well established that elephants form relationships with other members of the species that last decades, with each relationship different, due to their complex social structure. However, witnessing their behavior toward other elephants, even if they did not have a strong relationship, is stunning, said George Wittemyer, of the Department of Fish, Wildlife and Conservation Biology at Colorado State University and the Save the Elephants charity.

“Witnessing elephants interact with their dead sends chills up one’s spine, as the behavior so clearly indicates advanced feeling,” Wittemyer said in the statement. “This is one of the many magnificent aspects of elephants that we have observed, but cannot fully comprehend.”

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Cancer seen in humans also found in 66M-year-old dinosaur fossil

A type of cancer that still afflicts humans has been found in a dinosaur fossil that was unearthed in Canada, according to experts.

The fossil, which was found at the Dinosaur Provincial Park in southern Alberta, is of a small hadrosaur that was “common in the world 66-80 million years ago.” It contains Langerhans cell histiocytosis (LCH), described as a “rare and sometimes painful disease that still afflicts humans, particularly children under the age of 10,” according to a statement from Tel Aviv University.

“The micro-CT produces very high-resolution imaging, up to a few microns,” one of the study’s co-authors, Dr. Hila May, said in the statement. “We scanned the dinosaur vertebrae and created a computerized 3D reconstruction of the tumor and the blood vessels that fed it. The micro and macro analyses confirmed that it was, in fact, LCH. This is the first time this disease has been identified in a dinosaur.”

Photograph of the larger hadrosaur vertebra in lateral view. The space that contained the overgrowth opens to the caudal surface of the vertebra. (Credit: Assaf Ehrenreich, Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University)

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The size and shape of the cavities in the fossil are what attracted the attention of the researchers, May added.

“They were extremely similar to the cavities produced by tumors associated with the rare disease LCH that still exists today in humans,” May explained. “Most of the LCH-related tumors, which can be very painful, suddenly appear in the bones of children aged 2-10 years. Thankfully, these tumors disappear without intervention in many cases.”

The discovery is surprising, not only in that the disease survived more than 60 million years, but that it is not unique to humans.

Dr. Hila May holds a hadrosaur vertebra. (Credit: Tel Aviv University)

“These kinds of studies, which are now possible thanks to innovative technology, make an important and interesting contribution to evolutionary medicine, a relatively new field of research that investigates the development and behavior of diseases over time,” Tel Aviv University professor Israel Hershkovitz added in the statement. “We are trying to understand why certain diseases survive evolution with an eye to deciphering what causes them in order to develop new and effective ways of treating them.”

The study was published in Scientific Reports.

‘BONECRUSHING’ CROCODILE THAT HUNTED DINOSAURS 230M YEARS AGO DISCOVERED IN BRAZIL

Researchers continue to learn more about the time of the dinosaurs, including the asteroid that resulted in their extinction.

The asteroid, which hit Earth in the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, wiped out nearly 75 percent of all species on the planet, but it may have resulted in bacteria being able to thrive, according to a study published earlier this month.

A separate study published in October 2019, suggests the asteroid acidified Earth’s oceans after its impact. Another study published in September 2019 compared the impact of the asteroid to the power of 10 billion atomic bombs.

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Extreme weather could cause a massive economic recession ‘like we’ve never seen before’

A shocking new study says that extreme weather events caused by climate change could result in an economic recession “the likes of which we’ve never seen before.”

The research, published in Nature Energy, notes that financial markets are not taking into account the risks that catastrophic events such as floods, droughts and other extreme weather events will have on the economy.

“If the market doesn’t do a better job of accounting for climate, we could have a recession—the likes of which we’ve never seen before,” said the study’s author, University of California, Davis accounting professor Paul Griffin, in a statement.

File photo: Visitors look out onto free-floating ice jammed into the Ilulissat Icefjord during unseasonably warm weather on July 30, 2019 near Ilulissat, Greenland. The Sahara heat wave that recently sent temperatures to record levels in parts of Europe is arriving in Greenland. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

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Griffin added the amount of “unpriced risk” in the energy market is significant, noting this is what causes the Great Recession. “Right now, energy companies shoulder much of that risk. The market needs to better assess risk, and factor a risk of extreme weather into securities prices,” he explained.

He specifically cited the excessive-high temperatures that were felt in the Europe and U.S. last summer as events that could be detrimental not only to human health, but disrupt agriculture and the energy supply.

Last year, California utility company PG&E cut power to hundreds of thousands of people across the state because of weather-related events.

These events have continued to put a strain on the local and broader economies, but the risks have not been seen yet, Griffin warned. “Loss of property is what grabs all the headlines, but how are businesses coping? Threats to businesses could disrupt the entire economic system.”

CLIMATE CHANGE WILL SHRINK ‘VIRTUALLY ALL’ ECONOMIES AROUND THE GLOBE BY 2100, STUDY WARNS

The newly published study follows several others in recent months that have tied in extreme weather and climate-related events to negatively impacting the economy.

A study circulated by the National Bureau of Economic Research in August, suggested that “virtually all” nations will be negatively affected by climate change by 2100 if they do not abide by the 2015 Paris Agreement.

In June, the United Nations Human Rights Council published a report that warned of a potential “climate apartheid,” splitting the planet between the wealthy and the rest of the world who will be “left to suffer.”

A separate study published in April warned of the startling economic dangers that pollution from plastic in the oceans could cause – perhaps as much as $2.5 trillion.

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