It’s all relative
Betelgeuse might have a sun-sized companion star
that orbits it about as soon as each 2,100 days, astronomy author Lisa Grossman reported in “Betelgeuse’s invisible buddy.”
The story describes Betelgeuse as “the crimson big that marks Orion’s left shoulder.” Reader Chris Jespersen wrote: “I usually see Betelgeuse on Orion’s proper shoulder…. Am I mistaken?”
That is truly a matter of perspective, Grossman says. The traditional Greeks thought the Orion constellation resembled the determine of a hunter. Many individuals agree that this celestial hunter faces Earth. Betelgeuse represents what’s thought-about the hunter’s proper shoulder, which is on the determine’s left from the attitude of Earth, she says.
Sharing reflections
The 2024 Nobel Prizes honored analysis in biology and AI, together with foundational work on synthetic neural networks, which allow machine studying and different tech advances, Science Information employees reported in “2024 Nobel Prize winners introduced.”
Reader Jeremy Brown contemplated the rise of AI. “Synthetic neural networks might scare off some individuals, nevertheless it captivates the remainder of us who see its practically limitless potential for unlocking the secrets and techniques of the universe and ourselves,” Brown wrote. “We’ve got a protracted strategy to go earlier than a neural community may surpass our personal [brain],” Brown continued, however the expertise may assist people meet varied wants in medication and analysis.
Brown additionally expressed common appreciation for Science Information: “Thanks so very a lot for bringing science to us who’re incarcerated. This publication aids us, and we’ve got shaped casual examine teams on the sciences on the whole in my dwelling quarters,” Brown wrote. “I reside in a dormitory setting and am a facilitator and a squad chief for our instructional program referred to as A New Route Motion. This publication has opened new neural pathways in my dendrites and is retaining us all up-to-date on the newest physics, astronomy, biology, archaeology!”
What about waste?
Tech corporations together with Google and Amazon are investing in small nuclear reactors for his or her vitality wants. The shift might assist propel the proliferation of nuclear energy, touted as a supply of dependable “inexperienced” vitality, senior physics author Emily Conover reported in “Nuclear vitality entices Massive Tech.”
Reader Susanne Kjemtrup-Lovelace puzzled how the waste produced by these small reactors can be managed.
Nuclear waste disposal continues to be a thorny subject. For now, spent nuclear gasoline is usually saved in dry casks on the websites of nuclear energy crops. After a long time of native opposition halted plans for a storage facility at Yucca Mountain in Nevada in 2010, the U.S. authorities made little progress towards an answer for years.
However now, the federal government is working towards an interim storage facility that may consolidate waste till a long-term geologic repository is established. Since 2015, the U.S. Division of Vitality has been growing a “consent-based” course of, targeted on discovering a group prepared to simply accept a facility. “It could be very arduous to begin constructing superior reactors in a universe the place the federal government was nonetheless doing nothing,” says nuclear engineer Kathryn Huff of the College of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
