Hello again Science Fans!
The vernal equinox occurred Friday morning, ushering in the astronomical start to spring in the northern hemisphere. However, if felt more like we skipped spring and went straight to summer in the western US, what with highs in the 90s this past week. The heat wave is an example of extreme weather pushed by climate change, according to climate scientists. The temperature reached 110 F in the Arizona desert on Thursday, marking the highest March temperature ever recorded in the US!
To add to the situation, La Nina is finishing and forecasters predict not only an El Nino to replace it, but a super El Nino! NOAA says there’s a 62% chance of an El Nino starting between June and August, with the chance of it being “super” around 1 in 3 (3.6 degrees F above long-term average). El Ninos tend to cause warmer temperatures around much of the world.
The Thwaits Glacier in Antarctica is melting at an alarming rate, and a collapse of this glacier could cause world-wide increases in sea level of as much as 2 feet. Here’s a look at areas of the world with cities of more than 300,000 living within 2 feet of nominal sea level.
Meanwhile, the Administration continues to say climate change is a hoax, and to relax or remove environmental regulations.
Perhaps the red fox from England decided to come here to convince the Administration they are wrong? The fox was found on a cargo ship from the UK, surviving the journey from Southampton to the Port of NY and NJ. Wildlife experts took him to the Bronx Zoo for observation, but he was reported in good health, and not particularly phased by his journey! Won’t he have a story to tell the kids!
Medicine
Back in 2024, a study was published claiming that apple cider vinegar, taken daily in small doses, produced dramatic weight loss of 13 – 17 pounds over 12 weeks. The study has since been retracted, as the math doesn’t add up. This presents a case study in how science works, including peer review of results.
The respected journal, The Lancet, published an unusually direct warning about the erosion of scientific integrity within the public health institutions in the US, focusing on Robert F Kennedy, Secretary of Health and Human Services.
In Washington, The Farm Bill, one of the largest pieces of legislation affecting the US food system, has advanced out of committee. Renewed every five years, the last bill expired in 2023 and we’ve been operating under temporary extensions since. The FDA recommended the 2026 fall flu vaccine strains, which would not usually be news except that last year, the committee’s meeting was canceled by the FDA and the strains were selected in secret, without input from experts. Predictably, this winter’s flu shot was not as protective as usual. The department of Health and Human Services announced an overhaul of nutritional education for medical school curricula instead of recommending referalls to Registered Dietitians.
Scientists at Stanford announced a universal vaccine that could protect us from viruses, pneumonia, and allergies, all via a nasal spray! The vaccine uses a different approach than previous vaccines and has been successfully tested in mice so far.
In 2024, over half of survey participants said they took nutritional supplements regularly. But in most cases, supplements are unnecessary. Here’s what supplements people take, and what they could eat to get the same benefits.
Space
A suspected meteor fell from the sky near Cleveland, OH on Tuesday morning, with reports coming in from as far away as Wisconsin and Maryland.
Scientists have several theories as to how life started on Earth. One of those contends that the building blocks of life arrived here from asteroids. That theory advanced when Japanese scientists confirmed that all five building blocks of RNA and DNA are present in the samples taken from the asteroid Ryugu, proving that the nucleobases could have arrived here via asteroids.
Remember DART? This was the mission to smash a spacecraft into an asteroid to see if the impact could change the orbit of the asteroid, should this ever become necessary to deflect one from hitting Earth. New research on the results of the impact showed that not only was the orbit around the sun changed, but the orbital period of Dimorphos, the moon orbiting the asteroid Didymos, changed by a whopping half hour! And there’s also research reported about the plume of ejecta from the impact.
The Vera Rubin Observatory continues to undergo testing prior to the start of its mission to survey the night sky, looking for changes in position or brightness between samples. In the first test of the alert system, it sent 800,000 alerts to astronomers around the world. And you think your inbox is full?
Astronomers at UC Berkeley and UC Santa Barbara have witnessed the birth of a magnetar, a highly magnetized, spinning neutron star, confirming it is the power source behind some of the brightest exploding stars in the cosmos.
Computing and Technology
Imagine you’re at a conference on theoretical computer science. OK, first, imagine that you know something about theoretical computer science. You take a break and go for a swim, as the conference is in Puerto Rico near the beach. Someone swims up to you and starts going on about how to create currency that couldn’t be forged. That’s what happened to Gilles Brassard in 1979, when Charles Bennett swam up to him. Their encounter in the ocean lead to a collaboration that resulted in them receiving the A. M. Turing Award, one of the highest honors in computing, that carries a $1,000,000 prize!
I would guess that most of our readers have never heard of ENIAC. It was the first large-scale, general purpose, programmable electronic computer and it is 80 years old this year. The ENIAC, an acronym for Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer paved the way for computing as we know it today.
The first such computers were huge, vacuum tube-powered machines that were programmed using wires and patch plugs. They consumed huge amounts of power, generated lots of heat, and required several people to program and operate them. Once integrated circuits were invented, computing on this scale became more practical, and more machines were developed. But it wasn’t until the first family of systems was introduced by IBM in 1964 that using computers in business applications really became practical. The System/360 family allowed customers to increase computing capacity by replacing a smaller model machine with a larger one. Programs written for one could run on any of them. Before this, graduating to a larger, faster computer required recompiling, and sometimes rewriting, code.
The ability to scale computing power in this way seems like an obvious requirement today, but back then it was a radical change.
I firmly believe that one key to understanding today’s technology is to understand what came before it, and the ENIAC is the start.
Looking ahead
Occasionally, we list events on our calendar that bear mentioning in the SciSchmooze ahead of time. One such event is a special whale watching tour on Monterey Bay on April 5, sponsored by the American Cetacean Society. There’s a 20% discount on tickets until March 25, hence the mention this week.
Other recommendations include:
- An Astronomer’s View of Life and the Human Heart, Tuesday 3/24, 7:00 PM, in Novato
- Jane Goodall and her Legacy – Livestream, Wednesday 3/25, 3:30 PM
- SETI Live: Artemis II – Moonbases, Space Suits, and More, Thursday 3/26, 11:00 AM
- AI Literacy Weekend at the Tech Interactive, Friday 3/27 – Sunday – 3/29
Have a great week in Science!
Bob Siederer
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