Quirks and Quarks54:02Artificial auroras, household runs and climate transform, baby’s initially bacteria, math does crowd handle, science and storylistening and old books with hidden stories.
On this week’s episode of Quirks & Quarks with Bob McDonald:
Scientists map Earth’s ionosphere with artificial auroras
Quirks and Quarks8:28Scientists map Earth’s ionosphere with artificial auroras
Scientists in Sweden launched a rocket into close to-Earth space in a current experiment to probe the area exactly where the Northern Lights dance. After the rocket reached the ionosphere, it released barium particles that became illuminated by the setting sun as they travelled by means of that area of our outer atmosphere. The target of this controlled experiment is to study a lot more about the circumstances that generate aurora borealis — a visible manifestation of space climate that can potentially threaten our energy systems. Johan Kero, the head of analysis for the Swedish Institute of Space Physics, stated that optical instruments on the ground tracked the occasion, which will let them to visualize the circumstances that solar wind particles encounter when they generate dazzling auroras.
Climate transform is a boon for baseball’s energy hitters
Quirks and Quarks7:16Climate transform is a boon for baseball’s energy hitters
The quantity of household runs in main league baseball has improved in current years, and not just for the reason that of enhancing capabilities and far better gear. Christopher Callahan, a climate researcher at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, located that about 500 a lot more household runs have been hit considering the fact that 2010 for the reason that of climate transform. The physics is very simple: warmer air is significantly less dense, so the ball has an less complicated time creating its way out of the park. His analysis was published in The Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.
Blue Jays shortstop Bo Bichette at bat at Rogers Centre in Toronto in 2022 (Evan Mitsui/CBC)
Scientists determine exactly where babies get their bacteria
Quirks and Quarks8:36Scientists determine exactly where babies get their bacteria
A new study, published in the journal Cell & Host Microbe, has located that practically 60 per cent of a newborn’s microbiome comes from its birth parent. Researchers collected samples of microbes from unique physique components in each the mother and the child two hours following birth, and then once more one particular, two, and 4 weeks following. Pediatrician Debby Bogaert from the University of Edinburgh, who was portion of the analysis group, says that the majority of bacteria is shared involving mom and child regardless of regardless of whether the birth was vaginal or by way of Caesarean section.
Almost 60 per cent of a newborn baby’s microbiome comes from its birth parent, regardless of mode of delivery, new study suggests. (KieferPix/Shutterstock)
When we stroll by means of crowds, math, not intelligence, controls the flow of visitors
Quirks and Quarks8:41When we stroll by means of crowds, math, not intelligence, controls the flow of visitors
When crowds of men and women navigate a space, they have a tendency to naturally kind into lanes of visitors, which effectively let men and women to move about devoid of colliding. In a new study, researchers observed groups of volunteers walking about a fitness center in unique directions. Dr. Tim Rogers, study co-author and a professor in the Division of Mathematical Sciences at the University of Bath in the U.K., stated that men and women naturally formed lanes to get from point A to point B – but providing them visitors guidelines to adhere to got in the way of that approach. This analysis, which was published in Science, suggests that lane formation needs no intelligence, but is governed by emergent mathematical patterns.
Tilted lanes captured in a human-crowd experiment. The lanes are formed by two groups of men and women moving in opposite directions. The curve in the lane final results from a “pass on the ideal” visitors rule. (K. Bacik. B. Bacik, T. Rogers)
How stories can function with science to assistance us make sense of the globe
Quirks and Quarks9:23How stories can function with science to assistance us make sense of the globe
Stories and science are generally regarded separate – even opposed – domains, but Claire Craig and Sarah Dillon want to transform that. They are proposing a new thought named “storylistening” that can function collectively with science as a new type of proof for choice-creating. In a current post in the journal Science, the scholars recommend that a rigorous evaluation of narratives – like the stories told in well-known fiction and film – can strengthen scientific information utilised to inform public policy for international difficulties like climate transform and space exploration.
Researchers advocate the practice of storylistening, a approach of collecting proof from narratives, as a way to complement scientific information utilised in public policy. (Getty Pictures/iStockphoto)
The stories that books can inform — that are not in the words they include
Quirks and Quarks9:14The stories that books can inform — that are not in the words they include
A new project at the University of Toronto is studying ancient books – devoid of reference to their texts. The researchers behind the Hidden Stories project are hunting at points like the stains on the paper, the mould and fungus in the binding, and the composition of the ink to see what stories these books can inform that are not in their words. Dr. Alexandra Gillespie, the vice-president at the University of Toronto and principal of U of T Mississauga who leads Hidden Stories, stated these objects can assistance us study a lot more about the life-style, travels, and environments of the men and women who study these texts in the distant previous.
This Buddhist prayer sheet was commissioned in the city of Dunhuang in northwestern China in 947 CE. Researchers involved in the Hidden Stories project examine the physical properties of ancient texts like this one particular, to see what these objects can inform us about the men and women who wrote and study them. (Courtesy of the Royal Ontario Museum)