Galaxy clusters and gravitational lensing

The furthest-from-earth non-supernova star was discovered incidentally because its light emissions were lensed around a cluster of galaxies.

MACS J1149+2223 Lensed Star-1, also known as Icarus, is a blue supergiant observed through a gravitational lens and the most distant individual star detected, at 9 billion light-years from Earth... Light from the star was emitted 4.4 billion years after the Big Bang.  According to co-discoverer Patrick Kelly, the star is at least a hundred times more distant than the next-farthest non-supernova star observed, and is the first magnified individual star seen.

More at the link.  I find it curiously difficult to think about this star using verbs in the present tense, since everything we know about it (position, size, wavelengths) describe it nine billion years ago.

Related (with some discussion of gravitational lensing): The first "multiple-image gravitationally-lensed supernova."

Also related: List of star extremes (nearest, oldest, brightest, hottest, least massive, fastest moving...)

Reposted from 2018 to add this instructional video about gravitational lensing, presented by Patrick Kelly.  The lecture was presented at the Minnesota Institute for Astrophysics last year.

Patrick is scheduled to do some projects involving the JWST, presumably to image via lensing some stars even closer to the Big Bang than the current limits of the standard microwave images.

Clever barrelman

I had to look up the term for the "lookout" in the crow's nest.

Barrelman is in reference to a person who would be stationed in the barrel of the foremast or crow's nest of an oceangoing vessel as a navigational aid. In early ships the crow's nest was simply a barrel or a basket lashed to the tallest mast. Later it became a specially designed platform with protective railing.

According to a popular naval legend, the term ["crow's nest"] derives from the practice of Viking sailors, who carried crows or ravens in a cage secured to the top of the mast. In cases of poor visibility, a crow was released, and the navigator plotted a course corresponding to the bird's flight path because the crow invariably headed towards the nearest land. Some naval scholars have found no evidence of the masthead crow cage and suggest the name was coined simply because the lookout platform resembled a crow's nest in a tree.  As ships grew in size and complexity, that station came to be mounted on the highest mast of the oceangoing vessel, and it came to be known as the crow's nest.  The simplest construction to providing a lookout and setting course direction for the ship was to lash a barrel to the mast. A member of the crew experienced in the matters of navigation was charged with manning this perch and came to be colloquially known as a barrelman.

Here is The Mast-Head chapter from Moby Dick (with a tip of the hat to reader Bulletholes). 

The very rich are different from you and me

 F. Scott Fitzgerald's original quote in The Rich Boy went as follows:

"Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand. They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are better than we are. They are different."

And that was before the invention of prostate artery embolization and botox for the bladder...

Crawling through increasingly insufferable summer traffic to and from their second homes, sometimes as far as 100 miles away, has left many of New York City's wealthiest — especially those on the older side — with increased bladder issues, as there are few places to stop during the multi-hour trip.

To combat "Hamptons bladder," New Yorkers who summer in the exclusive Long Island enclave are seeking a pair of specialized medical procedures: prostate artery embolization, which reduces the size of the prostate in men, and "bladder Botox," which decreases urinary frequency for women. 

"A lot of people have problems with this issue. They come out to the Hamptons and have to stop four or five times on the way, but can't find a restroom," said Dr. David Shusterman, a New York City urologist who's been advertising the procedures with the tagline "Race to the Hamptons, not to the bathroom."

More about the new procedures at Insider.

Moral police in action

A colorized photo shows "Women being arrested in Chicago, because their swimsuits were too short, in 1922."

Or is it perhaps a photo of America's future?  And if the Supreme Court can get rid of those pesky science advisory agencies, perhaps we can get back to the skies some of us remember in our youth.

(very) long-eared goat

A kid goat with extraordinarily long ears has become a media star in Pakistan, with its owner claiming a world record that may or may not exist... Simba’s ears are so long that Narejo has to fold them over his back to stop the goat from standing on them. He has also designed a harness so Simba can carry his ears around his neck...

Narejo is wary of the attention Simba has attracted – including from rival breeders – and has resorted to prayer and tradition to try to fend off any ill will.  “We recite Koranic verses and blow on him to cast away the evil eye,” Narejo said. “Following a long tradition we inherited from our elders, we have fastened a black thread around him that is fortified with Koranic verses.”

Presumably achieved through selective breeding.  And not for the goat's benefit, IMHO.

Introducing Karakalpakstan

I had never heard of it either.  An article in AlJazeera explains "Why the world should pay attention to unrest in Karakalpakstan."

Last week, rare protests in Uzbekistan’s autonomous Karakalpakstan region, which borders Kazakhstan in the country’s northwest, turned deadly. According to the government, 18 people died and 243 others were wounded as a result of clashes between security forces and protesters. More than 500 were detained... The unrest had broken out in response to proposed constitutional reforms which would see the vast region lose its autonomy and right to secede...

Last week’s violent crackdown on protesters in Karakalpakstan represents a watershed moment for Mirziyoyev’s political, economic, and geopolitical agenda. Its aftermath may therefore shape not only Karakalpakstan and Uzbekistan’s future but that of the strategically important wider region.

Uzbekistan is Central Asia’s breadbasket and home to some 35 million people – nearly as many as Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan combined. It is also where Russia, the West and China’s visions of Eurasia collide...

Uzbekistan is wary of increasing Russian influence... The spectre of Russian hostility could see Uzbekistan with little choice but to fall into what Raffaello Pantucci, senior associate fellow at RUSI, has dubbed “China’s inadvertent empire”. Beijing became Uzbekistan’s largest trade partner in 2016 and is by far its largest foreign investor...

The West has long been disengaged from the country, despite Uzbekistan’s open call for investment and collaboration under Mirzoyoyev’s rule... Mirziyoyev may not be a democrat, but he has – at least until very recently – proven to be someone the world, including the West, can do business with. His reaction to Karakalpakstan’s unrest will determine whether this came from conviction or convenience. How the world responds in turn will shape the balance of power at the heart of Eurasia. 

Here's the relevant Wikipedia page.  Interestingly, that little double blob of blue at the northern border is all that's left of the rapidly desiccating Aral Sea.  One wonders how much longer this region can continue to be a "breadbasket" and what implications that has for widespread unrest.

The fascinating microgravity physics of asteroids

NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission unleashed an unexpected explosion when it touched down on asteroid Bennu in October 2020 to collect a precious sample to carry home to Earth.

Mission scientists have described the dramatic sample retrieval, which led to surprising discoveries about the asteroid's nature, in two new studies. And the results aren't just intriguing: The researchers say that the findings might have implications for a possible future deflection mission, should the 1,640-feet-wide (500 meters) Bennu (one of the riskiest known near-Earth asteroids) ever threaten to impact the planet.

"We expected the surface to be pretty rigid, kind of like if you touch down on a gravel pile: a little bit of dust flying away and a few particles jumping up," Dante Lauretta, a planetary scientist at the University of Arizona and principal investigator of the OSIRIS-REx, mission told Space.com. 

"But as we were bringing back the images after the event, we were stunned," he continued. "We saw a giant wall of debris flying away from the sample side. For spacecraft operators, it was really frightening."

Kelvin-Helmholtz instability

Photos posted at Reddit by alison bee, taken near Birmingham, Alabama.  Explanation by zensunnioracle:

These are indeed Kelvin-Helmholtz waves. What is happening is that the nocturnal near-surface layers (lowest 50-100m) of the atmosphere are much more stable than the layers above it in the mornings. Until the ground heats up due to daytime heating, the surface layers stay more stable than the air over it. Kelvin-Helmholtz waves occur when the wind shear between the layers destabilizes the topmost portion of that stable layer, and entrains the air into the unstable layer. What you see is stable air being lifted, cooled, and condensed so that this process becomes visible, though this commonly happens many places without being visible. 


I'd also like to note that this is different from gravity waves as stated elsewhere as these are completely shear induced while gravity waves are usually from lifting buoyant air into a stable region and gravity pulling that air back down. When that air is pulled back down, it can overshoot it's location of being stable, and a wave pattern forms.

More at Wikipedia, where I found this photo of the same process happening on Saturn!

You learn something every day.

Reposted from 2011 to add some new photographs:

Photographed just south of San Francisco by residents Tara Cronin and Peter Harrison.  If you see this, grab your camera quickly; this formation disappeared five minutes after the photo was taken.   Via SFGate, where there is relevant discussion.

"Grapefruit" rhodochrosite

Image from the IAF subreddit, where the discussion thread is a waste of time, but the title helpfully explains that the specimen came from Argentina, and that the three "eyes" are the result of stalactite cores growing into each other.  Absolutely awesome.  I do like to end the blogging day with a nice photo at the top of the page.

I was today years old...

 ... when I learned what "today years old" means.

The phrase came up in this morning's Los Angeles Times crossword puzzle, clued as "Age of Enlightenment?"  I had to work around the clue to solve the puzzle, but even then could not suss out the explanation.  I found the answer at Know Your Meme:

"I Was Today Years Old" is an online expression typically used in the title of a post or discussion thread when introducing an interesting fact or trivia that had been previously unknown to the poster, in a similar vein to the phrase "did you know?" and Today I Learned.

On September 10th, 2015, Twitter user @stacilyncharles tweeted the first known usage of the expression saying, "I was today years old when I learned I had been wearing the wrong size bra my entire life". After June 17th, 2018, the phrase went viral after Twitter user @gabrielalvper tweeted an image of a Staples saying, "I was today years old when I found out the 'L' in 'Staples' in really a half open staple". The tweet garnered over 70 likes in two years.

But even with that information in hand, I still couldn't parse how the phrase gained that meaning, until I found the following "explain like I'm five" answer in a Quora thread:

Let’s say I tell you something you knew already. For example, “Did you know that giraffes have blue tongues?” You might respond “I was 12 when I learned that.”

Now, let’s say I tell you something that you don’t know, that genuinely surprises you. “Did you know that human being share 98% of their DNA with chimpanzees?” A humorous way of indicating that you’ve just learned that is to say, “I was today years old when I learned that.”

Not sure why this escaped me for so many years - presumably because its primary domain is social media, which I am not "on."  You learn something every day.

Time to stock up on parmesan cheese?

Several weeks ago I read an article about the ongoing drought in Italy and the falling levels of the Po river.  My immediate thought was of all the amazing artifacts that must be coming to light in the riverbed - probably more interesting than the dead bodies in Lake Mead.

But TIL that the drought there may impact the production of parmesan:

An unusually dry winter meant snow melt was scarce and spring rains only sporadic, which has led to the worst drought in the northern regions of Italy in more than 70 years, a regional agency for the River Po confirmed.  As a result, the Po is hitting record low water levels, according to the European Space Agency...

At Simone Minelli's dairy farm along the banks of the river near Mantova, the prospect is grim. Water is an essential part of the operation to feed his herd of 300 Friesian cattle, he told CNN.  His milk cows produce 30 liters (6.6 gallons) of milk each a day that is transformed into this region's authentic Parmigiano Reggiano parmesan cheese. If his cows don't each drink between 100 and 150 liters (22 to 33 gallons) of water a day or are overheated, the milk won't meet the rigid standards, and the cheese won't be given the coveted seal of approval.

But a bigger concern than the water in their troughs is what they'll eat...

"The last time the river was low was 2003," she told CNN. "This time it is much, much worse. There is a lack of rain, no snow, and high temperatures," she said. "It creates the famous perfect storm. We are in extreme crisis."

Updated from just two weeks ago to add excerpts from a Guardian article about the ecologic disaster that is the Po. 

But when you paddle and pedal the Po now, its banks are desolate. I travelled from the delta to the source over nine months by canoe, bike, foot and car and it was an industrial rust belt...

Every industry along the Po seemed to stain or change it. Its waters were used to cool power stations, so red-and-white chimneys are often, along with pylons, the most prominent sights from the canoe. Star cucumber (known as zucca pazza or “mad pumpkin”) was introduced from the Americas to give shade to Italian orchards, but the plant went rogue and now covers the floodplains like a lumpy silk carpet. The ugly wels catfish has almost entirely eradicated the native sturgeon, source of the once-prized Po caviar. Canadian poplars were introduced and now stand like regimented troops, all parallel and perpendicular...

During my journey the air quality was, if anything, even worse than that of the water. The polythene sky of the Padanian plain through winter is partly the result of thick fogs, but those fogs also occur because of the habit of drenching farmland in nitrogen fertilisers that then volatilise to form ammonium salts... The fears of Po-side humans were always focused on floods, but suddenly centuries of architecture and literature seem redundant because we now we have exactly the opposite fear: not an excess, but a lack, of water.

High-end American medical care

I photographed this sign at a local veterinary clinic.

Dogbert as a therapist

Social life in Mayberry

The blurb embedded at the right was sent to me by a non-blog friend.  It's typical of the "viral" items that circulate via email and social media - wryly humorous, but commonly exaggerated, skewed, or totally fabricated. 

I'm familiar with The Andy Griffith Show, but never watched it because it was popular when I was in high school (no time) and college (no TV set).  The assertion about no marriages is quite striking, so I decided to check the accuracy of the statement.  I found an article devoted to that very topic.

BTW, younger readers of TYWKIWDBI may find it hard to conceive of a college experience devoid of television.  IIRC, we had access to a television in a "commons room" somewhere, but went there only for events like the World Series or those first two Super Bowls.

One hundred years ago today

Image and text from the Pioneer Press.  Additional details at Wikipedia.

I have vivid memories of a gorgeous summer weekend in the 1960s when a friend tried for the better part of an afternoon to get me up on water skis.  We tried over and over, from the shore, from the dock, and repeatedly from the lake.  My ankles were too weak for me to maintain both skis pointed in the same direction; she did not have any trick skis for me to try, and sit skis had not been invented yet.  I wound up drinking a lot of Lake Minnetonka that day, but the memories are pleasant and will last forever.