Category: Innovation

Deep brain stimulation for Parkinson’s sufferers.

Smart brain-zapping implants.

I was just catching up on emails and saw this item from Nature.

I do not have the permission to share the whole article with you but feel that it is alright to share these two paragraphs:

Keith Krehbiel lived with Parkinson’s disease for nearly 25 years before agreeing to try a brain implant that might alleviate his symptoms. He had long been reluctant to submit to the surgery. “It was a big move,” he says. But by 2020, his symptoms had become so severe that he grudgingly agreed to go ahead.

Deep-brain stimulation involves inserting thin wires through two small holes in the skull into a region of the brain associated with movement. The hope is that by delivering electrical pulses to the region, the implant can normalize aberrant brain activity and reduce symptoms. Since the devices were first approved almost three decades ago, some 200,000 people have had them fitted to help calm the tremors and rigidity caused by Parkinson’s disease. But about 40,000 of those who received devices made after 2020 got them with a special feature that has largely not yet been turned on. The devices can read brain waves and then adapt and tailor the rhythm of their output, in much the same way as a pacemaker monitors and corrects the heart’s electrical rhythms, says Helen Bronte-Stewart, a neurologist at Stanford University in California.

I am going to try and contact Helen at Stanford University to gather more details and, hopefully, to obtain her permission to share the complete article with you.

Black holes

How black holes challenge our technological world.

I had no idea until reading this recent article that distant black holes are essential for measuring accurately where we are. Have a read.

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Scientists look to black holes to know exactly where we are in the Universe. But phones and wifi are blocking the view

ESA / Hubble / L. Calçada (ESO), CC BY

Lucia McCallum, University of Tasmania

The scientists who precisely measure the position of Earth are in a bit of trouble. Their measurements are essential for the satellites we use for navigation, communication and Earth observation every day.

But you might be surprised to learn that making these measurements – using the science of geodesy – depends on tracking the locations of black holes in distant galaxies.

The problem is, the scientists need to use specific frequency lanes on the radio spectrum highway to track those black holes.

And with the rise of wifi, mobile phones and satellite internet, travel on that highway is starting to look like a traffic jam.

Why we need black holes

Satellites and the services they provide have become essential for modern life. From precision navigation in our pockets to measuring climate change, running global supply chains and making power grids and online banking possible, our civilisation cannot function without its orbiting companions.

To use satellites, we need to know exactly where they are at any given time. Precise satellite positioning relies on the so-called “global geodesy supply chain”.

This supply chain starts by establishing a reliable reference frame as a basis for all other measurements. Because satellites are constantly moving around Earth, Earth is constantly moving around the Sun, and the Sun is constantly moving through the galaxy, this reference frame needs to be carefully calibrated via some relatively fixed external objects.

As it turns out, the best anchor points for the system are the black holes at the hearts of distant galaxies, which spew out streams of radiation as they devour stars and gas.

These black holes are the most distant and stable objects we know. Using a technique called very long baseline interferometry, we can use a network of radio telescopes to lock onto the black hole signals and disentangle Earth’s own rotation and wobble in space from the satellites’ movement.

Different lanes on the radio highway

We use radio telescopes because we want to detect the radio waves coming from the black holes. Radio waves pass cleanly through the atmosphere and we can receive them during day and night and in all weather conditions.

Radio waves are also used for communication on Earth – including things such as wifi and mobile phones. The use of different radio frequencies – different lanes on the radio highway – is closely regulated, and a few narrow lanes are reserved for radio astronomy.

However, in previous decades the radio highway had relatively little traffic. Scientists commonly strayed from the radio astronomy lanes to receive the black hole signals.

To reach the very high precision needed for modern technology, geodesy today relies on more than just the lanes exclusively reserved for astronomy.

Radio traffic on the rise

In recent years, human-made electromagnetic pollution has vastly increased. When wifi and mobile phone services emerged, scientists reacted by moving to higher frequencies.

However, they are running out of lanes. Six generations of mobile phone services (each occupying a new lane) are crowding the spectrum, not to mention internet connections directly sent by a fleet of thousands of satellites.

Today, the multitude of signals are often too strong for geodetic observatories to see through them to the very weak signals emitted by black holes. This puts many satellite services at risk.

What can be done?

To keep working into the future – to maintain the services on which we all depend – geodesy needs some more lanes on the radio highway. When the spectrum is divided up via international treaties at world radio conferences, geodesists need a seat at the table.

Other potential fixes might include radio quiet zones around our essential radio telescopes. Work is also underway with satellite providers to avoid pointing radio emissions directly at radio telescopes.

Any solution has to be global. For our geodetic measurements, we link radio telescopes together from all over the world, allowing us to mimic a telescope the size of Earth. The radio spectrum is primarily regulated by each nation individually, making this a huge challenge.

But perhaps the first step is increasing awareness. If we want satellite navigation to work, our supermarkets to be stocked and our online money transfers arriving safely, we need to make sure we have a clear view of those black holes in distant galaxies – and that means clearing up the radio highway.

Lucia McCallum, Senior Scientist in Geodesy, University of Tasmania

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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The last paragraph of Lucia’s article is key, in my opinion. Hopefully me posting this article will assist in the task of increasing awareness,

The mystery of Dark Matter

This very interesting article is worth a read.

Patrice Ayme published a post on Wednesday, 25th June, 2025 that is deeply conected to the following post from The Conversation.

His post was called: ‘How Does The Universe Expand? The Way Cosmologists Decided That It Does, FLRW Metric! A Causal Loop Is At The Heart Of Modern ΛCDM Cosmology!’

Thus I recommend that you read that article and then the one that is republished by me, with permission, from The Conversation.

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The Vera C. Rubin Observatory will help astronomers investigate dark matter, continuing the legacy of its pioneering namesake

The Rubin Observatory is scheduled to release its first images in 2025. RubinObs/NOIRLab/SLAC/NSF/DOE/AURA/B. Quint

Samantha Thompson, Smithsonian Institution

Everything in space – from the Earth and Sun to black holes – accounts for just 15% of all matter in the universe. The rest of the cosmos seems to be made of an invisible material astronomers call dark matter.

Astronomers know dark matter exists because its gravity affects other things, such as light. But understanding what dark matter is remains an active area of research.

With the release of its first images this month, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory has begun a 10-year mission to help unravel the mystery of dark matter. The observatory will continue the legacy of its namesake, a trailblazing astronomer who advanced our understanding of the other 85% of the universe.

As a historian of astronomy, I’ve studied how Vera Rubin’s contributions have shaped astrophysics. The observatory’s name is fitting, given that its data will soon provide scientists with a way to build on her work and shed more light on dark matter.

Wide view of the universe

From its vantage point in the Chilean Andes mountains, the Rubin Observatory will document everything visible in the southern sky. Every three nights, the observatory and its 3,200 megapixel camera will make a record of the sky.

This camera, about the size of a small car, is the largest digital camera ever built. Images will capture an area of the sky roughly 45 times the size of the full Moon. With a big camera with a wide field of view, Rubin will produce about five petabytes of data every year. That’s roughly 5,000 years’ worth of MP3 songs.

After weeks, months and years of observations, astronomers will have a time-lapse record revealing anything that explodes, flashes or moves – such as supernovas, variable stars or asteroids. They’ll also have the largest survey of galaxies ever made. These galactic views are key to investigating dark matter.

Galaxies are the key

Deep field images from the Hubble Space Telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope and others have visually revealed the abundance of galaxies in the universe. These images are taken with a long exposure time to collect the most light, so that even very faint objects show up.

Researchers now know that those galaxies aren’t randomly distributed. Gravity and dark matter pull and guide them into a structure that resembles a spider’s web or a tub of bubbles. The Rubin Observatory will expand upon these previous galactic surveys, increasing the precision of the data and capturing billions more galaxies.

In addition to helping structure galaxies throughout the universe, dark matter also distorts the appearance of galaxies through an effect referred to as gravitational lensing.

Light travels through space in a straight line − unless it gets close to something massive. Gravity bends light’s path, which distorts the way we see it. This gravitational lensing effect provides clues that could help astronomers locate dark matter. The stronger the gravity, the bigger the bend in light’s path.

Many galaxies, represented as bright dots, some blurred, against a dark background.
The white galaxies seen here are bound in a cluster. The gravity from the galaxies and the dark matter bends the light from the more distant galaxies, creating contorted and magnified images of them. NASA, ESA, CSA and STScI

Discovering dark matter

For centuries, astronomers tracked and measured the motion of planets in the solar system. They found that all the planets followed the path predicted by Newton’s laws of motion, except for Uranus. Astronomers and mathematicians reasoned that if Newton’s laws are true, there must be some missing matter – another massive object – out there tugging on Uranus. From this hypothesis, they discovered Neptune, confirming Newton’s laws.

With the ability to see fainter objects in the 1930s, astronomers began tracking the motions of galaxies.

California Institute of Technology astronomer Fritz Zwicky coined the term dark matter in 1933, after observing galaxies in the Coma Cluster. He calculated the mass of the galaxies based on their speeds, which did not match their mass based on the number of stars he observed.

He suspected that the cluster could contain an invisible, missing matter that kept the galaxies from flying apart. But for several decades he lacked enough observational evidence to support his theory.

A woman adjusting a large piece of equipment.
Vera Rubin operates the Carnegie spectrograph at Kitt Peak National Observatory in Tucson. Carnegie Institution for Science, CC BY

Enter Vera Rubin

In 1965, Vera Rubin became the first women hired onto the scientific staff at the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Terrestrial Magnetism in Washington, D.C.

She worked with Kent Ford, who had built an extremely sensitive spectrograph and was looking to apply it to a scientific research project. Rubin and Ford used the spectrograph to measure how fast stars orbit around the center of their galaxies.

In the solar system, where most of the mass is within the Sun at the center, the closest planet, Mercury, moves faster than the farthest planet, Neptune.

“We had expected that as stars got farther and farther from the center of their galaxy, they would orbit slower and slower,” Rubin said in 1992.

What they found in galaxies surprised them. Stars far from the galaxy’s center were moving just as fast as stars closer in.

“And that really leads to only two possibilities,” Rubin explained. “Either Newton’s laws don’t hold, and physicists and astronomers are woefully afraid of that … (or) stars are responding to the gravitational field of matter which we don’t see.”

Data piled up as Rubin created plot after plot. Her colleagues didn’t doubt her observations, but the interpretation remained a debate. Many people were reluctant to accept that dark matter was necessary to account for the findings in Rubin’s data.

Rubin continued studying galaxies, measuring how fast stars moved within them. She wasn’t interested in investigating dark matter itself, but she carried on with documenting its effects on the motion of galaxies.

A quarter with a woman looking upwards engraved onto it.
A U.S quarter honors Vera Rubin’s contributions to our understanding of dark matter. United States Mint, CC BY

Vera Rubin’s legacy

Today, more people are aware of Rubin’s observations and contributions to our understanding of dark matter. In 2019, a congressional bill was introduced to rename the former Large Synoptic Survey Telescope to the Vera C. Rubin Observatory. In June 2025, the U.S. Mint released a quarter featuring Vera Rubin.

Rubin continued to accumulate data about the motions of galaxies throughout her career. Others picked up where she left off and have helped advance dark matter research over the past 50 years.

In the 1970s, physicist James Peebles and astronomers Jeremiah Ostriker and Amos Yahil created computer simulations of individual galaxies. They concluded, similarly to Zwicky, that there was not enough visible matter in galaxies to keep them from flying apart.

They suggested that whatever dark matter is − be it cold stars, black holes or some unknown particle − there could be as much as 10 times the amount of dark matter than ordinary matter in galaxies.

Throughout its 10-year run, the Rubin Observatory should give even more researchers the opportunity to add to our understanding of dark matter.

Samantha Thompson, Astronomy Curator, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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It is difficult to say anything more as my comment will mean practically nothing compared to Patrice Ayme and Samantha Thompson.

I am just grateful that these fine people publish their research with permission for it to be republished elsewhere. Thank you!

Alex – The Ghost of the Forest

The second video from Alex and Lisa.

The video was produced on the 14th June, 2025.

Join us on an incredible Wildlife photography adventure through the wilds of Oregon, as we search for and capture stunning images of three iconic raptors: the Great Grey Owl, the Bald Eagle, and the Osprey. What was amazing is that we did not see another photographer whilst photographing these magnificent raptors! From dense forests to riverbanks and high mountain meadows, Oregon is a paradise for birdwatchers and wildlife photographers alike. In this video, we take you behind the scenes of our journey—tracking elusive owls, watching bald eagles, and photographing ospreys.

It makes us extremely proud to be living in this part of America!

The first video shoot by Alex is here.

Keeping one’s garden wild

A great TED Talk.

We live on 13 acres. Even the land near to the house is difficult to keep tidy so when Jean and I saw this TED Talk given by Rebecca McMacin we were overjoyed. For having a tidy garden does much greater harm to wildlife than keeping it wild.

Before I get to the TED video, I just want to show you some photos I took last Saturday.

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Now to the TED Talk

Here is the description of the talk.

Many gardeners work hard to maintain clean, tidy environments … which is the exact opposite of what wildlife wants, says ecological horticulturist Rebecca McMackin. She shows the beauty of letting your garden run wild, surveying the success she’s had increasing biodiversity even in the middle of New York City — and offers tips for cultivating a garden that can be home to birds, bees, butterflies and more.

Here is Rebecca’s background.

Rebecca McMackin is an ecologically obsessed horticulturist who helps people create and care for beautiful gardens that provide habitat for birds, butterflies and soil microorganisms.

Why you should listen

Rebecca McMackin spent a decade as director of horticulture at Brooklyn Bridge Park, where she employed organic principles to manage 85 acres of diverse parkland. During her time overseeing the park’s ecology, stick bugs, rare mantids, threatened bees and lady bugs all returned to the park. The park’s urban biodiversity and successful use of ethical management strategies influenced thousands of people and other urban parks to adopt similar approaches.

In addition to her work designing public gardens, McMackin writes, lectures and teaches on ecological landscape management and pollination ecology. She recently installed an 8,000-square-foot native wildflower garden for the entrance to the Brooklyn Museum. She was a Loeb Fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, while her work has been published by and featured in The New York Times, the Landscape Institute and on NPR and PBS.

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The video is just 12 minutes long and I encourage you to view it.

Your start in a vet business

Penny Martin regularly sends me content that I can publish as a post for you kind people.

And so it is with this one.

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Going Green with Fur and Grit: How to Launch an Eco-Friendly Pet Care Business That Actually Work

You’ve been sitting on the idea for a while now. Maybe it started with that pile of single-use plastic baggies after your dog’s walk, or the ingredient list on your cat’s kibble that read more like a chemistry project than actual food. Maybe you just got tired of feeling like you had to choose between loving your pet and loving the planet. Whatever the reason, you’re here now, staring down the reality of launching a business that’s not only built for animals—but built for good. You want to make something that matters. And you can. But you need to know exactly what you’re walking into.

Anchor Yourself in a Real Way
 
You can’t build this kind of business on good vibes and a cool logo. Before anything else—before the business plan, the branding, or the Instagram account—you’ve got to know exactly why you’re doing this. If your reason isn’t rooted in something deeply personal, something that makes your chest tighten when you think about it, you’ll burn out fast. Maybe it’s watching your senior dog react to over-processed treats, or maybe it’s the garbage island growing in the ocean—whatever it is, let that be your compass.

Streamline the Chaos with the Right Tools

When you’re building a mission-driven business from scratch, the backend can get messy fast. That’s where using an all-in-one business platform becomes a game-changer—it keeps your focus on your values instead of your paperwork. Whether you’re forming an LLC, managing compliance, creating a website, or handling finances, this type of platform can provide comprehensive services and expert support to ensure business success. Platforms like ZenBusiness are built for entrepreneurs like you, giving you the structure to stay organized while you pour your energy into the work that really matters.

Get Ruthlessly Local with Sourcing
 
If you’re serious about sustainability, you’ve got to look hard at where your products come from. Local sourcing doesn’t just reduce your carbon footprint—it tells your community that you care about it. Reach out to nearby farms, independent makers, and ethical manufacturers who align with your mission. Not only will this lower your shipping emissions, it’ll also create real relationships with partners who have skin in the game—and people can feel that authenticity the moment they walk through your door.

Know That Packaging Will Be a Battle
 
You’re going to lose sleep over packaging. You’ll try compostable options that fall apart in humid weather. You’ll learn that “recyclable” doesn’t mean the same thing in every city. And somewhere along the way, you’ll realize that the most sustainable solution might be the least convenient one. This is the part where you have to experiment, ask questions, and stay transparent with your customers. No one expects perfection—but they’ll appreciate your effort to figure it out.

Make the Community Your Co-Founders
 
You’re not building this business for yourself. You’re building it for every person who loves their animal and wants to do better by the planet. So bring them in early. Host small events, set up “ask me anything” nights, partner with local shelters, and turn your customer base into a real community. These people won’t just buy your products—they’ll give you feedback, advocate for your brand, and make you feel less alone when the grind gets real.

Ditch the Guilt, Offer Solutions
 
You’re not here to shame anyone. The pet parent buying big-box kibble isn’t your enemy—they’re someone who probably hasn’t been offered a better option yet. So don’t lecture. Instead, educate through action. Make eco-friendly choices feel fun, feel doable, and feel worth it. When you center your messaging on empowerment instead of guilt, people are way more likely to stick around—and tell their friends.

Teach Through Curiosity, Not Preaching
 
People want to learn, but they don’t want to be condescended to. Your job is to become the kind of brand that shares knowledge without turning it into a TED Talk. Drop bite-sized facts on your packaging, start conversations in-store, and use your social platforms to casually open people’s eyes. Think of it like planting seeds—not every customer will bloom overnight, but the ones who do will remember how you made them feel when they were just getting started.

Hire with Heart, Not Just Skill
 
You can train someone to trim nails or restock shelves, but you can’t teach them to care. The team you build needs to believe in the mission as much as you do. They’re the ones explaining the difference between corn-based and petroleum-based bags to a frazzled pet parent who’s late for pickup. If your staff is just collecting paychecks, your message won’t land. But if they’re aligned with your values? That’s when your business becomes a movement.

Don’t Let Perfect Be the Point
 
You will mess up. You’ll stock a “sustainable” product that turns out to be greenwashed. You’ll order packaging that gets held up in customs. You’ll have days where you wonder if any of this actually matters. That’s normal. Progress in this space is messy, nonlinear, and full of trade-offs. The key is to keep going, stay honest, and let your customers come along for the ride. They don’t need you to be flawless—they just need to believe you’re trying.

Starting an eco-conscious pet care business means doing things the hard way on purpose. It means waking up early to answer emails from suppliers and staying up late comparing compostable labels. It means showing up for your customers, your team, your animals—and the planet. But if your heart’s in the right place and your feet stay on the ground, you’ll build something that matters. And really, that’s the kind of work worth doing.

Discover the wisdom of our loyal companions and explore the journey of life with Learning from Dogs, where every post is a step towards understanding and fulfillment.

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As a very ex-entrepreneur, I can tell you that there is much in Penny’s article that applies to starting any business.

And as an ex-salesman, everything starts with the customer. The persons who are attracted to what you are selling. It is hard work but pleasing work. Before I started Dataview I worked for IBM UK in their office products division, as a salesman. I loved the job!

Artificial Intelligence and Mars

NASA hasn’t landed humans on Mars yet. But thanks to robotic missions, scientists now know more about the planet’s surface than they did when the movie, The Martian, was released.

Our human knowledge is constantly growing. In many, many directions. Here is a fascinating (well it is to me!) article from The Conversation.

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A decade after the release of ‘The Martian’ and a decade out from the world it envisions, a planetary scientist checks in on real-life Mars exploration

‘The Martian’ protagonist Mark Watney contemplates his ordeal. 20th Century Fox

Ari Koeppel, Dartmouth College

Andy Weir’s bestselling story “The Martian” predicts that by 2035 NASA will have landed humans on Mars three times, perfected return-to-Earth flight systems and collaborated with the China National Space Administration. We are now 10 years past the Hollywood adaptation’s 2015 release and 10 years shy of its fictional timeline. At this midpoint, Mars exploration looks a bit different than how it was portrayed in “The Martian,” with both more discoveries and more controversy.

As a planetary geologist who works with NASA missions to study Mars, I follow exploration science and policy closely. In 2010, the U.S. National Space Policy set goals for human missions to Mars in the 2030s. But in 2017, the White House Space Policy Directive 1 shifted NASA’s focus toward returning first to the Moon under what would become the Artemis program.

Although concepts for crewed missions to Mars have gained popularity, NASA’s actual plans for landing humans on Mars remain fragile. Notably, over the last 10 years, it has been robotic, rather than crewed, missions that have propelled discovery and the human imagination forward.

A diagram showing the steps from lunar missions to Mars missions. The steps in the current scope are labeled 'Human presence on Moon,' 'Practice for Mars Exploration Demo' and 'Demo exploration framework on Mars.' The partial scope step is labeled 'Human presence on Mars.'
NASA’s 2023 Moon to Mars Strategy and Objectives Development document lays out the steps the agency was shooting for at the time, to go first to the Moon, and from there to Mars. NASA

Robotic discoveries

Since 2015, satellites and rovers have reshaped scientists’ understanding of Mars. They have revealed countless insights into how its climate has changed over time.

As Earth’s neighbor, climate shifts on Mars also reflect solar system processes affecting Earth at a time when life was first taking hold. Thus, Mars has become a focal point for investigating the age old questions of “where do we come from?” and “are we alone?”

The Opportunity, Curiosity and Perseverance rovers have driven dozens of miles studying layered rock formations that serve as a record of Mars’ past. By studying sedimentary layers – rock formations stacked like layers of a cake – planetary geologists have pieced together a vivid tale of environmental change that dwarfs what Earth is currently experiencing.

Mars was once a world of erupting volcanoes, glaciers, lakes and flowing rivers – an environment not unlike early Earth. Then its core cooled, its magnetic field faltered and its atmosphere drifted away. The planet’s exposed surface has retained signs of those processes ever since in the form of landscape patterns, sequences of layered sediment and mineral mixtures.

Rock shelves layered on top of each other, shown from above.
Layered sedimentary rocks exposed within the craters of Arabia Terra, Mars, recording ancient surface processes. Photo from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment. NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

Arabia Terra

One focus of scientific investigation over the last 10 years is particularly relevant to the setting of “The Martian” but fails to receive mention in the story. To reach his best chance of survival, protagonist Mark Watney, played by Matt Damon, must cross a vast, dusty and crater-pocked region of Mars known as Arabia Terra.

In 2022 and 2023, I, along with colleagues at Northern Arizona University and Johns Hopkins University, published detailed analyses of the layered materials there using imagery from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Odyssey satellites.

By using infrared imagery and measuring the dimensions of surface features, we linked multiple layered deposits to the same episodes of formation and learned more about the widespread crumbling nature of the terrain seen there today. Because water tends to cement rock tightly together, that loose material indicates that around 3.5 billion years ago, that area had a drying climate.

To make the discussions about this area easier, we even worked with the International Astronomical Union to name a few previously unnamed craters that were mentioned in the story. For example, one that Watney would have driven right by is now named Kozova Crater, after a town in Ukraine.

More to explore

Despite rapid advances in Mars science, many unknowns remain. Scientists still aren’t sure of the precise ages, atmospheric conditions and possible signatures of life associated with each of the different rock types observed on the surface.

For instance, the Perseverance rover recently drilled into and analyzed a unique set of rocks hosting organic – that is, carbon-based – compounds. Organic compounds serve as the building blocks of life, but more detailed analysis is required to determine whether these specific rocks once hosted microbial life.

The in-development Mars Sample Return mission aims to address these basic outstanding questions by delivering the first-ever unaltered fragments of another world to Earth. The Perseverance rover is already caching rock and soil samples, including ones hosting organic compounds, in sealed tubes. A future lander will then need to pick up and launch the caches back to Earth.

Sampling Mars rocks could tell scientists more about the red planet’s past, and whether it could have hosted life.

Once home, researchers can examine these materials with instruments orders of magnitude more sensitive than anything that could be flown on a spacecraft. Scientists stand to learn far more about the habitability, geologic history and presence of any signs of life on Mars through the sample return campaign than by sending humans to the surface.

This perspective is why NASA, the European Space Agency and others have invested some US$30 billion in robotic Mars exploration since the 1960s. The payoff has been staggering: That work has triggered rapid technological advances in robotics, telecommunications and materials science. For example, Mars mission technology has led to better sutures for heart surgery and cars that can drive themselves.

It has also bolstered the status of NASA and the U.S. as bastions of modern exploration and technology; and it has inspired millions of students to take an interest in scientific fields.

The Perseverance rover and the Ingenuity helicopter on the Martian surface, with the rover's camera moving to look down at Ingenuity.
A selfie from NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover with the Ingenuity helicopter, taken with the rover’s extendable arm on April 6, 2021. NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Calling the red planet home?

Colonizing Mars has a seductive appeal. It’s hard not to cheer for the indomitable human spirit while watching Watney battle dust storms, oxygen shortages and food scarcity over 140 million miles from rescue.

Much of the momentum toward colonizing Mars is now tied to SpaceX and its CEO Elon Musk, whose stated mission to make humanity a “multi-planetary species” has become a sort of rallying cry. But while Mars colonization is romantic on paper, it is extremely difficult to actually carry out, and many critics have questioned the viability of a Mars habitation as a refuge far from Earth.

Now, with NASA potentially facing a nearly 50% reduction to its science budget, the U.S. risks dissolving its planetary science and robotic operations portfolio altogether, including sample return.

Nonetheless, President Donald Trump and Musk have pushed for human space exploration to somehow continue to progress, despite those proposed cuts – effectively sidelining the robotic, science-driven programs that have underpinned all of Mars exploration to date.

Yet, it is these programs that have yielded humanity’s richest insights into the red planet and given both scientists and storytellers like Andy Weir the foundation to imagine what it must be like to stand on Mars’ surface at all.

Ari Koeppel, Postdoctoral Scientist in Earth and Planetary Science, Dartmouth College

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Nothing to add from yours truly except to say that this quote is highly relevant: “Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.” – Joshua J. Marine

(And this was the result of me looking online for quotes and coming across 50 quotes from USA Today.)

Making your vet clinic profitable

The second guest post from Penny Martin.

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Image: Freepik

Vision to Reality: Building a Profitable Vet Clinic

Launching a veterinary clinic is a significant endeavor that requires meticulous planning and strategic decision-making. This venture combines a passion for animal care with the intricacies of managing a successful business. Aspiring clinic owners must navigate several critical steps to lay a strong foundation and ensure operational excellence. Starting your own clinic promises not only to fulfill a dream of helping animals but also to establish a thriving enterprise in the community.

Build a Strong Foundation with an Effective Marketing Strategy

A robust marketing strategy is essential to attract potential clients in the digital era. Establishing a professional online presence through a user-friendly website that details your services, team, and location builds trust among pet owners. Engage actively on social media with regular updates and client testimonials to showcase your expertise and commitment to animal care. Forge partnerships with local pet-related businesses to increase visibility and drive traffic to your clinic, enhancing both your and your partners’ customer bases.

Craft a Clear and Detailed Business Plan

A well-constructed business plan acts as your clinic’s roadmap, detailing your mission, services offered, and the specific target market. Identify your niche early—whether it’s specializing in certain animals or treatments—to attract the appropriate clientele. Include comprehensive financial projections and a marketing budget in your plan to ensure financial preparedness and support your clinic’s promotional activities.

Enhance Your Business Knowledge by Pursuing an MBA

Running a veterinary clinic demands a blend of clinical and business expertise. Pursuing a master’s of business administration online can boost your proficiency in key business areas such as strategy, management, and finance. An MBA not only deepens your understanding of business operations but also enhances leadership skills and self-assessment capabilities. These competencies are essential for balancing the medical and business demands of your clinic, ensuring its long-term success.

Safeguard Your Business with Proper Insurance

Operating a veterinary clinic comes with inherent risks, making comprehensive insurance coverage essential. Essential policies include malpractice insurance to handle legal issues and general liability insurance for accidents on your premises. Property insurance is crucial to protect your clinic’s infrastructure and equipment against unexpected events. Consulting with an insurance expert can ensure that you have thorough coverage to protect against potential financial setbacks.

Invest in High-Quality Veterinary Equipment

Providing top-tier care necessitates investing in high-quality veterinary equipment. Essential tools like X-ray machines, surgical instruments, and lab equipment should be of the highest standard to ensure accurate diagnoses and treatments. Modern technologies, such as digital imaging systems, not only enhance patient care but also improve operational efficiency. While the initial cost may be higher, investing in quality equipment pays off in the long run by boosting efficiency and minimizing errors.

Secure the Necessary Funding for Your Clinic

Securing sufficient funding is critical when starting a veterinary clinic. Estimate your startup costs accurately to understand your financial needs, including equipment, premises, staffing, and marketing. Explore diverse financing options, such as bank loans, private investors, and specialty medical practice loans that might offer favorable terms. Adequate initial funding prevents cash flow problems and supports your clinic’s growth trajectory.

Choose the Right Location for Your Clinic

The location of your clinic is pivotal to its success, necessitating a spot with a high demand for veterinary services. Conduct thorough market research to choose a community rich in pet owners who need your services. Select a location that is accessible, visible, and has ample parking to ensure convenience for your clients. Proximity to complementary services like pet groomers or dog trainers can further enhance client traffic and provide expansion opportunities.

Opening a veterinary clinic is both challenging and rewarding, demanding a careful blend of dedication and strategic foresight. Success in this field not only enhances the well-being of pets but also contributes positively to the local community. It requires ongoing commitment to adapt and grow in a dynamic environment. Ultimately, the fulfillment of running a successful veterinary clinic comes from both the impact on animal health and the achievement of entrepreneurial goals.

Discover the timeless wisdom that dogs offer at Learning from Dogs, where integrity and living in the present are celebrated. Dive into our content and embrace the lessons from our four-legged friends.

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This is all very sound advice. Thank you, Penny.

Talking dogs!

And that title is not a joke!

Want to know whether “talking” dogs like Bunny are for real? When UC San Diego Professor Federico Rossano first saw Bunny’s videos, he was a skeptic. After all, he knows all about the complicated and messy history of animal communication studies – like the woman who tried to teach a dolphin to speak. But after studying these button-pushing pups for years, his team has published some research that will make you rethink just how much dogs are capable of telling us. Federico’s study is still looking for participants! Sign up here: https://cclab.ucsd.edu/pet-cognition-…

Wow!

I am republishing a post by Patrice Ayme!

But first I want to publish a comment left by me on Tuesday morning.

This is (marginally) beyond my intellect. But I understood sufficient to be amazed by the incredible facts of the vastness of space.

We live just far enough away from the nearest town so that the electric lights do not interfere with the night sky.

When we have a clear moonless night I stand on our rear deck and look up at the stars and become lost, in the sense that I do not think, in gazing and gazing and g….. and g…. and ..

The vastness of space!

Now to the article.

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Abstract: Modern cosmological theories of the 2010s are incredibly precise. Those Lambda Cold Dark Matter (ΛLCDM) theories have a problem: the acceleration of the expansion of the universe computed in our cosmic neighborhood disagrees with the acceleration of the expansion computed using what is viewed as the early universe. It is a question of 73 locally versus 68 early on. But these are accelerations…

Only SQPR has something deep to say about this situation, because in that theory “Dark Energy” augments with time (so the local Hubble constant should be higher than any old one…) .

***

In the first half of the 20C a number of European and US astronomers, including Hubble, a lawyer turned astronomer using the world’s most powerful telescope (in California), established that the universe was expanding. Isolated galaxies, and giant clusters of galaxies, were observed to separate from each other. When Hubble announced the expansion (which had been guessed by some of his European colleagues), he got a number that was so high that the universe was younger than the Sun. That was corrected by Baade, a German astronomer. 

***

DARK MATTER:

Meanwhile, in 1933 Fritz Zwicky, a Swiss at Caltech, studying the giant Coma cluster of more than 1,000 galaxies, saw that they were moving too fast for the observed mass, and announced Dunkle Materie, Dark Matter. Nobody liked that, and ignoring it was facilitated by what was viewed as Zwicky’s insufferable, eccentric personality (as all people of exceptional intellect). Fritz also coined the term “supernova” while fostering the concept of neutron stars.(Zwicky also pushed for “Tired Light” theory (which SQPR predicts)… what was viewed as a major irritant by the Big Bangists…) 

A generation later, Vera Rubin, an astronomer at Carnegie, confirmed after studying 60 galaxies and Andromeda with a state of the art spectrometer, that, well, the galaxies rotated too much like plates (and not just like vortices)… confirming Zwicky’s Dark Matter. She was not ignored, although a woman and a mother to boot. A major observatory coming on line at high altitude in the Atacama desert bears her name. It’s not called the Zwicky. Maybe Zwicky should have claimed to be a woman?

***

DARK ENERGY:

Dark Energy is the name given to whatever is causing the accelerating expansion of the universe. Here’s a quick presentation of what We (Sort of) Know:

In the late 1990s, astronomers studying distant supernovae discovered that the universe’s expansion is speeding up, not slowing down. This was unexpected—gravity, a constant force towards the center of mass (whatever that is!) should be pulling everything together, slowing the expansion down. Something must be pushing it apart (another explanation -not usually considered- would be that gravity weakens over ultra-cosmological distances… as SQPR would have it).

That “something” supposedly pushing galactic clusters apart, is what we call Dark Energy. It’s not directly observed, but, like many things in science, inferred from its effects. How Much of the Universe Is It?

According to the reigning current models (like Lambda-CDM), the universe is roughly: 68% dark energy, 27% dark matter… and 5% regular matter (you, me, stars, planets, etc.)

***

What Might Dark Energy Be? There are a few theoriescharacterized by a parcimony of imagination:

Cosmological Constant (Λ) – Einstein originally added this to his equations of general relativity. It represents a constant energy density filling space uniformly. Einstein put it in to prevent the equation representing gravitation in the universe to collapse the universe gravitationally. As a prima donna, he later claimed that to be his “greatest mistake”, as otherwise he, Einstein The Great Again, would have “predicted” the expansion of the universe. In any case, the Cosmological Constant (Λ) explains nothing, it’s just a description of behavior (but supposes a few things one may be able to contradict)..

Quintessence – Turning the  constant Λ into a dynamic field, evolving over space and time.

Modified Gravity – Maybe gravity doesn’t work quite the way we think on cosmic scales, and we don’t need a “dark energy” at all. The problem is that the “official” MONDs (MOdified Newtonian Dynamics) were devised to explain Dark Matter in galaxies… But they failed. 

***

The only proposed theory that is not just a description of behavior, is SQPR, Sub Quantic, Physical Reality.y Is Dark Energy So Weird:

The energy density of dark energy stays constant (or nearly so), even as the universe expands.

This means more space = more dark energy, which further accelerates expansion.

In SQPR this is directly explained by the weakening of gravity as the carrier bosons are ripped apart…Because the Quantum Interaction is not of infinite range…

*** 

73 – 68 = 5… 5 km/s per Megaparsec…Let’s meditate on this. Over a billion years, if we have two objects the distance of which augments at 15,000 km/s. It turns out that affects severely the famed high precision of the age of the universe… which I always took with a bucket of salt…

A higher Hubble constant affects key cosmic stats — assuming a flat universe with ΛCDM (standard model). These numbers are approximate and based on best-fit ΛCDM calculations — exact values depend on details like matter/dark energy density. The difference might not seem huge in light-years, but in cosmology, even a 5% shift is massive — it changes how we model the early universe, galaxy formation, and fundamental physics.

Hubble Constant (H₀) 67 km/s/Mpc (Planck satellite): Age of Universe ~13.8 billion years; Radius of Observable Universe ~46.5 billion light-years; Diameter ~93 BLY

At the higher 73 km/s/Mpc ( from Local data), the age of the universe is only ~13.0 billion years, the observable radius  ~43.8 billion light-years, its diameter, ~87.6 BLY

***

Astronomy has long led towards new physics. F = ma, the crucial “2nd law” of mechanics was discovered by Buridan, circa 1340 CE, by mentally exploring what happened to a falling body (I read Buridan directly and made that conclusion myself). Then Buridan suggested that his first law (no force, no change of impetus; implicitly considers them to be vectors) implied that planets would keep rotating indefinitely… Then of course there was the synthesis in the 17C from Kepler to Newton… Observing the satellites of Jupiter and their twenty minute delay when they are the furthest from Earth, gave the speed of light..

Supposing that the Quantum Interaction which teleports quantum states does so at finite speed, gives Dark Matter and Dark Energy….

 Is a very simple modification… but quite at odds from the way physicists learn Quantum Physics.

Anyway, the mildly called “Hubble Tension” is turning into the “Hubble Crisis”. Good, With enough crises, we may get somewhere…

Patrice Ayme 

Please contemplate below with what the scandal started, the Coma Cluster of 1,000+ galaxies… Zwicky computed that the visible mass would have to be multiplied by 400 to hold the cluster together…

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The absolute vastness of space!