Throughput: Politicization Edition

Maat Mons, a massive shield volcano on Venus. Imaged by the Magellan mission.

[ThTh1] Last week, Nature published an interesting look at how their first ever endorsement of a Presidential candidate impacted the perception of their magazine. TL;DR version? Not good:

Overall, the study provides little evidence that the endorsement changed participants’ views of the candidates. However, showing the endorsement to people who supported Trump did significantly change their opinion of Nature. When compared with Trump supporters who viewed Nature’s formatting announcement, Trump supporters who viewed the endorsement rated Nature as significantly less well informed when it comes to “providing advice on science-related issues facing the society” (Fig. 1). Those who viewed the endorsement also rated Nature significantly lower as an unbiased source of information on contentious or divisive issues. There was no comparable positive effect for Biden supporters.

Let’s file this under Things That Were Extremely Predictable. As I have noted before, when you attempt to merge science and politics, the results is not to scientize the politics but to politicize the science. It’s fine for scientists to have political opinions — I’ve expressed many on these pages, some of which may have made sense at the time. But a scientific publication officially endorsing a candidate crosses a line that should not be crossed. It gives the impression that the science is being shaped to fit an agenda, that scientists are claiming to have objective fact-based answers to political questions that ultimately revolve, not around facts, but around values and beliefs.

(I’m also not sure why Sci-Am felt this was necessary. It was clear which party most of the scientific community was siding with. I can not imagine that a single vote was moved based on their editorial.)

I’d like to say a lesson has been learned by Scientific American has been veering into political space for some time. I doubt that a course correction is even possible at this point.

[ThTh2] A new analysis of Magellan images indicates that Venus has active volcanic activity. It’s not a lot — a single vent. But it is rather surprising, given how dead the rest of the planet is. This would make Venus the third solar system body — after Earth and Io — to have active volcanos, although there may also by cryovolcanos on Europa, Titan, Ceres and Pluto.

[ThTh3] The Solar System liked Quaoar. So it put a ring on it.

[ThTh4] A few weeks ago, there was moderate concern over asteroid 2023 DW, a newly discovered asteroid that might impact the Earth on Valentine’s Day 2046. This was moderate-sized asteroid so could have produced a Tunguska-sized event. New data, however, shows that it now very likely to miss us, with the closest approach being five million miles with an uncertainty of three million miles. The danger is now effectively zero.

[ThTh5] In COVID updates this week, pregnant women not getting vaccinated resulted in a big spike in maternal deaths. So thanks for that, anti-vaxxers. I also spoke on Andrew’s show about the renewed interest in the lab leak theory. You can read Dr. Angie Rasmussen, who has written papers about this subject, respond here. And just when I think the Died Suddenly Sleaze can’t sink any lower, they manage to break through to another layer of awful.

[ThTh6] One of the biggest changes in how we view the universe is the acceptance that galaxies not only regularly interact with each other but that galaxy interactions are one of the dominant forces governing their evolution. Some of the initial breakthroughs were made using computer simulations that would model the interaction of two galaxies by modeling the galaxies as many individual points, measuring the effects of those small bodies on each other and then letting the system evolve in time. These N-body simulations have gotten to a level of sophistication where they can reproduce many of the most unusual galaxy mergers in the sky.

I recently discovered there were earlier experiments doing this … using lights.

The first galaxy simulation was done in 1941 by E. Holmberg. In his pioneer work he used light bulbs to model gravitationally interacting particles by utilizing the r^-2 behavior of both gravity and light intensity. In 2013 I made a copy of his simulation https://t.co/M0HF97jzsT

— Aku Venhola🇺🇦 (@AVenhola) October 13, 2020

The idea is quite elegant. It is impossible to derive a formula that will give you the combined gravitational effect of many different points (e.g., several hundred billion stars). But light follows the same fall-off with distance that gravity does. So by rigging up a bunch of lights to simulate a galaxy and measuring the light each one receives from its fellows, you can simulate the combined effect of gravity and determine how each light would move in response. Holmberg’s method successfully predicted some of the basics of how galaxies interact. And all well before we had computers that could do it.

[ThTh7] What has JWST been up to lately? Actually, this image is from June, but it’s still spectacular. At the center is a bright Wolf-Rayet star, a massive star in the process of dying and becoming a supernova. Surrounding it are the illuminating fragments of the star blown out into space as it ripped itself apart. Within those bright red clouds are forming some of the elements that will make future planets.

The luminous, hot star Wolf-Rayet 124 (WR 124) is prominent at the center of the James Webb Space Telescope’s composite image combining near-infrared and mid-infrared wavelengths of light from Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera and Mid-Infrared Instrument.
Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Webb ERO Production Team

[ThTh8] I will remain skeptical of claims of high-temperature superconductors until I have one in my living room. The potential for a revolution in electronics is very real. But actually achieving it has been a long and rocky road.

[ThTh9] I think Lukianoff is onto something. The constant insistence that the world is ending, that the country is falling apart, that every little thing is a huge problem seems like it may be a primary driver of anxiety in today’s young people.

Our research showed this as well. My theory since 2014 is that we’re effectively teaching young people reverse Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. It’s cruel & compassionless, but it’s dressed up like infinite compassion. https://t.co/7X1HyEjTor

— Greg Lukianoff (@glukianoff) March 1, 2023

[ThTh10] The world’s first scientific press. No information on what the page charges were.

[ThTh11] Happy Equinox, y’all.

Today the #VernalEquinox will occur at 5:24 p.m. EDT in the Northern Hemisphere, marking the start of #AstronomicalSpring!

This animation shows the angle of the sun changing from last year's vernal equinox through today due to the Earth's tilt. pic.twitter.com/BJuEEdlFs2

— NOAA Satellites (@NOAASatellites) March 20, 2023