First of its kind detection made in striking new Webb image

admin
-
0
First of its kind detection made in striking new Webb image

For the first time, a phenomenon astronomers have long hoped to image directly has been captured by the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope’s Near-InfraRed Camera (NIRCam). In this stunning image of the Serpens Nebula, the discovery lies in the northern area of this young, nearby star-forming region.

The astronomers found an intriguing group of protostellar outflows, formed when jets of gas spewing from newborn stars collide with nearby gas and dust at high speeds. Typically these objects have a variety of orientations within one region. Here, however, they are all slanted in the same direction, to the same degree, like sleet pouring down during a storm.

The discovery of these aligned objects, made possible only by Webb’s exquisite spatial resolution and sensitivity at near-infrared wavelengths, is providing information about the fundamentals of how stars are born.

So just how does the alignment of the stellar jets relate to the rotation of the star? As an interstellar gas cloud collapses in on itself to form a star, it spins more rapidly. The only way for the gas to continue moving inward is for some of the spin (known as angular momentum) to be removed. A disc of material forms around the young star to transport material down, like a whirlpool around a drain. The swirling magnetic fields in the inner disc launch some of the material into twin jets that shoot outward in opposite directions, perpendicular to the disc of material.

In the Webb image, these jets are identified by bright red clumpy streaks, which are shockwaves caused when the jet hits the surrounding gas and dust. Here, the red colour indicates the presence of molecular hydrogen and carbon monoxide. Webb can image these extremely young stars and their outflows, which were previously obstructed at optical wavelengths.

Astronomers say there are a few forces that potentially can shift the direction of the outflows during this period of a young star’s life. One way is when binary stars spin around each other and wobble in orientation, twisting the direction of the outflows over time.

Serpens Nebula North

Stars of the Serpens Nebula

The Serpens Nebula is only one or two million years old, which is very young in cosmic terms. It’s also home to a particularly dense cluster of newly forming stars (around 100 000 years old) at the centre of this image, some of which will eventually grow to the mass of our Sun.

Serpens is a reflection nebula, which means it’s a cloud of gas and dust that does not create its own light but instead shines by reflecting the light from stars close to or within the nebula.

So, throughout the region in this image, filaments and wisps of different hues represent reflected starlight from still-forming protostars within the cloud. In some areas there is dust in front of that reflection, which appears here in an orange, diffuse shade.

This region has been home to other coincidental discoveries, including the flapping ‘Bat Shadow’, which earned its name when 2020 data from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Space Telescope revealed it to flap, or shift. This feature is visible at the centre of the Webb image.

Serpens Nebula centre crop

Future studies

The stunning image and the serendipitous discovery of the aligned objects are actually just the first step in this scientific programme. The team will now use Webb’s NIRSpec (Near-InfraRed Spectrograph) to investigate the chemical make-up of the cloud.

Astronomers are interested in determining how volatile chemicals survive star and planet formation. Volatiles are compounds that sublimate, or transition from a solid directly to a gas, at a relatively low temperature — including water and carbon monoxide. They’ll then compare their findings to the amounts found in protoplanetary discs of similar-type stars.

These observations were made as part of the Webb General Observer programme 1611 (PI: K. Pontoppidan). The team’s initial results have been published in the Astrophysical Journal.

More information
Webb is the largest, most powerful telescope ever launched into space. Under an international collaboration agreement, ESA provided the telescope’s launch service, using the Ariane 5 launch vehicle. Working with partners, ESA was responsible for the development and qualification of Ariane 5 adaptations for the Webb mission and for the procurement of the launch service by Arianespace. ESA also provided the workhorse spectrograph NIRSpec and 50% of the mid-infrared instrument MIRI, which was designed and built by a consortium of nationally funded European Institutes (The MIRI European Consortium) in partnership with JPL and the University of Arizona.

Webb is an international partnership between NASA, ESA and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, K. Pontoppidan (NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory), J. Green (Space Telescope Science Institute)

Astronomers see a massive black hole awaken in real time

admin
-
0
Astronomers see a massive black hole awaken in real time

In late 2019 the previously unremarkable galaxy SDSS1335+0728 suddenly started shining brighter than ever before. To understand why, astronomers have used data from several space and ground-based observatories, including the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT), to track how the galaxy’s brightness has varied. In a study out today, they conclude that they are witnessing changes never seen before in a galaxy — likely the result of the sudden awakening of the massive black hole at its core.

“Imagine you’ve been observing a distant galaxy for years, and it always seemed calm and inactive,” says Paula Sánchez Sáez, an astronomer at ESO in Germany and lead author of the study accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics. “Suddenly, its [core] starts showing dramatic changes in brightness, unlike any typical events we’ve seen before.” This is what happened to SDSS1335+0728, which is now classified as having an ‘active galactic nucleus’ (AGN) — a bright compact region powered by a massive black hole — after it brightened dramatically in December 2019 [1].

Some phenomena, like supernova explosions or tidal disruption events — when a star gets too close to a black hole and is torn apart — can make galaxies suddenly light up. But these brightness variations typically last only a few dozen or, at most, a few hundreds of days. SDSS1335+0728 is still growing brighter today, more than four years after it was first seen to ‘switch on’. Moreover, the variations detected in the galaxy, which is located 300 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo, are unlike any seen before, pointing astronomers towards a different explanation.

The team tried to understand these brightness variations using a combination of archival data and new observations from several facilities, including the X-shooter instrument on ESO’s VLT in Chile’s Atacama Desert [2]. Comparing the data taken before and after December 2019, they found that SDSS1335+0728 is now radiating much more light at ultraviolet, optical, and infrared wavelengths. The galaxy also started emitting X-rays in February 2024. “This behaviour is unprecedented,” says Sánchez Sáez, who is also affiliated with the Millennium Institute of Astrophysics (MAS) in Chile.

“The most tangible option to explain this phenomenon is that we are seeing how the [core] of the galaxy is beginning to show (…) activity,” says co-author Lorena Hernández García, from MAS and the University of Valparaíso in Chile. “If so, this would be the first time that we see the activation of a massive black hole in real time.”

Image: ESO/M. Kornmesser

This artist’s impression shows two stages in the formation of a disc of gas and dust around the massive black hole at the centre of the galaxy SDSS1335+0728. The core of this galaxy lit up in 2019 and keeps brightening today — the first time we observe a massive black hole become active in real time.

Massive black holes — with masses over one hundred thousand times that of our Sun — exist at the centre of most galaxies, including the Milky Way. “These giant monsters usually are sleeping and not directly visible,” explains co-author Claudio Ricci, from the Diego Portales University, also in Chile. “In the case of SDSS1335+0728, we were able to observe the awakening of the massive black hole, [which] suddenly started to feast on gas available in its surroundings, becoming very bright.”

“[This] process (…) has never been observed before,” Hernández García says. Previous studies reported inactive galaxies becoming active after several years, but this is the first time the process itself — the awakening of the black hole — has been observed in real time. Ricci, who is also affiliated with the Kavli Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics at Peking University, China, adds: “This is something that could happen also to our own Sgr A*, the massive black hole (…) located at the centre of our galaxy,” but it is unclear how likely this is to happen.

Follow-up observations are still needed to rule out alternative explanations. Another possibility is that we are seeing an unusually slow tidal disruption event, or even a new phenomenon. If it is in fact a tidal disruption event, this would be the longest and faintest such event ever observed. “Regardless of the nature of the variations, [this galaxy] provides valuable information on how black holes grow and evolve,” Sánchez Sáez says. “We expect that instruments like [MUSE on the VLT or those on the upcoming Extremely Large Telescope (ELT)] will be key in understanding [why the galaxy is brightening].”

Main image: ESO/M. Kornmesser

Notes
[1] The SDSS1335+0728 galaxy’s unusual brightness variations were detected by the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) telescope in the US. Following that, the Chilean-led Automatic Learning for the Rapid Classification of Events (ALeRCE) broker classified SDSS1335+0728 as an active galactic nucleus.

[2] The team collected archival data from NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) and Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX), the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS), the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), and the eROSITA instrument on IKI and DLR’s Spektr-RG space observatory. Besides ESO’s VLT, the follow-up observations were conducted with the Southern Astrophysical Research Telescope (SOAR), the W. M. Keck Observatory, and NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory and Chandra X-ray Observatory.

Check out the Moon exploration footage rendered to 4K by AI

Müfit Yılmaz Gökmen
-
0
Check out the Moon exploration footage rendered to 4K by AI

Space exploration enthusiasts used artificial intelligence (AI) to render the footage of the Apollo 16 mission, resulting in a spectacular 4K resolution video.

The last known manned Moon exploration mission, Apollo 17, occurred in December 1972. That date goes back decades before high-resolution cameras appeared on the consumer market. Astronauts carried and used low-resolution analogue films in Apollo missions. Eventually, the highest quality of the Moon exploration years left behind noisy, cool vintage footage, and it was not easy to grasp an idea of what was happening in them.

Nevertheless, the necessary people who are skilled in benefiting from the modern tech made an outstanding job by revieweing the Apollo 16 mission footage. YouTube channel Dutchsteammachine increased the 12 frames per second (fps) Apollo 16 footage taken by 16 mm film to 60 fps 4K resolution (3180×2160) by using the DAIN artificial intelligence platform. In the footage, you can see the landscape filmed in the skirts of Shorty Crater with the Moon exploration vehicle.

The rendered footage is quite amazing; enabling the viewer to see the landscape of the Moon through the eyes of an astronout without the need of a virtual reality (VR) glasses or a newest model of a giant screen. The conversations in the video are synchronised with the footage taken during the Apollo 16 mission. The conversations reflect the daily routine of astronauts on the Moon, 400,000 kilometres away from Earth.

While thanking the Dutchsteammachine team for their effort, we are expecting to see the newly rendered footage of the Apollo missions. You can check the video below:

This article is from 2020. To look at the original TR article, click the link below:

Yapay Zeka ile 4K Kalitesine Çıkarılan Ay Keşif Görüntülerine Baktınız Mı?

Can we save the Western Antarctic by an artificial snowball bombardment?

Müfit Yılmaz Gökmen
-
0
Can we save the Western Antarctic by an artificial snowball bombardment?

Scientists are planning to bombard the rapidly melting West Antarctic ice sheet, which is melting six times faster than it was in 1979, with artificial snowballs to save it.

Due to human-induced climate change, one-third of the West Antarctic ice sheet is now at risk of breaking apart at any moment. New research has revealed that the rate of ice melting in the region has reached six times the rate identified in 1979.

The research published by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) suggests that we can use technology to artificially strengthen the ice cover. The plan involves creating snow from ocean waters and launching the artificial snow onto the ice cover using cannons.

Anders Levermann, one of the study’s authors, stated that the plan, which would require high-level technology and investment, could be a long-term solution to the threat of rising sea levels. If successful, cities like Miami and Bangkok, which are expected to be submerged by the end of the 21st century, could be saved.

Levermann, a physicist at Columbia University, said, “We have to choose between protecting Antarctica and sacrificing life and cultural heritage in coastal areas. If nothing is done in the long term, many cities from New York to Shanghai will be underwater.”

Levermann emphasized that the West Antarctic Ice Shelf plays a critical role in the climate system and that if no measures are taken, the melting will continue until the entire ice shelf is gone.

Trillions of tons of artificial snow are needed. Scientists using computer simulations to calculate the future amount of melting have realized that the situation will not change with a slight reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in the near future. Johannes Feldmann, who participated in the study, said that after long brainstorming sessions, the solution appeared to be to use an “extreme number” of cannons.

Launching artificial snow with cannons involves distributing a very large mass of water over a specific area. In total, the amount of artificial snow required will cover an area the size of Costa Rica or half of Iceland, or 52,000 square kilometres.

The energy required to fill such a large area with artificial snow is massive. Calculations show that 12,000 state-of-the-art wind turbines would be needed to extract ocean water, desalinate it, create artificial snow, and operate the snow cannons.

Feldmann noted that the extraordinary amount of water that needs to be extracted from the Amundsen Sea would also negatively affect an equal amount of habitat. Ultimately, it is a mystery how feasible the proposed (but not yet offered) plan is and how much it would impact nature under challenging Antarctic conditions.

At this point, Feldmann expressed his discomfort as follows:

“Trying to make it snow in Antarctica to stop the ice melting shows how serious the rising water level problem has become.”

Scientists have focused on highly futuristic plans in recent years, knowing that humanity will not stop polluting nature. While one group of researchers suggested building an artificial ice wall in Antarctica, a plan to use millions of water pumps to save the Arctic Ocean had been proposed.

I think floating cities will be the most realistic solution within the next 50 years.

Main image: Pixabay

This article is from 2019. To read the original TR article, click the link below:

Bilim insanları Batı Antarktika’yı yapay kar topları ile bombardıman etmeyi planlıyor

International Gemini Observatory and Subaru Combine Forces to Discover First Ever Pair of Merging Quasars at Cosmic Dawn

admin
-
0
International Gemini Observatory and Subaru Combine Forces to Discover First Ever Pair of Merging Quasars at Cosmic Dawn

Observations with the Gemini North telescope aid in the discovery of the most distant pair of merging quasars, seen only 900 million years after the Big Bang

With the help of the powerful GNIRS instrument on the Gemini North telescope, one half of the International Gemini Observatory, supported in part by the U.S. National Science Foundation and operated by NSF NOIRLab, a team of astronomers have discovered a double-record-breaking pair of quasars. Not only are they the most distant pair of merging quasars ever found, but also the only pair confirmed in the bygone era of the Universe’s earliest formation.

Since the very first instant after the Big Bang the Universe has been expanding. This means that the early Universe was considerably smaller and early-formed galaxies were more likely to interact and merge. Galaxy mergers fuel the formation of quasars — extremely luminous galactic cores where gas and dust falling into a central supermassive black hole emit enormous amounts of light. So when looking back at the early Universe astronomers would expect to find numerous pairs of quasars in close proximity to each other as their host galaxies undergo mergers. However, they have been surprised to find exactly none — until now.

With the aid of the Gemini North telescope, one half of the International Gemini Observatory, which is supported in part by the U.S. National Science Foundation and operated by NSF NOIRLab, a team of astronomers have discovered a pair of merging quasars seen only 900 million years after the Big Bang. Not only is this the most distant pair of merging quasars ever found, but also the first confirmed pair in the period of the Universe’s history known as Cosmic Dawn.

Hyper Suprime-Cam Image of Most Distant Pair of Merging Quasars

Cosmic Dawn spanned from about 50 million years to one billion years after the Big Bang. During this period the first stars and galaxies began appearing, filling the dark Universe with light for the first time. The arrival of the first stars and galaxies kicked off a new era in the formation of the cosmos known as the Epoch of Reionization.

The Epoch of Reionization, which took place within Cosmic Dawn, was a period of cosmological transition. Beginning roughly 400 million years after the Big Bang, ultraviolet light from the first stars, galaxies and quasars spread throughout the cosmos, interacting with the intergalactic medium and stripping the Universe’s primordial hydrogen atoms of their electrons in a process known as ionization. The Epoch of Reionization was a critical epoch in the history of the Universe that marked the end of the cosmic dark ages and seeded the large structures we observe in our local Universe today.

To understand the exact role that quasars played during the Epoch of Reionization, astronomers are interested in finding and studying quasars populating this early and distant era. “The statistical properties of quasars in the Epoch of Reionization tell us many things, such as the progress and origin of the reionization, the formation of supermassive black holes during Cosmic Dawn, and the earliest evolution of the quasar host galaxies,” said Yoshiki Matsuoka, an astronomer at Ehime University in Japan and lead author of the paper describing these results, published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Gemini North at Sunset

About 300 quasars have been discovered in the Epoch of Reionization, but none of them have been found in a pair. That is until Matsuoka and their team were reviewing images taken with the Hyper Suprime-Cam on the Subaru Telescope and a faint patch of red caught their eye. “While screening images of quasar candidates I noticed two similarly and extremely red sources next to each other,” said Matsuoka. “The discovery was purely serendipitous.”

The team was not sure that they were a quasar pair since distant quasar candidates are contaminated by numerous other sources, such as foreground stars and galaxies and the effects of gravitational lensing. To confirm the nature of these objects the team conducted follow-up spectroscopy using the Faint Object Camera and Spectrograph (FOCAS) on the Subaru Telescope and the Gemini Near-Infrared Spectrograph (GNIRS) on Gemini North. The spectra, which break down the emitted light from a source into its component wavelengths, obtained with GNIRS were crucial to characterizing the nature of the quasar pair and their host galaxies.

Subaru Telescope

“What we learned from the GNIRS observations was that the quasars are too faint to detect in near-infrared, even with one of the largest telescopes on the ground,” said Matsuoka. This allowed the team to estimate that a portion of the light detected in the optical wavelength range is not coming from the quasars themselves, but from ongoing star formation taking place in their host galaxies. The team also found that the two black holes are whoppers, each being 100 million times the mass of the Sun. This, coupled with the presence of a bridge of gas stretching between the two quasars, suggests that they and their host galaxies are undergoing a major-scale merger [1].

“The existence of merging quasars in the Epoch of Reionization has been anticipated for a long time. It has now been confirmed for the first time,” said Matsuoka [2].

The Epoch of Reionization connects the earliest formation of cosmic structure to the complex Universe that we observe billions of years later. By studying distant objects from this period astronomers gain valuable insight into the process of reionization and the formation of the first objects in the Universe. More discoveries like this may be on the horizon with NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s decade-long Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), beginning in 2025, which is poised to detect millions of quasars using its deep imaging capabilities.

Main image: NOIRLab

Notes

[1] A companion paper accepted for publication in AAS Journals presents further analysis of the quasar pair, the gas bridge between them and their host galaxies using observations taken with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA).

[2] There have been candidates, but it is difficult to separate them from possibly gravitationally-lensed images of a single quasar. There are also some candidates for being dual active galactic nuclei embedded in individual Epoch of Reionization galaxies, but these have much lower luminosity (black hole activity) than quasars and are two components within a single galaxy, which are qualitatively different from what is described here.

Fuel to last 10,000 years for Earth: Helium-3

Müfit Yılmaz Gökmen
-
0
Fuel to last 10,000 years for Earth: Helium-3

The Moon, where the US, Europe, Russia, and China plan to establish a colony, may cause a new and grand war between the major powers in the 2020s. The reason that may shift the focus of global wars currently ongoing in cyberwar to orbit is the helium-3 isotope, which can potentially end the economic crisis on our planet.

The nonradioactive isotope of helium, made up of one neutron and two protons, is scarce on Earth and is primarily used for nuclear fusion research, MRI (magnetic resonance imaging), and plutonium scanners. Whereas the Earth’s magnetic field keeps away the ample amount of Helium-3 dispersed from the Sun in a cosmic storm, plenty of it covers the surface of the Moon.

China, where more than 1.5 million people lose their lives due to pollution annually, wants to supply its energy from helium-3 from 2020 onwards. Professor Ouyang Ziyuan, head of the China Moon Exploration Programme, believes that the helium-3 found on the Moon could be enough for our planet for 10,000 years.

The amount of energy helium-3 can provide is mind-blowing. 40 tonnes of the radioactive isotope used in environmentally friendly nuclear fusion reactors can light up the entire US for one year. Nevertheless, it is quite challenging to obtain such valuable material.

Who will win on the Moon?

The Orion space capsule, SLS rocket, and smart 3D printers are just the first steps toward colonizing the Moon. Humanity needs to open mines the size of cities to supply reactors worldwide with helium-3, humankind. The regolith eventually absorbs the large amount of helium-3 scattered across the Moon.

Fabrizio Bozzato from Taiwan’s Tamkan University believes there’s a way to process helium-3 on the Moon and bring it to Earth. This method involves heating the regolith (sand that covers the surface of the Moon) to 600 degrees and shipping the large amounts of gas it produces. According to his estimates, one ton of the gas output from the heating may be valued at up to 1.78 billion dollars. Preparing or packaging the gas on the Moon would be much more economical.

Bozzato also believes in the necessity of using helium-3 from 2020, just like the Chinese. In his paper on World Security Network, Bozzato says that humanity can not escape poverty by 2050 without an alternative energy source to sustain 9,6 billion people. China is one of the top countries that need such an alternative energy source, with a population of 1.4 billion people. China became the first country to successfully land a man-made spacecraft 38 years after the Apollo missions with the Chang’e mission and has been observing the celestial body up close since 2010. In the 2020s, China plans to establish a moon base to become a pioneer in alternative energy for humanity. If there were no challengers, China might become a monopoly, says Bozzato.

Image: ESA

The helium-3 market would overwhelm the Earth

NASA estimates the upcoming 20 years of Moon and asteroid missions will cost at least 20 billion dollars. Most of the spending will be based on developing new-generation rockets and engines.

Energy becoming the top prize in the space race may cause a much more challenging rivalry to control out of the atmosphere. Asteroid mining companies such as Google-led Planetary Resources aim for platinum, China wants helium-3, and companies such as Shackleton Energy want Moon water. Google is investing millions of dollars in the LunarX Prize challenge to determine which companies are exploring the Moon for themselves.

Besides, we shall not ignore the Moon base plan of ESA. Eventually, the US building a robotic base on the solar pole of the Moon and China establishing a colony on the far side of the Moon will be the beginning of a critical era for humanity.

The UN Foreign Space Treaty, which China also signed, defends using Moon sources for humanity. Considering how the sources on Earth are used and for whom, I believe we shouldn’t be too optimistic about the Moon. Eventually, the rules will be set by trade, not humanity.

Main image: ESA

This article is from 2015. To look at the original TR article, click the link below:

Dünya’yı 10 bin yıl besleyecek yakıt: Helyum-3

Cheese or genes? How the Dutch are so tall?

Ezgi Atayay
-
0
Cheese or genes? How the Dutch are so tall?

According to military recordings, the average height of men in the Netherlands increased 20 centimetres in the last 150 years.

The Netherlands is a country of giants. On average, women are 1,71 metres tall, and men are 1,84.

On the other hand, it is a mystery that the Dutch have become the tallest people in the world. Eventually, they were considered one of the shortest races two hundred years ago. What happened since then?

1-Nutrition

A favourable explanation for the height of Dutch people is nutrition, a calorie-rich diet of meat and milk. Nevertheless, experts state that “this can not be the whole story.”

Other European countries enjoyed similar development in their welfare and lifestyle to the Dutch, but none got as tall as them. Military records show that the average height of men in the Netherlands increased 20 centimetres in the last 150 years, while the average height of American men only increased six centimetres in the same period.

The Dutch habitually consume dairy products in their diet, and studies draw a connection between increased height and diet. Professor Louise Barrett, from Lethbridge University, Canada, explains it as follows: “Calcium forms the bones, and growth depends on an ample source of it.”

Yet, we are triggered to pursue other explanations as the experts are unsatisfied with only one.

2-Natural selection and sex

Gert Stupl and his colleagues from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine dug a database in the Netherlands to look for clues.

The LifeLines database has extensive data about the lifestyle and health of over 94,500 people who lived in the northern part of the Netherlands between 1935 and 1967. In this picture of 30 years, the tallest women and men were the ones with the highest number of children.

For instance, men with most children were seven centimetres taller than the average. Statistically, tall men had an average of 0.24 more children than the shortest, behind the average of 14 centimetres.

It was found that the number of tall women in the Netherlands increased over time compared with women in other countries who tend to have fewer children. Most of these women delayed having children until they completed their education, but they formed a large family after establishing a successful relationship.

The study didn’t involve genetic testing, but natural selection was influential through observations. In time, more Dutch people benefited from ‘tall’ genes.

“Height is inherited; taller parents tend to have taller kids than shorter parents,” says Stulp. “The fact that taller individuals will have more and taller children, if everything is equal, the average height in that generation would be higher from the previous one,” he adds.

3-Sleep time

Our busy lives and intense programs sometimes make having a good night’s sleep impossible, and it cannot be replaced with anything else. That is why some people believe good sleep is why Dutch people are so tall!

As an adult, we don’t overthink about going to sleep according to time, but for children, we have a strong reason that growth and good sleep are firmly tied. How? Our body needs growth hormones to grow. This hormone released by the body naturally helps “build” tissue such as bone, skin, tendons and muscles. As a result, more growth hormones mean better muscular tissue, faster healing, and increased height.

That is why sleep is crucial when growth is considered. The body produces the growth hormone during sleep. Thus, the more deep sleep we get, the more we grow (between the ages of 19 and 27).

4-Cheese

Lastly, one of the biggest reasons for the Dutch being so tall (as suspected) is cheese!

It is not surprising to know that the Dutch love dairy products. It is routine to see a cheese shop at any corner, cheese stalls at the open markets twice a week, and a massive dairy product area in every supermarket dedicated to cheese.

If you happen to go to the Netherlands, visiting the Gouda, Alkmaar, and Edam Cheese markets would give you a better idea.

Before exploring the cheese world in more depth, let’s consider the relationship between cheese and the height of the Dutch.

Some lands were too hard to grow vegetables due to their acidic nature, which was good for grass growth. Therefore, as the Netherlands gained more land, dairy production witnessed an explosion and the Dutch eventually increased milk consumption. They are still among the top milk consumers globally.

The milk the Dutch don’t drink has turned into massive cheese blocks such as Gouda and Edam, covered with wax and taking the name of the city in which they are produced. Alongside Woerden and the beautiful Alkmaar, these nameless cities are among the best places to witness the love the Dutch have for dairy products in full passion.

Sources:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/08/scientists-try-to-answer-why-dutch-people-are-so-tall

http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20200823-why-are-the-dutch-so-tall#:~:text=Then%20there’s%20the%20Dutch%20diet,of%20that%2C%E2%80%9D%20Barrett%20explained

Main photo: Sabina Fratila/Unsplash

Turkish version:

Kaşar Mı Yoksa Gen Mi? Hollandalılar Neden Bu Kadar Uzun?

How was chicken domesticated, and where did it spread?

Can Torun
-
0
How was chicken domesticated, and where did it spread?

Until today, the belief is that chickens have not been regarded as a resource to be consumed but as a respected animal throughout European history. It’s been known that many chickens were buried in graves along with humans; even so, roosters shared graves with men and chickens with women. Ok, so how the chicken was domesticated? Excavations performed in a few places showed that chickens and people lived a life altogether.

How was chicken domesticated, and how did it spread throughout the world?

Most recent research revealed that our relationship with chickens had a sharp turn in the last 3500 years, shedding light on taming as it spread from Asia to the West. Past research displayed the chicken as an “exotic” figure, which was respected for a long time. Additionally, there were accepted ideas that chickens were domesticated in China, India, and Southeast Asia around 10,000 years ago, and the same practice appeared in Europe around 7,000 years ago.

According to research by academics from Exeter, Munich, Cardiff, Oxford, Bournemouth, and Toulouse universities and institutes in Germany, France, and Argentina, chicken domestication was still underway in Southeast Asia 3,000 years ago.

Do chickens come from the dinosaur family?

Like all birds, chickens are grandchildren of dinosaurs and their closest living relatives! That is why, even though not technically a dinosaur, chickens share the ancestry and DNA of the mighty reptiles of ancient times.

A study performed by one of the most respected universities, Harvard, showed that birds are the closest relatives of dinosaurs and include 21 modern species. At the same time, the molecular analysis of a sample of 68 million years of Tyrannosaurus Rex (T-Rex) protein corroborates that chickens, ostriches, and alligators (on a smaller scale) have a shared ancestor.

Were chickens always food?

Looking primarily at chickens’ journey in Europe, the acceptance of chickens as food doesn’t go too far. This process was going on in the Southeast Asian peninsula around 1,500 BC. Studies show that chickens first travelled to Asia and then to the Mediterranean by the sea routes used by early-period Greek and Phonecian sea traders. The Roman Empire played its part in this journey and helped chicken eggs become a popular food source.

For instance, chickens were constantly consumed in cities and military areas until the third century in Britain. Additionally, research by Oxford University revealed the primary reason for taming chickens: not to consume them as a food source but to use them in rituals and ceremonies.

An international team of scientists reinvestigated chicken remnants in 89 countries, covering over 600 regions. The research deeply analysed the societies and skeletons representing cultures, excavation sites, and ancient records associated with the location of the chicken remnants. As a result of the study, the oldest bones of a domesticated chicken were located in the centre of Thailand, the neolithic Ban Non-Wat, dating back to 1,650-1,250 BC. Ban Non-Wat is a famous excavation site and a historical spot in northwestern Thailand.

The results also debunked the believed date the chickens emerged in Europe, revealing that they only existed in 8,000 BC. On the contrary, it likely took another 1,000 years for chickens to reach Britania, Scotland, Ireland, Scandinavia and Iceland after reaching the Mediterranean.

One of the researchers, Dr Julia Best from Cardiff University, explains the results: “Radiocarbon scaling is used for the first time to determine the importance of chickens in early societies. The results show us that the proposed early samples must be directly dated, and the method allows us to do so. This is the clearest picture of our relationship with chickens throughout history.”

While the chicken industry has reached a debatable point today, it is interesting that the history of chicken taming has evolved recently, triggering the necessity of following related studies with care.

Sources:

University of Exeter. (2022, June 6). New evidence about when, where, and how chickens were domesticated. ScienceDaily. Retrieved July 5, 2022 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/06/220606181159.htm

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/redefining-the-timing-and-circumstances-of-the-chickens-introduction-to-europe-and-northwest-africa/0797DAA570D51D988B0514C37C2EC534

Main photo: Oleksandr P/Pexels

Turkish version:

Tavuk Nasıl Evcilleştirildi ve Nereden Yayıldı?

How will IoT shape the world in future?

Müfit Yılmaz Gökmen
-
0
How will IoT shape the world in future?

First of all, what is the Internet of Things (IoT)? The primary and essential definition is various devices in various sizes, mainly considered sensors and represent gadgets, appliances and machines programmed to carry out specific tasks through transmitting data over the internet and other networks. The most commonly known IoT devices are smart home gadgets, from automated lights to locks, sensors used in smart vehicles, industrial equipment, medical devices and more.

The rapid spread of IoT devices is inevitable, as it paves the way towards the future and is one of the main pillars of future tech. From smart buildings that will require no human intervention to provide safety and heating to the Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) absent of human eyes, IoT will be one of the core components of life in future. Several figures underline the fast adaptation and the spread of IoT, pointing out how fast the world is becoming digital more than ever.

According to Statista, the number of IoT devices will double from 15.1 billion in 2020 and reach 29.42 billion by 2030. The number of connected internet devices by region by 2030 also provides a glimpse into the development scale of major powers (Explodingtopics):

  • China: 8.57 billion
  • Europe: 6.56 billion
  • North America: 6.24 billion
  • Japan: A little more than 2 billion

IoT is quickly outpacing non-IoT devices and the traditional use and appliance of communication over the internet. As of 2020, IoT devices already outnumbered non-IoT devices globally and by 2025, IoT devices are expected to take this ratio to 3:1, according to Explodingtopics. Another interesting fact is the usage of IoT devices. Not surprisingly, 74% of the IoT devices are utilised in short-range functions, and public and private networks use the rest of the IoT devices, 16% and 10%, respectively.

IoT carries a lot of responsibilities for the future, as the digitalised world already produces an overwhelming amount of data.

What will be the tasks of IoT?

Global Connectivity: IoT is the essence of technologies that make the world digital. Think of cities, businesses, regions, and continents interconnected through this technology, transmitting billions of data each second. IoT will make this happen, opening the doors of futuristic innovations that will change the world and our lives.

Data Generation and Analysis: IoT devices generate enormous amounts of data from the ‘real world’. The data is gathered from devices and machines, including smart home locks and connected cars. The data collected can be considered a massive pile of raw minerals to enrich. This step is done by data analysis, taking data processing to another level through sophisticated data analytics platforms specialised for different industries. Through filtering and analysis, data is turned into valuable insights used in decision-making, improving the overall efficiency of operations and reducing costs.

Automation: Utilising IoT in various operational systems eliminates human intervention in countless routine, repeated daily tasks and enables monitoring when human intervention is again eliminated through detecting the required response by IoT. A straightforward example is smart thermostats, optimising heating and cooling systems, saving significant time for human personnel and reducing costs.

Improved safety and security: IoT is super efficient in real-time monitoring and alert/notification systems. IoT will provide 100% time efficiency in triggering the required response in any area of life, including ITSs, medical care and inventory management. An accident can be averted through monitoring and response, medical staff can respond to a patient in no time and inventory, and assets can be tracked 24/7 and protected.

Improved Decision-Making: As mentioned above, IoT is like a digital data wizard. Drawing information from all corners of the internet and other networks, IoT gathers the new gold, data to be converted into vital insights, guiding any decision-maker by seeing operations in depth and scale as never before.

Sustainability: Sustainability is one of the most critical elements for any business, as it stands on the ability to sustain a business in an environmental fashion, which helps fight climate change and brings more efficiency while reducing costs. Connected fleets, for instance, using IoT-based telematics technology, are able to reduce their carbon emissions while still using petrol vehicles significantly. From optimising water consumption to reducing electricity usage, sustainability provides a holistic approach to making any business greener, and IoT is vital to support governments and organisations under this goal.

Improved industrial efficiency: Following the pandemic period and the impact of the Ukraine-Russia war, supply chains need vital innovation never to get impacted by external threats again. IoT could maximise this, providing all necessary systems such as predictive maintenance and real-time monitoring. Thus, supply chains can stay healthy and robust at all times by efficiently monitoring and managing machinery, delivery and protection of assets. Reduced costs and saved resources would help to patch losses and add onto current operations, eventually increasing efficiency.

Healthcare innovations: Smartwatches are a great example of health innovations, enabling 24/7 monitoring of patients. Connected to a medical service network, similar wearable devices and intelligent medical equipment can detect any health issue and immediately alert medical services. The improved healthcare will display itself in various futuristic ways, such as drones carrying supplements to patients as soon as possible when needed.

Urban Planning and Smart Cities: The world is not efficient enough to respond to climate change as it should be. Technology is the solution to make cities more liveable and efficiently limit the sources of carbon emissions through smart traffic management, optimised fuel and energy consumption, waste management and more. IoT will be the basis of these systems, monitoring, detecting and managing vital infrastructure and procedures through automation.

Consumer Convenience: A smartwatch telling you to wake up and take your routine walk, a toast machine getting your toast ready when you need it and a fridge showing you the new you require on its smart screen. Not just to increase comfort but to save time and energy on top of scheduling your way through IoT will make a big difference in many people’s lives.

What is the risk?

Is there any technology that comes without risks? Probably not. IoT is one, and it brings vast risks (actually opportunities for bad actors) if not correctly used. IoT will be the digital aqueduct of information, and when disrupted, it may cause catastrophe for any business, government or individual. Robust security systems must be in place for all IoT networks, from connected fleets to office gadgets, to avoid unwanted attacks. At this step, human intervention is super important, completing the efficiency of IoT with diligent care.

The ten tips for writing an SEO-optimised quality article 

Müfit Yılmaz Gökmen
-
0
The ten tips for writing an SEO-optimised quality article 

You’ve been working full-time for over ten years now. With the experience and knowledge you gained throughout the years, you finally decided to take another important step in your life: Reaching audiences and gaining ground in social media as an expert, or say, an influencer in modern terms. But be aware it is not the design of the blog page you prepared thoroughly or the advertising on social media that would take you to your target audience. For that, you need two special keywords and the skill to get to the bottom: Quality and SEO. 

When we talk about quality, it is not only described by your knowledge in your field of expertise but how you can convey information to people who need to become more familiar with it or want to learn more about it. Having been a coder for many years wouldn’t mean that you could put that knowledge into text within a fine structure, or having spent years in a newsroom wouldn’t make you a social media content manager. Therefore, first, you need to adjust your perspective for your new goal, expand your skills, add new ones to reach audiences, and, most importantly, become sustainable online. For that, you need to have a certain level of quality with your content, understand the fundamentals of SEO optimisation, and add to it in time to do the latter.

So, let’s look at the ten tips to guarantee quality and smooth SEO optimisation for the content you want to produce. Remember, the quality doesn’t come from the display, expensive SEO tools or advertising but good writing and editing skills merged with the optimum SEO tools. 

1- Pinpoint your content type: What will you write about? Thousands of things may flow inside your head following years of experience, but you need to know what the audience wants or what they require to improve things. So, even if you’re almost set in your mind about the content you want to produce, you must do initial research to see what other people in your area offer to the audiences and in what format. They may have already thought about the things you want to talk about. Can you tell something different about the same thing from a different perspective to a diverse age group or business area? You may get the idea of starting a podcast without wasting any time and get new ideas for producing content and marketing them on social media. Don’t be isolated in your mind; first, look around to understand how to react. In digital, things don’t apply according to the book. 

2- Test & improve your writing skills: You want to write about coding. You know about it well. But do you know how to write? It is more challenging than it may appear in your head, especially in an era taking attention through writing is the hardest. To write a good article, you need to learn some basic steps before you start typing; for that, it would be wise to read about tips and rules for forming a good article. Some essential tips come along with your planning: Never jump from topic to topic and get lost in the variety of things in your area and eventually collide with ancient and trending topics, repeating the same stuff or boring the audience with a random style of writing. It would be best to stick to a topic and provide them as a series of articles and move on with the other after you convey all the information you have. Setting a certain length for your articles and staying aware of word count is crucial, as most readers have little patience but high curiosity. Therefore, follow a good structure to write about the topic you want to decrypt and make it fun to read. 

3- Discover tools to improve your writing: Writing in English is your best advantage, providing a potential reach to over two billion people. But are you able to write in good English? For a non-native, getting lost in British and American English is the main thing, and yes, it does matter. Native or not, you must consider the readability of your articles and use a rich vocabulary instead of a static and boring one. Having no incoherencies, not using too long sentences and being diligent about the words you’re using would be helpful to convey the meaning of the information you want to present to your readers. Therefore, don’t be shy and improve your skills in writing and editing by checking out some language tools to improve your paraphrasing and vocabulary skills and also check your spelling. If you fail in your writing, you fail in the essential step of online content. 

4- Use attributes and sources properly: Writing is the fundamental method of conveying information, the information you gathered and learned from other sources through the years and kept in the writing format, digital or not digital. Therefore, if you are not writing an opinion article but carry the goal of telling or teaching something, you must build trust and ensure your quality by using reliable sources and properly attributing them. Supporting your knowledge with academic or well-known, well-established online or printed sources is a huge plus, underlining your knowledge and boosting your reliability among readers. Not being an egoist and providing a multitude of good sources in your articles is also a plus for readers, who can expand their view on a topic in a short time thanks to you. Attribution by complying with copyrights is also a good sign of your quality and respect to other online sources, providing a respected view for your blog. If you don’t even care about attribution, open a YouTube page and unleash your smartmouth if this is easier for you. 

5- Use the keywords properly: Everything has to be appropriately written, from the title to the body of your article. Keywords are the most important to scatter among the article, starting from the title. But this doesn’t mean you can jump on the clickbait wagon and use a few words all over the article 20 times. This would disrupt the article’s structure and, most importantly, irritate the readers. Mentioning a piece of certain information twice is sometimes necessary according to the topic and the article’s structure, but using the same information multiple times, believing that it would help your SEO, would only appear to take your audience as idiots and annoy them. Set a group of keywords for your article and use them correctly in the article, not appearing too few or too many but scattered properly along the article. The more you use a rich vocabulary associated with your keywords, the better quality and SEO it will have. 

6- Get reporting from analytics tools: If you believe that writing continuously on your blog will bring you high traffic in a few months, you’re a little bit naive. Not because your content is not good or rare but because people are unaware of it or you’re not directing it to your target audience. An analytics tool is a must to get a broad spectrum of ideas about how to shape your content, SEO strategy and social media display, as data analytics is a vital method to get insights into the digital world. Using Google Analytics or many new alternatives, you can analyse the most critical data points such as the most clicked articles, time spent on specific articles and your main page (how good the design and tempting the content is?), audience demographics and most searched words. These insights give you a better idea to prepare your content and boost your SEO by implementing new methods and tools. On top of these tools, you should also check out the overall performance of your blog through other online tools and see the qualities, such as ranking and speed, to get a comprehensive comparison in a particular category and region. 

7- Choose the best SEO tools for your page: Among almost thousands of SEO optimisation tools, you should be careful about which one you need regarding what you require. If you expect to boost website traffic by applying an SEO tool to your page, you’re naive again. But what would be the gap this tool should fill for you and add on top of it? Are you interested in monitoring the performance of your blog and fixing the errors that hinder SEO or boosting it after building a robust SEO infrastructure? Eventually, you would ask for both. At this point, you need to spend some time detecting the most efficient SEO tool for your website, compatible with your WP or coding and suitable for your budget. This is not it. However, you need to adjust your input and design accordingly and always be careful about updating your tools. 

8- Establish links with other pages: Partnership at all levels is good, as isolating yourself and being alone in your content production seriously limits your capacity and audience reach. A good writing style, though don’t have to be academic, always respects copyright and has attribution for all external inputs such as images and video, and also provides original links of all specific information taken from other sources. This ensures a high quality of your content and website and allows the people and bodies of used content to discover you. The next step should be moving on with collaborations; sharing content, providing hyperlinks to specific external sources, and later becoming sister websites would boost your traffic and SEO. One of the best contents to get an external link would be an interview.

9- Keep your website updated: One crucial aspect of achieving smooth SEO optimisation is feeding content to your platform not randomly but constantly, with good planning. The more SEO-optimised quality content you have, the more chances you get discovered by readers online and visited more frequently. Even if you use aggregation platforms, it won’t help if you stay out of time and appear randomly or disappear totally. Your well-established infrastructure may keep you going for a while, but without life support, an abandoned website can’t keep high traffic, get discovered and keep readers’ trust. 

10- Tempt readers to spend time on your page: This is vital if you can seduce your readers to comment on your articles, which would significantly help your traffic over time. To do this, you can add questionnaires on your website, ask them questions about what they want to see or offer a quiz to check their knowledge about what they’re interested in. Several kinds of interactions with readers tempt them to provide input and enrich the content on your webpage spontaneously, enhancing the SEO and improving the content quality. 

After following all these steps and adding to them, it won’t be surprising to get more attention on social media, enter online communities in your area, spread your name and get noticed for more significant opportunities. Remember, writing is the first pillar in your digital adventure. Wherever you reach online from this point, your baseline will be your website, your golden archive and representation, even if you become a YouTube influencer one day. 

123...77 Sayfanın 2 Sayfası