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El Cap Cover on Texas Highways Magazine

My image of El Capitan in the Guadalupe Mountains is on the cover of the November 2018 issue of Texas Highways Magazine. Check it out on newsstands across Texas now.

This is a big honor for me as Texas Highways is the pinnacle of landscape photography in the Lone Star State.

#wildernessphotographer #texas #texashighways #landscape #elcap #guadaluoemountains.

The new "Doctor Who" main titles

By and large I like it. I'm sorry they have dropped the classic element (only recently reintroduced) of including the Doctor's face against the background), but I like the new logo (please, BBC, stick with a logo for more than a few years, please?). Segun Akinola's cover of the theme is okay, though I'm sure it will grow on me.

Shanghai 2018
© Karolina Trapp

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Knicks put on a show and open season with Hawks destruction https://nyp.st/2CRcsOy

“If we can get up and running before Maryland and Virginia and some of the other jurisdictions, we can capture the market," bill sponsor D.C. Council member Jack Evans said. https://trib.al/g6tV8RS

Astronomers have uncovered a diverse collection of exotic extrasolar planets. While no two have been exactly alike, pretty much all of them fit under general classifications.

From large to small, we have the following types (and some key details for each one)

https://thetechinside.com/new-class-of-planets-mega-earth-discovered-by-astronomers/

The cast of "Marvel's Daredevil" dives into what's in store for them ahead of Season 3: http://bit.ly/2J3EVRl

Ex-‘Apprentice’ contestant claims Trump is hiding info about alleged sexual misconduct https://nyp.st/2CPP1oB

Double dust ring test could spot migrating planets
Source: University of Warwick
An international team of astronomers has discovered a titanic structure in the early universe, just 2 billion years after the Big Bang. This galaxy proto-supercluster, nicknamed Hyperion, is the largest and most massive structure yet found at such a remote time and distance.

The team that made the discovery was led by Olga Cucciati of Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF) Bologna, Italy, and project scientist Brian Lemaux in the Department of Physics, College of Letters and Science at the University of California, Davis, and included Lori Lubin, professor of physics at UC Davis. They used the VIMOS instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope in Paranal, Chile, to identify a gigantic proto-supercluster of galaxies forming in the early universe, just 2.3 billion years after the Big Bang.

Hyperion is the largest and most massive structure to be found so early in the formation of the universe, with a calculated mass more than 1 million billion times that of the sun. This enormous mass is similar to that of the largest structures observed in the universe today, but finding such a massive object in the early universe surprised astronomers.

“This is the first time that such a large structure has been identified at such a high red shift, just over 2 billion years after the Big Bang,” Cucciati said. “Normally these kinds of structures are known at lower red shifts, which means when the universe has had much more time to evolve and construct such huge things. It was a surprise to see something this evolved when the universe was relatively young.”
Supercluster mapped in three dimensions

Located in the constellation of Sextans (The Sextant), Hyperion was identified by a novel technique developed at UC Davis to analyze the vast amount of data obtained from the VIMOS Ultra-Deep Survey led by Olivier Le Fèvre from Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales. The VIMOS instrument can measure the distance to hundreds of galaxies at the same time, making it possible to map the position of galaxies within the forming supercluster in three dimensions.

The team found that Hyperion has a very complex structure, containing at least seven high-density regions connected by filaments of galaxies, and its size is comparable to superclusters closer to Earth, though it has a very different structure.

“Superclusters closer to Earth tend to a much more concentrated distribution of mass with clear structural features,” Lemaux said. “But in Hyperion, the mass is distributed much more uniformly in a series of connected blobs, populated by loose associations of galaxies.”

The researchers are comparing the Hyperion findings with results from the Observations of Red shift Evolution in Large Scale Environments (ORELSE) survey, led by Lubin. The ORELSE survey uses telescopes at the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii to study superclusters closer to Earth. Lubin and Lemaux are also using the Keck observatory to map out Hyperion and similar structures more completely.

The contrast between Hyperion and less distant superclusters is most likely due to the fact that nearby superclusters have had billions of years for gravity to gather matter together into denser regions — a process that has been acting for far less time in the much younger Hyperion.

Given its size so early in the history of the universe, Hyperion is expected to evolve into something similar to the immense structures in the local universe such as the superclusters making up the Sloan Great Wall or the Virgo Supercluster that contains our own galaxy, the Milky Way.

“Understanding Hyperion and how it compares to similar recent structures can give insights into how the universe developed in the past and will evolve into the future, and allows us the opportunity to challenge some models of supercluster formation,” Cucciati said. “Unearthing this cosmic titan helps uncover the history of these large-scale structures.”

Journal Reference:
O. Cucciati, B.C. Lemaux, G. Zamorani, O. Le Fevre, L.A.M. Tasca, N.P. Hathi, K-G. Lee, S. Bardelli, P. Cassata, B. Garilli, V. Le Brun, D. Maccagni, L. Pentericci, R. Thomas, E. Vanzella, E. Zucca, L.M. Lubin, R. Amorin, L.P. Cassara', A. Cimatti, M. Talia, D. Vergani, A. Koekemoer, J. Pforr, M. Salvato. The progeny of a Cosmic Titan: a massive multi-component proto-supercluster in formation at z=2.45 in VUDS. Astronomy & Astrophysics, 2018
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1806.06073.pdf

Doctors are worrying about the spread of rare polio like disease across the USA that starts with symptoms of a common cold. Read more about the AFM.

Water may be more common than expected at extreme depths within Earth's lower mantle - approaching 640 kilometres and possibly beyond, a study of diamonds from across the world has found.

https://rxscience.org/existence-of-water-in-earths-lower-mantle-a-diamond-study/

"A new collaborative study has investigated Arctic shrub-snow interactions to obtain a better understanding of the far north's tundra and vast permafrost system. Incorporating extensive in situ observations, Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists tested their theories with a novel 3D computer model and confirmed that shrubs can lead to significant degradation of the permafrost layer that has remained frozen for tens of thousands of years. These interactions are driving increases in discharges of fresh water into rivers, lakes and oceans.

"The Arctic is actively greening, and shrubs are flourishing across the tundra. As insulating snow accumulates atop tall shrubs, it boosts significant ground warming," said Cathy Wilson, Los Alamos scientist on the project. "If the trend of increasing vegetation across the Arctic continues, we're likely to see a strong increase in permafrost degradation."

The team investigated interactions among shrubs, permafrost, and subsurface areas called taliks. Taliks are unfrozen ground near permafrost caused by a thermal or hydrological anomaly. Some tunnel-like taliks called "through taliks" extend over thick permafrost layers.

Results of the Los Alamos study published in Environmental Research Letters this week revealed that through taliks developed where snow was trapped, warmed the ground and created a pathway for water to flow through deep permafrost, significantly driving thawing and likely increasing water and dissolved carbon flow to rivers, lakes and the ocean. Computer simulations also demonstrated that the thawed active layer was abnormally deeper near these through taliks, and that increased shrub growth exacerbates these impacts. Notably, the team subtracted warming trends from the weather data used to drive simulations, thereby confirming that the shrub-snow interactions were causing degradation even in the absence of warming".

(Posted by +rasha kamel )

Take note that many elected Republicans are exiting politics rather than continue to be associated with Trump.

In light of Trump's recent "horseface" comment regarding a woman he paid $130,000 dollars for her silence on an affair he wanted to keep secret (refunding an illegal campaign contribution by his lawyer Michael Cohen), and his attacks on another woman who appeared before a senate committee to testify about being abused, there must be serious reconsideration of any vote for people who openly support Trump.

With the exit from politics of so many people like Ryan Costello in this election cycle, the only sane thing to do is vote blue, to minimize the damage Trump can do.