See Southern Delta Aquariids and Alpha Capricornids Meteor Showers This Summer

Showers of summer meteors, short summer days and ancient arthropods

By Rachel Feltman & Fonda Mwangi

Rachel Feltman: Happy Monday, listeners! For American scientist‘s Science quickly, I am Rachel Feltman. It’s been a while, but we are finally back with our usual news. Let’s take up some of the new scientists you may have missed in the last week about.

If last Tuesday seemed to fly, it is probably because it was a little shorter than usual. The International Service of Earth Rotation and Reference Systems says that July 22 was around 0.8 millisecond less than the standard 24 hours. It is slightly less dramatic than nearly 1.4 milliseconde which lacked from July 10, and scientists anticipate another day still so slightly truncated on August 5.

Now, although there have been many big titles on these missing fractions of a millisecond, it is not really the news that the rotation of the earth varies speed. The length of a single rotation – also known as the day – is impacted by factors such as the movements of the liquid nucleus of our planet, variations in the jet flow and the gravitational attraction of the moon. A 2024 study even suggested that the melting of polar ice has sufficiently reduced the angular speed of the earth to slow down rotations.

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In fact, the days of the earth generally tend longer if you look back in the last billions of years. Research suggests that in various times of time before the evolution of our species, the days were minutes and even shorter hours. But we always get the shortest days in summer, and there have been particularly short years in recent years. Scientists do not completely know why it happens, but they expect the tip soon, according to the reports of The guardian.

Speaking of the movement of celestial celestial bodies: two meteor showers should culminate the same evening this week. During the night of July 29 to 30, the aquariids of the southern delta and the Alpha Capricornides will reach the height of their activity. Although alpha caricornides are not known to have lowered visible objects, they sometimes produce bright fireballs – moreover they can be seen from anywhere on the planet.

Meanwhile, people in the southern hemisphere will also have a magnificent view of the aquariids of the southern delta, and people further north could catch an activity if they look south. There will also be dispersed meteors of the Perseids, which accelerate in activity next month. With the moon in a hairwell phase to hair removal, the conditions should be good to locate meteors – as long as it is not too cloudy. So throw an alarm for the hours before dawn Wednesday and go out to take a look.

Now back to earth. Last Monday, the head of research and urban rescue of the Federal Emergency Management Agency resigned. Ken Pagurek, who spent more than a decade with the FEMA branch and was his leader for about a year, would have told his colleagues that his decision was partly motivated by the delayed response to the recent catastrophic floods in Texas. The Ministry of Internal Security has recently implemented a policy which obliges secretary Kristi Noem to personally approve spending of more than $ 100,000. CNN reports that Noem has taken over 72 hours to provide urban research and rescue teams to deploy in Texas. According to the New York TimesNoem also did not renew agreements with the companies of the call center whose entrepreneurs would have answered the calls of survivors in the event of a disaster. The contracts were unleashed in the aftermath of the flood, when many people still needed help. THE Times Reported on July 5, FEMA received just over 3,000 calls and responded approximately 99.7%. On July 6, with hundreds of entrepreneurs responsible for responding to suddenly dismissed phones, FEMA would have received 2,363 calls and responded approximately 35.8%. And according to the TimesThese contracts were not renewed until July 10.

When he was asked for comments on Pagurek’s resignation by ABC News, a DHS spokesperson doubled the new spending policy, defending the agency’s decision not to “have hastily approve a six-digit deployment contract without basic financial monitoring”.

To certain health news. According to a study of nearly 1,000 people published last Tuesday in the journal Nature communicationsThe cocovated pandemic may have agreed our brain faster – without what we are sick.

First, the researchers analyzed the imagery of more than 15,000 healthy individuals collected pre-Pandemic to establish a reference base for normal brain aging. The team used this data to train automatic learning models to predict a person’s brain age depending on certain structural changes. The researchers then applied these models to brain scanners from 996 other subjects, which had all received two brain scans at least a few years apart. About half of the participants had received the two scans before the start of the pandemic, so they served as a control group.

Scientists were then able to examine the analyzes taken before and after the pandemic to assess the cerebral aging rate. While only people who have been infected with a heartbreak between their two scans have shown a drop in certain cognitive capacities, the signs of brain aging, such as the narrowing of gray matter, have been accelerated through the table. The effects were the most pronounced in men, the elderly and people from more socio-economically private environments.

The authors of the study highlighted a certain number of aspects of the pandemic, including the increases in stress, alcohol consumption and economic insecurity, as well as decreases in physical activity and socialization – which they believe they have agreed our brain faster. We do not yet know what could be the implications of these changes or if they are reversible.

Speaking of brains – and put an end to our show on a fun story because you know that I like to do this – talk about old creatures at sea. A recent study focused on missing species Mollisonia symmetrica, Who lived about half a billion years, suggests that the ancestors of spiders and other arachnids may have started in the ocean. By studying the fossilized remains of the tiny creature, scientists found that his brain was fundamentally behind – at least compared to other arthropods. The arrangement is more similar to the way in which modern arachnid Noggins are organized, which suggests that the spider brain can have first evolved in the sea.

This is all for this week’s news. We will return Wednesday to talk about some of the hottest subjects of this summer in the world of weather.

Science quickly is produced by me, Rachel Feltman, with Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper and Jeff Delviscio. Shayna has and Aaron Shattuck checks our show. Our theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Subscribe to American scientist For new scientists up to date and in -depth.

For Scientific American, Here is Rachel Feltman. Spend a good week!