A subtle symphony of ripples in spacetime - astronomers use dead stars to measure gravitational waves produced by ancient black holes

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A subtle symphony of ripples in spacetime - astronomers use dead stars to measure gravitational waves produced by ancient black holes     An international team of astronomers has detected a faint signal of gravitational waves reverberating through the universe. By using dead stars as a giant network of gravitational wave detectors, the collaboration – called NANOGrav – was able to measure a low-frequency hum from a chorus of ripples of spacetime.Though members of the team behind this new discovery aren’t yet certain, they strongly suspect that the background hum of gravitational waves they measured was caused by countless ancient merging events of supermassive black holes. Continued here

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Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny: a thrilling farewell to Harrison Ford's greatest character     Indy is back! There are riddles! There are Nazis! There’s an ancient treasure with mystical powers! And I don’t mean Harrison Ford, who at 80 gives a bravura performance in what is surely his last outing as the adventurer with the leather jacket and battered hat.He can still make sharper cracks than his famous whip. And he can still throw a punch or two. There is much mayhem, a mind-bending plot, friends old and new, stunning locations and an ending that may bring a tear to the eye. Continued here

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"We the People" includes all Americans - but July 4 is a reminder that democracy remains a work in progress     The United States’ founders firmly rejected King George III and the entire idea of monarchy 247 years ago, on July 4, 1776. Political power does not come from some absolute authority of a king over people, the founders argued. Rather, political power comes from the people themselves. And these people must agree to any authority governing their society. Continued here

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Did our mammal ancestors live alongside dinosaurs? New research hopes to end long-running debate     If you were asked to think of a mammal, chances are high you would think of a placental mammal – horses, dogs, cats, humans, even bats and rats all fall into that category. It includes some 6,000 species who live in the oceans as well as on land. Today placentals are by far the most abundant and widespread mammals, although there are two other groups, monotremes (echidnas and platypuses) and marsupials (pouched kangaroos and koalas). Continued here

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How Much Hotter Can Texas Get?     Texas is a state well acquainted with heat. When Cormac McCarthy, the great mythmaker of the American West, who died earlier this month, described the landscapes of the borderlands, he often turned the heat into a creature that had an almost physical form. The heat is “crenellated,” fashioned into “serried planes”; it rises, waves, blazes, and shimmers; horses and men, living and dead, dissolve or crumble into it. In his 1985 novel, “Blood Meridian,” in which a mid-nineteenth-century gang crisscrosses the land between Texas and Mexico, the “scalloped canyon walls rippled in the heat like drapery folds,” and riders head toward “the distant pandemonium of the sun.”These past few weeks, such images, as bleak and as beautiful as they are, might have felt a bit too real. On June 20th, the temperature in San Angelo—where John Grady Cole’s grandfather is buried on a cold, blustery day, in the opening pages of McCarthy’s “All the Pretty Horses”—hit a hundred and fourteen degrees Fahrenheit, setting an all-time record for the city. The next day, it was a hundred and fourteen again; the highs exceeded a hundred every day for more than two weeks in June. San Angelo sits on the Concho River, in the interior of the state; the same week, in Laredo, on the Rio Grande, the high was a hundred and fifteen. For much of the month, the Texas weather map was cluttered with triple-digit figures, including in Houston, San Antonio, and Dallas—three of the nation’s ten largest cities. Texas is hot, but not usually so early in the summer, or for so long. Something is different. Continued here

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Cambodia PM Hun Sen will shut down opposition on election day - even if he can no longer threaten voters on Facebook     Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen will no longer be able to use his Facebook page to air threats of violence against opposition supporters – but that doesn’t mean he can’t still suppress their vote as the country prepares for a general election.On June 30, 2023, the Facebook page of Hun Sen – who has ruled the country as leader of the Cambodian People’s Party for almost four decades – appeared to have been deleted. It wasn’t immediately clear whether Hun Sen had removed the page or Meta had taken it down. But it follows a recommendation by the oversight board of Facebook’s parent company to “immediately suspend Hun Sen’s Facebook page and Instagram account for six months” over a video in which he calls on political opponents who allege vote-rigging to choose between the “legal system” and “a bat.” In the video posted on Facebook on Jan. 9, Hun Sen also threatens to “gather CPP people to protest and beat (opposition) up.” Continued here

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The Puzzle of Putting Video Games in a Museum     At some point in my childhood, I persuaded my parents to buy me a computer game at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Obsessed, like many kids, with ancient Egypt, I’d spent the day marvelling at scarabs, sarcophagi, and ivory game pieces with canine heads. My favorite spot was the Temple of Dendur, where you could actually go inside the narrow chamber etched with hieroglyphs. In the gift shop, I spotted “Nile: An Ancient Egyptian Quest”—a three-disk “edutainment,” co-produced by the museum and scored by Brian Eno, which invited me to bring the enchantment home. Soon, in defiance of the twelve-and-up rating, I was wandering the tombs of Giza with a talking jackal, searching for grave goods to nourish the souls of kings. My heart pounded when a papyrus clicked open to reveal a gorgeously animated creation myth. “In the beginning, stranger, there were no beginnings,” a voice from nu, the lifeless waters of chaos, said. I had nightmares for weeks.It was my first intimation that video games could be a form of aesthetic experience. Overnight, an activity I’d associated with Scrooge McDuck pogo-sticking on the moon had unsettled my reality, prompting questions like “What happens after death?” and “How do we know that there’s only one God?” Like many millennials, I came to owe a disproportionate share of my early cultural education to games, which introduced me to Bach’s violin concertos (Civilization IV), “The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam” (Titanic: Adventure Out of Time), Pure Land Buddhism (Cosmology of Kyoto), and the medieval Spanish epic “El Cantar de Mio Cid” (Age of Empires II). Continued here

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Cricket inequalities in England and Wales are untenable - our report shows how to rejuvenate the game     Michael Collins is affiliated with The Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket (ICEC).The ICEC was established in 2021 by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), the sport’s official governing body, to assess evidence of inequalities and discrimination, and to recommend actions to address these issues. I was one of the four commissioners working with the ICEC’s chair Cindy Butts (previously the deputy of chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority). Continued here

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June 2023 was the hottest in England since 1846 - here's why it was so unusual     Warm or hot weather was persistent in the UK throughout most of June 2023, with temperatures peaking at 32°C in parts of south-east England. Although well short of last July’s record 40°C, for large parts of England the last time June was this hot was in 1846 – almost 180 years ago.The Met Office keeps a detailed national and regional temperature database extending back to 1884, and 2023 now appears certain to claim the title for the hottest June during that period for the whole of the UK. Continued here

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Are You Failing to Prepare the Next Generation of C-Suite Leaders? - SPONSOR CONTENT FROM DAGGERWING     For many people leaders, that’s been the mantra for the past three years. “Let’s just get through this moment in time, focus on the short-term solutions for our immediate needs, and when things go back to normal, we’ll deal with all the issues we’ve been putting on the backburner.” Continued here

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An apple caramel pecan pie born from a railway lunch counter     In her new cookbook, Where We Ate, Canadian historian, food writer and restaurant critic Gabby Peyton chronicles Canada's past and present through its restaurants, explaining how they are a key part of understanding the whole of Canadian cuisine. To Peyton, "It's not about what you ate, it's where you ate," thus, her cookbook is a "love letter" to the Canadian restaurants that shaped her childhood and community.From Chinese restaurant Sing Tom's Café in Brandon, Manitoba, to a Greek restaurant called King of Donair in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada is a product of diverse influence. Its culture is not defined by a singular region, but by the cultural diffusion resulting from travel and waves of immigration that span the pre-confederation era (prior to 1867) to present day. For Peyton, who spent her childhood in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, this often meant that some of her favourite dishes were not prepared in her own kitchen. They were shared under the ambience and community of a restaurant experience. Continued here

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First ever view of the Milky Way seen through the lens of neutrino particles     Data collected by an observatory in Antarctica has produced our first view of the Milky Way galaxy through the lens of neutrino particles. It’s the first time we have seen our galaxy “painted” with a particle, rather than in different wavelengths of light.It has been speculated since antiquity that the Milky Way we see arching across the night sky consists of stars like our Sun. In the 18th century, it was recognised to be a flattened slab of stars that we are viewing from within. It is only 100 years since we learnt that the Milky Way is in fact a galaxy, or “island universe”, one among a hundred billion others. Continued here

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You Can Now Book an Uber Boat in Mykonos     The service will carry groups of up to eight passengers between 25 sites on the island this summerTravelers visiting the Greek island of Mykonos have a new way of getting around: Instead of hopping into a taxi cab or riding the bus, they can now take in the sights while sailing on the Aegean Sea aboard an Uber Boat. Continued here

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University of Waterloo stabbings: We all need to teach 'gender issues' to protect our communities from hate     Assistant professor, Faculty of Education, Queer Studies in Education, University of Regina At the end of my interview for my current position as assistant professor of queer studies in education at the University of Regina, the hiring committee asked me if I had any questions. My first was: “When they come for me — and they will — what will the university do to protect me?” Continued here

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Locally transmitted malaria in the US could be a harbinger of rising disease risk in a warming climate - 5 questions answered     The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on June 26, 2023, that five cases of locally transmitted malaria had been identified – four in Florida and one in Texas – since May 2023. These are the first cases of locally acquired mosquito-borne malaria in the U.S. since 2003. The Conversation spoke with Dr. Rajiv Chowdhury, a global health expert from Florida International University, about the significance of these cases and why they’re appearing now. Continued here

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Is it legal to sell human remains?     Four individuals were charged with federal crimes in June 2023 related to the “unlawful transport” across state lines of human remains taken from the Harvard Medical School morgue. This indictment was part of a larger effort by the Department of Justice to shut down a national network of people trafficking in human remains. Cedric Lodge, who had been the morgue manager until his firing in May, was accused of removing human remains that had been donated to the medical school. According to the indictment, he and his wife, Denise Lodge, shipped those remains to Katrina MacLean, the owner of a store called Kat’s Creepy Creations, and Joshua Taylor, an individual living in Pennsylvania. Taylor transferred nearly US$40,000 to the Lodges via PayPal, with memos that included “head number 7” and “braiiiiiins.” Continued here

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Visual misinformation is widespread on Facebook - and often undercounted by researchers     How much misinformation is on Facebook? Several studies have found that the amount of misinformation on Facebook is low or that the problem has declined over time. For instance, on the eve of the 2020 election, nearly one out of every four political image posts on Facebook contained misinformation. Widely shared falsehoods included QAnon conspiracy theories, misleading statements about the Black Lives Matter movement and unfounded claims about Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden. Continued here

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Why UK court ruled Rwanda isn't a safe place to send refugees - and what this means for the government's immigration plans     The Court of Appeal has ruled against the UK government’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, adding a significant legal hurdle to the prime minister Rishi Sunak’s promise to “stop the boats”.Under the migration partnership announced in April 2022, the UK government could send people to Rwanda who had entered the UK irregularly. Rwanda would then determine their asylum claims and, if they were found to be refugees, they would be resettled there. The government has argued this will deter people from making dangerous boat crossings across the English Channel, despite evidence showing such policies don’t work. Continued here

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3 myths about immigration in America     The U.S. is – and long has been – a pluralistic society that contains large immigrant communities. Yet migration is an actively debated but poorly understood topic, and much of the conventional thinking and political rhetoric about migration are based on myths, rather than facts. Continued here

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Now that President Biden's student loan cancellation program has been canceled, here's what's next     The Supreme Court has struck down the Biden administration’s student loan forgiveness plan. In Biden v. Nebraska, the court ruled 6-3 on June 30, 2023, that the secretary of education does not have the authority to forgive US$430 billion of student loans under the Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions Act. That kills the president’s proposed plan to forgive up to $10,000 in student loans per borrower for those with incomes under $125,000 per year, or $250,000 per year for couples. Under the president’s plan, those who received Pell Grants would have been eligible to cancel up to an additional $10,000 in student loans. Continued here