This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope reveals an ancient, glimmering ball of stars called NGC 1466. It is a globular cluster — a gathering of stars all held together by gravity — that is slowly moving through space on the outskirts of the Large Magellanic Cloud, one of our closest galactic neighbours.

NGC 1466 certainly is one for extremes. It has a mass equivalent to roughly 140 000 Suns and an age of around 13.1 billion years, making it almost as old as the Universe itself. This fossil-like relic from the early Universe lies some 160 000 light-years away from us.

Nestled within this ancient time capsule are 49 known RR Lyrae variable stars, which are indispensable tools for measuring distances in the Universe. These variable stars have well-defined luminosities, meaning that astronomers know the total amount of energy they emit. By comparing this known luminosity to how bright the stars appear in the sky, their distance can be easily calculated. Astronomical objects such as this are known as standard candles, and are fundamental to the so-called cosmic distance ladder.

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People walk to the Silent Night Chapel in Oberndorf, Austria. The famous Christmas carol was first sung in St. Nicholas Church in Oberndorf on Dec. 24, 1818. (Christian Bruna/EPA-EFE)

The song debuted on Christmas Eve in 1818 in an Austrian church

Click here for the complete story By Michael E. Ruane of the Washington Post

December 23 at 8:00 AM

Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling get in sync in La La Land©Summit Entertainment/courtesy Everett Collection/Alamy

Whether you do the robot, shake your tail feather or go full ballroom, dancing has benefits that go way beyond having a good time.

By Stephanie Kramer

NOT all of us have what it takes to be a dancing queen. But whether you are a politician with two left feet or a Strictly Come Dancing wannabe, if you like to dance you are in luck. Ballet, ballroom or breakdancing, it doesn’t matter: getting into the groove does wonders for you. And it’s not just the joy of moving to music. Dancing is good for the brain too. It can change the way you think and even keep your mind sharp as you age.

“People are born to move. They are born to move rhythmically,” says dance psychologist Peter Lovatt at the University of Hertfordshire, UK. Admittedly, we are not all blessed with the same degree of talent for it, but dancing is ingrained in human nature. People across almost all cultures have done it for as long as we know. Indeed, a sense of rhythm seems to be innate. Telltale brain activity in newborn babies reveals that even they can spot when a drummer skips a beat.

Humans are not the only species with rhythm. The list is not long, but other groovers include elephants, sea lions and bonobos. One thing most of them have in common is a complex social life, leading to the idea that a sense of rhythm might have evolved as part of a group’s need to coordinate its actions. Indeed, studies reveal that when people move in synchrony they experience a stronger sense of community and are more altruistic towards one another. Likewise, children who dance together turn out to be more cooperative in subsequent games. What’s more, when professional dancers watch clips of dancing their brainwaves begin to synchronise. “Moving together in rhythm supports social bonding,” says Lovatt. “It increases prosocial behaviour.”

What is now emerging is that dancing also has remarkable benefits for individuals. For a start, it can improve thinking skills. In one study, college students either danced, cycled, listened quietly to music or sat still, and did tests of mood and creativity before and after. Those who got up and danced showed increases in creative thinking after just 5 minutes of moving to music, and their mood improved too.

The two things are probably connected. Dancing releases feel-good neurochemicals into the bloodstream called endorphins, which relieve anxiety and depression. “You get an increase in mood when you dance and you also get an increase in creative problem-solving,” says Lovatt.

“Mood has an important role in cognition,” agrees Joe Verghese at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. But there’s far more to dancing than that. The reason it has an edge over other types of exercise may stem from it encompassing so many elements: emotional, cognitive, physical and social. “Dance is a complex activity,” says Verghese.

afp/Getty

Less surprisingly, it can also boost coordination, spatial navigation and memory – particularly if you are trying to master a new step or routine. “There are multiple effects on the brain,” says Verghese. Among other things, dancing engages cognitive and sensorimotor regions involved in planning and performing movement. It literally alters the connections between neurons and how they communicate.

“Dance affects some parts of the brain more than others,” says Verghese. One key region is the hippocampus, a pair of structures deep inside that are involved in learning, spatial awareness and long-term memory. As we age, the hippocampus normally loses about 2 or 3 per cent of its volume every decade. After age 70, that increases to as much as 1 per cent each year. And the loss is particularly rapid in people who have dementias such as Alzheimer’s disease. Intriguingly, however, the hippocampus can grow in response to various mental and physical challenges, including dancing.

“Your mood improves when you dance – and so does your problem solving”

A study published last year compared healthy adults aged 63 and older who either danced or took part in aerobics classes twice a week for six months and then weekly for a year. MRI scans showed an increase in the volume of the hippocampus in both groups. In the dancers, this appeared to be linked with improved balance. Another recent study found that dancing can reduce the loss of white matter in the brain, which also tends to accelerate with age. White matter tracts are like highways between brain areas and are involved in emotional processing, focus and problem-solving. When the researchers compared people who either walked, stretched or danced three days a week for six months, they found that only the dancers showed a slowdown in white matter loss.

These findings fit with research by Verghese into which leisure activities might reduce dementia risk. His team followed 469 people older than 75 for an average of five years and found that those who enjoyed cerebral hobbies such as reading and doing crossword puzzles were less likely to develop dementia. Dancing was the only physical activity with a similar effect – in fact, people who danced had the smallest cognitive decline of all.

Verghese hopes that more research will help quantify the effectiveness of dance and identify how it can best be used to improve brain health. He is now conducting a pilot study with 32 adults aged 65 and older, who for six months will participate in either social dancing (for example, foxtrot, waltz and Latin) or treadmill-walking. At the end, brain scans will reveal where any changes have occurred.

All this is very good news. If you have ever wanted to learn to tango or were simply too embarrassed to share your dad-dancing moves, here is your excuse to get on the dance floor and strut your stuff. It doesn’t matter when in life you take it up, any time is the right time to dance.

This article appeared in print under the headline “Boogie on!”

By Colin Barras of NewScientist

Dinosaurs were southerners. The famous group dominated the world for tens of millions of years and left behind fossils on every major landmass, which has led to some confusion over where the very first dinosaurs were born. Two new studies pile on the evidence that the earliest dinosaurs lived in South America or one of the other southern continents.

When the first dinosaurs appeared, roughly 240 or 250 million years ago, Earth’s continents were united in the supercontinent Pangaea. In principle dinosaurs could have arisen in any corner of Pangaea. However, given that many of the earliest dinosaur fossils have been unearthed in South America, Africa and other regions that formed southern Pangaea, palaeontologists have begun to suspect that this region was the cradle of dinosaur evolution.

Last year, though, a high-profile study suggested an alternative. A team of British palaeontologists led by Matthew Baron at the University of Cambridge argued for the most radical overhaul of the dinosaur evolutionary tree in 130 years. In their new tree, some of the fossils that lie closest to the base of the dinosaur group come from Europe – such as one called Saltopus that was found in Scotland. The team said this might suggest the dinosaur cradle was in northern Pangaea.

Surprisingly, even last year’s radically different dinosaur tree favours a southern birthplace. Although Baron and his colleagues emphasised that northern fossils like Saltopus plot out near the base of the dinosaurs, their evolutionary tree actually shows that these northerners were the exception rather than the rule: most of the fossils that fall near the base of their modified dinosaur group are southerners.

“Our results greatly support the Southern hypothesis as the most plausible, given our current understanding,” says Marsola. “Not only that, our result didn’t yield any indication of a possible [northern] origin for the group.”

One of Marsola’s co-authors is Richard Butler at the University of Birmingham, UK. He points out that Baron’s team independently published their own analysis of dinosaur origins this week – and also overturned their northern dinosaur idea. Baron and his colleagues concluded there is a 99 per cent chance dinosaurs came from South America, and an 83 per cent chance they came from the very southernmost part of that continent.

Neither team knew about the work that the other team was doing, says Butler. “In any case, even [Baron’s team] accept that a southern origin is by far the most likely.”

Journal reference: Palaeontology, DOI: 10.1111/pala.12411

Journal reference: Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of The Royal Society of Edinburgh, DOI: 10.1017/S1755691018000920

By Leah Crane of NewScientist

There’s a new dwarf planet in our solar system, and it’s the most distant one we’ve ever discovered. The tiny world, formally known as 2018 VG18 but nicknamed Farout, is about 18 billion kilometres away – roughly 3.5 times the distance to Pluto.

A team of astronomers discovered Farout using the Japanese Subaru telescope in Hawaii. Solar system objects like this are found by looking at a series of images of the same spot of sky for any dot that appears to be moving in comparison to the background stars.

“I said ‘far out!’ when I discovered it, and it’s a very far out object,” says team member Scott Sheppard at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington DC.

More observations of this tiny world should help us pin down an important detail: its orbit. The strange orbits of similar distant objects have led astronomers to hypothesise that they might be pushed around by a huge planet on the outer edges of our solar system. This as-yet unseen object has been dubbed Planet X.

If Farout’s orbit is similarly warped, it might help us narrow down our search for the elusive planet. In fact, the astronomers found Farout while searching the sky for Planet X.

“It could further show that there is a planet out there, but that has to wait until we know the orbit,” says Sheppard. “But the orbit is likely over 1000 years long, so it’s going to take several years of observations to really determine what it is.”

A stargazer aims his camera toward the sky. (Dave Martin/AP) (DAVE MARTIN/ASSOCIATED PRESS)

The year’s best meteor shower is underway. Observers are reporting around 35 shooting stars per hour — and it has not even peaked. Astronomers predict that number will triple by the time the Geminids meteor shower peaks on Thursday and Friday.

The weather, on the other hand, is a wild card. In some locations, it could spoil the spectacle. In others, it will be clear and dark for winter’s celestial fireworks.

The forecast

Whether you see a quality show comes down to the weather. Thursday night looks great in the Rockies and Plains but questionable in the East.

This stunning spiral galaxy is Messier 100 in the constellation Coma Berenices, captured here by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope — not for the first time. Among Hubble’s most striking images of Messier 100 are a pair taken just over a month apart, before and after Servicing Mission 1, which took place 25 years ago in December 1993.

After Hubble was launched, the astronomers and engineers operating the telescope found that the images it returned were fuzzy, as if it were out of focus. In fact, that was exactly what was happening. Hubble’s primary mirror functions like a satellite dish; its curved surface reflects all the light falling on it to a single focal point. However, the mirror suffered from a defect known as a spherical aberration, meaning that the light striking the edges of the mirror was not travelling to the same point as the light from the centre. The result was blurry, unfocused images.

To correct this fault, a team of seven astronauts undertook the first Servicing Mission in December 1993. They installed a device named COSTAR (Corrective Optics Space Telescope Axial Replacement) on Hubble, which took account of this flaw of the mirror and allowed the scientific instruments to correct the images they received. The difference between the photos taken of Messier 100 before and after shows the remarkable effect this had, and the dramatic increase in image quality.

COSTAR was in place on Hubble until Servicing Mission 4, by which time all the original instruments had been replaced. All subsequent instrumentation had corrective optics built in.

This new image of Messier 100 taken with Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), demonstrates how much better the latest generation of instruments is compared to the ones installed in Hubble after its launch and after Servicing Mission 1.

Links

• Messier 100 shows improvements of Hubble
• Messier 100 seen 1993 with WFPC1
• Messier 100 seen 1994 with WFPC2

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Joe Barnard founded a company with the aim of matching the technical achievements in the space industry at the hobby rocket scale. He is a music and photography major practicing good science.  Motherboard went to visit him to see how his tests of self-landing rockets are coming along.

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