New Delhi: So, what causes the sudden Earth-sized oval spots that are visible at Jupiter’s poles? Scientists now have the answer: tornadoes caused by the magnetic field in the largest planet in our solar system.
A paper in Nature Journal, published 26 November, by UC Berkeley undergraduate researcher Troy Tsubota and senior astronomer Michael Wong presented their findings of about two and a half years regarding the spots on Jupiter.
These dark spots, which are basically caused by haze or the concentration of aerosols in the atmosphere, were first observed by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope in the 1990s. These spots have some unique properties—they only appear at the poles of Jupiter, for weeks on end, and, according to the Berkeley researchers, they occur more in the South pole than the North. They’re similar to the Northern and Southern Lights that we see near Earth’s poles.
But unlike the Auroras on Earth, which are caused by charged particles or electrons, Jupiter’s polar spots are caused by a vortex, a tornado, led by interactions between the planet’s magnetic field and its atmosphere. Also, another key feature is that Jupiter’s dark spots can only be seen in UV light. Read more here.
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Heatwave ‘hotspots’
A paper from University of Columbia researchers published 26 November in the PNAS Journal mentions how while temperatures are rising everywhere, there are certain ‘hotspots’ around the world that have experienced extreme heatwaves beyond the realm of regular global warming.
Now, by using data from heatwaves over the past 65 years, the researchers have been able to identify these spots, marking them in bright red on a global map to help better understand why these regions experience heat in a way that mystifies even climate models.
All of Europe, which saw devastating heatwaves in the last two summers, falls under these hotspots. North and central India, too, are coloured red, as are other Asian countries like China, Japan, and Korea. The paper says that information about these hotspots would help us better our climate models, and therefore help with mitigation measures needed. Read more here.
What links fungus in mice to immunity
This next story might seem small at first, but it is supposed to have huge implications for the study of immunity responses in humans and animals. It is the discovery of a fungus that resides in the gut of wild mice, K pintolopesii.
A paper in Nature published 27 November talks about how this is the first natural commensal species of fungus—one that lives in a host animal and benefits from it— found in mice. It is a type of symbiotic relationship that commensal species share with their hosts.
In the case of K pintolopesii, the scientists flagged that its presence in a mouse gut helps develop immunity from certain types of pathogens. That means that the fungus can be studied as a model organism, to understand how gut immunity has evolved in general in mice and other animals, too. Read more here.
Plastic-free world: India proposes multilateral fund
Busan, South Korea is hosting the fifth and final meeting of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-5) of the Global Plastics Treaty. The meeting, which brings together all signatories of the United Nations Environment Assembly’s Global Plastics Treaty, is expected to negotiate a resolution or a legally binding document that will end plastic pollution.
The motivations are many—98 percent of plastics are produced from fossil fuels, the products’ life cycles are endless, they pollute oceans and land alike and find their way into our food, water, air, and eventually our bodies. These figures are provided by Break Free From Plastic (BFFP), an international NGO working towards ending plastic usage.
INC-5 is expected to end on 1 December with countries and NGOs hopeful that a global treaty will be achieved. India, on its part, has proposed a multilateral fund so that developing countries can get technical and financial support to transition from plastics to more environment-friendly technologies.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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