October 23, 2024: We're covering the discovery of two lost Silk Road cities, a weird form of dark energy and "worldschooling" for kids. —Robin Lloyd, Contributing Editor | | | A lidar view of Tugunbulak, the site of a nearly 300-acre medieval city in Uzbekistan, with crest lines. SAIElab/J. Berner/M. Frachetti | | | A new form of dark energy, called early dark energy, has drawn the attention of physicists in the past several years as a way to explain the Hubble tension, that is discrepancies in the expansion rate of the universe when calculated using different methods. Early dark energy is possibly thought to take the form of a field, like an electromagnetic field, that fills space and effectively sped up the expansion rate of the baby universe, write theoretical physicist Marc Kamionkowski and astrophysicist Adam G. Riess. Riess is a co-discoverer of dark energy and Kamionkowski was part of a team that discovered how to use cosmic microwave background measurements to calculate the Hubble constant (that is, the universe's expansion rate). In surprising results, Kamionkowski and his colleagues found that some models of early dark energy showed promise for resolving the Hubble tension.
What they found next: New, higher-resolution data of the cosmic microwave background from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT), as well as new measurements and analysis from ACT and other instruments, have lent more support to the standard cosmological model than to the early dark energy model for calculating the Hubble Constant.
What the experts say: "The jury is still out: a broad array of imaginable early dark energy models remain viable," write Kamionkowski and Riess.
| | | Post-Helene Sanitation Hazards | Weeks after Hurricane Helene struck, residents of western North Carolina are trying to cope with toilets that don't flush, heavily chlorinated drinking-water filled with sediment, saturated soil that smells bad due to an influx of sewage and unknown chemicals, and polluted waterways. More than 1,000 reports of degraded environmental health conditions have been lodged with one state agency, including damaged wastewater treatment plants, oil drums leaking into ponds, and homeowners dumping sewage into creeks. Exposure to floodwaters can lead to gastrointestinal problems, while exposure to silt, dust and mold generated by the storm can amp up asthma, allergies and upper respiratory infections, report Katie Myers and Zoya Teirstein, a former and current writer respectively at Grist.
Why this is interesting: The secondary consequences of a hurricane disaster and its sweeping floodwaters can include long-term physical and medical problems, and even deaths. For example, Hurricane Maria killed 64 people in Puerto Rico in 2017, officials initially reported. However, in the following months, at least 3,000 more people died than would have been the case without the storm, one analysis revealed.
What the experts say: "This water is not drinkable, even if you boil it. It is NOT TO BE USED for anything but flushing toilets," states the website for Black Mountain, a town outside of Asheville, N.C. | | | Army National Guard assisting a resident with potable water in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene on September 29, 2024 in Old Fort, North Carolina. Melissa Sue Gerrits/Getty Images | | | • A growing number of mainstream families are "worldschooling" their children, which involves traveling with school-aged children and educating them on the road, writes sociologist Jennie Germann Molz, who studies traveling families and mobile lifestyles. With the sudden rise in remote and hybrid work schedules, it has become more feasible for parents to let the world be the classroom for their kids. Learning formats range from formal educational programs to enrolling a child in a local school (e.g. the Jungle School in Huatulco, Mexico) to a laissez-faire approach called unschooling. The latter was adopted by the majority of the families studied by Molz. Research on the effectiveness of worldschooling and unschooling is limited, with mixed available results. | 6 min read | | | • 6 major academic publishers face an antitrust lawsuit. | Higher Ed Dive | | | • The flu shot is different this year, thanks to COVID. | NPR | | | Happy Mole Day! Rather than recognizing a rodent, this day is meant for chemistry fans to celebrate the unit of measurement called a mole, which is equivalent to 6.02 × 10^23 (6.02 times 10 to the 23rd power) elementary elements of a substance, typically atoms or molecules. As with Pi Day, the timing of Mole Day celebrations can be subject to interpretation. Firebellies, a cooking club at Carleton College, recommends celebrating annually on October 23 at 6:02 a.m. and eating cookies from a recipe that features Hershey's chocolate kisses and white candy eyes. | Please send any comments, questions or favorite, light-hearted ways of celebrating science: newsletters@sciam.com. | —Robin Lloyd, Contributing Editor | | Subscribe to this and all of our newsletters . | | | | Scientific American
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