Who will step up to preserve space age artefacts for future generations?

 

Image courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech

Joel Kontinen

Some space objects will be lost for  humans if we do nothing.

Around 40,000 years from now, the Voyager 1 probe will pass within astronomical spitting distance of the star Gliese 445. From there, it will continue drifting through the universe on an endless journey that marks humanity’s  first attempt to reach the stars.

Voyager 1 – which on 18 November will have travelled one light day from Earth – began its odyssey almost 50 years ago, meaning it has been operating for the majority of the space age. That makes it a rarity: most of our iconic spacecraft ended their lives burned up in Earth’s atmosphere or in bits at the bottom of the ocean.

Perhaps we need an organisation like the UNESCO World Heritage Committee to designate important space artefacts for preservation,

Private philanthropy is another option. If humanity is to one day take its place among the stars, a fantasy that fuels many a tech billionaire, it would be a great shame to not be able to look back at how we got there. Just as we remember 19th-century captains of industry like Andrew Carnegie and J. P. Morgan for funding great cultural institutions, perhaps we should be lobbying for the creation of a Musk Space Museum or Bezos Orbital Institute.

Source:

New Scientist 2026 Who will step up to preserve space age artefacts for future generations? | New Scientist 11 November

Less than 4 minutes of vigorous exercise a day could halve your dementia risk

 

Briefly walking up a steep hill counts as exercise. Image courtesy of Greg Balfour Evans/Alam

Joel Kontinen

Want to stay fit and keep your dementia away? A new study  shows that you can keep dementia  away by just four minutes of vigorous exercise.

If you are given the choice of the stairs or an elevator (or perhaps a cable car), consider taking the stairs

Less than 4 minutes of physical exertion a day – such as rushing for the bus or carrying heavy shopping – could halve your dementia risk. People who engaged in short bursts of vigorous movement were up to 48 per cent less likely to develop the condition than their sedentary counterparts in a large study.

“These brief bursts of higher-intensity daily activities are in every nook and cranny of our day-to-day routines, so this creates a really exciting and viable opportunity to find new ways for the everyday person to protect their health,” says Nicholas Koemel at the University of Sydney, who parks his car in a distant space when he gets to work so he has to walk further.

Source:

Chris Simms 2026 Less than 4 minutes of vigorous exercise a day could halve your dementia risk | New Scientist 6 November 

Kristallnacht

 

Joel Kontinen

US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee called on mayors from around the world to challenge misinformation about Israel by sharing their firsthand experiences during a gathering in Jerusalem on Sunday marking the 88th anniversary of Kristallnacht.

Dozens of municipal leaders attended a candle-lighting ceremony commemorating the Nazi pogrom of November 9-10, 1938, which marked a major escalation in the persecution of European Jews before the Holocaust.

Source:

Shula Rosen 2026 Huckabee Urges Global Mayors to Challenge Anti-Israel Narratives at Kristallnacht Commemoration | United with Israel 9 November

 

Evidence of active volcanoes on Mars may boost chances of finding life

 

Image courtesy of Mars Express & HRSC

Joel Kontinen

Active volcanoes may hint that Mars has or had life.

Mars may be volcanically active, say scientists who have linked evidence of gases often produced by magma with photographs of fresh fissures found on the surface of the Red Planet. The findings could be interpreted as good news in the hunt for life, as a continuous heat source would be needed to keep microorganisms safe from frigid temperatures on the surface.

Scientists have seen evidence of volcanoes on Mars in the past few million years and seismic activity has hinted that some may still be active, but no evidence of lava flows or current eruptions had previously been found.

Daniel Mège at the Polish Academy of Sciences and his colleagues looked at the little data available – just 15 recorded instances of the gas – alongside newly taken photographs of the surface. They were able to link recent, narrow fissures in the Alba Mons region of Mars to the HCl emissions, providing strong evidence of underground lava flow.

“We have 2 kilometres of wind between them, and in this season there are a lot of dust devils. So, the atmosphere is turbulent. It’s an enormous mess,” says Mège.

Nicolas Thomas at the University of Bern, Switzerland, another team member, stresses that until the area is investigated up-close, there will always be doubt about the source of the gas. But, he argues, this finding makes the case for further surface exploration of Mars.

“Suspicion is one thing, proof is better, right?” says Thomas. “I’m a terrible sceptic. Until you put something down there and you actually sniff the stuff coming out of the ground, you haven’t got unambiguous proof.”

But Mars is not a place where we could find life. It has not been created for life.

Source:

Matthew Sparkes 2026 Evidence of active volcanoes on Mars may boost chances of finding life | New Scientist 5 November

The slaughter of Jews did not begin in 1948

 

Image courtesy of Heinrich Hoffmann, Hitler's official photographer

Joel Kontinen

In 1929, Arab mobs in Hebron massacred 67 of their Jewish neighbours, many of them young yeshiva students, with knives and axes. From 1936 to 1939, Arab gangs waged a three-year campaign of terror against the Jews of the Land of Israel. There was no “occupation” back then, no checkpoints, no settlements and no Netanyahu. There were Jews living in their land, and Arabs who wanted them dead or gone.

And then the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, who was pictured with Hitler. He wanted to destroy all Jews.

Source:

Elie Mischel, 2026 Thank you, Osama Saadi - Israel365 News 5 November

‘Oddball’ test lets us glimpse how monkeys see the world

 

Image courtesy of Ryhor Bruyeu/Alamy

Joel Kontinen

We can never know what it is like to be a bat, philosopher Thomas Nagel famously agued. But what about monkeys? Do they see the world in the same way?

How do monkeys see the world? At least macaques see it probably different from us. Some researchers did a study on macaques  in India: 

To find out, neuroscientists in India used an “oddball” test to compare visual performances between people and macaques. They found that, although the different species scored similarly many aspects of perception, there were two intriguing differences: the monkeys were less fazed by images being flipped upside down and they seemed far more focused on fine details.

Source:

Jo Marchant 2026 'Oddball' test lets us glimpse how monkeys see the world | New Scientist 26 October 

There may be a new dwarf planet just beyond Pluto

 

NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory/NOIRLab/SLAC/AURA Image courtesy of M. Juric (UW), D. de Martin & M. Zamani (NSF NOIRLab)

Joel Kontinen

Astronomers spotted what appears to be a dwarf planet in the outer solar system using the Vera C. Rubin Observatory – if confirmed, it joins a small and exclusive club.

A mosaic of images captured by the Vera C. Rubin Observatory of the newly discovered dwarf planet candidate ED138.

There might be a new dwarf planet beyond Pluto. This suggestion was presented by researchers who have looked up at the sky past Pluto.

The small club of dwarf planets in our solar system may have just grown by one. Astronomers using the new Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile have spotted an object beyond Pluto that seems to be big enough to qualify as a dwarf planet. In fact, it is one of the largest dwarf planet candidates we have spotted so far from the sun.

Source:

Leah Crane 2026 There may be a new dwarf planet just beyond Pluto | New Scientist 28 October