October 17, 2023: How to spot the Northern Lights from where you are, AI reads an ancient scroll and science keeps international relations intact. —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | | | A 21-year-old computer-science student has won a global contest to read the first text inside a carbonized scroll from the ancient Roman city of Herculaneum, which had been unreadable since a volcanic eruption in A.D. 79 — the same one that buried nearby Pompeii. Luke Farritor, who is at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, developed a machine-learning algorithm that detected Greek letters on X-ray scans of several lines of the rolled-up papyrus, including πορϕυρας (porphyras), meaning "purple."
Why this is so cool: Hundreds of scrolls were buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Early attempts to open any charred papyri created a mess of fragments, and scholars feared the remainder could never be unrolled or read. The breakthrough could open up hundreds of texts from the only intact library to survive from Greco-Roman antiquity.
What the experts say: "When I saw the first image, I was shocked," says Federica Nicolardi, a papyrologist at the University of Naples in Italy and a member of the academic committee that reviewed Farritor's findings. "It was such a dream," she says. Now, "I can actually see something from the inside of a scroll." | | | Charred scrolls from Herculaneum can't be opened easily, but X-ray scanning can reveal their contents. Credit: EduceLab/University of Kentucky | | | Earth's magnetic field is dipolar like a bar magnet and aligned roughly perpendicular to our world's rotation. Because of this, geomagnetic field lines extend most prominently from the vicinity of our planet's North and South poles. These lines collect incoming magnetically charged solar particles and channel them to polar regions, which is why vivid auroras are more common at higher latitudes. "The sun's been getting feisty lately, blasting out flares of radiation and burps of gas that can wash over Earth," writes astronomer Phil Plait. An uptick in solar activity increases the chance that you might see an aurora, especially if you live at higher latitudes. How to spot one: When an especially strong solar storm strikes, some websites will alert you (check out SpaceWeather.com and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather Prediction Center). Finding the darkest sky will help, and if you're in the Northern Hemisphere, look toward the North Pole. Gaze close to the horizon if you're in midlatitudes, and higher in the sky the farther north you are.
What the experts say: At any time of year can see brilliant aurora lights, especially in the coming months and years. "The next [solar] maximum was originally predicted for July 2025, but our star has already been blasting off storms that create intense auroras on Earth, suggesting that the solar cycle's peak may occur in 2024," says Plait. | | | A dazzling auroral display dances over the far-northern Norwegian city of Tromsø, which lies above the Arctic Circle. Increased solar activity can bring similarly spectacular vistas to lower latitudes. Credit: Juan Maria Coy Vergara/Getty Images | | | • Doctors want to ban the term "excited delirium," which police departments cite as a cause of death of people in custody, but is not a recognized medical diagnosis. | 11 min read | | | • Images from every spacecraft now orbiting Mars have ruled out a meteorite strike as the cause of a 4.7-magnitude Marsquake recorded last year. The exact cause remains a mystery. | 6 min read | | | • The 40-year-old agreement between the U.S. and China for cooperation in science and technology research is on tenuous ground. This threatens both science and diplomatic relations; science plays an enormous, often unseen role in keeping avenues of contact open even when political borders slam shut, writes KC Cole, an author and instructor at the University of Washington. "Scientists share a common language and have ways of connecting that elude politicians; sometimes they provide the only glue that holds a fracturing world together," she says. | 6 min read | | | Last spring people as far south as Asheville, N.C., and Phoenix, Ariz., had the unexpected pleasure of witnessing the Northern Lights, caused by a particularly strong geomagnetic storm. This is a phenomenon I have yet to see, but perhaps as we approach the solar maximum I'll get my chance. Fingers crossed. | —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | | Subscribe to this and all of our newsletters . | | | | Scientific American
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