Posted on Aug 4, 2022 in Planet Earth, Science

Todays stories range from NASA Seeks the Science behind UFOs to The Origins of the Universe may be Hidden in the Voids of Space, and much more. The Planet Earth Report connects you to headline news on the science, technology, discoveries, people and events changing our planet and the future of the human species.

Does life on Earth have a purpose? The answer is both disappointing and exciting, reports Marcelo Gleiser for Big Think. Is the incredible diversity of species a random accident? Or does life on Earth follow a plan of becoming ever more complex? Those who think there is such a plan believe the apex of this process would, of course, be us. The answer is both disappointing and exciting, given that we are the ones asking the question.

Footprints Discovery Suggests Ancient Ghost Tracks May Cover the WestThe set of 88 prints is about 12,000 years old, scientists say, and was found in the militarys Utah Test and Training Range, reports The New York Times.

Why We Need to Study Nothing -The origins of the universe may be hidden in the voids of space, reports Paul Sutter for Nautil.us.

Chinese and US scientists build bridges with cutting-edge Hale telescope project, reports South China MOrning Post. Work to build an advanced spectrograph which will help explore distant corners of the universe is a rare example of cooperation between the two countries

With New Study, NASA Seeks the Science behind UFOs Although modest in scope, a NASA research project reflects shifting attitudes toward the formerly taboo subject of UFOs, reports Scientific American.

When Will the Next Supernova in Our Galaxy Occur? -Scientists have new tools at their disposal to detect and study the dramatic explosion of a star, reports The Smithsonian. Its been a long wait418 years since weve seen a star explode in our galaxy. So are we overdue for a bright, nearby supernova?

Earth is spinning faster than usual and had its shortest day ever, reports CBS News. Since 2016 the Earth started to accelerate, said Leonid Zotov, who works at works for Lomonosov Moscow State University and recently published a study on what might cause the changes in Earths rotation. This year it rotates quicker than in 2021 and 2020.

Gigantic jet lightning is a mystery. These researchers are solving it--The extreme electrical discharges can tower 50 miles above a thunderstorm, reports the Washington Post.

This Map Lets You Plug in Your Address to See How Its Changed Over the Past 750 Million Years, reports The Smithsonian. The interactive tool enables users to home in on a specific location and visualize how it has evolved between the Cryogenian Period and the present.

A China-Taiwan conflict could lead to a catastrophic semiconductor shortage in the world Taiwan manufactures roughly 50 percent of all the worlds semiconductors, reports Interesting Engineering.

Horror stories of cryonics: The gruesome fates of futurists hoping for immortalityFor decades people have arranged to freeze their bodies after death, dreaming of resurrection by advanced future medicine. Many met a fate far grislier than death, reports Big Think.

How the secrets of ancient cuneiform texts are being revealed by AI--Much of the worlds first writing, carved into clay tablets, remains undeciphered. Now AI is helping us piece together this ancient Mesopotamian script, revealing the incredible stories of men, women and children at the dawn of history, reports New Scientist.

Hubbles Future in the Webb Era -We believe that we can keep Hubble doing the ground-breaking science it is known for through the latter part of this decade and possibly into the next, says public affairs officer Claire Andreoli (NASA Goddard).

Citizen future: Why we need a new story of self and society, reports BBC Future. Are you a subject, a consumer or a citizen? The authors Jon Alexander and Ariane Conrad argue that our societies need a new narrative, and it starts by ditching the stories sold by authoritarianism and consumerism.

The Crypto Market Crashed. Theyre Still Buying Bitcoin Hard-core Bitcoin evangelists are making the case that Bitcoin differs from the unstable crypto projects that sent the market into a tailspin, reports The New York Times. Cory Klippsten started issuing warnings about the cryptocurrency market in March. The digital coin Luna, Mr. Klippsten tweeted, was a scam, run by an entrepreneur with major Elizabeth Holmes vibes. The newfangled crypto bank Celsius Network was a massive blowup risk, he said.

Semiotics of dogs In all its baroque and sometimes cruelly overbred forms, the dog is a paramount symbol of both human hopes and foibles, reports Aeon. After millennia of domestication, we gave our pets family trees, and named them as breeds. They acquired an identity reflecting human projection, and symbolized our own increased focus on lineage and breeding. Lady is purebred, Tramp is a mutt.

New algorithm aces university math course questions Researchers use machine learning to automatically solve, explain, and generate university-level math problems at a human level, reports MIT News. a multidisciplinary team of researchers from MIT and elsewhere, led by Iddo Drori, a lecturer in the MIT Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), has used a neural network model to solve university-level math problems in a few seconds at a human level.

North Korea-backed hackers have a clever way to read your Gmail, reports Ars Technica. SHARPEXT has slurped up thousands of emails in the past year and keeps getting better.

Curated by The Daily Galaxy Editorial Staff

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Does Life on Earth Have a Purpose to Ancient Ghost Tracks of the West (Planet Earth Report) - The Daily Galaxy --Great Discoveries Channel