Anonymous ID: a12743 July 5, 2024, 1:59 p.m. No.21144527   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>4546 >>4552 >>4575 >>4589 >>4593 >>5013

https://wsvn.com/news/us-world/earths-core-has-slowed-so-much-its-moving-backward-scientists-confirm-heres-what-it-could-mean

Earth’s core has slowed so much it’s moving backward, scientists confirm. Here’s what it could mean

 

Deep inside Earth is a solid metal ball that rotates independently of our spinning planet, like a top whirling around inside a bigger top, shrouded in mystery.

 

This inner core has intrigued researchers since its discovery by Danish seismologist Inge Lehmann in 1936, and how it moves — its rotation speed and direction — has been at the center of a decades-long debate. A growing body of evidence suggests the core’s spin has changed dramatically in recent years, but scientists have remained divided over what exactly is happening — and what it means.

 

Part of the trouble is that Earth’s deep interior is impossible to observe or sample directly. Seismologists have gleaned information about the inner core’s motion by examining how waves from large earthquakes that ping this area behave. Variations between waves of similar strengths that passed through the core at different times enabled scientists to measure changes in the inner core’s position and calculate its spin.

 

“Differential rotation of the inner core was proposed as a phenomenon in the 1970s and ’80s, but it wasn’t until the ‘90s that seismological evidence was published,” said Dr. Lauren Waszek, a senior lecturer of physical sciences at James Cook University in Australia.

 

But researchers argued over how to interpret these findings, “primarily due to the challenge of making detailed observations of the inner core, due to its remoteness and limited available data,” Waszek said. As a result, “studies which followed over the next years and decades disagree on the rate of rotation, and also its direction with respect to the mantle,” she added. Some analyses even proposed that the core didn’t rotate at all.

 

One promising model proposed in 2023 described an inner core that in the past had spun faster than Earth itself, but was now spinning slower. For a while, the scientists reported, the core’s rotation matched Earth’s spin. Then it slowed even more, until the core was moving backward relative to the fluid layers around it.

 

At the time, some experts cautioned that more data was needed to bolster this conclusion, and now another team of scientists has delivered compelling new evidence for this hypothesis about the inner core’s rotation rate. Research published June 12 in the journal Nature not only confirms the core slowdown, it supports the 2023 proposal that this core deceleration is part of a decades-long pattern of slowing down and speeding up.

Anonymous ID: a12743 July 5, 2024, 2:02 p.m. No.21144539   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>4553 >>4567 >>4568 >>4575 >>4589 >>4593 >>4691

Coffee, eggs and white rice linked to higher levels of PFAS in human body

https://www.yahoo.com/news/coffee-eggs-white-rice-linked-110036528.html

 

New research aimed at identifying foods that contain higher levels of PFAS found people who eat more white rice, coffee, eggs and seafood typically showed more of the toxic chemicals in their plasma and breast milk.

 

The study checked samples from 3,000 pregnant mothers, and is among the first research to suggest coffee and white rice may be contaminated at higher rates than other foods. It also identified an association between red meat consumption and levels of PFOS, one of the most common and dangerous PFAS compounds.

 

The authors said the findings highlight the chemicals’ ubiquity and the many ways they can end up in the food supply.

 

“The results definitely point toward the need for environmental stewardship, and keeping PFAS out of the environment and food chain,” said Megan Romano, a Dartmouth researcher and lead author. “Now we’re in a situation where they’re everywhere and are going to stick around even if we do aggressive remediation.”

 

PFAS are a class of about 16,000 compounds used to make products that resist water, stains and heat. They are called “forever chemicals” because they do not naturally break down and have been found to accumulate in humans. The chemicals are linked to cancer, birth defects, liver disease, thyroid disease, plummeting sperm counts and a range of other serious health problems.

 

Though regulators have focused on reining in pollution in water, food is thought to be the most common exposure route. The Food and Drug Administration, however, has drawn criticism for what some say is a failure to protect the nation’s food supply. Among other controversies, it altered its testing methods to make it appear as if the food it tests does not have PFAS in it when it actually does contain what many advocates say are concerning levels.

 

PFAS can end up contaminating food through a number of routes. In rice, the researchers suspect it stems from contaminated soil or agricultural water. Non-stick cookware also often contains the chemicals, or it could be in water used for cooking.

 

Researchers found higher levels of PFAS associated with eggs from backyard chickens, which Romano said could be attributed to the birds more commonly being fed with table scraps. PFAS-fouled sewage sludge, which is used as a cheap alternative to fertilizer, may also contaminate the soil from which chickens feed, and has been found to contaminate beef. The chemicals also could be in the birds’ feed.

Anonymous ID: a12743 July 5, 2024, 2:06 p.m. No.21144561   🗄️.is 🔗kun

>Two dozen top Democrats—described by CNN as an unnamed yet “widening group of leading party officials, operatives, and donors”—have looked into Democratic governors as potential vice presidential picks for Harris, with North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper and Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear leading discussions. Democrats have also floated Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as possible contenders.

 

Here Are the Names Democrats Are Considering for Kamala’s Running Mate

https://www.yahoo.com/news/democrats-already-plotting-running-mates-151515409.html