Bright auroras on Jupiter captured by Webb Space Telescope
Jupiter's dazzling auroras are hundreds of times brighter than those seen on Earth, new images from the James Webb Space Telescope reveal.
The solar system's largest planet displays striking dancing lights when high-energy particles from space collide with atoms of gas in the atmosphere near its magnetic poles, similar to the way the northern lights are triggered on Earth.
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New details of the auroras on Jupiter captured by the James Webb Space Telescope (Nasa/AP)
But Jupiter's version has much greater intensity, according to an international team of scientists who analysed the photos from Webb taken at Christmas in 2023.
Webb previously captured Neptune's glowing auroras in the best detail yet, many decades after they were first faintly detected during a flyby of the Voyager 2 spacecraft.
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The Guardian
36 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Millions in west do not know they have aggressive fatty liver disease, study says
More than 15 million people in the US, UK, Germany and France do not know they have the most aggressive form of fatty liver disease, according to research. Metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) – the formal name for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease – occurs in people who drink no or minimal amounts of alcohol whose liver contains more than 5% fat. Around two-thirds of patients with type 2 diabetes are thought to have the condition, which is also associated with obesity, heart and circulatory disease. Around 5% of adults globally have the most aggressive form of MASLD. Metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH) causes fibrosis (scarring) and can lead to cirrhosis and is linked to greater risk of cardiovascular disease, chronic kidney disease and liver cancer. But the vast majority of people do not know they have the condition. An international group of researchers examined prevalence and diagnosis of aggressive fatty liver disease in the US, UK, Germany and France. The researchers found that just under 3% of people in the UK, France and Germany, and 4% of those in the US have MASH, but diagnosis rates were below 18%. That means about 20 million people in the US, UK, Germany and France are living with MASH but only 2.5 million people have a diagnosis, leaving more than three-quarters – about 16.7 million people – unaware they have the condition. The report, published in the Lancet Regional Health Europe and presented at an the meeting of the global thinktank on steatotic liver disease in Barcelona, Spain on Thursday, calls for a doubling in diagnosis rates from 2022 levels. Traditionally, MASH was diagnosed through biopsy, but now non-invasive methods, such as blood tests, ultrasound and MRI scans can be used. As a result, everyone with type 2 diabetes; obesity combined with one or more other risk factors; and those with persistently high liver enzymes should be screened for MASH, the researchers conclude. Dr Jeffrey Lazarus, the lead author of the paper and a professor of global health in New York and Barcelona, said: 'Undiagnosed MASH costs economies billions of pounds in lost productivity and poor health. Unless diagnosis rates are doubled, alongside similar increases in treatment and care, direct health costs alone are predicted to triple over the next 20 years.' Responding to the findings, Emmanouil Tsochatzis, a professor of hepatology at UCL and a consultant hepatologist at the Royal Free hospital, said: 'More than 15 million people across the US and Europe have the deadliest form of fatty liver disease – and don't know it. Without faster diagnosis and access to treatment, the human and economic toll will skyrocket.' The research has also prompted renewed calls for weight loss jabs to be used to treat MASH. Dr Paul Brennan, a co-author of the Lancet paper and a hepatologist at NHS Tayside, said: 'GLP-1s (including Wegovy and Mounjaro) offer the potential to resynchronise our metabolism, by introducing feelings of satiety – fullness – and delaying the time the stomach takes to empty. These effects often result in reduced calorie intake, and improvements in how the liver handles nutrients as a result of weight loss, thus reducing scar tissue formation in the liver.' Michael Betel, the president of the Fatty Liver Alliance, said: 'Too many people living with type 2 diabetes or obesity are never tested for MASH until it's too late. We need a huge increase in liver health assessments in patients living with these diseases, alongside lifestyle changes and for some, when appropriate, weight loss drugs to reduce blood sugar and appetite. While weight loss drugs weren't created to treat liver disease, trials suggest they could benefit multiple metabolic-related conditions, and improve our liver health.' Separately a study published on Wednesday found that the diabetes drug dapagliflozin, which reduces blood sugar levels, can also reduce fat levels and fibrosis in the liver.
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Trump signs order banning citizens of 12 countries from entering US
Good morning. Donald Trump has signed a sweeping order banning travel from 12 countries and restricting travel from seven others, reviving and expanding the travel bans from his first term. The president said he 'considered foreign policy, national security, and counter-terrorism goals' in deciding the scope of the ban. World Cup and Olympic athletes will be exempt. The decision to ban travel comes amid a wave of hardline immigration policies, including the blocking of asylum claims at the southern border and cancelling temporary protected status for immigrants from a number of countries facing deep humanitarian crises. Trump has also signed a proclamation to restrict foreign student visas at Harvard University and ordered US consulates to conduct social media screening of every visa applicant seeking to travel to the university. What are the details of the ban? The nationals of Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen will be 'fully' restricted from entering the US, according to the proclamation. Meanwhile, the entry of nationals of Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela will be partially restricted. What do critics say? Advocates and experts have said that blanket travel bans discriminate against groups of people based on ethnicity alone. They will likely result – like during Trump's first term – in family separation. The US has vetoed a UN security council resolution calling for an 'immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire' in Gaza while the 14 remaining countries on the council voted in favor. The vetoed resolution also called the situation in Gaza 'catastrophic', and demanded the 'immediate and unconditional lifting of all restrictions on the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza and its safe and unhindered distribution at scale'. It was the fifth time that the US has vetoed a security council draft ceasefire resolution in order to protect Israel. Washington vetoed a similar resolution in November under the Biden administration. What do we know about the recent killing of Palestinians at a food point in Gaza? After at least 31 Palestinians were killed on Sunday, three people were killed on Monday and 27 were killed on Tuesday as Israeli forces opened fire at the site of a food distribution center in Rafah. What's the latest on the bodies of two hostages recovered by Israel? Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said on Thursday the bodies of two Israeli-Americans who were killed in Hamas's 7 October 2023 attack and held in Gaza had been returned to Israel. As Vladimir Putin pledges to retaliate against Ukraine's unprecedented drone attack, Kremlin advisers and Maga figures around Donald Trump have told the president that the risk of a nuclear confrontation is growing, in an attempt to pressure him to further reduce US support for Ukraine. Kirill Dmitriev, the head of Russia's sovereign wealth fund and an important intermediary between the Kremlin and Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff, called the Ukrainian drone strike an attack on 'Russian nuclear assets'. What has been the Maga reaction to Ukraine's drone attack? Rightwing influencers such as Steve Bannon and Charlie Kirk have openly condemned the drone attack, with Bannon likening the strike to Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and Kirk writing: 'We're closer to nuclear war than we've been since this began in 2022.' What did Trump say yesterday? After a phone call, Trump said: 'President Putin did say, and very strongly, that he will have to respond to the recent attack on the airfields.' 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First Thing is delivered to thousands of inboxes every weekday. If you're not already signed up, subscribe now. If you have any questions or comments about any of our newsletters please email newsletters@
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
What it takes to clean industrial soot and grime from a Pittsburgh church's murals
How do you conserve 80-year-old murals that have accumulated decades' worth of soot, salt and other deterioration? Slowly and carefully, using everything from scientific analysis to seaweed extract to everyday tools — like cosmetic sponges and shish kebab sticks. That was the approach taken by a conservation team as they labored on a section of murals at St. Nicholas Croatian Catholic Church near Pittsburgh. The walls and ceiling of the church are covered with an acclaimed set of murals painted by the late Croatian American artist Maxo Vanka in 1937 and 1941. They mix religious imagery with dramatic depictions of war, immigrant life, industrial hardship and moral contrasts — justice and injustice, greed and generosity. The Society to Preserve the Millvale Murals of Maxo Vanka has been working for the past 15 years to conserve the paintings, one section at a time. Over the past three years, a crew of 16 has worked intensively on the upper church. From January through May, that work focused on the upper-right walls and ceiling — including an Old Testament panorama featuring Moses and portraits of St. Matthew and St. Mark. The workers cleaned off grime, extracted corrosive salts, carefully reattached peeling paint and delicately added pigments where they had been lost. 'I found art conservation to be a good mix between art appreciation and science,' said Naomi Ruiz, a wall paintings conservator overseeing this year's work. The project began in January, when workers installed a 32-foot-high (9.8-meter-high) scaffold to provide close-up access to the murals. Cleaning off decades of pollution In the initial days, the conservation team brushed and vacuumed off surface dirt and soot. Then they used wet cosmetic sponges and thin cotton swabs to clean surfaces and grooves. Much of the grime, they surmise, resulted from day-to-day atmospheric pollution, ranging from Pittsburgh's once thriving steel mills to nearby highway traffic. The challenges are greater on one side of the church, which is damaged from exposure to more sunlight, which means more fluctuations in temperature and relative humidity. Workers used fine tools to reach inside smaller indentations. Before long, they'd gone through thousands of soot-covered sponges. Soon, the workers began to see the images becoming clearer, with gray sections returned to the original white painted by Vanka. 'It's really fascinating, especially to see from below, a lot of these details that were lost coming back, and seeing what his initial vision was,' conservation technician Christina Cichra said. Chemistry, color and cleaning Workers also cleaned the aluminum leaf that forms backgrounds, as in the arch-shaped one behind St. Mark and St. Matthew. They used a solution with neutral pH — neither alkaline nor acidic, both of which would damage the material. Parts of the aluminum leaf have deteriorated entirely. The team's original idea was to replace those sections with new leaf, but it was too shiny and didn't match. After some experimentation, they decided on a mixture of watercolor and other materials. 'This was able to give us the right amount of sheen and tone to blend in with the original aluminum leafing,' Ruiz said. To remedy paint loss, the crew used pastels and watercolors to fill in certain areas, while retaining Vanka's original brushstrokes. The team took a conservative approach, filling in only where necessary and using materials that can easily be removed, in case they or later conservators decide a different approach is needed. A primary goal is to reveal as much as possible of the original art. Salts, poultices and seaweed A major challenge is posed by sulfate salts, which occur naturally but can be especially prevalent where there is more air pollution, Ruiz said. The salts react with moisture in the walls and cause deterioration. The crew attached poultices — bandage-like containers of fine cellulose fibers — to affected spots. One type of chemical compound in the poultice leeches out the salts, a process repeated several times. Still more poultices were applied, this time with a different compound that strengthens the plaster. In some areas, paint had curled, flaked or cracked. Workers gently reattached it with funori, an adhesive derived from a seaweed, and use a tacking iron to help secure the paint. The preservation society, meanwhile, has worked with the parish on improvements such as roof repairs and a new climate control system to help prevent future damage from the elements. It's conservation, not restoration Ruiz prefers not to use the word 'restoration' for the project, although some of the work technically fits that category. She said 'conservation' is a more comprehensive term, which includes everything from documentation to preventive care while making Vanka's original work as visible as possible. 'We want to really reveal what he did,' Ruiz said. 'That's what's most important to us.' ___ Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP's collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
