Latest news with #CarlSchmidt
Observer
27-04-2025
- Science
- Observer
Auroras Are Spotted on Neptune for the First Time, and Lead to a New Mystery
The vermilion, amethyst and jade ribbons of the northern and southern lights are some of Earth's most distinctive features. But our planet has no monopoly on auroras. Scientists have spied them throughout the solar system, weaving through the skies of Mars, Saturn, Jupiter and even on some of Jupiter's fiery and icy moons. Lights glow in the skies of Uranus, too. But auroras around our sun's most distant planet, Neptune, have long eluded astronomers. That has changed with the powerful infrared instruments aboard the James Webb Space Telescope. In a study in the journal Nature Astronomy, scientists reveal unique auroras that spill over either side of Neptune's equator, a contrast with the glowing gossamer seen arcing over other worlds' poles. Astronomers are thrilled to see the completion of an aurora-hunting quest decades in the making. 'Everyone is very excited to prove that it's there, just like we thought,' said Rosie Johnson, a space physics researcher at Aberystwyth University in Wales who wasn't involved with the new study. This discovery will also allow scientists to study aspects of Neptune that have previously been out of reach. 'They're using aurora to understand the shape of the planet's magnetic field, which is seeing the unseen,' said Carl Schmidt, a planetary astronomer at Boston University who wasn't involved with the new study. Each world generates auroras differently, but the basics are the same. Energetic particles slam into an atmosphere and bounce off gases. That particle collision briefly causes flashes of light. And if a world has a magnetic field, that guides the location of the auroras. Auroras don't always glow in visible light; Saturn, for example, emits mostly ultraviolet auroras. But they can be observed with the right telescopes. It hasn't been possible until now to spot Neptune's atmospheric lights. 'Astronomers have been trying to detect the aurora of Neptune for decades, and each attempt has failed,' said Henrik Melin, a planetary scientist at Northumbria University in England and one of the study's authors. — ROBIN GEORGE ANDREWS / NYT
Yahoo
27-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
A patient finally got off the organ transplant list. A month later, they died of rabies
A Michigan resident who received a kidney transplant died a month later after contracting rabies from the infected organ, officials say. The patient received a transplant from a hospital across the state border in Ohio's Lucas County in December, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement Wednesday. The recipient died the following month after receiving the body part, state health officials said. The Michigan HHS said that a public health investigation determined that the patient contracted the deadly disease through the kidney. Dr. Carl Schmidt, a deputy coroner with the Lucas County Coroner's Office, confirmed to WHIO that the infected organ was a kidney. A Michigan HHS investigation also found this to be the case. The identities of both the patient and donor have not yet been revealed. The donor was not from Michigan or Ohio. Lynn Sutfin, a spokesperson for the Michigan health agency, said that there is 'no threat' to the public. 'Health officials worked together to ensure that people, including health care providers, who were in contact with the Michigan individual were assessed for possible exposure to rabies,' she added. 'Post-exposure preventive care, if appropriate, has been provided.' Officials said that because the patient was a Michigander, the infection counted as a Michigan rabies case despite the patient receiving the infected organ in Ohio. Officials did not reveal the facility where the transplant took place, but the University of Toledo Medical Center's website states it has 'operated the only transplant program in northwest Ohio since 1972.' According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, this case marked the first human case of rabies in Michigan since 2009. Rabies primarily affects the central nervous system and can lead to severe brain disease if not treated before symptoms start, according to the CDC. Potential organ donors are screened for viruses, bacteria, and other infections in the U.S. However, because of its rarity and the time it takes to perform tests, rabies is not often screened for. A Florida resident died in 2013 after receiving a kidney transplant about a year earlier after contracting rabies through the organ. Three similar cases occurred in 2004 after patients received organs from an infected donor in Arkansas. The CDC states that around 60,000 Americans receive post-exposure care after possibly coming into contact with the disease each year. Fewer than 10 human rabies deaths are recorded annually. Globally, the World Health Organization estimates that rabies causes 59,000 human deaths each year in over 150 countries, with 95 percent of cases occurring in Africa and Asia. According to the American Journal of Transplantation, donor-derived disease transmission complicates less than one percent of all transplant procedures. There were over 46,000 organ transplants in the U.S. in 2023, per the latest figures from the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network. The Independent has contacted the University of Toledo Medical Center for more information.
The Independent
27-03-2025
- Health
- The Independent
A patient finally got off the organ transplant list. A month later, they died of rabies
A Michigan resident who received a kidney transplant died a month later after contracting rabies from the infected organ, officials say. The patient received a transplant from a hospital across the state border in Ohio's Lucas County in December, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement Wednesday. The recipient died the following month after receiving the body part, state health officials said. The Michigan HHS said that a public health investigation determined that the patient contracted the deadly disease through the kidney. Dr. Carl Schmidt, a deputy coroner with the Lucas County Coroner's Office, confirmed to WHIO that the infected organ was a kidney. A Michigan HHS investigation also found this to be the case. The identities of both the patient and donor have not yet been revealed. The donor was not from Michigan or Ohio. Lynn Sutfin, a spokesperson for the Michigan health agency, said that there is 'no threat' to the public. 'Health officials worked together to ensure that people, including health care providers, who were in contact with the Michigan individual were assessed for possible exposure to rabies,' she added. 'Post-exposure preventive care, if appropriate, has been provided.' Officials said that because the patient was a Michigander, the infection counted as a Michigan rabies case despite the patient receiving the infected organ in Ohio. Officials did not reveal the facility where the transplant took place, but the University of Toledo Medical Center's website states it has 'operated the only transplant program in northwest Ohio since 1972.' According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, this case marked the first human case of rabies in Michigan since 2009. Rabies primarily affects the central nervous system and can lead to severe brain disease if not treated before symptoms start, according to the CDC. Potential organ donors are screened for viruses, bacteria, and other infections in the U.S. However, because of its rarity and the time it takes to perform tests, rabies is not often screened for. A Florida resident died in 2013 after receiving a kidney transplant about a year earlier after contracting rabies through the organ. Three similar cases occurred in 2004 after patients received organs from an infected donor in Arkansas. The CDC states that around 60,000 Americans receive post-exposure care after possibly coming into contact with the disease each year. Fewer than 10 human rabies deaths are recorded annually. Globally, the World Health Organization estimates that rabies causes 59,000 human deaths each year in over 150 countries, with 95 percent of cases occurring in Africa and Asia. According to the American Journal of Transplantation, donor-derived disease transmission complicates less than one percent of all transplant procedures. There were over 46,000 organ transplants in the U.S. in 2023, per the latest figures from the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network.
New York Times
26-03-2025
- Science
- New York Times
Auroras Are Spotted on Neptune for the First Time, and Lead to a New Mystery
The vermilion, amethyst and jade ribbons of the northern and southern lights are some of Earth's most distinctive features. But our planet doesn't have a monopoly on auroras. Scientists have spied them throughout the solar system, weaving through the skies of Mars, Saturn, Jupiter and even on some of Jupiter's fiery and icy moons. Lights glow in the skies of Uranus, too. But auroras around our sun's most distant planet, Neptune, have long eluded astronomers. That has changed with the powerful infrared instruments aboard the James Webb Space Telescope. In a study published on Wednesday in the journal Nature Astronomy, scientists reveal unique auroras that spill over either side of Neptune's equator, a contrast with the glowing gossamer seen arcing over other worlds' poles. Astronomers are thrilled to see the completion of an aurora-hunting quest decades in the making. 'Everyone is very excited to prove that it's there, just like we thought,' said Rosie Johnson, a space physics researcher at Aberystwyth University in Wales who wasn't involved with the new study. This discovery will also allow scientists to study aspects of Neptune that have previously been out of reach. 'They're using aurora to understand the shape of the planet's magnetic field, which is seeing the unseen,' said Carl Schmidt, a planetary astronomer at Boston University who wasn't involved with the new study. Each world generates auroras differently, but the basics are the same. Energetic particles (often from the sun, but sometimes from a moon's volcanic eruptions) slam into an atmosphere and bounce off gases. That particle collision briefly causes flashes of light. And if a world has a magnetic field, that guides the location of the auroras. Auroras don't always glow in visible light; Saturn, for example, emits mostly ultraviolet auroras. But they can be observed with the right telescopes. It hasn't been possible until now to spot Neptune's atmospheric lights. 'Astronomers have been trying to detect the aurora of Neptune for decades, and each attempt has failed,' said Henrik Melin, a planetary scientist at Northumbria University in England and one of the study's authors. Voyager 2, the only spacecraft to fly by Neptune (in 1989), found hints of an aurora. But all follow-up observations — even with the Hubble Space Telescope — failed to spy telltale shimmering. Fortunately, the Webb telescope, launched in 2021, has come to the rescue. Heidi Hammel, an astronomer at the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy and another of the study's authors, has been studying Neptune since the 1980s. She thought that if Webb 'was powerful enough to see the earliest galaxies in the universe, it'd better be powerful enough to see things like aurorae on Neptune,' she said. 'And by golly, it was.' Using the telescope's Near-Infrared Spectrograph, astronomers caught Neptune's infrared auroras in June 2023. And unlike Earth's, they dance not above the poles, but its mid-latitudes. That's because Neptune has a wonky magnetic field that is tilted by 47 degrees from the planet's spin axis. The new Webb observations also reveal why Neptune's auroras have been invisible until now. Nearly 40 years ago, Voyager 2 recorded a temperature of around 900 degrees Fahrenheit for Neptune's upper atmosphere. But the Webb telescope shows that the temperature has dropped, to close to 200 degrees. That lower temperature means the auroras are dimmer. In fact, Neptune's aurora is glowing 'with less than 1 percent of the brightness we expected, explaining why we haven't seen it,' said James O'Donoghue, a planetary astronomer at the University of Reading in England and one of the study's authors. 'However, that means we now have a new mystery on our hands: How has Neptune cooled down so much?' With the detection of Neptune's strange light show, answers may be forthcoming. 'Auroras are like a TV screen,' said Leigh Fletcher, a planetary scientist at the University of Leicester in England and one of the study's authors. They are 'allowing us to watch the delicate dance of processes in the magnetosphere — all without actually being there.'
