Latest news with #UniversityofNewSouthWalesSydney
The Herald Scotland
22-05-2025
- Science
- The Herald Scotland
Surprise humpback whale calf sightings off Australia prompt worries
That pattern raises new issues, including the need to increase awareness to protect newborn whales throughout their winter journeys, the authors wrote in the study published May 21 in the scientific journal Frontiers in Marine Science. "Hundreds of humpback calves were born well outside the established breeding grounds," said Tracey Rogers of the University of New South Wales, a senior author. "Giving birth along the 'humpback highway' means these vulnerable calves, who are not yet strong swimmers, are required to swim long distances much earlier in life than if they were born in the breeding grounds." Newborn humpbacks aren't as strong as adult whales, and "mums with newborns swim much more slowly," Rogers said. "Newborns are like Great Dane puppies. They have those long, enormous fins that they need to grow into, and they're not very strong swimmers. So they rest a lot of the time on their mum's back." Once near extinction, humpback whales have rebounded thanks to conservation programs. Today the population is estimated at roughly 50,000. Sightings for the study were collected across an area extending from Queensland down to Tasmania and across to New Zealand's South Island. "Historically, we believed that humpback whales migrating north from the nutrient-rich Southern Ocean were travelling to warmer, tropical waters such as the Great Barrier Reef to calve," says lead author Jane McPhee-Frew, a PhD candidate at the University of New South Wales Sydney and whale watching skipper. "The pattern we're seeing is mother whales with calves travelling through some of the busiest shipping lanes and urbanised regions," said McPhee-Frew. Her first calf sighting in Newcastle in 2023, home of the largest coal export port in the world, was within a busy shipping lane. "This means these vulnerable animals are exposed to risks like boat strikes, entanglements, pollution - and just general public unawareness," she said. Questions remain about the whales' migration, including how the humpback mothers use different marine environments along their migration route and why they continue to travel north after giving birth, even though there's really no food for them in the tropics. Dinah Voyles Pulver, a national correspondent for USA TODAY, covers climate change, wildlife and the environment. Reach her at dpulver@ or @dinahvp on Bluesky or X or dinahvp.77 on Signal.
USA Today
21-05-2025
- Science
- USA Today
Surprise baby whale sightings along a busy 'humpback highway' prompt new worries
Surprise baby whale sightings along a busy 'humpback highway' prompt new worries Whale researchers have new data about humpback whales giving birth along a busy 'humpback highway' off Australia. Show Caption Hide Caption Humpback whale almost swipes diver swimming with orcas A diver, who was freediving with orcas, narrowly avoided being hit by the humpback's tail in Norway. Whale researchers combined modern-day sightings with 19th century records and are revealing new information about when and where humpback whales give birth along a busy 'humpback highway' off Australia. Humpback calves are being born not just in a calving zone at the end of the migration route, but along the way and even farther south than previously understood, according to a study led by researchers at the University of New South Wales. That pattern raises new issues, including the need to increase awareness to protect newborn whales throughout their winter journeys, the authors wrote in the study published May 21 in the scientific journal Frontiers in Marine Science. 'Hundreds of humpback calves were born well outside the established breeding grounds,' said Tracey Rogers of the University of New South Wales, a senior author. 'Giving birth along the 'humpback highway' means these vulnerable calves, who are not yet strong swimmers, are required to swim long distances much earlier in life than if they were born in the breeding grounds.' Newborn humpbacks aren't as strong as adult whales, and 'mums with newborns swim much more slowly,' Rogers said. 'Newborns are like Great Dane puppies. They have those long, enormous fins that they need to grow into, and they're not very strong swimmers. So they rest a lot of the time on their mum's back.' Once near extinction, humpback whales have rebounded thanks to conservation programs. Today the population is estimated at roughly 50,000. Sightings for the study were collected across an area extending from Queensland down to Tasmania and across to New Zealand's South Island. 'Historically, we believed that humpback whales migrating north from the nutrient-rich Southern Ocean were travelling to warmer, tropical waters such as the Great Barrier Reef to calve,' says lead author Jane McPhee-Frew, a PhD candidate at the University of New South Wales Sydney and whale watching skipper. 'The pattern we're seeing is mother whales with calves travelling through some of the busiest shipping lanes and urbanised regions," said McPhee-Frew. Her first calf sighting in Newcastle in 2023, home of the largest coal export port in the world, was within a busy shipping lane. 'This means these vulnerable animals are exposed to risks like boat strikes, entanglements, pollution – and just general public unawareness,' she said. Questions remain about the whales' migration, including how the humpback mothers use different marine environments along their migration route and why they continue to travel north after giving birth, even though there's really no food for them in the tropics. Dinah Voyles Pulver, a national correspondent for USA TODAY, covers climate change, wildlife and the environment. Reach her at dpulver@ or @dinahvp on Bluesky or X or dinahvp.77 on Signal.
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Mathematician solves algebra's oldest problem
Most people's experiences with polynomial equations don't extend much further than high school algebra and the quadratic formula. Still, these numeric puzzles remain a foundational component of everything from calculating planetary orbits to computer programming. Although solving lower order polynomials—where the x in an equation is raised up to the fourth power—is often a simple task, things get complicated once you start seeing powers of five or greater. For centuries, mathematicians accepted this as simply an inherent challenge to their work, but not Norman Wildberger. According to his new approach detailed in The American Mathematical Monthly, there's a much more elegant approach to high order polynomials—all you need to do is get rid of pesky notions like irrational numbers. Babylonians first conceived of two-degree polynomials around 1800 BCE, but it took until the 16th century for mathematicians to evolve the concept to incorporate three- and four-degree variables using root numbers, also known as radicals. Polynomials remained there for another two centuries, with larger examples stumping experts until in 1832. That year, French mathematician Évariste Galois finally illustrated why this was such a problem—the underlying mathematical symmetry in the established methods for lower-order polynomials simply became too complicated for degree five or higher. For Galois, this meant there just wasn't a general formula available for them. Mathematicians have since developed approximate solutions, but they require integrating concepts like irrational numbers into the classical formula. To calculate such an irrational number, 'you would need an infinite amount of work and a hard drive larger than the universe,' explained Wildberger, a mathematician at the University of New South Wales Sydney in Australia. This infinite number of possibilities is the fundamental issue, according to Wildberger. The solution? Toss out the entire concept. '[I don't] believe in irrational numbers,' he said. Instead, his approach relies on mathematical functions like adding, multiplying, and squaring. Wildberger recently approached this challenge by turning to specific polynomial variants called 'power series,' which possess infinite terms within the powers of x. To test it out, he and computer scientist Dean Rubine used 'a famous cubic equation used by Wallis in the 17th century to demonstrate Newton's method.' You don't need to try wrapping your head around all that, however. Just trust Wildberger when he said the solution 'worked beautifully.' The same goes for Catalan numbers, a famous sequence of numbers that describes the number of ways to dissect any given polygon. These also appear in the natural world in areas like biology, where they are employed to analyze possible folding patterns of RNA molecules. 'The Catalan numbers are understood to be intimately connected with the quadratic equation,' explained Wildberger. 'Our innovation lies in the idea that if we want to solve higher equations, we should look for higher analogues of the Catalan numbers.' Outside of headspinning concepts on paper, Wildberger believes the new approach to higher power polynomials could soon result in computer programs capable of solving equations without the need for radicals. It may also help improve algorithms across a variety of fields. 'This is a dramatic revision of a basic chapter in algebra,' argued Wildberger. Luckily, none of this will be your next pop quiz.
