It’s all relative
Betelgeuse may have a sun-sized companion star
that orbits it about once every 2,100 days, astronomy writer Lisa Grossman reported in “Betelgeuse’s invisible buddy.”
The story describes Betelgeuse as “the red giant that marks Orion’s left shoulder.” Reader Chris Jespersen wrote: “I often see Betelgeuse on Orion’s right shoulder…. Am I mistaken?”
This is actually a matter of perspective, Grossman says. The ancient Greeks thought the Orion constellation resembled the figure of a hunter. Many people agree that this celestial hunter faces Earth. Betelgeuse represents what’s considered the hunter’s right shoulder, which is on the figure’s left from the perspective of Earth, she says.
Sharing reflections
The 2024 Nobel Prizes honored research in biology and AI, including foundational work on artificial neural networks, which enable machine learning and other tech advances, Science News staff reported in “2024 Nobel Prize winners announced.”
Reader Jeremy Brown pondered the rise of AI. “Artificial neural networks may scare off some people, but it captivates the rest of us who see its nearly unlimited potential for unlocking the secrets of the universe and ourselves,” Brown wrote. “We have a long way to go before a neural network could surpass our own [brain],” Brown continued, but the technology could help humans meet various needs in medicine and research.
Brown also expressed general appreciation for Science News: “Thank you so very much for bringing science to us who are incarcerated. This publication aids us, and we have formed informal study groups on the sciences in general in my living quarters,” Brown wrote. “I live in a dormitory setting and am a facilitator and a squad leader for our educational program called A New Direction Movement. This publication has opened new neural pathways in my dendrites and is keeping us all up-to-date on the latest physics, astronomy, biology, archaeology!”
What about waste?
Tech companies including Google and Amazon are investing in small nuclear reactors for their energy needs. The shift may help propel the proliferation of nuclear power, touted as a source of reliable “green” energy, senior physics writer Emily Conover reported in “Nuclear energy entices Big Tech.”
Reader Susanne Kjemtrup-Lovelace wondered how the waste produced by these small reactors will be managed.
Nuclear waste disposal is still a thorny issue. For now, spent nuclear fuel is mostly stored in dry casks on the sites of nuclear power plants. After decades of local opposition halted plans for a storage facility at Yucca Mountain in Nevada in 2010, the U.S. government made little progress toward a solution for years.
But now, the government is working toward an interim storage facility that would consolidate waste until a long-term geologic repository is established. Since 2015, the U.S. Department of Energy has been developing a “consent-based” process, focused on finding a community willing to accept a facility. “It would be very hard to start building advanced reactors in a universe where the government was still doing nothing,” says nuclear engineer Kathryn Huff of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
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