To immunize or not to immunize? Are concerns about harms from vaccinations valid, or an unfounded conspiracy theory? Should parents have the right to decide whether or not their children are vaccinated? Is the proposed bill in the Colorado legislature a needed regulation or a mistake? Three medical experts and one concerned mother weigh in on Colorado HB19-1312. Kat, Kayla, Patty, and Jennifer are passionate about their positions on this legislation. SoapBox gives the mic to citizens of the Pikes Peak region to share their opinions. If you want to be on the SoapBox, comment below, email us, or call us at 719-203-1660 (Recorded 4/26/19)
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A job for the Webb space telescope
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“We got 53 candidates for anomalies that cannot be well explained, but can’t say that all of them are Dyson sphere candidates, because that’s not what we are specifically looking for,” said Gabriella Contardo, a postdoctoral research fellow at the International School for Advanced Studies in Trieste, Italy, who led the earlier study. She added that she plans to check the candidates against Suazo’s model to see how many tie into it.
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“You need to eliminate all other hypotheses and explanations before saying that they could be a Dyson sphere,” she added. “To do so you need to also rule out that it’s not some kind of debris disk, or some kind of planetary collision, and that also pushes the science forward in other fields of astronomy — so it’s a win-win.”
Both Contardo and Suazo agree that more research is needed on the data, and that ultimately they could turn to NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope for more information, as it is powerful enough to observe the candidate stars directly. However, because of the lengthy, competitive procedures that regulate use of the telescope, securing access might take some time.
If Dyson spheres really exist, what could they be used for? “If you picture ourselves having as much energy as the sun is providing every second, we could do unheard of things,” Suazo said. “We could do interstellar travel, maybe we could even move the entire solar system to our preferred location, if we wanted.”
But don’t hold your breath, because the technology and the raw materials required to build the hypothetical structures are far beyond humanity’s grasp.
“They are so big that everything we have on Earth would not be enough to build them,” Suazo added. “Freeman Dyson said that we should dismantle Jupiter — the whole planet (for the raw materials).”
That supercolossal scale probably means that Dyson spheres, if they exist at all, are very rare.
Broken spheres
Dyson died in 2020 before any of his spheres could be found — although they are just one of a dozen ideas that bear his name.
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“As a young scientist, Dyson showed that three competing quantum theories were actually the same theory — he summarily ended the competition,” said William Press, the Leslie Surginer Professor of Computer Science and Integrative Biology at the University of Texas at Austin. He was not involved in the study. “Later, he applied his genius to areas of astronomy, cosmology, the extraterrestrial realm, and also the very real problem of nuclear proliferation here on planet Earth. At the time of his death, he was recognized as a provocative and creative thinker.”
George Dyson also attested to his father’s fascination and comprehensive reach across disciplines.
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“Taking advantage of a short attention span and an aversion to bureaucracy, he contributed to five fields of mathematics and eleven fields of physics, as well as to theoretical biology, engineering, operations research, literature, and public affairs,” the younger Dyson said. “Many of his ideas were controversial, with one of his guiding principles being that ‘It is better to be wrong than to be vague.’”
The approach of the researchers behind the new study could offer a more fruitful path in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, said Tomotsugu Goto, an associate professor of astronomy at the National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan. He also was not involved with the study.
“However, contamination by circumstellar debris disks, which mimic Dyson Sphere infrared signatures, remains a concern,” he added in an email. “Authors argue that the debris disks around (dwarf stars) are rare, but the 7 candidate authors selected out of 5 million sources are also rare. Despite this, the seven candidates warrant further investigation with powerful telescopes for a more definitive evaluation.”
“Every morning I come downstairs and he’s already done the dishwasher, he’s already packed his lunch, and he’s ready to go,” Ruthe’s father, Ben, tells CNN Sports.
“He’s just a disciplined kid. He goes to bed early, he looks after himself, he eats well, he looks after his sister. He’s just a good kid around the house in all ways, really. We’re very lucky.”
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Ruthe is next due to compete in the 1,500 meters at the Maurie Plant Meet in Melbourne on Saturday, and one target time to aim for will be his dad’s fastest time of 3:41.22 – three hundredths of a second faster than Ruthe’s current personal best.
But he still has a way to go before he can call himself the most decorated runner in his family. Dad Ben and mom Jess are both former national champions who represented New Zealand on the world stage, while his maternal grandparents won European championship medals for Great Britain.
His grandmother, Rosemary Stirling, arguably had the most impressive achievement: an 800m Commonwealth Games title from 1970.
Despite his family pedigree, Ruthe was never under any pressure to take running seriously. His parents, in fact, didn’t allow him or his sister Daisy to train at all until they were 13, never wanting their identities to be tied solely to running.
“It feels like it’s the right decision about now,” says Ben.
But as he gradually starts to realize his potential, Ruthe, when pushed, admits to having big goals in the sport.
“If I had to pick one thing, definitely Olympic gold,” he says. “I feel like that’s most runners’ dream and the biggest thing you can actually win. So that’ll definitely be the top of my bucket list.”
The 2032 Olympics in Brisbane, Ruthe adds, would be a nice target. And as for the Los Angeles Games in three years’ time? “I’d actually love to try and qualify for LA 28,” he says. “I feel like that’ll be a tough goal. But if I do that, I’ll be really happy.”
Already, Ruthe’s name is being mentioned in the same breath as Norway’s Jakob Ingebrigtsen, the most successful middle-distance of this generation. It was his record as the youngest-ever four-minute miler that Ruthe took last week, and the New Zealander also beat Ingebrigtsen’s 1,500m record for a 15-year-old earlier this year.
Ingebrigtsen’s success, Ruthe says, has given him hope that he too can “have a good future” in the sport. But his biggest source of motivation comes not from the two-time Olympic champion, but from those closest to him – his training group led by coach Craig Kirkwood and athlete Sam Tanner.
The pair were instrumental in Ruthe’s recent mile time of 3:58.35, and it was five-time national champion Tanner who paced him perfectly around four laps of the track on his way to the record.
Critics say this power imbalance is clear in the 2016 contract Guyana signed with Exxon. Under the agreement, Exxon keeps 75% of everything it makes from its oil operations in Guyana, with the remaining 25% shared equally between the company and the government, which also takes a 2% royalty.
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“It was a bad deal,” Ali said in the BBC interview, but he has rejected the idea of unilaterally changing the agreement, which was signed by the previous government. He says the next contract with Exxon will be on different terms.
An Exxon spokesperson said the contract is “globally competitive for countries at a similar stage of exploration” and said Guyana is averaging $1 billion a year in “oil profits.”
Exxon has also faced a number of lawsuits over its potential environmental impact, many filed by Melinda Janki, a Guyanese international lawyer, who drafted the country’s Environmental Protection Act back in the 1990s.
A big victory for Guyana’s people and environment came in 2023, when the court ruled Exxon should have unlimited liability for the costs of any oil spill. Exxon has since appealed the ruling and has posted a $2 billion guarantee while it awaits the appeal outcome.
Exxon said this commitment supplements “its robust balance sheets … and the insurance policies they already had in place.” Janki says this isn’t enough. Offshore oil spills can be extremely expensive to deal with, the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill cost nearly $70 billion to clean up.
The push and pull between those who say oil offers Guyana a brighter future and those who fear the industry’s impact will continue.
Exxon said it’s had a positive impact on the country, including employing more than 6,200 people, investing more than $2 billion with local Guyanese businesses since 2015 and spending more than $43 million on community projects.