Nature Hub

  From - Sky  &  Telescope By Monica Young Edited by Amal Udawatta         In an ejection that would have caused its rotation to slow, a magnetar is depicted losing material into space in this artist’s concept. The magnetar’s strong, twisted magnetic field lines (shown in green) can influence the flow of electrically charged material from the object, which is a type of neutron star. NASA / JPL-Caltech A huge clue to understanding the mysterious, fleeting flashes of radio waves known as  fast radio bursts  (FRBs) came when one went off in our own galaxy. A highly magnetized neutron star, or  magnetar , dubbed SGR 1935+2154, emitted an FRB-like burst on April 28, 2020, and suddenly astronomers had an FRB to study in our own backyard. Since then, astronomers have been waiting for a repeat. In October 2022, they struck rich once again — and this time, they were ready. Until 2020, almost all known FRBs originated in faraway galaxies. Yet each one relayed more energy in a fraction of a s

      From - Knowable Magazine       By -  By    Theo Nicltopoulos       Edited by - Amal Udawatta The first interstellar interloper detected passing through the Solar System, 1l/‘Oumuamua, came within 24 million miles of the Sun in 2017. It’s difficult to know exactly what ‘Oumuamua looked like, but it was probably oddly shaped and elongated, as depicted in this illustration. CREDIT: NASA, ESA, JOSEPH OL MSTED (STSCI), FRANK SUMMERS (STSCI) On October 17 and 18, 2017, an unusual object sped across the field of view of a large telescope perched near the summit of a volcano on the Hawaiian island of Maui. The Pan-STARRS1 telescope was designed to survey the sky for transient events, like asteroid or comet flybys. But this was different: The object was not gravitationally bound to the Sun, or to any other celestial body. It had arrived from somewhere else. The mysterious object was the first visitor from interstellar space observed passing through the solar system. Astronomers named it 1

 From - Knowable Magazine By - Ute Eberle Edited by - Amal Udawatta The stories have become horribly familiar. Houses so overrun by bed bugs that the bloodsucking insects pile an  inch deep  on the floor. An airport  shutting down gates for deep cleaning  after the parasites were spotted brazenly crawling around. Fear and loathing during Fashion Week 2023 in Paris, with bed bug detection dogs working overtime when the insects turned up in movie theaters and trains. For reasons that almost certainly have to do with global travel and poor pest management, bed bugs have resurfaced with a vengeance in 50 countries since the late 1990s. But recently, the resurgence has brought an added twist. When exterminators swarm out to hunt these pests, they might encounter not just one but two different kinds of bugs. Besides the common bed bug,  Cimex lectularius , which has always made its home in the Northern Hemisphere, there are now sightings of its cousin, the tropical bed bug,  Cimex hemipterus

By Paul Njie & Natasha Booty BBC News, Yaoundé & London Edited by Amal Udawatta IMAGE SOURCE, AFP Image caption, Eight-month-old Daniella, right, is the first Cameroonian child to get the jab The world's first routine vaccine programme against malaria has started in Cameroon, in a move projected to save thousands of children's lives across Africa. The symbolic first jab was given to a baby girl named Daniella  at a health facility near Yaoundé on Monday. Every year 600,000 people die of malaria in Africa, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Children under five make up at least 80% of those deaths. Cameroon is offering the RTS,S vaccine free of charge to all infants up to the age of six months old. Patients require a total of four doses. Health officials say these will be given at the same time as other routine childhood vaccines to make it easier for parents. It comes after successful pilot campaigns in Kenya, Ghana and Malawi - where  the vaccine caused a