Month: July 2021

Guest contribution by Eric Worrall

h / t JoNova; A simple, proven generic medical treatment that can reduce Covid deaths by 80% is slowly gaining reluctant acceptance.

Hunt goes out of script with ivermectin

Health minister endorses doctors’ right to treat Covid

Rebecca Weisser

July 17, 2021

…

It is to Australia’s credit that Monash University, together with the Doherty Institute, identified one of the most effective treatments that showed that ivermectin kills the Sars-CoV-2 virus within 48 hours. However, to our national shame, the researchers were starved for resources and the discovery ignored.

Not so in Indonesia, where an enterprising philanthropist, Haryoseno, took action and made ivermectin available to the masses for free or at low cost. As a result, Indonesia has an extremely low Covid death rate. That is, until the Ministry of Health, following the recommendation of the WHO, has decided that ivermectin will only be used in a clinical study. Haryoseno has been threatened with a fine and ten year prison sentence and the supply of ivermectin has dried up. Result? The number of deaths per million has increased five-fold since Ivermectin was discontinued on June 12.

In Australia, one of the few doctors brave enough to use the drug to treat patients and save lives became Dr. Mark Hobart, reported to the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA). Fortunately, AHPRA announced that there was no injury. As a matter of fact, Federal Minister of Health Greg Hunt wrote to one of the doctors in Australia who prescribes ivermectin, confirming that he knew that some doctors were prescribing ivermectin off-label for Covid and that they were well within their rights Because the prescribing of registered drugs outside of their approved indications is not regulated or controlled by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), it is at the discretion of the prescribing physician. But the silence continues. Ivermectin is the drug that dares not pronounce its name.

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Read more: https://spectator.com.au/2021/07/hunt-goes-off-script-with-ivermectin/

Regardless of your views on vaccination, there will always be a core of people who oppose vaccination. Having a cheap and effective generic therapeutic available would defuse the debate over whether vaccines should be mandatory.

I’m not denying that more work needs to be done to prove the effectiveness of drug therapies, but denying therapies that appear to be well supported by anecdotal evidence could cost someone their lives. President Trump understood this when he established the right to litigation – a principle that I believe clearly should be extended to the treatment of Covid-19.

So I applaud Health Secretary Greg Hunt for campaigning for an election and I hope he finds the courage to hold on to his position of cheap generic alternatives to expensive patented treatments, given the immense self-interest pressures that he may face close.

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The universe has some very extreme places – and there are few places more extreme than the surface of a neutron star. These ultra-dense objects are created after a supergiant star collapses into a ball about 10 kilometers (6 miles) in diameter. Its surface is extreme because of gravity, which is about a billion times stronger than that of Earth. However, this gravity also forces the stellar remnant to be exceptionally flat. How flat is the result of a new theoretical research by doctoral student Fabian Gittins from the University of Southampton.

Earlier estimates of the height of these “mountains” on the surface of neutron stars assumed that they could grow up to a few centimeters. A combination of factors went into these estimates, including gravitational forces that pull any slight bump flat to the surface, as well as a shear force from ultra-dense matter that might be able to support the mountains themselves.

Short video about neutron stars.
Credit – In short, YouTube Channel

The researchers found that the forces acting on the surface would almost certainly limit the height of such a mountain to just a few fractions of a millimeter, reducing the height of previous estimates by a factor of more than 100. It shows how close to a perfect sphere neutron stars really are.

Even these small imperfections on the surface of a neutron star can have a major impact on the wider universe. Some neutron stars spin, with the fastest (PSR J1748-2446ad) spinning at 716 times per second. With such high spin rates combined with such a dense force of gravity, the small imperfections in the sphere, represented in the study by the “mountains”, should possibly lead to gravitational waves.

UT video discussing some gravitational wave sources – including neutron star merging.

So far, scientists have not been able to find gravitational waves emanating from a spinning neutron star. But that wasn’t for a lack of experimentation – and they found some waves from a collision of two neutron stars. However, it seems that the current generation of gravitational wave detectors, which provided the first detection of any type of gravitational wave just a few years ago, is simply not sensitive enough to pick up the slightly smaller waves that the theory predicts a neutron star.

Fortunately, however, new detectors are in sight, such as the Einstein Telescope and Cosmic Explorer. With much more sensitive instruments, we might be able to detect the great fluctuations in gravity that even these tiny sub-millimeter heights can throw out into the universe.

Learn more:
RAS – The Life of a Beetle: Millimeter-high mountains on neutron stars
LiveScience –

Learn more:
RAS – The Life of a Beetle: Millimeter-high mountains on neutron stars
LiveScience – Neutron star “mountains” could block our view of mysterious gravitational waves
LIGO – How high are pulsar “mountains”?
Gizmodo – Neutron stars have mountains that are less than a millimeter high

Mission statement:
Artist’s impression of a neutron star.
Credit – ESO / L. Sidewalk

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Guest “Yee-hah! ” by David Middleton

JULY 20, 2021
U.S. crude oil exports reached record levels in 2020 and remain high in 2021

Despite volatility in global oil markets, U.S. crude oil exports reached a record high in 2020. So far this year (as of July 9, 2021), U.S. crude oil exports have averaged 3.00 million barrels per day (b/d). The most recent four-week rolling average of U.S. crude oil exports reached 3.51 million b/d, according to our Weekly Petroleum Status Report.

In 2013, the U.S. government lifted export restrictions on minimally processed ultra-light oil. In the summer of 2015, the United States and Mexico entered into an oil exchange agreement, and the restrictions on oil exports were fully lifted in December 2015. U.S. crude oil exports have increased significantly since 2015 and have averaged around 3.00 million b/d every year since 2019.

[…]

U.S. crude oil infrastructure has expanded significantly since 2015 to facilitate crude oil exports from onshore production. Ports on the Texas Gulf Coast, particularly Corpus Christi and Houston, have led the expansion, allowing more oil to be exported from the Permian Basin and Eagle Ford Basin. Due to the Gulf Coast’s many pipeline connections and efficient port infrastructure, most U.S. crude oil exports leave the United States from the Gulf Coast region.

Principal contributors: Jozef Lieskovsky, Richard Yan

EIA

The headline should have been:

Texas crude oil exports reached record levels in 2020 and remain high in 2021

How’s that frac’ing ban going Joe?

During the July 31, 2019 Democratic debate, when asked if there would be “any place for fossil fuels, including coal and fracking, in a Biden administration,” Biden said, “No, we would, we would work it out.”

“We would make sure it’s eliminated and no more subsidies for either one of those, either—any fossil fuel,” Biden said.

Newsweek

Despite the Soviet-Saudi price war, the Shamdemic Lockdown, November coup d’état and Winter Storm Younger Dryas, Permian Basin oil production is expected to reach 4.7 million barrels per day in July.

July 2021 Drilling Productivity Report

How about banning drilling on federal lands & waters? How’s that going Joe?

“No more drilling on federal lands. No more drilling, including offshore. No ability for the oil industry to continue to drill, period, ends, number one.”

Joe Biden, March 15, 2020

“Rigs Added in Gulf of Mexico as U.S. Count Continues Steady Ascent”

APRIL 14, 2021
Gulf of Mexico crude oil production will increase with new projects in 2021 and 2022

EIA forecasts U.S. crude oil production in the U.S. Federal Gulf of Mexico (GOM) to increase in the next two years, according to the latest Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO). By the end of 2022, 13 new projects could account for about 12% of total GOM crude oil production, or about 200,000 barrels per day (b/d).

The GOM accounts for 15%–16% of U.S. crude oil production. In 2020, GOM crude oil production averaged 1.65 million b/d. Production is forecast to exceed 2020 levels, reaching 1.71 million b/d in 2021 and 1.75 million b/d in 2022. Since 2000, the highest crude oil production year was 2019 at 1.9 million b/d.

[…]

EIA

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO)

Thanks Joe!

Investing.com

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The astronomy community breathed a huge sigh of relief earlier this week when the Space Telescope Science Institute announced the Hubble Space Telescope’s major computer issues had been fixed after a grueling month of recovery work. They had to bring in every expert they could – even retired engineers and scientists — to make it happen, and their success is a tribute to the innovative and creative engineers that NASA has been famous for over the years. But now, the telescope is back to doing what it was built to do, taking incredible pictures of the cosmos and sending them down to Earth.  

Here are the first images since the remote repair, two pictures of galaxies. One shows a galaxy with unusual extended spiral arms, and the other is the first high-resolution view of an intriguing pair of colliding galaxies.

NASA says that other initial targets for Hubble include globular star clusters and aurorae on the giant planet Jupiter.

All of Hubble’s science instruments have now returned to full operation, following the remote recovery work to repair a persistent and tricky computer anomaly that basically shut down the venerable 31-year-old telescope. The work was done from the Goddard Spaceflight Center in Maryland — with some experts still working from home with COVID-19 restrictions — as Hubble orbited 547 km (340 miles) above Earth.

The problem came from a glitch with Hubble’s payload computer, which controls and coordinates the observatory’s onboard science instruments. The computer problem automatically placed Hubble’s science instruments into safe mode, and initial work-arounds failed to create a lasting solution.

That’s when Hubble alumni were called upon to bring their decades of expertise with Hubble. NASA said that retired staff who helped build the telescope provided critical expertise for determining what needed to be done to recover access to the computer.  Other former team members scoured through Hubble’s original paperwork, surfacing 30- to 40-year-old documents that helped the team chart a path forward.

“That’s one of the benefits of a program that’s been running for over 30 years: the incredible amount of experience and expertise,” said Nzinga Tull, Hubble systems anomaly response manager at Goddard, in a statement. “It’s been humbling and inspiring to engage with both the current team and those who have moved on to other projects. There’s so much dedication to their fellow Hubble teammates, the observatory, and the science Hubble is famous for.”

Together, the old and new team members worked their way through various potential problems, and eventually methodically identified the cause, a problem with the Science Instrument and Command & Data Handling unit, where the payload computer resides. The decision was made to switch to the backup side of the Science Instrument and Command & Data Handling unit, and then a plan was developed. Over 50 experts reviewed the process before engineers engaged in 15 straight hours of commanding from the ground, which included safely turning off the main computer and then using a backup computer on the telescope.

Nzinga Tull, Hubble systems anomaly response manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, works in the control room July 15 to restore Hubble to full science operations.
Credits: NASA GSFC/Rebecca Roth

“Several boxes also had to be powered on that were never turned on before in space, and other hardware needed their interfaces switched,” said Jim Jeletic, Hubble deputy project manager at Goddard. “There was no reason to believe that all of this wouldn’t work, but it’s the team’s job to be nervous and think of everything that could go wrong and how we might compensate for it. The team meticulously planned and tested every small step on the ground to make sure they got it right.” On July 15, the team determined the switch was successful. The science instruments were then successfully turned back on, with Hubble taking scientific data once again on July 17.

NASA said that most observations missed while science operations were suspended will be rescheduled, so look for more data and images to come from the most famous space telescope.

Sources: NASA, STScI

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