100 years ago, an eclipse changed the known laws of physics and made Einstein Einstein

The first photo of a black hole, a place where Einstein’s equations break down.

On May 29, 1919, a solar eclipse forever altered our conception of gravity, rewrote the laws of physics and turned a 40-year-old, wild-haired scientist into a global celebrity — the very personification of scientific genius.

It was a very good day for Albert Einstein.

The 1919 eclipse across South America and Africa provided direct evidence for Einstein’s mind-bending theory of gravity. He proposed in 1915 that gravity isn’t a spooky force acting across space but rather is a feature of the essence of space and time. Gravity is the warping and curving of the fabric of the universe.

Einstein’s theory — the general theory of relativity — was hailed by the physicist J.J. Thomson as “one of the greatest achievements of human thought.” It has been confirmed by many more observations over the century, including the detection of gravitational waves and the first picture of a black hole just this year. He cracked a fundamental code of the universe.

And yet: Something’s amiss. 

Although Einstein seemed to have the final word on how the universe is put together, more recent probing of deep space as well as the inner workings of atoms have found places where the theory breaks down.

For example, inside a black hole, Einstein’s equations suggest that matter and energy become so compressed they reach infinite density. But what does that mean? The theorists suspect it means they need a better theory.

“You can’t calculate anything beyond that point, once the numbers become infinite. You’ve lost all control,” says Emil Mottola, a theoretical physicist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. “That doesn’t tell you that nature can’t do that, but it’s very suspicious.”

The same problem applies when cosmologists rewind the film reel of the universe’s expansion for the past 13 billion years and reach the very beginning of time and space, the so-called big bang. Einstein’s theory doesn’t quite work at the creation.

Notoriously — at least among theoretical physicists — general relativity doesn’t explain how gravity works at the tiniest of scales, the realm of subatomic particles.

Dark matter has never been directly observed, but its existence is inferred through its gravitational effects, such as on the motion of stars in galaxies. Conceivably it could be some kind of modification of the gravitational force that wasn’t predicted by Einstein, said Lee Smolin, a theorist at the Perimeter Institute.

Dark energy, another cosmic mystery, is whatever is driving the acceleration of the expansion of the universe. This seeming anti-gravity acceleration was detected only in the late 1990s and strongly suggests that the universe will expand forever. So why is this happening?

“We don’t know. That’s why we call it ‘dark energy’,” says Gabriela Gonzalez, a professor of physics and astronomy at Louisiana State University.

“I think there are plenty of mysteries that I hope to see the solution to in my lifetime,” she said. “All these things need theories that can be confirmed by experiments. They need theories that have predictions.”

Which brings us back to Einstein, and the eclipse.

Einstein had emerged from obscurity in 1905 with a series of astonishing papers that obliterated classical notions about time and space. But his greatest achievement came a decade later, in 1915, when he described the equations governing gravity. He’d figured out a fundamental feature of the universe, using merely the power of his brain. But was it true? What if his equations were just a mathematical fancy, something that looked nifty on paper but did not correspond to physical reality?

Einstein proposed an experimental test. A solar eclipse would block the sun’s light and allow scientists to study starlight passing close to the sun. His theory predicted that the sun’s gravitational field would displace the starlight by a certain amount compared to where they would be under classical theories of gravity.

British astronomer Arthur Eddington led an expedition to observe the eclipse from two locations, one in Brazil and one on the island of Principe near the African coast.

The stars backed Einstein.

An eclipse of the Sun by Jupiter, as viewed from Galileo spacecraft that orbited the planet from 1995 to 2003.

When the Astronomer Royal, Sir Frank Dyson, announced the results in November of that year, newspapers ran front-page stories and Einstein became famous all over the planet.

In his biography of Einstein, author Walter Isaacson recounts an exchange between Einstein and a graduate student, Ilse Schneider, when news came that the theory had been upheld. She asked him, she later recalled, what he would have thought if the eclipse observations had contradicted his theory.

“Then I would have been sorry for the dear Lord; the theory is correct,” Einstein said.

Mottola notes that, since the days of Euclid and Aristotle, space and time had been seen as a passive stage for the events of the universe, unaffected by the comings and goings of planets and stars. But Einstein said that wasn’t so: Space and time were affected by matter, and even light has to obey the geometry of curved space.

The modern world depends on accepting this cosmic truth. Spacecraft trajectories have to take general relativity into account. So does GPS. So does military targeting.

Einstein’s theory carried astonishing implications for exotic things out there in the universe, not least of which are black holes. Perhaps the most thunderous modern confirmation of Einstein came with the detection of gravitational waves from colliding black holes. Einstein had predicted the existence of gravitational waves; a century later, scientists found them.

The universe has not run out of surprises, and theoretical physicists remain in business. The questions don’t tend to get easier over time. When Mottola is asked about what happened, exactly, at the beginning of the universe, he says, “Sometimes you have to say you don’t know.” 

Find of the century: Incredibly preserved 2,400-year-old Celtic warrior's shield made from tree bark is dug up in Leicestershire - the first ever found in Europe

An incredibly well-preserved shield made from tree bark may be the find of the century and revolutionise what is known about Celtic weaponry. 

It is the first shield ever excavated in Europe to be made from bark and dated by archaeologists who found it in Leicestershire to be 2,400 years old. 

All other shields previously unearthed on the continent were made from timber or metal.

The use of bark made it far lighter than the alternatives and would have allowed its wielder to move swiftly as they were not restricted by a cumbersome shield. 

Analysis shows that it was stiffened with wooden straps and fitted with a rim and handle to make it easier to hold and use.  

The shield was first discovered in 2015 south of Leicester on the Everards Meadows, buried deeply within the waterlogged soil of the excavation pit. 

Known as the Enderby shield, it measured 26 x 15 inches (670 x 370mm) in the ground in a spot where archeologists think was once a livestock watering hole.   

Speaking to MailOnline, Matt Beamish, project officer at the University of Leicester Archeology Services (ULAS), said: 'The shield was found "face down" in the ground and you could see part of the handle on the inside.'

Radiocarbon from the wooden pieces found has dated it to between 395 and 255 BC and researchers have made a modern copy using bark sliced from a tree. 

Detailed analysis had showed that the bark came from either alder, willow, poplar, hazel or spindle tree and that the the outer layer of bark formed the inside of the shield.

Its consolidating straps were made of apple, pear, quince or hawthorn whilst the rim was a half-split hazel rod, say the researchers from University of York who found it.

The stud on the centre of the shield was made from a willow core stitched together with either a flat fibre of grass, rush or bast fibre. 

'The handle made from willow roundwood, flattened at the end and notched, and fixed to the bark with twisted ties,' the archaeologists said. 

The shield had been painted and scored in red chequerboard decoration using hematite based paint and was likely severely damaged from the pointed tips of spears nearby, before being cast into the ground.

Researchers used an array of analytical techniques to understand the construction of the object, including CT scanning and 3D printing.  

Dr Rachel Crellin, Lecturer in later Prehistory at the University of Leicester, explained why the find was so unique. 

The object has been dated to 2,300 years ago and has all the signs of a working shield. The image shows the inside of the shield as it was found, 'face down' in the soil and part of the handle can be seen  in the middle

Analysis shows that it was stiffened with wooden straps and has a rim and handle. Shown is a reconstructed shield made by researchers from bark

She added: 'Bark and basketry objects were probably commonplace in ancient Britain, but they seldom survive, so to be able to study this shield is a great privilege. It holds a rich store of information about Iron Age society and craft practices.

'Our initial thoughts that a bark shield would be too fragile for use in battle.

'Our experimental work showed that the shield could stand up to heavy impacts, including protecting from arrows. 

'A bark shield, although not as strong as a solid wood or metal shield, is much lighter, allowing for speed and movement.'

According to the dig's website, barks shields may well have been common the Iron Age, but due to the lack of wood preservation and the biased survival of metal, it is hard to find evidence. 

The shield is first of its kind to have been found in Europe, although there is evidence for bark shields in the southern hemisphere, from Australia, Borneo and the Philippines. 

The famous The Battersea Shield, dated to 350 BC-50 BC is made of several pieces of sheet bronze and is in fact a metal cover that was attached to the front of wooden shield.

Known as the Enderby shield, it measured 26 x 15 inches (670 x 370mm) in the ground and was found in a spot where archeologists think was once a livestock watering hole

WHY WAS THE SHIELD MADE OF BARK? 

There is good ethnographic evidence for shields made of bark in the southern hemisphere, from Australia, Borneo and the Philippines. 

There has been little evidence for this in Europe, although Julius Caesar did record in his Commentarii De Bello Gallico (Commentaries on the Gallic War) that the Gauls had 'shields made of bark or interwoven wickers, which they hastily covered over with skins'. 

The famous The Battersea Shield, dated to 350 BC-50 BC is made of several pieces of sheet bronze and is in fact a metal cover that was attached to the front of wooden shield. 

Although a bark shield is not as strong as one made from wood or metal, use of bark would have made the weapon much lighter than metal or timber, and would have given soldiers more speed, archaeologists say. 

The use of bark would have made the weapon much lighter than metal or timber, and would have given soldiers more speed, archaeologists say. The image shows a the front (left) and back (right) of the piecestha make up the shield, with the latter showing the handle

Michael Bamforth, project manager at the Department of Archeology at the University of York said: 'Initially we didn't think bark could be strong enough to use as a shield to defend against spears and swords and we wondered if it could be for ceremonial use.

'It was only through experimentation that we realised it could be tough enough to protect against blows from metal weapons. 

Although a bark shield is not as strong as one made from wood or metal, it would be much lighter allowing the user much more freedom of movement.'

Further analysis is planned to help understand if this occurred in battle or as an act of ritual destruction.

The shield was found south of Leicester on the Everards Meadows, buried deeply within the waterlogged soil of the excavation pit. The image shows researchers from Leicester University trying to reconstruct the shield

The shield has now been conserved by York Archaeological Trust and will be deposited with the British Museum on behalf of Everards of Leicestershire, who funded and supported the project.  

American Climber Becomes Latest To Die On Everest's Nepali Side This Year

An American climber died while descending Mount Everest on Monday, bringing this year’s death toll on the mountain’s Nepali side to at least nine amid concerns of overcrowding on the summit.

A Nepalese official said Monday morning that 61-year-old Christopher John Kulish ascended the more than 29,000-foot peak by taking its Southeast Ridge route, but died suddenly while coming down, Reuters reported.

The cause of death remains unknown.

On Saturday, 44-year-old British climber Robin Haynes Fisher died in the mountain’s “death zone,” an area infamous for its low oxygen levels due to its altitude.

“He was descending with his sherpa guides from the summit when he suddenly fainted,” Murari Sharma, an employee of the Everest Parivar Treks expedition company that organised Fisher’s trip, said of the climber. 

An Instagram post flagged by CNN shows that on May 19, days before his death, Fisher wrote that he was “hopeful to avoid the crowds on summit day and it seems like a number of teams are pushing to summit on the 21st.”

Overcrowding has become a major problem on Everest as climbers jump at the chance to make the trek when weather conditions are optimal.

An image captured on Wednesday by mountaineer Nirmal Purja gained international attention as it showed a massive line of people waiting to reach Everest’s summit.

According to The New York Times, veteran mountaineers and industry experts are sounding the alarm on the number of people on the peak, particularly those who are inexperienced.

Critics have argued the Nepalese government’s desire to cash in on the frenzy has led it to hand out more permits than the mountain can handle, making the journey especially risky.

Last week, Agence France-Presse reported that a record-breaking 381 permits had been issued for the 2019 spring climbing season, each costing $11,000. The influx prompted fears of traffic jams if bad weather cuts down on climbing days.

Searching in vein: a history of artificial blood

Human blood is a cocktail of proteins, salt, platelets, and red and white blood cells perfectly engineered to deliver oxygen and nutrients throughout the body with precision and efficiency.

In 1873, Dr. Joseph Howe of New York City injected 1.5 ounces of goat’s milk into a tuberculosis patient’s vein.

Vertigo, chest pain, and uncontrollable eye movement soon racked Howe’s milk-infused patient. Naturally, the physician doubled the dose. “I am of the opinion it had no effect,” Howe noted in an 1875 account of the procedure. The patient promptly died.

Surprisingly, Howe was not the first to conduct milk transfusions—years earlier, in the midst of a cholera epidemic, two doctors brought a cow to a Toronto hospital and pumped the animal’s milk into their own patients. Howe, though, was a far more persistent advocate of the procedure.

Despite his first patient succumbing to the treatment, the New York physician continued his experiments on dogs (bleeding seven of them to near death and attempting to revive the hounds with milk) and as a live show (audiences watched as a goat was brought into the operating room and milked before their eyes). In 1880, testing a hypothesis about the superiority of injecting humans with human milk, Howe acquired three ounces of breast milk from a new mother. In that final demonstration, the patient’s breathing stopped by the second ounce administered and she was supposedly revived by artificial respiration and “injections of morphine and whiskey” (a story for another time). Only then did Howe relent; human milk, he conceded, was not the substitute for blood he and other doctors had hoped—and somewhat mercilessly attempted to prove—it was.

Human blood is a cocktail of proteins, salt, platelets, and red and white blood cells perfectly engineered to deliver oxygen and nutrients throughout the body with precision and efficiency. Blood vessels ribbon the inside of our bodies providing a highway—literally about 100,000 miles for the average adult—along which blood trucks cellular waste to the kidneys, transports antibodies, and circulates hormones. When we’re injured, blood forms a clot to plug the wound. One of its critical ingredients, the oxygen-conveying protein hemoglobin, is so vital to life that it can be found in creatures ranging from the skink lizard to intestinal roundworms.

Since the early 1600s, physicians have unsuccessfully pursued a suitable substitute for the life-giving elixir of blood, injecting everything from milk to urine, beer, sheep’s blood, saline solutions, and perfluorochemicals (a group of polymers similar to Teflon) into animal and human subjects. We’ve come a long way since Howe’s ill-fated attempts, but the modern demand for blood transfusion still poses enormous problems of supply and delivery. “It’s not appreciated how commonly we prescribe blood,” said Allan Doctor, a pediatrics and biochemistry professor at Washington University School of Medicine. “Or that these are living cells; they’re not inert. It’s like doing a little transplant.”

Anything from surgery to cancer treatments, injury care, organ transplants, and childbirth might require a supply of blood. In catastrophic scenarios—car accidents in remote places, natural disasters, overseas combat—lack of access to blood becomes its own medical crisis. Each year, about 60,000 people in the U.S. die from hemorrhaging before they can reach an emergency room. Among the main issues with storing and transporting blood are the fragile nature and unique signature of the vital fluid itself: Once donated, the fluid must be screened for hepatitis, HIV, and other pathogens. It must match the blood type of a recipient. It also needs to be refrigerated and even then, the stuff expires after 42 days. Despite rigorous and noble administration and donation efforts, shortages continue. “The amount of blood we need never matches the amount of blood donated,” said Anirban Sen Gupta, a professor of biomedical engineering at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. “We simply don’t have enough.”

This all means that a blood substitute -- if a scientific group were to create an effective one, that is -- would be an extremely lucrative endeavor. Over the last hundred years, in particular, world wars and the HIV crisis have only increased interest in a non-human-derived blood supply. By one estimate, the artificial blood market could be worth $15.6 billion by 2027 if companies can develop products that do everything from carry oxygen to deliver drugs to enhance healing. Today, a small number of U.S. research groups is committed to finding a synthetic solution to this seemingly unsolvable biological puzzle. For now, this much is true: A century and a half has passed since Dr. Howe’s futile milk experiments and there is still no safe, effective artificial blood product approved in the United States or Europe to give to people in desperate medical need of the vital—and so far, inimitable—substance.

‘An unsolvable problem’?

Efforts to imitate one of nature’s most mysterious concoctions began in earnest in the 1660s, around the time English doctor Richard Lower used quills as a sort of aqueduct in dog-to-dog blood transfusions.

“This done, (sew) up the skin and dismiss him, and the Dog will leap from the Table and shake himself and run away, as if nothing ailed him,” Lower wrote in a letter to the chemist Robert Boyle. Soon after, Lower transfused lamb blood into a clergyman (animal blood transfusions would eventually be outlawed, but not until the end of the 17th century).

One hundred years after that, Philadelphia physician Dr. Philip Syng Physick—known as the Father of American Surgery and who counted President Andrew Jackson, Chief Justice John Marshall and the wives and children of several other U.S. presidents among his patients—reportedly performed the first human blood transfusion in 1795 (all that is known of this transfusion is that it occurred, based on a two-line footnote published in a later medical article). Further experiments quickly followed, and within decades of that initial blood exchange, a British obstetrician saved a life with the procedure. To rescue a new mother from postpartum hemorrhaging, he injected four ounces of her husband’s blood, via syringe, into her veins.

While the quest for blood substitutes goes back centuries, true progress, however, has only been made in recent decades. Still, the hunt for an easy substitute for blood was (and remains) far more appealing than performing the messy transfer of one person’s bodily fluids to another.

In 1966, biochemist Leland Clark first demonstrated the oxygen-carrying abilities of perfluorochemicals (PFC). These liquid compounds are often used for coatings in products like furniture, food packaging, and electrical wire insulation. Clark and others found droplets of perfluorochemicals could capture and transport dissolved oxygen in its liquid core, albeit not as efficiently as hemoglobin.

In the 1970s and 1980s, a number of physicians attempted to use PFC emulsions as blood substitutes, but subsequent clinical trials demonstrated patients developed severe side effects including increased risk of stroke, low platelet count, and flu-like symptoms.

The most successful strategy has been a pursuit of hemoglobin-based blood substitutes, or HBOCs as they are called, that mimic the oxygen transport functioning of red blood cells by synthetically creating and packaging human or cow hemoglobin.

HBOCs, though, have a perilous past. In the 1930s, researchers first experimented with them in cats by completely replacing the animals’ blood with a cell-free hemoglobin solution. The treatment wreaked renal havoc on their feline subjects, but efforts continued, and in 1949 a group even performed human clinical trials of this artificial hemoglobin solution; the trial led to serious kidney dysfunction in five of the 14 patient subjects. By the 1980s, a handful of researchers from Illinois to Cambridge began testing new, chemically modified HBOCs in humans with military funding. None would even come close to FDA approval.

blood transfusion

In 2001, the HBOC Hemopure, developed by biopharmaceutical company Biopure Corp., became the only blood substitute ever to be approved for sale in South Africa (Hemopure is not FDA-approved and can only be administered in the U.S. under specific circumstances, such as when Jehovah’s Witnesses refuse human blood transfusions).

At first, the future seemed bright for Hemopure, but safety and health concerns cut short any optimism. The mechanisms aren’t fully understood, but studies suggest free hemoglobin molecules are toxic to many human organs. One study, in particular, analyzed 16 HBOC clinical trials and described a threefold increase in the risk of heart attacks in people who received the substitutes compared to those who were given donor blood.

It was a major blow for research studies on artificial blood and by 2010, investors had fled. Blood remained as mysterious an elixir as ever.

“The field went dark until recently,” said Dr. Dipanjan Pan, a bioengineering professor at the University of Illinois. Now, he adds, “there’s a thaw in the field.”

Today, researchers armed with major advancements in nanotechnology, materials engineering, and blood cell biology have a new strategy: Instead of replicating blood’s symphony, labs are imitating its individual instruments.

“Mimicking nature is always a challenge,” Case Western’s Sen Gupta said. “It doesn’t have to be as good as real blood to have value. It may not have to be as complex as a real red blood cell to do the job.”

Scientists have also begun focusing on designing products to be used in places where a standard blood transfusion isn’t an option: In the back-country, on a cruise ship, aboard the international space station, or, someday, on the surface of Mars.

Pan, Doctor, and Philip Spinella, a pediatrician at Washington University Medical School, for example, have created Erythromer, a bagel-shaped artificial red blood cell with a nanometer-sized synthetic packet of purified hemoglobin (taken from expired donated blood) sheathed in a synthetic shell. Unlike regular blood donations, it can be freeze-dried, stored at room temperature for extended periods of time, and injected into any human regardless of blood type. Hypothetically, EMS could keep a bag of Erythromer in ambulances, and reconstitute the powder with water—“like Tang,” Doctor said—to keep patients alive until they reach a hospital. “It still doesn’t come close to all the things blood does,” Pan said, comparing Erythromer instead to a sort of internal bandage that stabilizes until proper treatment. “It’s a bridge.” Erythromer’s research lab just moved from mice to rabbit testing, but still has to get through testing on larger animal and non-human primates before human trials for FDA approval. In other words, they still have a long way to go.

Other labs have focused on mimicking the clotting function of platelets, crucial for ensuring someone doesn’t bleed out. Materials engineer Erin Lavik’s lab at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, is developing a synthetic polymer nanostructure that binds with platelets to help them to pile up more quickly. At North Carolina State, bioengineer Ashley Brown leads a group in developing synthetic nano- and microparticles that are decorated with specific proteins that help augment the natural clotting process. In 2016, Sen Gupta co-founded the biotech startup Haima Therapeutics, whose platelet substitute Synthoplate, is in pre-clinical animal testing. Sen Gupta said he expects to begin safety and toxicology evaluations under FDA requirements in two or three years.

Both Erythromer and Haima Therapeutics are about five years out from commercialization, founders say.

“When you’re trying something that hasn’t been done before, in a field where a lot of people have failed, it’s quite humbling, even unsettling, to think we might be able to get a little further,” Doctor said.

At least for now, artificial blood remains a holy grail of trauma medicine.

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Giant asteroid with its own moon to pass by Earth this weekend

1999 kw4 nasa

An asteroid nearly a mile wide with a moon of its own is expected to pass by Earth this weekend, traveling at 48,000 mph. The space rock, known as asteroid 1999 KW4, was discovered 20 years ago and is so large that it is orbited by a moon.

On Saturday evening, 1999 KW4 will make its closest approach to Earth. It will be visible until May 27. Because it carries a large moon along with it, the asteroid is technically designated as a binary system. 

A binary system is defined as two celestial objects close enough to orbit each other, according to NASA.

The Las Cumbres Observatory describes 1999 KW4 as "slightly squashed at the poles and with a mountain ridge around the equator, which runs all the way around the asteroid. This ridge gives the primary an appearance similar to a walnut or a spinning top."

The asteroid was first discovered by the Lincoln Laboratory's Near Earth Asteroid Research survey (LINEAR) in Socorro, New Mexico, according to NASA. The asteroid won't pass this close to earth again until 2036. 

The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory's Minor Planet Center has classified 1999 KW4 as a "potentially hazardous asteroid" because it will travel relatively close to Earth. Even so, the asteroid will only pass as close as 3.2 million miles from Earth — roughly 13 times the distance between the Earth and the moon.