#observations

#observations

I'm not a social superhero.I'm friendly, but I'm neither savvy nor successful at small talk.But I love connecting with people in a sincere way, especially when I'm away from home.It's one of the best parts of the human experience.When I went on vacation in England and Scotland recently, I spent the first part of my trip in London, but despite my hope of having conversations with people there, I came up mostly empty.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

The biggest star of the 2023 U.S. Open isn't Scottie Scheffler or Rory McIlroy or Brooks Koepka, it's the Los Angeles Country Club, playing host to its first major championship and opening its doors to the golf world.Architect Gil Hanse has a special affinity for the place, having brought it much closer to the original design of George C. Thomas in a 2009-10 restoration.

(Kyusung Gong / Associated Press)

The Rams opened a two-day minicamp Tuesday, the final workouts for coach Sean McVay and his players until training camp begins in late July at UC Irvine.Observations from the Rams' penultimate practice:
Who's not there: Star defensive tackle Aaron Donald and offensive lineman Alaric Jackson were excused from the mandatory camp because of "family stuff," McVay said.

The Yankees have shown a real affinity for lightning-in-a-bottle left-handed-hitting minor league depth signings, last year successfully with Matt Carpenter and this year less successfully with others like Franchy Cordero.It makes sense - sign guys who are known commodities and hope they figure something out or catch fire for a short stretch while the starters return from injury.

Patriots New England's defense dominated during 7-on-7 and 11-on-11 drills on Tuesday afternoon.FOXBORO - The Patriots were back at Gillette Stadium on Tuesday morning for the second day of their mandatory minicamp.After a productive first day in Foxboro, Bill Belichick and his coaching staff continued to install plays and schemes more than a month ahead of the team's full training camp.

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Doug Kyed gives us his OTAs observations from Friday: Rookie defender Marte Mapu causes issues for offense; Nick Folk, OT Conor McDermott and WR Kendick Bourne were back at practice; More.Taylor Kyles shares his observations from the Patriots' third open OTA practice.Karen Guregian has ten takeaways from the final OTA session.

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Paul Perillo's OTA Blogservations: Rookies getting involved; Lots of mixing and matching of personnel; More.Mike Dussault spotlights how the tight ends offer intrigue at Patriots OTAs: A decade ago Bill O'Brien and the Patriots offense took the league by storm behind the two-tight-end attack and early action at 2023's OTAs suggest the formula could be back in play this fall.

Morning Sports Update Adams based his observations on joint practices in 2022.The Red Sox lost to the Rays on Monday, 4-1.Boston, now 30-30 on the season, will face the Guardians in Cleveland tonight at 7:10 p.m. to begin a three-game series.In the Stanley Cup Final, the Golden Knights took a 2-0 series lead over the Panthers with a 7-2 win.

CLIMATEWIRE | The amount of land scorched by wildfires in California has been on the rise for decades, and human-caused climate change is almost entirely to blame.A new study, published Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, finds that California's summertime burned area has increased fivefold since 1971.

The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research.The Atlantic hurricane season starts on June 1, and forecasters are keeping a close eye on rising ocean temperatures, and not just in the Atlantic.Globally, warm sea surface temperatures that can fuel hurricanes have been off the charts in the spring of 2023, but what really matters for Atlantic hurricanes are the ocean temperatures in two locations: the North Atlantic basin, where hurricanes are born and intensify, and the eastern-central tropical Pacific Ocean, where El Nino forms.

How did the universe start?Did we begin with a big bang, or was there a bounce?Might the cosmos evolve in a cycle of expansion and collapse, over and over for all eternity?Now, in two papers, researchers have poked holes in different models of a so-called bouncing universe, suggesting the universe we see around us is probably a one-and-done proposition.

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has spotted Saturn's moon Enceladus spraying out a huge plume of water vapour, much bigger than any previously seen there.This enormous cloud might contain the chemical ingredients of life, escaping from beneath the moon's icy surface.In 2005, a NASA spacecraft called Cassini discovered icy particles squirting from Enceladus's subsurface ocean through cracks in the moon's surface.

Astronomers have witnessed the largest explosion in space.The explosive event labeled AT2021lwx was observed to be ten times brighter than any known supernova, the explosions that occur as massive stars die.And whereas supernova explosions only last a few months, this explosive event has been raging for at least three years.

By the end of March, the surface temperature of the world's oceans was above anything seen in the 40 years that satellites have been measuring it.Records were headed off the charts and, as the heat refused to fade for more than a month, the Earth marched into uncharted territory, scientists said.The temperature at the ocean's surface like on land is being pushed higher by global heating but can jump around from one year to the next as weather systems come and go.

The smoke from wildfires in Canada that has blanketed large parts of North America this week and created hazardous breathing conditions was expected to shift over Norway on Thursday but not cause trouble for people there, environmental officials said.Scientists at the Climate and Environmental Research Institute in Norway used forecast models to predict how the smoke from the hundreds of wildfires burning across Canada would move through the atmosphere.

CLIMATEWIRE | The Arctic could see ice-free summers as early as the 2030s, scientists say.That's as much as a decade earlier than previous studies have suggested.The findings, published Tuesday in the scientific journal Nature Communications, warn that even aggressive global climate action may not be enough to stop it.

For most of the exoplanets we've discovered, we know very few details.We know a bit about the star they orbit and maybe a partial list of other planets in the same system.And we typically know either how large they are or how heavy they are.It's not a lot to go on.But we can infer a lot when we start combining those details.

The future of ground-based astronomy is bright.And that's bad.The sky is rapidly filling with fast-moving satellites reflecting sunlight and zapping astronomers' detectors.It is, after all, exceedingly difficult to see faint galaxies in the distant cosmos when someone is shining a flashlight down your telescope.

For all of the possession Juventus had in the first half of Sunday night's game against Cremonese - and there sure was a lot of it - the same old problems with the attack range true.Cremonese dropped everybody deep, Juventus did a whole lot of passing the ball around, but when it came to actually coming close to scoring goals, there wasn't much of that whatsoever.

As we seek to get a deeper understanding of the known objects in the Solar System, under-utilized senses may become a critical asset.Take sound, for instance.Sound can be an approach to model data.It can portray the motion of hot gas as it responds to lighting on Saturn.In one technique called sonification, information from space telescopes can be put to musical sounds.

Through his books Resistance in Vichy France (1978), In Search of the Maquis (1993) and The French Resistance and its Legacy (2022), the historian Rod Kedward, who has died aged 86, transformed understanding of rural France under Nazi occupation during the second world war.His general history, La Vie en Bleu: France and the French Since 1900 (2005), also attracted a wide readership and the conferences he organised in 1984 and 1994 at the University of Sussex on Resistance and Liberation in France turbo-charged the field.

On May 24, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) will resume its hunt for gravitational wavestiny, periodic variations in the curvature of space and time created by distant, violent cosmic events such as two colliding black holes.Some would call gravitational-wave scientists lucky, based on their field's remarkable series of transformative discoveries occurring in less than a decade's time.

The world's most powerful space telescope has captured an unprecedented glimpse of a young star system that contains clues about the existence of extraterrestrial life, reports a new study.The results shed light on the potential habitability of planets that form around red dwarf stars, which are much smaller and far more common than stars like the Sun.

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Evan Lazar gives us the key takeaways from our first glimpse at the Pats offense led by Bill O'Brien and Mac Jones.Offense focusing on 'building our own thing' as offseason program continues.Paul Perillo's OTA Blogservations: Early impressions of the offense showed a much more cohesive unit under the direction of Bill O'Brien and a refreshed Mac Jones.

The Washington Commanders are back in Ashburn for another set of OTA practices.Kam Curl continues to only do individual drills as he tries to get a new deal.UDFA rookie WR/KR Kazmeir Allen is dealing with a hamstring injury and RB Antonio Gibson rode the bike today.Rookie DBs Emmanuel Forbes and Quan Martin are making plays and frustrating new AHC/OC Eric Bieniemy.

The layoffs and hiring freezes sweeping the tech industry and beyond have hurt diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) teams, putting carefully wrought efforts to build more inclusive workplaces at risk.Time will tell if the commitments companies made in 2020 and 2021 were inauthentic or a flash in the pan, a fear for many DEI practitioners and employees from marginalized groups.

(Marcio Jose Sanchez / Associated Press)

The Rams roster, once a veritable Who's Who of NFL stars, is now a "Who's That?" compilation.After an offseason of releases, trades and thanks-for-the-memories goodbyes to key players from the Super Bowl championship team of two seasons ago and last season's disaster, the Rams are attempting to begin anew.

Not Like Other Girls
We might be very wrong about the shape of our galaxy.As Space.com notes, astronomers believe that the majority of known galaxies generally fall into one of three categories: elliptical, irregular, and spiral.The Milky Way is considered to be a spiral galaxy, which usually means that it features two long "arms" that extend from its center.

Bayern Munich went from a professional shutout win to another nervy finish in a flash against Werder Bremen.Niklas Schmidt's outrageous goal wasn't enough to set off a comeback, however, and the Bavarians maintain their slim lead over Borussia Dortmund - for now.It's do or die time for both teams as the Bundesliga race draws to a close.

As bad days go, it's hard to top the one 66 million years ago when a space rock the size of Paris slammed into Earth at 45,000 miles per hour.The heat of impact generated massive fires that annihilated everything around them and sent colossal plumes of pollutants soaring into the atmosphere.Within a day or two, toxic clouds of pulverized rock, sulfate aerosoles and wildfire soot had blanketed the planet, blocking all but a tiny fraction of the sun's energy and bringing photosynthesis to a virtual halt for the only known time in history.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) issued on Tuesday a request for input (RFI) regarding protections for tenants at multifamily housing properties backed by mortgages from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.In particular, the FHFA wants to solicit public input on issues faced by tenants in multifamily properties, and on any opportunities and potential impacts associated with requiring or encouraging specific tenant protections at multifamily properties backed by [the GSEs], the RFI states.

1. Anaclitic depression is a form of depression that is caused by an individual's dependence on other people for emotional needs.
2. Anaclitic depression is often seen in infants and young children who have been separated from a primary caretaker and is often accompanied by physical symptoms such as loss of

Anyone accustomed to a UK beach holiday might already suspect seagulls are wily predators when it comes to snatching a chip or two.Now, new research has revealed why seagulls are so keen to steal our food at the beach.Franziska Feist from the University of Sussex and her colleagues studied the behaviour of the birds at Brighton Beach in 2021 and 2022 - presenting blue and green packets of crisps to groups of gulls.

Murder-accused nurse Lucy Letby told jurors she was stunned at the collapse and death of her first alleged victim.Letby, 33, entered the witness box at Manchester Crown Court to give her second day of evidence on Friday.She is accused of the murders of seven babies and the attempted murders of 10 others at the Countess of Chester Hospital.

MIAMI GARDENS - Miami Dolphins standout defensive tackle Christian Wilkins' contract negotiations have been ongoing throughout the offseason and are yet to be resolved as the team held organized team activities open to the media on Tuesday.Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel has previously said that the two sides have been in constant conversations as they work to lock Wilkins into a long-term extension.

Saturn is the jewel of the solar system, with its magnificent rings and retinue of weird moons.It's the faintest of the naked-eye planetstechnically Uranus is sometimes bright enough to see, though you need good eyesight and a very dark sitebut still fairly easy to pick out among the stars.If you're an early riser (or a late partier), then now is a decent time to look for Saturn, not because it's brighter or closer to Earth than usual but because it's made some news recently.

Joro spiders are the size of your palm.They weave webs up to three feet across, and for the past decade, the East Asian arachnids have been spreading throughout the southeastern United States.If you're an arachnophobe, they're the stuff of your nightmares, said Andy Davis, a biologist at the University of Georgia who studies them.

Where do you point the world's most powerful space telescope?It's not an easy question.The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), launched in December 2021, has amazed astronomers since it began sending back its first science data in July 2022.It has seen galaxies breathtakingly close to the dawn of time, probed the atmospheres of exoplanets in unprecedented detail and provided stunning new views of worlds in our solar system.

Cometh the hour, cometh the man.At last, a deputy whom Rishi Sunak can trust.Trust to be thoroughly mediocre.The last thing an interim prime minister there's an unquestionable lightness of being to Rish!: even he doesn't seem to know what he stands for who is grooming his party for opposition really wants is a number two biting at his heels.

The rumors have been swirling for weeks that Bayern Munich has big interest in Eintracht Frankfurt striker Randal Kolo Muani.The problem with an acquisition of the Frenchman, however, was reportedly that Die Adler's asking price would exceed nine figures.That might not be such an issue any more per Sport1's Kerry Hau and Christopher Michel (as captured by @iMiaSanMia).

Bayern Munich 's front line came back from their hiatus to put paid to Schalke.After dire performances against Hertha Berlin, Werder Bremen and more so, Mainz 05 and Hoffenheim, we can finally say Bayern Munich is back.Here are the observations for today:
Fluidity is the word of the day
Wow.Suddenly, all of a sudden, out of nowhere seemingly, all of Serge Gnabry, Leroy Sané, Jamal Musiala, Kingsley Coman and Thomas Müller (the chief connector) knew where to find each other.

Comet 238P/Read is a strange rock.Its location just past Mars in the main asteroid belt is an unusual spot for a comet in our Solar System.And it's missing frozen carbon dioxide, frequently found on comets.Comet Read's most compelling quirk, however, is that it definitely has water.In a new study published Monday in the journal Nature, astronomers directed the $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope (JWST or Webb) to study Comet 238P/Read using its Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec).

An aging star dubbed ZTF SLRN-2020 has been caught in the act of swallowing a planet.Credit: K. Miller/R.Hurt (Caltech/PAC)

Roughly five billion years from now, our Sun will end, not with a bang but with a whimper.That's when it finally burns through all the fuel in its core and puffs outward into a red giant, swallowing all the inner planets of our Solar System in the process, including Earth.

Astronomers had long assumed that Saturn's distinctive rings formed around the same time as the planet some 4.5 billion years ago in the earliest days of our Solar System.That assumption received a serious challenge from a 2019 analysis of data collected by NASA's Cassini spacecraft, suggesting that the rings were just 10 million to 100 million years ago-a mere blink of an eye on cosmic time scales.

It was only last October that telescopes spotted a gamma ray burstcaused by the collapse of a black holethat was so powerful astronomers quickly dubbed it BOAT, for Brightest of all Time.That was a fair enough nickname for such a sensational emissionfor a little while anyway.But BOAT has just been busted to second most powerful.

Saturn has regained its crown as the planet with the most moons in the solar system, just months after being overtaken by its fellow gas giant Jupiter.The leap-frog comes after the discovery of 62 new moons of Saturn, bringing its official total to 145.Jupiter, which added 12 moons to its tally in February, has 95 moons that have been formally designated by the International Astronomical Union (IAU).

In the red corner, Jupiter, the largest planet orbiting our sun, which shaped our solar system with its gravitational bulk.In the blue corner, Saturn, the magnificent ringed world with bewildering hexagonal storms at its poles.These two giant worlds are late in their bout for satellite-based supremacy.

Scientists have discovered the biggest explosion ever observed in outer space, a blinding blast that is 10 times brighter than any known supernova and that has continued erupting for years since it was first detected in 2020, reports a new study.The radiant event is likely fueled by the consumption of a gigantic gas cloud by a supermassive black hole about eight billion light years from Earth.

It started as an unremarkable flicker in the night sky.But closer observations revealed that astronomers had captured the largest cosmic explosion ever witnessed, an event thought to have been triggered by a giant cloud of gas being gobbled up by a supermassive black hole.The flare-up, traced to 8bn light years away, is more than 10 times brighter than any known supernova and has so far lasted more than three years, making it the most energetic explosion on record.

May 11, 2023 - How is the human lifespan being shortened by epidemics such as COVID-19 and the opioid crisis, and what kind of health policies can help mitigate the problem?These were the main questions addressed at the 7 th Cutter Symposium, held on May 5 at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

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Knocking on doors to check on people's health and catch problems before they escalate is common practice across Brazil.But could that approach work in the UK?

Comfort and Nahima are on their regular beat around Churchill Gardens, a council estate in the Pimlico neighbourhood of London.

Astronomers recently watched a supermassive black hole rip apart an unwary star much like our Sun.Just before a star falls into a black hole, the tremendous gravity of the black hole pulls the star apart and stretches it into a thin stream of blazing hot gas.Astronomers call this act of cosmic destruction a tidal disruption event.

On May 7, the first two satellites from NASA's new storm-monitoring mission lifted off from northeast New Zealand.The agency tapped Rocket Lab, a private spaceflight company and launch provider, to send two shoebox-sized satellites off to low-Earth orbit - about 340 miles up in space.Rocket Lab carried up NASA's gear in its reusable 59-foot Electron rocket, which has so far sent over 150 satellites to the cosmos.

Another New York Jets newcomer and one-time member of the Green Bay Packers had some positive thoughts about quarterback Aaron Rodgers.Some of the new additions to the New York Jets this offseason are obvious, especially when you consider the team's most prominent new face.Of course, a number of them relate to the franchise acquiring four-time NFL MVP and Super Bowl XLV champion Aaron Rodgers from the Green Bay Packers via trade in late April.

UX design research is an essential step in designing products that meet users' needs and expectations.It involves collecting data on users' behaviour, preferences, and pain points to inform the design process.However, analyzing and interpreting this data can be challenging and time-consuming.That's where the grounded theory method comes in.

Scientists have concluded that an unexplained optical burst from the Milky Way galaxy provides evidence of a star eating up its local giant planet.MIT post-doctoral fellow Kishalay De and his colleagues first noticed anomalies with ZTF SLRN-2020, a star 12,000 light-years away, near the eagle-like constellation Aquila in the Milky Way, according to a research paper in Nature this week.

Wednesday was another day without word/media availability from the Islanders' brass, who did not speak publicly on the day the players did.Unless change is afoot, the next news coming from the team should be end-of-season media calls or conferences with Lou Lamoriello and Lane Lambert.But some second- (and now third-) day stories now include that caveat of "assuming Lou/Lane are still at the helm."

An artist's impression of an aging star swelling up and beginning to engulf a planet, much like the Sun will do in about 5 billion years.K. Miller/R.Hurt (Caltech/IPAC) Astronomers have gotten a sneak peek at what could be Earth's ultimate fate in about 5 billion years when the sun reaches the end of its life and engulfs the solar system's inner planets including our own.