West Virginia

Scientists say radio signals from deep space could be aliens

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Scientists say radio signals from deep space could be aliens

Scientists may have found proof that E.T. really is phoning home — in the form of powerful radio signals, which have been detected repeatedly in the same exact location in space.

Astronomy experts with the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia and the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico have discovered six new fast radio bursts (FRBs) emanating from a region far beyond our Milky Way galaxy, according to a recent report in the Astrophysical Journal.

The discovery — made in the direction of the constellation Auriga — is significant considering the fact that at least 17 FRBs have now been detected in this area. It is also the only known instance in which these signals have been found twice in the same location in space.

The region where the signals are coming from, dubbed FRB 121102 by scientists, is about 3 billion light years away from Earth.

Five of the recently found FRBs were detected with the Green Bank Telescope, while the other was recorded by the Arecibo Observatory, “for a total of 17 bursts from this source,” the report says.

The signals were also found earlier this year and in 2012.

According to experts, the FRBs could be the result of two things: solar flares from a neutron star or extra-terrestrials. But it’s still too early to tell.

“Whether FRB 121102 is a unique object in the currently known sample of FRBs, or all FRBs are capable of repeating, its characterization is extremely important to understanding fast extragalactic radio transients,” the scientists write in their report.

In 2015, physicist John Learned, with the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and Michael Hippke, with the Institute for Data Analysis, published a research paper arguing that repeating FRB waves had a 1 in 2,000 chance of being coincidental.

They claimed the radio bursts either came from a man-made spy satellite or a super-dense star, which would regularly emit bursts of radio waves.

Earlier this year, a team of astronomers from Laval University in Quebec published a report saying they had detected strange signals in a small cluster of stars.

Using data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, the pair analyzed the spectra of 2.5 million different stars and discovered at least 234 that were producing the signals.

“We find that the detected signals have exactly the shape of an ETI [extraterrestrial intelligence] signal,” wrote Ermanno Borra and Eric Trottier. “Although unlikely … there is also a possibility that the signals are due to highly peculiar chemical compositions in a small fraction of galactic halo stars.”

Daily Walk Can Help Teenagers Quit Smoking.

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According to a study published online in the Journal of Adolescent Health, teen smokers who increased the days on which they got just 20 minutes of exercise were able to cut down on their smoking habit.

“This study adds to evidence suggesting that exercise can help teenagers who are trying to quit smoking,” explained lead author Dr Kimberly Horn from the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services.

“Teens who boosted the number of days on which they engaged in at least 20 minutes of exercise, equivalent to a short walk, were more likely than their peers to resist lighting up a cigarette.”

Dr Horn’s team tracked 233 teenagers from 19 high schools in West Virginia. The participants were daily smokers with other risky behaviors.

“It is not unusual for teenage smokers to engage in other unhealthy habits,” Dr Horn said. “Smoking and physical inactivity often go hand in hand.”

The average teenager in the study smoked a half a pack on weekdays and a whopping pack a day on the weekends.

A previous study of the same group compared 3 types of programs aimed at getting the participants to stop or cut down on smoking. That study found that an intensive smoking cessation intervention combined with a fitness program was the most successful way to help teenagers quit.

In the current study, Dr Horn’s team looked to see if an increase in physical activity would help teens quit regardless of the type of intervention. Some teenagers went through an intensive anti-smoking program combined with a fitness intervention while others just got the smoking cessation program and still others listened to a short anti-smoking lecture.

The researchers found that all of the teens increased their exercise activity to some degree – just by virtue of being in the study. However, teens who reported increasing the number of days in which they got just 20 minutes a day of exercise were able to significantly cut back on the cigarettes they smoked.

“Certainly, the study has limitations,” Dr Horn said. “We don’t fully understand the clinical relevance of ramping up daily activity to 20 or 30 minutes a day with these teens. But we do know that even modest improvements in exercise may have health benefits. Our study supports the idea that encouraging one healthy behavior can serve to promote another, and it shows that teens, often viewed as resistant to behavior change, can tackle two health behaviors at once.”

“Additional research must confirm the key findings and prove that they apply to all teen smokers and not just those in West Virginia,” Dr Horn said.

Source: /www.sci-news.com