It’s never aliens until it is. Today, news leaked in the British newspaper The Guardian of a mysterious signal coming from the closest star to our own, Proxima Centauri, a star too dim to see from Earth with the naked eye that is nevertheless a cosmic stone’s throw away at just 4.2 light-years. Found this autumn in archival data gathered last year, the signal appears to emanate from the direction of our neighboring star and cannot yet be dismissed as Earth-based interference, raising the very faint prospect that it is a transmission from some form of advanced extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI)—a so-called “technosignature.” Now, speaking to Scientific American, the scientists behind the discovery caution there is still much work to be done, but admit the interest is justified. “It has some particular properties that caused it to pass many of our checks, and we cannot yet explain it,” says Andrew Siemion from the University of California, Berkeley.

Most curiously, it occupies a very narrow band of the radio spectrum: 982 megahertz, specifically, which is a region typically bereft of transmissions from human-made satellites and spacecraft. “We don’t know of any natural way to compress electromagnetic energy into a single bin in frequency” such as this one, Siemion says. Perhaps, he says, some as-yet-unknown exotic quirk of plasma physics could be a natural explanation for the tantalizingly concentrated radio waves. But “for the moment, the only source that we know of is technological.”

The detection was made by a $100 million project called Breakthrough Listen, led by Siemion and funded by tech billionaire Yuri Milner under the umbrella of Milner’s Breakthrough Initiatives. The goal of this multiyear endeavor—which began in 2015 with a star-studded announcement attended by Stephen Hawking and other space-science luminaries—is to buy observing time on radio telescopes around the world to search the skies for evidence of technological civilizations. That pursuit, of course, is more commonly known as the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). To date, no such evidence has conclusively been found despite more than a half century of modest-but-steady SETI activity, with any potential signals almost always ruled out as originating from satellites orbiting Earth or other human-caused interference.

“If you see such a signal and it’s not coming from the surface of Earth, you know you have detected extraterrestrial technology,” says Jason Wright, a SETI-centric astronomer at Penn State University in Pennsylvania. “Unfortunately, humans have launched a lot of extraterrestrial technology.”

The story of this latest SETI spectacle really began on April 29, 2019, when scientists affiliated with Breakthrough Listen started collecting the data that would later reveal the intriguing signal. A team had been using the Parkes radio telescope in Australia to study Proxima Centauri for signs of flares coming from the red dwarf star, in part to understand how such flares might affect Proxima’s planets. The system hosts at least two worlds.

The first, dubbed Proxima Centauri b upon its discovery in 2016, is about 1.2 times the size of Earth and in an 11-day orbit. Proxima b resides in the star’s “habitable zone,” a hazily defined sector in which liquid water could exist upon a rocky planet’s surface—provided, that is, Proxima Centauri’s intense stellar flares have not sputtered away a world’s atmosphere. Another planet, the roughly seven-Earth-mass Proxima c, was discovered in 2019 in a frigid 5.2-year orbit.

Using Parkes, the astronomers had observed the star for 26 hours as part of their stellar-flare study, but, as is routine within the Breakthrough Listen project, they also flagged the resulting data for a later look to seek out any candidate SETI signals.

The task fell to a young intern in Siemion’s SETI program at Berkeley, Shane Smith, who is also an undergraduate student at Hillsdale College in Michigan. Smith began sifting through the data in June of this year, but it was not until late October that he stumbled upon the curious narrowband emission, needle-sharp at 982.002 megahertz, hidden in plain view in the Proxima Centauri observations. From there, things happened fast—with good reason.

“It’s the most exciting signal that we’ve found in the Breakthrough Listen project, because we haven’t had a signal jump through this many of our filters before,” says Sofia Sheikh from Penn State University, who helmed the subsequent analysis of the signal for Breakthrough Listen and is the lead author on an upcoming paper detailing that work, which will be published in early 2021. Soon, the team began calling the signal by a more formal name: BLC1, for “Breakthrough Listen Candidate 1.”

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To pique any SETI researcher’s interest, a signal must first endure a barrage of simple automated tests to rule out obvious terrestrial interference. Hundreds of candidates, however, routinely pass this phase and are singled out for further investigation. From there, almost all will be dismissed as some mirage or error—perhaps an excess of static, for instance—that fooled the winnowing algorithm, eliminating them from consideration as any sort of transmission from talkative aliens. “Except this one,” Sheikh says.

Revisiting the data from 2019, Sheikh and her colleagues noted that the telescope had looked at Proxima multiple times in scans lasting 30 minutes over the course of a week. Breakthrough Listen uses a technique called “nodding,” where the telescope will spend a period of time looking at a target and then an equivalent period looking elsewhere in the sky, to check that any potential signal is truly coming from the target and not, say, someone microwaving their lunch in an observatory’s cafeteria. “In five of the 30-minute observations over about three hours we see this thing come back,” Sheikh says, a hint that the signal indeed originated from Proxima Centauri—or some other deep-space source in that part of the sky—before making its way to Earth.

One might think, then, that the case would be closed. But while a natural cosmic source may seem unlikely, it cannot yet be ruled out—and, the thinking goes, as unlikely as a natural explanation might be, an “unnatural” explanation such as aliens is even less likely still. Consequently, every member of the Breakthrough Listen team interviewed for this article steadfastly insists the chance of this being anything other than terrestrial interference is exceedingly remote. “The most likely thing is that it’s some human cause,” says Pete Worden, executive director of the Breakthrough Initiatives. “And when I say most likely, it’s like 99.9 [percent].”

That rational skepticism extends all the way to the top. “When we launched Breakthrough Listen with Stephen Hawking in 2015,” Milner says, “it was understood that the most rigorous scientific approach will be used to analyze all candidate signals.” Milner and seemingly all the SETI researchers his funding supports fully expect BLC1 to wither away under the project’s now-intense scrutiny. But, just maybe, it won’t.

Proxima Centauri

For the time being, months of further analysis are in store to definitively rule out other potential sources. And BLC1 itself, while seeming to come from Proxima Centauri, does not quite fit expectations for a techno signature from that system. First, the signal bears no trace of modulation—tweaks to its properties that can be used to convey information. “BLC1 is, for all intents and purposes, just a tone, just one note,” Siemion says. “It has absolutely no additional features that we can discern at this point.” And second, the signal “drifts,” meaning that it appears to be changing very slightly in frequency—an effect that could be due to the motion of our planet, or of a moving extraterrestrial source such as a transmitter on the surface of one of Proxima Centauri’s worlds. But the drift is the reverse of what one would naively expect for a signal originating from a world twirling around our sun’s nearest neighboring star. “We would expect the signal to be going down in frequency like a trombone,” Sheikh says. “What we see instead is like a slide whistle—the frequency goes up.”

So far, follow-up observations using Parkes have failed to turn up the signal again, with a repeat observation being a necessity to confirm that BLC1 is a genuine technosignature. “If it’s an ETI it must eventually be replicable, because it’s unlikely it would be a one-off,” says Shami Chatterjee, a radio astronomer from Cornell University in New York. “If an independent team at an independent observatory can recover the same signal, then hell yes. I would bet money that they won’t, but I would love to be wrong.”

Nonetheless, it remains one of the most intriguing signals found by Breakthrough Listen—or indeed any SETI program—to date, one that Sheikh compares to the so-called “Wow! signal” detected in 1977, which some believed to be of extraterrestrial origin. “I think it’s on par with the Wow! signal,” she says. More likely than not, however, this is simply some previously unknown source of Earth-based interference. In a few months, we’ll likely know for certain one way or another. But for the time being, it’s never aliens … right? “I hate that phrase, because if you say that then why even look,” Wright says. “What we mean by that is that it’s never been aliens before.”

Originally Published on: scientificamerican.com

The Trump administration turned down Pfizer vaccine offer for additional doses of its COVID-19 vaccine – and now additional supplies to vaccinate Americans might not be available until June. 

The New York Times first reported that Pfizer had made the offer, saying it came in late summer – and that the administration had declined. 

It came on the heels of Fox News Channel reporting that President Donald Trump planned to sign an executive order that would ‘ensure that United States government prioritizes getting the vaccine to American citizens before sending it to other nations.’  

pfizer vaccine

Under the current Pfizer order, the U.S. government will get 100 million doses, which is only enough to vaccinate 50 million Americans. Pfizer has made commitments to other countries, which could cause the delay. 

It’s unclear whether the outgoing president’s executive order would be able to force Pfizer’s hand.  

President Donald Trump was incensed after good news on the coronavirus pfizer vaccine front came after the November 3 presidential election 

The White House invited Psizer CEO Albert Bourla (left) and Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel to Tuesday’s ‘Vaccine Summit,’ an invitation they both declined, according to STAT

Psizer told The Times in a statement that ‘any additional doses beyond the 100 million are subject to a separate and mutually acceptable agreement.’ 

‘The company is not able to comment on any confidential discussions that may be taking place with the U.S. government,’ the statement said. 

Earlier, STAT reported that the heads of Pfizer and Moderna turned down an invitation to appear at Tuesday’s White House ‘Vaccine Summit,’ where Trump will sign the executive order.  

Also read: Female boxer Viviane Obenauf is arrested for beating husband to death

He’s charged vaccine-makers with holding back good news until after the November 3 election, which he lost to Democratic President-elect Joe Biden. 

Trump has refused to concede.  

Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla and Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel had been invited to appear Tuesday in Washington and declined.  

The president is expected to take credit for the quick development of vaccines through Operation Warp Speed at the summit, as well as pressure the Food and Drug Administration to quickly approve an emergency use authorization for both companies’ products. 

The snub is predictable, as Trump has especially been at odds with Pfizer after executive Kathrin Jansen, the head of vaccine research and development, said on November 10 that this particular vaccine wasn’t part of Operation Warp Speed. 

Pfizer didn’t take federal dollars for development of the vaccine, but signed on to sell $1.95 billion of it to the U.S. government, thus ensuring there would be a marketplace. 

Bourla defended the company’s decision not to take federal funds saying that Pfizer wanted to ‘liberate our scientists from any bureaucracy’ and ‘keep Pfizer out of politics.’ 

But on November 9 – six days after the presidential election and two days after President-elect Joe Biden was deemed the winner – Pfizer announced the findings that the company’s vaccine was 95 per cent effective against COVID-19. 

Trump was incensed. 

‘As I have long said, @Pfizer and the others would only announce a Vaccine after the Election, because they didn’t have the courage to do it before. Likewise, the @US_FDA should have announced it earlier, not for political purposes, but for saving lives!’ Trump tweeted that night. ‘The @US_FDA and the Democrats didn’t want to have me get a Pfizer vaccine WIN, prior to the election, so instead it came out five days later — As I’ve said all along!’

The Washington Post reported on November 11 that Trump blamed the ‘medical deep state’ and the Food and Drug Administration for the post-election announcement. 

Other major companies will send representatives to the Tuesday White House summit. 

They include FedEx, UPS, CVS, Walgreens and McKesson, STAT reported.

A handout from the White House showed that there would be a focus on vaccine distribution. 

Biden, in remarks last week, suggested the Operation Warp Speed plan wasn’t fully developed. 

‘There is no detailed plan that we’ve seen anyway as to how you get the vaccine out of a container into an injection syringe into somebody’s arm,’ Biden said. 

Dr. Moncef Slaoui, the chief adviser to Operation Warp Speed, said Sunday he had plans to meet with Biden this week.  

Read more at DailyMail.co.uk

Female boxer Viviane Obenauf, 34, is arrested on suspicion of beating to death the 66-year-old Swiss hotelier husband she married in January

• Professional boxer Viviane Obenauf is accused of murdering her Swiss husband 
• She allegedly beat him to death in his restaurant Des Alpes on October 19
• She was arrested this week and is currently in investigative custody 

A professional female boxer Viviane Obenauf from Brazil – a three-time world championship challenger – has been arrested on suspicion of killing her wealthy Swiss hotelier husband.

Brazilian born Viviane Obenauf, 34, is accused of beating her husband Thomas, 61, to death in his restaurant Des Alpes at Interlaken in Switzerland on October 19. 

She was arrested this week and is currently in investigative custody after the victim died from a ‘sustained violent assault’.

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Brazilian born Viviane Obenauf, 34, is accused of beating her husband Thomas, 61, to death in his restaurant Des Alpes at Interlaken in Switzerland on October 19

Viviane Obenauf

She was arrested this week and is currently in investigative custody after the victim died from a ‘sustained violent assault’ 

The couple had only married in January and detectives are now looking into claims that she was responsible for his death.

People who knew her said that she was not shy of taking on women or men outside of the ring if she lost her temper.

According to a report in Swiss newspaper Blick, she had been arrested in London when a man in a nightclub tried to grope her bottom while she was celebrating her 30th birthday and she punched him in the face. 

Obenauf was born in Rio de Janeiro, and as a youngster she played football and was an Olympic gymnast before turning to boxing at the age of 18

The couple, pictured above, had only married in January and detectives are now looking into claims that she was responsible for his death

The incident meant that she spent several hours in a jail cell in October 2016.

Obenauf was born in Rio de Janeiro, and as a youngster she played football and was an Olympic gymnast before turning to boxing at the age of 18.

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She began working in the gastronomy industry in Switzerland after retiring from the sport and then later opened her own gym.

On her homepage she says she has a son called Calvin and spending time with him is the best thing she enjoys in a day.

She began working in the gastronomy industry in Switzerland after retiring from the sport and then later opened her own gym

Read more at DailyMail.co.uk