#mctic

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Dark energy camera captures galaxies in lopsided tug of war, a prelude to merger

Galaxies grow and evolve over billions of years by absorbing nearby companions and merging with other galaxies. The early stages of this galactic growth process are showcased in a new image taken with the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Dark Energy Camera (DECam) mounted on the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO), a Program of NSF’s NOIRLab.

The massive barred spiral galaxy NGC 1532, also known as Haley’s Coronet, is located about 55 million light-years away in the direction of the southern constellation Eridanus (the river). Its sweeping spiral arms are seen edge-on from Earth, with the nearer arm dipping downward and the receding arm lurching upward as it tugs upon its smaller, dwarf companion galaxy NGC 1531. These gravitationally bound galaxies will eventually become one, as NGC 1532 completely consumes its smaller companion.

Despite its small stature, however, the dwarf galaxy has also been exerting a noticeable gravitational influence on its larger companion, distorting one of its spiral arms, which can be seen rising above the galactic plane. Additionally, plumes of gas and dust can be seen between the two galaxies, like a bridge of stellar matter held in place by the competing tidal forces. This interaction has also triggered bursts of star formation within both galaxies. 

This lopsided cosmic tug of war is a snapshot of how large galaxies grow and evolve by devouring smaller galaxies, absorbing their stars and star-forming material. A similar process has happened in the Milky Way, possibly six times in the past, leaving vast streams of stars and other signs in the halo of the Milky Way. 

The process of absorbing a smaller companion galaxy is starkly different from the cataclysmic merger of two spiral galaxies of comparable size. In the latter case, two massive galaxies collide to form an entirely distinct galaxy with its own shape and characteristics. This type of galactic merger will happen to the Milky Way when it merges with the Andromeda Galaxy four billion years from now. 

DECam, with its unparalleled wide-field imaging capabilities, gives astronomers highly detailed views of these large-scale galactic interactions. It also has the remarkable sensitivity, with the help of the 4-meter Blanco telescope, needed to detect faint objects in our Solar System and to trace the influence of dark matter on galaxies across the visible Universe. Currently, DECam is used for programs covering a wide range of science.

More informationNSF’s NOIRLab (National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory), the US center for ground-based optical-infrared astronomy, operates the international Gemini Observatory (a facility of NSF, NRC–Canada, ANID–Chile, MCTIC–Brazil, MINCyT–Argentina, and KASI–Republic of Korea), Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO), Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO), the Community Science and Data Center (CSDC), and Vera C. Rubin Observatory (in cooperation with DOE’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory). It is managed by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) under a cooperative agreement with NSF and is headquartered in Tucson, Arizona. The astronomical community is honored to have the opportunity to conduct astronomical research on Iolkam Du’ag (Kitt Peak) in Arizona, on Maunakea in Hawai‘i, and on Cerro Tololo and Cerro Pachón in Chile. We recognize and acknowledge the very significant cultural role and reverence that these sites have to the Tohono O'odham Nation, to the Native Hawaiian community, and to the local communities in Chile, respectively.

IMAGE....The spiral galaxy NGC 1532, also known as Haley’s Coronet, is caught in a lopsided tug of war with its smaller neighbor, the dwarf galaxy NGC 1531. The image — taken by the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Dark Energy Camera mounted on the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, a Program of NSF’s NOIRLab — captures the mutual gravitational influences of a massive- and dwarf-galaxy merger.  CREDIT  CTIO/NOIRLab/DOE/NSF/AURA Roberto Colombari, M. Zamani & D. de Martin (NSF’s NOIRLab)

[sciencespies]

The case of Latin America's mysterious disappearing (and reappearing) white-lipped peccaries

https://sciencespies.com/nature/the-case-of-latin-americas-mysterious-disappearing-and-reappearing-white-lipped-peccaries/

The case of Latin America's mysterious disappearing (and reappearing) white-lipped peccaries

A collaborative study published in PLOS ONE,  documents the periodic disappearance (and reappearance) of white-lipped peccaries in nine countries in South and Central America. The authors say the population fluctuations may represent the first documented case of natural population cyclicity in a Neotropical mammal.

The study is led by the Departamento de Zoologia, Universidade de Brasilia, and co-authored by more than 20 other organizations including the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS).

White-lipped peccaries (Tayassu pecari) are pig-like hoofed mammals native to the tropical forests of Central and South America. They are extremely social, forming large herds of up to hundreds of animals. Peccary researchers from Mexico to the Amazon have been intrigued by the sudden disappearance of white-lipped peccary populations across large areas, as well as reports of previous disappearances and subsequent reappearance.

The study shows that over 20–30-year population cycles, the disappearances represent seven-to-twelve-year troughs when peccaries vanish. These can occur simultaneously at regional and perhaps continent-wide spatial scales as large as 10,000–5 million square kilometers (3,861-1.9 million square miles).

The study suggests that the mysterious disappearances may be triggered by populations growing too big, and crashes are likely facilitated by different causes, including disease outbreaks, and underscores the need for more long-term studies to better understand the causes.

The ground-breaking study, which relies on collaboration and detective work to document 43 different disappearances at 38 sites in nine countries, also incorporates 88 years of commercial and subsistence harvest data from the Amazon. It confirms that this poorly-known species which is so ecologically important to neotropical forests, as well as culturally and socio-economically crucial to the Indigenous Peoples and local communities who live in these forests, has large-scale and long-term population cycles.

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From an ecological perspective, the white-lipped peccaryis considered a keystone species as they influence forest regeneration and plant populations, especially palms, through seed predation and foraging and turnover of leaf litter. They are also considered ecological engineers through their maintenance and expansion of forest mineral licks and wallows, which benefit many other wildlife species. In addition, they are the preferred prey of Latin Americas’ apex predator, the jaguar (Panthera onca). When peccaries disappear, jaguar populations decline.

White-lipped peccaries are immensely important from a socio-cultural perspective, as a preferred subsistence hunting target for Indigenous Peoples and riverine and rural communities across their range. This significance is reflected in the stories, oral history and art of many of Latin America’s Indigenous Peoples. Indeed, some Indigenous Peoples have stories which refer to the peccaries disappearing and reappearing.

The lead author of the study, Dr. Jose Fragoso from the Departamento de Zoologia, Universidade de Brasilia, Brasilia, DF, Brazil, the Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazonia (INPA/MCTIC), Manaus, Brazil and the California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco, California, said: “This analysis highlights the importance of very large, continuous natural areas that enable source-sink population dynamics and ensure re-colonization and local population persistence in time and space for perhaps the fundamental keystone species for neotropical forests. It also highlights how working with indigenous peoples can help resolve mysteries in biology.  Our work also resolves a key question in tropical ecology, what happens to white-lipped peccaries when they disappear.”

Senior author Dr. Mariana Altricher, from the Environmental Studies Department, Prescott College, Arizona, believes that “this work clarifies an enduring mystery in tropical forests. It will help guide future research and conservation efforts in the tropics. Most importantly we must continue to monitor peccary populations, especially in fragmented protected areas”.

Dr. Harald Beck, Co-Chair of the IUCN Peccary Specialist Group, and one of the authors of the study, said: “This unique publication has a large-scale focus (Central and South America), utilized historical and current data, and state of the art new modeling methods to answer critical ecological questions about the spatial-temporal population fluctuations of the dominant Neotropical mammal, the white-lipped peccary. The paper will guide future research in the Neotropics, as well as influence conservation efforts and policies.”

Dr. Rob Wallace, Senior Conservation Scientist at WCS and one of the co-authors of the study remarked: “WCS remains committed to landscape-scale conservation at a series of Nature’s Strongholds in Latin America, which is fundamental for wide-ranging species like the white-lipped peccary, especially considering these population cycles. Understanding these natural population cycles will be crucial for interpreting our population monitoring efforts, which represents the gold standard for evaluating our conservation impact, not just for white-lipped peccaries themselves as a keystone species and socio-cultural touchstone, but also the other wildlife with which they coexist – lowland tapir, collared peccaries, leaf litter biodiversity, a number of palm species, plant diversity, and, of course, the jaguar.”

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Study authors were: Jose ? M. V. Fragoso1,2,3*, Andre ? P. Antunes2,4, Kirsten M. Silvius5, Pedro A.L. Constantino4, Galo Zapata-Rios6, Hani R. El Bizri7,8, Richard E. Bodmer9,10, Micaela Camino11,12, Benoit de Thoisy13, Robert B. Wallace14, Thais Q. Morcatty8,15, Pedro Mayor16,17, Cecile Richard-Hansen18, Mathew T. Hallett19,20,21, Rafael A. Reyna- Hurtado22, H. Harald Beck23, Soledad de Bustos24,25, Alexine Keuroghlian26, Alessandra Nava27, Olga L. Montenegro28, Ennio Painkow Neto29, Mariana Altrichter30.

1 Departamento de Zoologia, Universidade de Brasilia, Brasilia, DF, Brazil

2 Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazonia (INPA/MCTIC), Manaus, Brazil

3 California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco, California, USA

4 RedeFauna–Rede de Pesquisa em Diversidade, Conservaca?o e Uso da Fauna da Amazonia, Tefe ?, Amazonas, Brazil

5 Department of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia, USA

6 Wildlife Conservation Society– Ecuador Program, Quito, Ecuador

7 Department of Natural Sciences, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, UK

8 Instituto de Desenvolvimento Sustentavel Mamiraua ?, Tefe ?, Amazonas, Brazil

9 Museum of Amazonian Cultures-Fundamazonia, Iquitos, Loreto, Peru ?

10 DICE, School of Anthropology & Conservation, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK

11 Proyecto Quimilero, Roosevelt 4344, CABA, Resistencia, Argentina

12 EDGE of Existence—Zoological Society of London, Regent’s Park, London, England, UK

13 Kwata NGO, Cayenne, French Guiana

14 Wildlife Conservation Society, Bronx, New York, USA

15 Department of Social Sciences, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, United Kingdom

16 Departament de Sanitat i d’Anatomia Animals, Facultat de Veterina?ria, Universitat Auto?noma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, Spain

17 Museo de Culturas Indigenas Amazonicas, Loreto, Iquitos, Peru

18 Office Francais de la Biodiversite ?-DRAS/SCGEEUMREcoFoG, Kourou, France

19 Department of Wildlife Ecology & Conservation, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, USA

20 Institute for the Environment & Sustainability, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, USA

21 Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), Bogor, Indonesia

22 El Colegio de la Frontera Sur -Unidad Campeche, Campeche, Campeche, Mexico

23 Department of Biological Sciences, Towson University, Towson, Baltimore, Maryland, USA

24 Secretari?a de Ambiente y Desarrollo Sustentable de Salta, Santiago del Estero, Salta, Argentina

25 Fundacio ? n Biodiversidad Argentina, Suipacha, Argentina

26 Peccary Project/IUCN/SSC Peccary Specialist Group, Campo Grande, Brazil

27 Fiocruz ILMD Amazon, Adriano ? polis, Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil

28 Instituto de Ciencias Naturales, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogota ?, Colombia

29 Tropical Sustainability Institute–TSI, Carapicu ??ba, Sa?o Paulo, Brazil

30 Faculty Environmental Studies, Prescott College, Prescott, Arizona, USA

#Nature

[estrategiaconcursos]

Concurso MCTIC: órgão faz pedido de novo certame para 1.116 vagas May 18, 2022 at 05:38PM

O Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia, Inovações e Comunicações realizou um pedido de novo concurso público para provimento de 1.116 vagas distribuídas entre a Administração Central e as Unidades de Pesquisa da Autarquia. (Concurso MCTIC) https://ift.tt/aJiE4jO

[manoelvalentefn]

“Os passos gravados na alma do ser-humano. A partida ao projeto. A prosperidade. As bases do solo. Nossas próprias histórias entrelaçadas em esperanças que prospectivam o futuro. Que todos os esforços se revertam para o bem dos povos e da humanidade em geral. O crescimento econômico, aliado ao desenvolvimento humano. O local pelo regional, que, no nacional, promove o global. É por isso que torcemos e é nisso que acreditamos!” (Manoel Valente Figueiredo Neto, em 16 de julho de 2021, encerramento da Primeira Feira Nacional do #Grafeno pela @ucs_oficial ). #cienciaetecnologia #mctic #inovaçãotecnológica #niobio #nanotecnologia #feiradografeno #universidadedecaxiasdosul #startup #startupbrasil #startupbusiness #startuplifestyle (em UCS Oficial) https://www.instagram.com/p/CRcDcZJtWyj/?utm_medium=tumblr

[thefearlesslover]

Not going to lie but miss reputation so much lately but wouldn’t want to go back to it. If you know what I mean ??

[cosmogirlsproject]

OBSAT: a nova olimpíada científica brasileira! Eai, Cosmogirls! Como estão? Acabou de sair uma notícia fresquinha na live do Instagram da Agência Espacial Brasileira!

[gifsdefisica]

Agora coloque o que em ação! Link na bio: https://is.gd/6Bod5h #ministromarcospontes #mctic #MarcosPontes #ciêncianãoégastoéinvestimento https://www.instagram.com/p/BzsILKUjsEV/?igshid=1wuzex371l8c8

[erikaalvesoficial]

Este #tbt de hoje reúne 3 momentos, o primeiro é do ministro Marcos Pontes @astropontes - Ministério de Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovações @mctic, esteve no Centro de Inovação e Tecnologia de Barueri em 2/7/2020 acompanhado do Secretário de Empreendedorismo e Inovação Sr. Paulo Alvim e comitiva, fez uma Visita Técnica para Lançamento da plataforma Virtual Inovação Barueri e Canal TV Inovação Barueri. O segundo foi a participação no Programa CIT EM AÇÃO onde participei em 2 momentos, falando sobre a nossos estrutura do Inovação Barueri. E no programa Governo 4.0, substituindo meu querido amigo @nil63 para tratar da nova funcionalidade do App Barueri onde pude receber a tão simpática e agradável Secretária da SADS, Dra Adriana Bueno Molina. Experiências incríveis neste período de tempo tão curto de menos de uma mês e meio que ficou no ar a TV INOVAÇÃO BARUERI. Contudo, neste período de pausa, em atendimento a lei eleitoral, estamos trabalhando nos bastidores para trazer uma programação diversificada e incrível para todos! Agradeço todos os convidados, equipe e audiência que tornaram este projeto tão grandioso. Deixa eu contar uma história: Na minha primeira visita a NASA, quem fez o tour comigo foi o nosso querido ministro @astropontes! Vou recuperar este vídeo para trazer para vocês! #inovacaobarueri #citbarueri #mctic #astropontes #prefeituradebarueri #erikaalvesoficial #transformacional #tbt #transformacao https://www.instagram.com/p/CFisG6fpnpu/?igshid=zfpqq7r8fg9w

[rlimarjbr]

#Lançamento #SpaceX #Demo2 #SpaceXDemo2 #RobertBehnken #DougHurley #DM2 #Comentários #Astronauta #MarcosPontes #AoVivo #QuartaFeira #27DeMaio #Ano2020 #MCTIC #Brasil #BR #Tecnologia #MaioDe2020 #17H #MinistérioDaCiência ... https://www.instagram.com/p/CArPQr0nQ_T/?igshid=10vpamk92lp5m

[luiscavalcante]

Olá! Várias pessoas estão me procurando para oferecerem soluções tecnológicas maravilhosas para o combate ao Coronavírus! Por favor, se você é uma delas, cadastre sua ideia, produto ou serviço no site do MCTIC - Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia, Inovações e Comunicações . Há uma equipe fazendo a seleção de todos os projetos. Se precisar de algo, me avise! Obrigada e sucesso!!! #mctic #inovação #ciência #tecnologia https://lnkd.in/dxEBz_9 https://www.instagram.com/p/B-uVGD0nXvl/?igshid=lju57wegcemk

[illuminarch]

Microsoft anuncia a criação de um AI Industry Board no Brasil

A Microsoftanunciou a criação de um AI Industry Board (Comitê da Indústria para Inteligência Artificial) em conjunto com outras empresas e organizações. A primeira reunião do grupo, que tem a proposta de se reunir trimestralmente para discutir o uso ético e responsável da IA, além dos desafios e oportunidades trazidos pela tecnologia, contou com a presença de executivos de empresas como Bradesco,…

[andreduartecorretor-blog]

Visitando a exposição da MCTIC no Pavilhão! Família reunida com sobrinho fofo. Valeu Nick!! . . . . . #mctic #MCTIC #snct2019 #snct #snctmctic #mctictecnologia #mcticciencia ##mcticciência #mcticinovações #semana #tecnologia #inovações #ciencia #virtual #exercito #marinha #aeronautica #forcaaerea #ministeriodatecnologia #futuro #feiradeciencia #digital #unb #brasil #brasilia #parquedacidade (em Parque Da Cidade Sarah Kubitschek) https://www.instagram.com/p/B4KnsMdjRog/?igshid=171ckye7kdr67

[paulamath]

#Repost @olimpiadabrasileiraderobotica • • • • • É apaixonado por robótica mas tem mais de 19 anos? Seja um voluntário na Modalidade Prática da OBR. Acesse : http://www.obr.org.br/modalidade-pratica/programa-de-voluntariado-obr/ #programadevoluntariado #sejavoluntario #modalidadepratica #obr #OBRobotica #obr2019 #eufaçorobôs #cnpq #mctic #mec #robotica #olimpiadabrasileiraderobotica https://www.instagram.com/p/B0Ii7IJHfiI/?igshid=nibxcrmlfah5

[matheusruniverse]

Café com Projetos - PMI-DF & MCTIC (Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia, Inovações e Comunicações) Na próxima semana, no dia 26 de abril, das 08h às 12h, o PMI-DF realizará em parceria com o MCTIC o segundo Café com Projetos de 2019! O evento será no Auditório do Ministério das Ciência, Tecnologia, Inovação e Comunicações – Bloco R – Esplanada dos ministérios. Dentre os nomes que participarão do evento, estão o Ministro Marcos Pontes, uma das fundadoras do PMI-DF, Margareth Carneiro, Maurício Pazini, atual Secretário de Tecnologias Aplicadas e por fim, não menos importante, Gino Terentim, vice-presidente do PMI-DF e Coordenador-geral de gerenciamento de projetos na Caixa Econômica Federal. Contamos com sua presença! Compartilhe o evento com seus amigos! O evento é gratuito e valem 2 PDUs. Inscrições: http://bit.ly/CafeComProjetosMCTIC “Coisas boas acontecem quando você se envolve com o PMI!” #pmidf #mctic #cafecomprojetos #inovação #tecnologia #gopmidf #pmi #gestãodeprojetos (em Federal District) https://www.instagram.com/p/BwdHv5hDgpL/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1i61gqixo6544