Latest news with #Faherty
Perth Now
14-06-2025
- General
- Perth Now
Exclusive Perth golf club could be getting new beehives
A local beekeeper is hoping to expand his honey production by using Swanbourne's Cottesloe Golf Club to house up to 20 hives. John Faherty has run Postcode Honey for about 10 years, producing naturally sourced honey from about 50 hives scattered around Perth. Some are in backyards, others on the rooftops of hotels in Perth's CBD. And some already exist in suburban golf courses — a space Mr Faherty hopes to get more into in conjunction with Cottesloe Golf Club in Swanbourne. Your local paper, whenever you want it. 'It's kind of a logical place for beehives to be put in cities, because most councils limit you to having a maximum of two in residential backyards, which is understandable,' he said. Despite golf courses being best known for velvety green turf, the areas of 'rough' between fairways that golfers prefer to avoid are seen as a safe haven for all types of flora and fauna. And by extension, bees and their hives. A local beekeeper is hoping to expand his honey production by using Swanbourne's Cottesloe Golf Club to house up to 20 hives. Credit: Daniel Wilkins / The West Australian 'I've kept hives at Wembley Golf Course for about eight years, and I know quite a few other beekeepers who have kept bees on golf courses in the past,' Mr Faherty said. 'There's normally plenty of access to water, there's normally lots of trees and and they don't create a nuisance.' Between the fairways lies significant vegetation, often featuring native bushland with a diversity of plant species — a perfect setting for bees to live and pollinate, Cottesloe's Golf Course CEO Tracey-Lea Tiley said. Some of the hives kept at Wembley Golf Course. Credit: Supplied Ms Tiley has welcomed Mr Faherty's plan and the potential addition of bees. Bee keeper and producer of North Perth-based Postcode Honey, John Faherty. Credit: Supplied 'We're really all about improving sustainability and biodiversity here ... we have beautiful wildlife here like quenda families and cockatoos. 'So it's really about trying to encourage wildlife to come and settle here at Cott.' A handful of Mr Faherty's hives were first installed at the course last September, with the honey sourced and sold to members as 'Pots of Cott' or used at the on-course restaurant. However, it wasn't long before the bees were moved further inland, where for seasonal reasons they could produce more honey. The City of Nedlands says Mr Faherty's current intention must be assessed by its environment officers and final permission lies with the council, which is scheduled to make a decision later this month. Council staff have recommended approval. 'I'm really hopeful that the city will approve the hives, given we already installed them before without any concerns,' Mr Faherty said.
Yahoo
10-06-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Astronomy show accidentally reveals unseen structure in our solar system
An accidental discovery might change how we think about one of the most mysterious structures in our solar system. The Oort Cloud, a large expanse of icy bodies revolving around the sun at a distance 1,000 times greater than the orbit of Neptune, is widely thought to be spherical — although it has never been directly observed. But during the preproduction of a show titled 'Encounters in the Milky Way,' which debuted Monday at the Hayden Planetarium in New York City, a projection on the planetarium's dome revealed something strange within the Oort Cloud: a spiral. The curators were testing out a scene in September that includes a detailed view of Earth's celestial neighborhood — from the sun to the solar system's outer edges — and were surprised when they saw the structure, which looked coincidentally similar to a spiral galaxy such as our own. 'We hit play on the scene, and immediately we saw it. It was just there,' recalled Jackie Faherty, an astrophysicist at the American Museum of Natural History and the curator of the show. 'I was confused and thought that was super weird. I didn't know if it was an artifact, I didn't know if it was real.' To investigate, Faherty got in touch with David Nesvorny, an institute scientist with the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, and the Oort Cloud expert who had provided scientific data for the scene. 'We didn't create it — David did,' Faherty said. 'This is David's simulation, and it's grounded in physics. It has a totally good physical explanation for why it should be there.' At first, Nesvorny suspected artifacts — abnormalities or distortions in the data visualization — but once he looked at his data, he confirmed the presence of the spiral and eventually published a scientific paper about the discovery in April in The Astrophysical Journal. 'Weird way to discover things,' he said. 'I should know my data better, after years of working with it.' The existence of the Oort Cloud was first proposed in 1950 by Dutch astronomer Jan Oort, who imagined it as a shell of icy bodies swirling around the sun from up to 1.5 light-years away. The cloud is the most distant region in our solar system, stretching as much as halfway to the next star, according to NASA. It's composed of leftovers from the making of our solar system, which were scattered in every direction by the planets after they formed. That means many of the icy bodies in the Oort Cloud don't share the same orbital plane as the solar system itself but travel at various inclinations, which is why the Oort Cloud is pictured as a sphere. If one of those icy bodies gets flung inward toward the sun, the heat starts vaporizing some of the material in the body, creating a tail — and what we call a comet. 'Every now and again, some of these icy bodies come into the inner solar system, and we can see the orbit that they're on,' Faherty said. 'And they're on these really crazy, long orbits. It can take them millions of years to go around the sun. And when they come in, they help us understand how far away they may have come from.' The problem with trying to imagine what the Oort Cloud looks like is that scientists have never seen it, even though we are technically surrounded by it. That's because the bodies that make it up are small — fewer than 60 miles (97 kilometers) in diameter — and even though they potentially number in the trillions, they are far away, making observations with telescopes difficult. The spiral was hiding in Nesvorny's data because he had never thought of visualizing it three-dimensionally. 'I never looked at it in Cartesian coordinates — I didn't have a good reason to do so,' he said. 'But once you do that, it's obvious. It's there.' To confirm the findings, Nesvorny used one of the most powerful computers in the world, NASA's Pleiades Supercomputer, to run simulations that took weeks to complete. 'I thought, maybe just this particular simulation (I gave the planetarium) is showing it, and all the other simulations with other stellar encounters, other parameters, will not show it, in which case it wouldn't be so interesting,' he said. 'But all the simulations, all the models I have, show the spiral.' The reason it's there, he said, is that objects in the Oort Cloud are far away enough from the sun's gravity that they also start being affected by the galactic tide — the gravitational field of our galaxy, exerted by the stars and the dark matter in it. This field is acting on the small bodies and comets in the Oort Cloud by twisting their orbital planes to create a spiral. The spiral, Nesvorny added, is in the inner part of the Oort Cloud, the closest to us, and he still believes that the outer portion is spherical or shell-shaped. The problem of observing the Oort Cloud remains, even though the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, a powerful telescope that recently came online in Chile, could offer a hand by discovering and observing individual icy bodies in the cloud. However, according to Nesvorny, the telescope will likely discover dozens of these bodies — not the hundreds that would be required to produce a meaningful visualization of the spiral. The spiral theory helps to illuminate the dynamics of our solar system, according to Faherty. 'If you're going to come up with a theory of how solar systems evolve, you should take into account the kind of shapes you might have in their structure,' she said. 'Maybe comets helped deliver water to Earth. Maybe the building blocks of life could be out there in the Oort Cloud, so if you want to talk about the potential building blocks of life that surround our solar system, you need to understand its shape.' It's a 'dream,' she added, to be able to present science so recent in a show aimed at the general public. 'I truly believe that the planetarium, the dome itself, is a research tool,' Faherty said. 'I like to say that this is science that hasn't had time to reach your textbook yet.' The spiral finding is a wonderful example of just how much we can learn through visualizing the universe in new ways, said Malena Rice, an assistant professor of astronomy at Yale University who did not participate in the study. 'This result reshapes our mental image of our home solar system, while also providing a new sense for what extrasolar systems' Oort clouds may look like,' Rice added. 'It unites our models of the solar system with what we know about the broader galaxy, placing it into context as a dynamic system. We are not static, and we are not isolated — our solar system is shaped by its broader ecosystem, and the Oort spiral exemplifies that.' While the paper is interesting, it is almost entirely theoretical, as it is based on numerical simulations of the interactions between the sun's gravity and the gravitational pull of the rest of the Milky Way galaxy's motion, said Edward Gomez, an astrophysicist and honorary lecturer at Cardiff University in the UK. He also was not involved with the study. 'Long period comets enter the inner solar system at a range of angles, which the authors try to model using their spiral arm idea,' Gomez said in an email. 'What they are proposing could be true, but it could also be modelled by other shapes of the Oort cloud or physical processes. How to test this is their major issue, because only a handful of potential Oort cloud objects are known about.' Confirming the findings will be a challenge, noted Simon Portegies Zwart, a professor of numerical star dynamics at Leiden University in the Netherlands who was not part of the team behind the research. 'It is interesting that they found the spiral, (but) it seems unlikely that we are going to witness (it) in the foreseeable future,' he said. With luck, he added, the Vera Rubin observatory will detect a few hundred inner Oort Cloud objects, but the spiral would only be visible if many more are found: 'It therefore seems unlikely to be a clearly detectable structure.'
CNN
10-06-2025
- Science
- CNN
Astronomy show accidentally reveals unseen structure in our solar system
An accidental discovery might change how we think about one of the most mysterious structures in our solar system. The Oort Cloud, a large expanse of icy bodies revolving around the sun at a distance 1,000 times greater than the orbit of Neptune, is widely thought to be spherical — although it has never been directly observed. But during the preproduction of a show titled 'Encounters in the Milky Way,' which debuted Monday at the Hayden Planetarium in New York City, a projection on the planetarium's dome revealed something strange within the Oort Cloud: a spiral. The curators were testing out a scene in September that includes a detailed view of Earth's celestial neighborhood — from the sun to the solar system's outer edges — and were surprised when they saw the structure, which looked coincidentally similar to a spiral galaxy such as our own. 'We hit play on the scene, and immediately we saw it. It was just there,' recalled Jackie Faherty, an astrophysicist at the American Museum of Natural History and the curator of the show. 'I was confused and thought that was super weird. I didn't know if it was an artifact, I didn't know if it was real.' To investigate, Faherty got in touch with David Nesvorny, an institute scientist with the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, and the Oort Cloud expert who had provided scientific data for the scene. 'We didn't create it — David did,' Faherty said. 'This is David's simulation, and it's grounded in physics. It has a totally good physical explanation for why it should be there.' At first, Nesvorny suspected artifacts — abnormalities or distortions in the data visualization — but once he looked at his data, he confirmed the presence of the spiral and eventually published a scientific paper about the discovery in April in The Astrophysical Journal. 'Weird way to discover things,' he said. 'I should know my data better, after years of working with it.' The existence of the Oort Cloud was first proposed in 1950 by Dutch astronomer Jan Oort, who imagined it as a shell of icy bodies swirling around the sun from up to 1.5 light-years away. The cloud is the most distant region in our solar system, stretching as much as halfway to the next star, according to NASA. It's composed of leftovers from the making of our solar system, which were scattered in every direction by the planets after they formed. That means many of the icy bodies in the Oort Cloud don't share the same orbital plane as the solar system itself but travel at various inclinations, which is why the Oort Cloud is pictured as a sphere. If one of those icy bodies gets flung inward toward the sun, the heat starts vaporizing some of the material in the body, creating a tail — and what we call a comet. 'Every now and again, some of these icy bodies come into the inner solar system, and we can see the orbit that they're on,' Faherty said. 'And they're on these really crazy, long orbits. It can take them millions of years to go around the sun. And when they come in, they help us understand how far away they may have come from.' The problem with trying to imagine what the Oort Cloud looks like is that scientists have never seen it, even though we are technically surrounded by it. That's because the bodies that make it up are small — fewer than 60 miles (97 kilometers) in diameter — and even though they potentially number in the trillions, they are far away, making observations with telescopes difficult. The spiral was hiding in Nesvorny's data because he had never thought of visualizing it three-dimensionally. 'I never looked at it in Cartesian coordinates — I didn't have a good reason to do so,' he said. 'But once you do that, it's obvious. It's there.' To confirm the findings, Nesvorny used one of the most powerful computers in the world, NASA's Pleiades Supercomputer, to run simulations that took weeks to complete. 'I thought, maybe just this particular simulation (I gave the planetarium) is showing it, and all the other simulations with other stellar encounters, other parameters, will not show it, in which case it wouldn't be so interesting,' he said. 'But all the simulations, all the models I have, show the spiral.' The reason it's there, he said, is that objects in the Oort Cloud are far away enough from the sun's gravity that they also start being affected by the galactic tide — the gravitational field of our galaxy, exerted by the stars and the dark matter in it. This field is acting on the small bodies and comets in the Oort Cloud by twisting their orbital planes to create a spiral. The spiral, Nesvorny added, is in the inner part of the Oort Cloud, the closest to us, and he still believes that the outer portion is spherical or shell-shaped. The problem of observing the Oort Cloud remains, even though the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, a powerful telescope that recently came online in Chile, could offer a hand by discovering and observing individual icy bodies in the cloud. However, according to Nesvorny, the telescope will likely discover dozens of these bodies — not the hundreds that would be required to produce a meaningful visualization of the spiral. The spiral theory helps to illuminate the dynamics of our solar system, according to Faherty. 'If you're going to come up with a theory of how solar systems evolve, you should take into account the kind of shapes you might have in their structure,' she said. 'Maybe comets helped deliver water to Earth. Maybe the building blocks of life could be out there in the Oort Cloud, so if you want to talk about the potential building blocks of life that surround our solar system, you need to understand its shape.' It's a 'dream,' she added, to be able to present science so recent in a show aimed at the general public. 'I truly believe that the planetarium, the dome itself, is a research tool,' Faherty said. 'I like to say that this is science that hasn't had time to reach your textbook yet.' The spiral finding is a wonderful example of just how much we can learn through visualizing the universe in new ways, said Malena Rice, an assistant professor of astronomy at Yale University who did not participate in the study. 'This result reshapes our mental image of our home solar system, while also providing a new sense for what extrasolar systems' Oort clouds may look like,' Rice added. 'It unites our models of the solar system with what we know about the broader galaxy, placing it into context as a dynamic system. We are not static, and we are not isolated — our solar system is shaped by its broader ecosystem, and the Oort spiral exemplifies that.' While the paper is interesting, it is almost entirely theoretical, as it is based on numerical simulations of the interactions between the sun's gravity and the gravitational pull of the rest of the Milky Way galaxy's motion, said Edward Gomez, an astrophysicist and honorary lecturer at Cardiff University in the UK. He also was not involved with the study. 'Long period comets enter the inner solar system at a range of angles, which the authors try to model using their spiral arm idea,' Gomez said in an email. 'What they are proposing could be true, but it could also be modelled by other shapes of the Oort cloud or physical processes. How to test this is their major issue, because only a handful of potential Oort cloud objects are known about.' Confirming the findings will be a challenge, noted Simon Portegies Zwart, a professor of numerical star dynamics at Leiden University in the Netherlands who was not part of the team behind the research. 'It is interesting that they found the spiral, (but) it seems unlikely that we are going to witness (it) in the foreseeable future,' he said. With luck, he added, the Vera Rubin observatory will detect a few hundred inner Oort Cloud objects, but the spiral would only be visible if many more are found: 'It therefore seems unlikely to be a clearly detectable structure.'
Style Blueprint
09-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Style Blueprint
Memphis Shopping This June: Local Finds for Summer Fun
Share with your friends! 118 SHARES 21 Pinterest LinkedIn Email Flipboard Reddit June is prime time to soak up the sunshine, plan a weekend getaway, and celebrate the dads in your life! Whether your calendar is already packed or you're easing into the season, these Memphis FINDS are here to help you make the most of it. FOR HER Bow jeans Denim is always in season, so we especially love it when the standard jean gets spruced up. We're big fans of the bow detailing on this pair, giving the jeans a fun, subtle, and feminine touch of elegance. Find a pair at Dappled for $89.95. Pin Scuba mini dress This sleeveless jersey dress features a classic silhouette that will carry you through all the sunny days ahead. A collared neckline adds a touch of sophistication, while the lightweight fabric keeps it practical and comfortable. Find it in orange or navy for $58 at Sorelle Boutique. Pin Polka dot top Polka dots, meet patio season. This top is perfect for happy hour with the girls, dinner by the water, or just a casual afternoon brunch. Find it at Mozelle Boutique for $52. Pin ACCESSORIES Bedazzled card holder Travel light this summer with a bedazzled card holder that carries just the essentials — all while making a fun fashion statement. Available in a variety of colors, it's perfect for hitting the town without all the baggage. Find your preferred color at Indigo for $88. Pin Back 70 Cloud sneakers Much like denim, a sneaker never goes out of style. This low-top silhouette adds a pop of color and personality while remaining versatile enough to pair with almost any outfit. Find a pair at Hemline for $139. Pin Summer tote bag As the owner of Feelin' Memphis, Tawanda Pirtle fills her boutique with on-trend seasonal accessories and clothing. This month, we're partial to this tote bag, which gives off all the summer vibes. Spacious enough for all your pool or beach day accessories and offering a convenient snap closure, find it for $34.99 at Feelin' Memphis. Pin FOR HIM Faherty swim trunks Make a splash this Father's Day with a pair of Faherty swim trunks. Featuring zippered accessory pockets and quick-drying fabric, they're perfect for gym-to-beach days and everything in between. Find them at Oak Hall for $98. Pin Jack Black face moisturizer For hydration and SPF protection in one, this Jack Black moisturizer is a summer skincare essential. The 8.5-ounce bottle promises lightweight wear and SPF 20. Grab a bottle at Magnolia House Store for $48. Pin Tom Petty tee Another timeless staple? A great graphic tee. Effortlessly cool and endlessly wearable, this one's a true classic featuring the legendary Tom Petty. It's a bit of a splurge at $198, but you can find it at Lansky Bros. Pin TRAVEL ESSENTIALS Beach towel You can never have too many beach towels. Perfect for any upcoming summer getaway, this option is compact, quick-drying, absorbent, and made from post-consumer recycled materials. Available at City & State for $40, it's ideal for sitting while you tan, read, or refresh with a cold drink. Pin MakeUp Eraser travel set MakeUp Erasers have exploded onto the scene, and this gift set is perfect for the girl on the go. It includes seven erasers, a laundry bag, and a travel-sized tote to carry it all. Find it for $28 at Beautiful Soul Boutique. Pin Duffel bag A suave, sophisticated way to travel, this dusty brown leather duffel bag is perfect for a weekend away. Not to mention, it's another great gift idea for Father's Day. Find it at The Gift Horse for $250. Pin FOR THE HOME Memphis matchbook print Matchbook prints are having a moment right now — they're a creative way to celebrate your favorite places and memories. This take on iconic Memphis spots caught our eye and would make the perfect addition to any proud Memphian's home. Find it at Oxbeau for $38. Pin Tennessee serving/cutting board Made of bamboo, this serving board celebrates all things Tennessee. A timeless kitchen piece, it's sure to come in handy during any upcoming warm-weather gatherings. Get yours at Ultimate Gifts for $32. Pin 'Luxury Getaway' candle If you're planning a staycation this summer, bring the wanderlust vibes to you with the 'Luxury Getaway' candle. With notes of lemon, forest, and amber, it's the perfect way to escape — without ever leaving the house. Find it for $30 at One Cozy Home. Pin Here's to sunshine and supporting local, Memphis! ********** Stay in the know! Follow us on Instagram for daily finds and discoveries. About the Author Addyson Crosby
Yahoo
06-06-2025
- Yahoo
U.S. Marshals arrest 1 in connection with Morganton triple shooting
United States Marshals arrested one person on North Green Street in Morganton on Thursday in connection with a triple shooting on Saturday. One person was killed and two people were sent to the hospital in a shootout on Kathy Road in Morganton just before 9 p.m. READ: 2 injured, 1 dead following shootout Deputies responded to the scene. They said one person was pronounced deceased at the scene, one was transported to the hospital, and the third refused medical treatment. Officials told Channel 9's Dave Faherty that multiple weapons were used in the shooting, and the scene stretched for about half a mile of roadway. Multiple vehicles were struck during an exchange of fire between people in cars. The identity of the person who was arrested has not yet been released, but officials told Faherty that they expect to release more information soon. No additional details have been made available. This is a developing story. Check back with for updates. WATCH: Dashcam shows speeding car slam into local auto dealer, causing $75K in damage
