In continuing news from Indonesia, GDACS says that the death toll from severe flooding in Indonesia, particularly in northern Sumatra, has been increasing since 17 November.

As of 10 December, the National Disaster Management Authority (BNPB) reported 977 fatalities, with Aceh, North Sumatra, and West Sumatra being the most affected provinces. There are also 260 missing individuals and 5,037 injured people reported. Additionally, approximately 159,000 homes and 3,296 public facilities have been damaged.

So that disaster is not over yet.

Aljazeera says that more than two million people – nearly 10 percent of the population of Sri Lanka – have been affected by last week’s climate crisis-spurred floods and landslides triggered by Cyclone DITWAH, the worst on the island this century.

The government has confirmed 639 deaths – 464 from the lush tea-growing central region – while 209 people remain unaccounted for. The number of people in state-run refugee camps had dropped to 100,000 from a peak of 225,000 as floodwaters receded across the island by last Sunday, the DMC said.

More than 75,000 homes were damaged, including close to 5,000 that were completely destroyed, it added.

The National Sea Rescue Institute says that it joined the Western Cape Disaster Management Centre (WCDMC) and key emergency stakeholders at the official launch of the 2025/26 Summer Season Readiness Initiative, a province-wide commitment to ensure coordinated, rapid emergency response during the busiest and highest-risk season.

The annual readiness initiative brings together provincial and municipal disaster managers, emergency services and non-profit response organisations in the Western Cape to prepare for heightened risks associated with increased recreational water use, fire danger, extreme weather, and growing demands on first responders.

At the event, the NSRI formally acknowledged the Western Cape Government and WCDMC for their long-standing support, including a new grant of R408, 000 awarded for Swift Water Rescue training in the 2025/26 season.

“Strong disaster preparedness is built on strong partnerships,” said Dirk Coetzee, NSRI Business Development Manager.

“This investment is about readiness, not reaction, and directly improves our ability to respond swiftly and safely during flood and storm events.”

The specialised training, supported by the grant, will equip NSRI’s volunteer crews with advanced skills for operating in fast-moving, high-risk environments, such as rivers, canals, and flooded urban areas.

As the summer season intensifies, the NSRI urges all beachgoers, inland water users, and tourists to remain vigilant, tocheck weather forecasts, respect signage and tide warnings, and familiarise themselves with local emergency numbers.

Brian Jacobs ZS6YZ has issued a report of the Earthquake Response Exercise held in the Eastern Cape in the first week of December.

He notes that its purpose was to test search and rescue operations, inter-agency coordination, communication and command systems, emergency medical response, evacuation and logistics, humanitarian coordination and post-disaster recovery planning.

United Nations and international teams were present at a workshop session on the Monday, before a “tropical storm” made landfall near Port Elizabeth, followed shortly thereafter by a magnitude 6.9 “earthquake” just offshore, in this imaginary scenario.

A variety of protocols were then followed, including a classification of the event as a National Disaster with attendant inter-agency coordination, communication and command systems, emergency medical responses, evacuation and logistics, humanitarian coordination and post-disaster recovery planning.

On the Tuesday National search and rescue teams were deployed, helping to manage arriving international search and rescue teams at the airport.

Team USAR SA-01 established a Base of Operations (BOO) and a USAR Coordination Cell (UCC) from where the team was managed and assigned tasks, such as a high level reconnaissance of the sector assigned to them.

The Local Emergency Management Authority (LEMA) also arranged that HAMNET Eastern Cape, under the leadership of Andrew Gray ZS2G and assisted by Odette ZS2ODI, which had also been activated, made contact with the UCC and established Amateur Radio communications as a backup should there be communications failure with the various parts of the province that were affected by the disaster. The HAMNET Eastern Cape team members also volunteered to assist with other tasks within the UCC.

On Wednesday, “disgruntled” local citizens arrived, demanding immediate assistance, which crisis was professionally handled by the Liaison Officer in charge of the UCC. Further stressful scenarios played out during the day, and were handled by the UCC team and Metro Police and SAPS.

By Thursday, the exercise was winding down, and the South Africans then managed the departure of the international teams back to the airport again.

This was the first exercise of this magnitude that has involved so many role players and it was an overall success, with everyone learning a lot from the fellow participants as there was always time to explain a process where required.

It was also a first for HAMNET and while there were only a few HAMNET members involved there is a lot of knowledge that needs to be passed on in the next year so that more of our members can be ready to assist when they are called to duty, and can work seamlessly with other organisations doing what we do best, providing emergency communications when other channels fail.

Thank you Brian for allowing me to precis this report.

Here’s a problem I hadn’t bargained for when I was musing about relocating to Mars, as soon as the sky-train starts operating of course. Writing in skyatnightmagazine.com, Iain Todd says that clocks on Mars tick faster than on Earth by nearly half a millisecond a day, according to new calculations – and the implications for future missions to the Red Planet could be significant.

Neil Ashby and Bijunath Patla at the US National Institute of Standards and Technology calculated that a clock on Mars ticks 477 microseconds faster per day than one on Earth. That rate can also shift by 226 microseconds a day, depending on Mars’s distance from the Sun.

The effect comes from general relativity: weaker gravity and orbital motion alter spacetime, changing how time flows.

Surface gravity on Mars is just 38% that of Earth, meaning a second on the Red Planet is slightly shorter than for us on our planet.

Why does it matter? Well, if you’re trying to communicate with a rover using radio waves travelling at the speed of light, microseconds count.

Even the 56-microsecond delay in radio communications between Earth and the Moon means lunar targets could be missed by the length of about 184 football fields – and Mars is much farther away.

Luckily, we already correct for similar effects in GPS satellites, whose clocks run faster than those on Earth – otherwise your phone’s GPS would be misaligned by miles after only a few hours.

But it gets a lot more complicated when you are scaling that solution to deal with interplanetary distances, for worlds with different gravities that are moving closer and further from the Sun’s gravitational influence.

This of course means that I will get older more quickly if I live on Mars. Sounds like a very bad idea to me. I’d better cancel that sky-train reservation post haste!

This is Dave Reece ZS1DFR reporting for HAMNET in South Africa.

What seemed to be a fairly unimportant and minor tropical storm threatening Sri Lanka and South-east India, turned into Tropical Cyclone DITWAH, which arose about a week ago, and triggered severe flooding and landslides. By Friday, GDACS was reporting 479 deaths in Sri Lanka, another 350 people missing, and a total of 1.7 million individuals affected by flooding in one way or another.

Greg Mossop G0DUB drew our attention to a communique from the President of the Radio Society of Sri Lanka (RSSL), the national IARU Member Society representing licensed amateur radio operators in Sri Lanka, wishing formally to notify the international amateur radio community that Sri Lanka is currently experiencing severe and widespread flooding, resulting in significant disruption to telecommunication networks and essential infrastructure.

Theranga Premathilake, call sign 4S6TMP, said that, at the request of the Disaster Management Centre (DMC) and the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka (TRCSL), RSSL has mobilized and deployed trained volunteer amateur radio operators across several affected districts to provide Emergency Communications (EmComm) where conventional systems have failed.

In order to maintain and expand these critical communication links during the ongoing crisis, the RSSL urgently requires additional equipment. He respectfully requested assistance from IARU Member Societies, global amateur radio communities, EmComm groups, and supporting donors to help supply HF and VHF base radios, handheld VHF/UHF radios, and rechargeable power packs to help the amateurs to keep lines of communication up and running around the country.

He noted further that any support, whether through equipment donations, financial facilitation, or procurement assistance will directly strengthen Sri Lanka’s disaster response capabilities at this critical time.

Although the coast of India was also threatened by DITWAH, there has been no news of similar flooding or casualties in that country.

Indonesia, Thailand and Sumatra, however, are still affected by heavy rainfall, with 770 deaths in Sumatra and 185 in Thailand reported by the end of the week, with about 830 people still missing in the two countries, and at least a million people displaced by flooding.

And by Tuesday, Tropical Cyclone KOTO, with maximum wind speeds of 150 km/h was crossing Philippines and aiming at Vietnam next. Luckily, it appeared to be weakening as it approached Vietnam.

Newsweek.com reported on Monday that NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory detected a sunspot—labeled Active Region (AR) 4294-96—which is the largest recorded in a decade, and which is expected to trigger further solar flares in the coming weeks.

An X1.9-class solar flare was detected by Earth-orbiting satellites on the same day, although, according to SpaceWeather.com, it actually originated from a smaller sunspot—named AR 4295, rather than the giant one.

However, 4294 is impressively massive, in photos taken of the sun’s disk this week, much bigger than the sunspot of two weeks ago that generated the X5.1-class flare which caused such beautiful auroras in northern and southern latitudes, and blanked out radio communications so effectively. It remains to be seen whether 4294 impresses us with solar high jinks this week.

Universetoday.com notes that it’s been over two years since the samples from Asteroid Bennu gathered by the satellite OSIRIS-REx were returned to Earth. But there’s still plenty of novel science coming out of that 121.6 g of material. Three new papers were released recently that describe different aspects of that sample. One in particular, from Yoshihiro Furukawa of Tohoku University in Japan and their co-authors, has already attracted plenty of attention, including from US Senator (and former astronaut) Mark Kelly. It shows that all of the building blocks for early life were available on the asteroid – raising the chances that planets throughout the galaxy could be seeded with the abiotic precursors for life.

To be clear, the most recent paper itself didn’t first discover all of the necessary ingredients for life. Two of the parts of the “molecular trifecta” required for the origin of life were already discovered on Bennu. Nucleobases – the molecules that make up the sequence of DNA – and amino acids – the building blocks of proteins – were previously discovered and disclosed in other papers on the asteroid.

After subjecting a 600 mg sample of the pristine surface material of Bennu to gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, the researchers found two additional types of “sugars” for the first time. But don’t think of these sugars as equivalent to the high fructose corn syrup used to sweeten Twinkies. These sugars are basic organic molecules integral to the functioning of all biological systems known on Earth.

One new sugar they found was ribose, the molecule that serves as the backbone of RNA (or ribonucleic acid). RNA is a critical component of modern life, and perhaps most famously recently served as the base for many of COVID-19 vaccines. Granted, the total concentration of ribose was very small, with a concentration of only .097 nanomoles per gram of asteroid material. But the most important thing about this finding is that it was there at all.

There’s an ongoing debate about the origin of life, where some scientists suggest that, instead of having complex DNA in the beginning, early life was based on RNA instead as its information transfer mechanism. This study adds some more evidence for that hypothesis, showing that all the components of RNA are available on an asteroid, and can be protected from the destructive radiation of outer space by being trapped in rocky aggregates – until they land on a receptive planet’s surface at least. This also undermines the argument that ribose is too unstable to have accumulated on early Earth, when life would have first started.

At its core, this paper confirms that the potential basic building blocks of life are all present on asteroids. And more importantly on only the second asteroid we’ve ever sampled – which implies that they are likely abundant not only throughout our solar system, but throughout our galaxy. That has major implications for the study of life on other worlds, and while we still haven’t found definitive evidence of that yet, the more we learn about the evolution of life in our own backyard, the more exciting the prospect of eventually finding it elsewhere seems to be.

This is Dave Reece, ZS1DFR, wondering whether I can sweeten my tea with two spoons of Bennu, and reporting for HAMNET in South Africa.

The Malaysian Amateur Radio Transmitters Society (MARTS) has activated its Disaster Response across the national amateur radio network in response to worsening floods on the east coast and in the northern part of the peninsula.

MARTS president Mohd Aris Bernawi said that the activation was carried out to ensure that amateur radio communications operated as an efficient support system in line with the needs of government rescue agencies.

He said that to ensure accurate and efficient communications, all members must comply with IARU network ethics, including the establishment of certified Net Control Stations to manage traffic flow and the use of designated emergency frequencies.

In the same statement, MARTS urged all licenced amateur radio operators to monitor gazetted emergency frequencies, and be ready for deployment when needed.

Thank you to bernama.com for these paragraphs from their report.

Meanwhile, severe flooding continues to devastate Southern Thailand, with the death toll rising to 33 by Wednesday, as relentless monsoon rains pounded the region for a second consecutive year. Catastrophic floodwaters have overwhelmed nine Thai provinces and eight Malaysian states, forcing nearly 45,000 people to evacuate their homes.

The worst-hit areas include Hat Yai, where the city’s main hospital has been flooded, prompting emergency helicopter evacuations of critical patients and air-delivery of food supplies. Drone footage reveals large districts, including parts of Songkhla Province, completely submerged. Authorities report widespread damage to homes, roads, power lines, and essential services, with over 2.7 million people affected and close to 980,000 households impacted.

GDACS says that heavy rainfall has also caused widespread flooding and landslides across North Sumatra Province in northwestern Indonesia, resulting in casualties and significant damage.

The death toll from flash floods and landslides on Indonesia’s Sumatra Island rose to 174 on Friday with 79 people missing, authorities said, as rescue workers found their efforts hampered by damaged bridges and roads and a lack of heavy equipment.

Greg Mossop G0DUB, of IARU region one, reported that, due to the floods and landslides in Aceh, North Sumatra, West Sumatra Province on Wednesday November 26 2025, the Indonesian Amateur Radio Organization (ORARI) determined the use of the following emergency frequencies:

7.110 MHz LSB, 14.300 MHz USB, 21.360 MHz USB and 145.100 MHz FM simplex.

They request all amateur radio members to ensure these frequencies are kept clear during emergency response operations.

This notification was sent out by Donny Priambodo – YB0DX Chairman of ORARI.

And in the last week, Sri Lanka has been experiencing heavy rainfall that has caused widespread flooding, landslides and severe weather-related incidents resulting in casualties and significant damage.

There has been an orange alert out for Tropical Cyclone DITWAH, causing the rain in Sri Lanka, and threatening south eastern India.

On Thursday, eNCA reported that, in our own country, KwaZulu-Natal disaster management teams have been placed on high alert again following yet another weather warning. The SA Weather Service is warning of more heavy rains, excessive lightning, damaging winds, and possibly large amounts of hail.

The warning affects several municipalities, including eThekwini, Umgungundlovu, Ugu, Harry Gwala, Amajuba, and the recently devastated uMshwathi.

New Hanover in the Midlands experienced floods over last weekend, where two people are still missing.

And in the Western Cape, the Gansbaai area has been threatened by large wildfires, after blustery southerly winds battered the Cape for over a week. The veld is very dry and the R43 between Stanford and Gansbaai has had to be closed several times this week, due to poor visibility.

I am aware of fires near Stanford, de Kelders near the Walker Bay Nature Reserve, the Masakhane area, and in the Villiersdorp area burning towards the hills in the Helderstroom direction.

The Mossel Bay Advertiser reported on Wednesday that the Mossel Bay Fire, Rescue and Disaster Management’s swift action on Tuesday 25 November ensured that a large vegetation fire in Dana Bay was contained without loss of human life, structural damage or risk to infrastructure.

The fire drew a substantial emergency response. Mossel Bay Municipality’s spokesperson, Cornelle Carstens-Johnston, said 30 firefighters were deployed on the ground, supported by 21 vehicles, including major pumpers, water tankers, bush units and light pumpers. In the Fire Service Control Centre, three officials managed the operational backbone of the incident, two co-ordinated emergency communications, one senior official directed logistics, and a media officer issued regular public updates.

Carstens-Johnston confirmed that no homes or infrastructure were threatened at any point, crediting the strong operational management for preventing escalation despite windy conditions and rapid fire spread across dry terrain.

An International Earthquake Response Exercise (ERE) is to take place this week, between 1^st and 5^th December. Brian ZS6YZ, our HAMNET National Director notes that the desktop exercise will test search and rescue operations, inter-agency coordination, communication and command systems, emergency medical response, evacuation and logistics, humanitarian coordination and post-disaster recovery planning.

The expected outcomes are stronger multi-hazard operational capacity, improved inter-agency interoperability, better regional and international disaster cooperation, validated national disaster protocols and clear lessons to guide future disaster response.

International Teams from Estonia, France, Germany, Guatemala, Iceland, Poland, Spain, Switzerland, the Netherlands and England have been invited to participate.

HAMNET Eastern Cape under the leadership of Andrew Gray ZS2G has been requested by the Nelson Mandela Bay Disaster Management to participate in the ERE.

HAMNET Gauteng has already been requested by the Gauteng Provincial Disaster Management Head of Centre to assist the National Urban Search and Rescue Team RSA-01 with communications. Brian ZS6YZ, Leon ZS6LMG and Johan ZS6DMX have been training with the team since February 2025 to get to know them, understand what their communications requirements are, and to learn how an International Search and Rescue Advisory Group (INSARAG) command and control system works.

Brian ZS6YZ has deployed to the Eastern Cape for this week’s ERE with the National USAR Team RSA-01, as their communications specialist, as well as to assist with the running of the Reception and Departure Centre (RDC), the USAR Coordination Centre (UCC) and the INSARAG Coordination & Management System (ICMS).

The 3 day desktop exercise will be preceded by 2 days of workshops and presentations and HAMNET is also scheduled to do a presentation. Alister ZS2OK will be doing a presentation and demonstration on how HAMNET can send emails without internet using the mode VarAC.

This is a huge opportunity to show case the capabilities of HAMNET here in South Africa as well as for Amateur Radio in the Region.

This is Dave Reece ZS1DFR, appalled by the amount of disaster weather there is to talk about, and reporting for HAMNET in South Africa.

So much for a Hurricane-free period! Cyclone FENGSHEN is following the usual path across the northern tip of Philippines, where 7 fatalities were reported, and heading for Vietnam, China, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand. Originally a tropical depression, with wind speeds of about 90km/h, it was projected to strengthen to a Category One Cyclone as it made landfall, threatening 11.5 million people in its path on Friday.

And there is a RED Alert out for Tropical Cyclone MELISSA in the Atlantic, with possible maximum wind speeds of 250km/h and now bearing down on Jamaica, Haiti, Cuba and Bahamas in the Caribbean.

Very heavy rainfall, strong winds and storm surges are forecast over the whole of Jamaica, southern Haiti and the south-western Dominican Republic starting from 25^th October. NOAA has issued a hurricane watch for southern Haiti and the south-western Dominican Republic and a tropical storm watch over Jamaica.

By Thursday, 94000 people in the Dominican Republic had been affected by extreme weather, and damaged aqueducts had impacted 549000 users.

In this connection, the ARRL has announced that, should they have to activate their Hurricane Watch Net for MELISSA, they would like amateurs to keep away from 7.268MHz (which doesn’t affect us) and 14.325MHz. Please bear this in mind during the CQ WW SSB contest today. Thank you.

Worrying news from the dailyinvestor.com is that South Africa’s shortage of air-traffic controllers is “almost compromising service delivery” by the state-owned company that manages the nation’s airspace.

Air Traffic and Navigation Services “continues to struggle to fill key positions, particularly ATCs,” Chairman Zola Majavu said in its annual report for fiscal 2025. Locally trained controllers are sought after internationally, and “the outflow of experienced personnel has outpaced the capacity of our training pipeline,” he said.

ATNS — which manages 6.1% of the world’s airspace — said that international providers offer remuneration and other incentives that it isn’t able to match. The firm said 86 employees left the company in the year that ended March, with 50 of these being from the air-traffic services division.

“This signals a department-specific crisis beyond typical organizational turnover patterns,” it said. “It is both a challenge and a strategic priority requiring immediate attention and sustained intervention.”

The company has launched an accelerated recruitment drive for vital roles including air-traffic service personnel, flight procedure designers and engineers.

“This also involves encouraging previous ATNS employees to return to South Africa to bridge the current expertise gap within an 18-month to three-year time frame,” Majavu said.

I don’t mean it flippantly, but I wonder if radio operators of any kind would be able to fill an Air Traffic Controller’s spot, if push were to come to shove. Somehow I doubt it.

In the absence of other Communications news from South Africa or overseas, I usually turn to Science or Cosmology for interesting stuff. In universetoday.com, mention is made of principles of interferometry used in optical astronomy. Brian Koberlein writes:

“The wavelengths of radio light are so large that you can’t capture a high-resolution image with a single dish. To capture an image as sharp as, say, the Hubble telescope, you’d need a radio dish tens of kilometers across. So radio astronomers took a different approach. They used an array of dozens of antennas, each capturing their own signal. Since the antennas not only capture precise data but also the precise timing of that data, astronomers can use a process known as interferometry. Light from a distant radio object reaches each antenna at a slightly different time, and by correlating the arrival times, astronomers can treat the array as a virtual antenna disk the size of the entire array. From many, one, as the saying goes.

“Optical astronomy doesn’t need to bother with this sort of thing. The wavelengths of visible light are on the atomic scale rather than in millimeters to meters, so even a moderately sized telescope can capture great images. The primary mirror of the Hubble, for example, is only 2.4 meters in diameter. But that’s starting to change. Modern ground-based optical telescopes use multiple hexagonal mirrors rather than a single primary mirror, and even the James Webb Space Telescope has an array of seven mirrors so it wouldn’t be limited by the size of its launch rocket. The mirrors can be focused to a single detector, so we still don’t need to use interferometry. But what if we did anyway?

That’s the question of a new study. The authors propose a method known as Kernel Phase Interferometry (KPI), and while it’s not the same as radio interferometry, it has many of the same benefits.

“With regular interferometry, individual signals are correlated to create a single image. KPI, on the other hand, starts with a single image and creates a virtual array of individual signals through Fourier transformations. Once the virtual array is created, you can then use it to produce an image through correlation, just like we do with radio signals.

“Most of the time, this approach wouldn’t gain you anything. While radio interferometry can create high-resolution images, those images have artifacts due to the layout of the antennas. Using KPI on a high-resolution image would just create a different high-resolution image with artifacts. But one thing interferometry is particularly good at is isolating sources. As the authors show, using KPI on observations such as close binary star systems better distinguishes individual sources. This method would be particularly useful for observing Earth-sized planets closely orbiting Sun-like stars.

“What’s neat about this method is that you don’t need to make new observations. The observations we currently have from telescopes such as JWST can be analyzed through KPI to create direct images of exoplanets and close binary stars. From one observation, we can get many observations thanks to this new approach.”

Thanks to universetoday.com and Brian Koberlein.

This is Dave Reece ZS1DFR reporting for HAMNET in South Africa.

Tropical Storm IMELDA is the next storm to be threatening the Caribbean Islands. It formed on 26^th September over the Atlantic Ocean, and has been moving North West towards the Bahamas, all the while strengthening. Wind speeds a week ago were below 100km/h but severe rainfall in Eastern Cuba and the Bahamas was being reported.

GDACS reported that IMELDA was expected to pass very close to northern Bermuda on 2 October very early in the morning (UTC), with maximum sustained winds up to 148 km/h (as a category 1 hurricane), threatening 64000 people.

Over the 24 hours thereafter, heavy rainfall was forecast over North Carolina (USA), and heavy rainfall was also forecast over Bermuda. NOAA issued a hurricane watch over Bermuda.

On top of three Cyclones in three days, Philippines suffered a magnitude 6.3 earthquake on 30^th September at 15h59 our time. The epicentre was amongst the many islands that make up central Philippines, at a depth of 10km, and 681000 people were exposed to severe shaking. A tsunami was not experienced.

As of 1^st October, GDACS says that 69 fatalities and more than 560 injured people have been recorded mainly in Bogo city in the north of Cebu province, and estimates that up to 124,000 people were exposed to severe shaking, and 536,000 to very strong shaking.

Wisnu YB0AZ, President of the IARU region 3 announced on Wednesday that “the Philippine Amateur Radio Association, Inc. (PARA) had elevated its HERO (Ham Emergency Radio Operations) Alert Status to Code RED following the magnitude 6.9 earthquake that struck Northern Cebu on 30 September 2025.

“All amateur radio operators are requested to keep the frequency 7.095 MHz clear and available strictly for priority and emergency traffic. We kindly ask that you disseminate this information to your members and ensure that they observe this restriction until further notice from PARA.

“Thank you for your cooperation in supporting emergency communications in our Region.”

Thanks to Greg G0DUB for disseminating the alert.

And on Wednesday, GDACS announced the next Tropical Cyclone, called MATMO, expected to cross Northern Philippines on Friday, with wind speeds of 140km/h, and arrive on the Northern Vietnamese coast today. Fourteen million people are within the cone of its 120km/h winds.

Not to be outdone, the first cyclone of the season is threatening the eastern shores of India as a category one storm with wind speeds of 120km/h or greater, threatening up to 19 million people in its projected path.

In Phys.org/news, I read that researchers have transformed food waste sugars into natural plastic films that could one day replace petroleum-based packaging, offering compostable alternatives to commonly used plastics for food and agricultural films like silage wrap.

With global plastic production exceeding 400 million metric tons annually, a Monash University study highlights the potential of a new type of biodegradable plastic by converting food waste sugars into biopolymers. The study is published in the journal Microbial Cell Factories.

By selecting different bacterial strains and blending their polymers, the researchers produced films that behave like conventional plastics and can be molded into other shapes or solids.

The study, led by Edward Attenborough and Dr. Leonie van ‘t Hag from the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, provides a framework for designing bioplastics for temperature-sensitive packaging, medical films and other products, addressing the global challenge of single-use plastic waste.

The research teams fed two soil-dwelling bacteria—Cupriavidus necator and Pseudomonas putida—a carefully balanced “diet” of sugars with the right blend of salts, nutrients and trace elements.

Once the microbes fattened up, they began stockpiling natural plastic inside their cells. The scientists then “milked” these plastics out using solvents, cast them into ultrathin films about 20 microns thick and tested their stretchiness, strength and melting behavior.

“This research demonstrates how food waste can be transformed into sustainable, compostable ultrathin films with tunable properties. The versatility of PHAs means we can reimagine materials we rely on every day without the environmental cost of conventional plastics,” Mr. Attenborough said.

“By tailoring these natural plastics for different uses, we’re opening the door to sustainable alternatives in packaging, especially where they can be composted along with food or agricultural waste.”

By comparing the stiff plastic made by C. necator with the softer, more flexible version from P. putida, the study demonstrates how blending the two can tune film properties like crystallinity and melting point, while maintaining strength and flexibility.

This sounds very promising for the world of thin-film coverings that can decompose.

And medicalxpress.com reports brand new data surrounding diabetes treatment and control of alcohol use disorder. Ingrid Fadelli writes:

“The excessive and uncontrolled consumption of alcohol, which can culminate in the development of alcohol use disorder or alcoholism, is widespread in many countries worldwide. Individuals diagnosed with alcohol use disorder are often also experiencing other mental health conditions, such as depression or anxiety. Moreover, the excessive use of alcohol is known to increase the risk of developing liver disease and some other health-related problems.

“While there are several treatment programmes for those struggling with their alcohol consumption, available options are not always effective for all affected individuals. Identifying effective new treatments could thus be highly valuable, as it could help to treat a wider range of patients, potentially limiting the detrimental effects of alcohol on their mental and physical health.

“Some studies have gathered evidence suggesting that gut hormones, particularly glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) and glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP), could act on both people’s metabolism and their addictive tendencies. These hormones have so far been primarily used to treat obesity and diabetes, as they can help to control blood sugar levels, appetite and body weight.

”Researchers at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism in the U.S. recently performed a large-scale analysis of genetic data, aimed at further exploring the potential of these hormones as therapeutic tools to limit excessive drinking and improve liver health. Their findings, published in Molecular Psychiatry, suggest that GLP-1 and GIP-based drugs could in fact help to reduce people’s intake of alcohol, which could inform the future development of alternative treatments for alcohol use disorder.”

Thanks to Medicalxpress.com for this excerpt from their article.

You and I will recognize the expensive drug Ozempic, as the first example of a GLP-1 treatment for diabetes, which resulted in patients who were using it for their diabetes or weight loss, reporting that their craving for alcohol was significantly reduced.

So, if you’re overweight, diabetic and have alcohol use disorder, a GLP-1 substance is the treatment for you. Pity it is so expensive, but the price will come down.

This is Dave Reece ZS1DFR, thankfully having none of these three attributes, and reporting for HAMNET in South Africa.

Tropical Cyclone REGASA in the South China Sea, has had a devastating effect on the northern islands of Philippines, and has moved on to pummel China.

GDACS writes that, in the Philippines, the passage of RAGASA and a smaller storm MITAG, behind it, combined with the Southwest monsoon, caused heavy rainfall, floods, and landslides, four fatalities, seven people missing, 11 injured, 46,628 displaced, and 692,707 affected by the flooding.

In Taiwan, RAGASA caused 14 fatalities and around 10,000 people to be evacuated. In China, its passage resulted in approximately 770,000 evacuated people in the Guangdong province and 60 injured and 727 evacuated people in Hong Kong.

And, on Friday, GDACS announced that a newly formed Tropical Cyclone BUALOI – named OPONG in the Philippines – was moving northwest toward central Philippines. On 25 September at 0.00 UTC, its centre was located 383 km east of Samar Island’s eastern coast, with maximum sustained winds of 102 km/h (and as a tropical storm).

BUALOI has a course almost exactly parallel to RAGASA, but slightly more southerly than RAGASA, so the Philippines has been struck by three tropical storms or cyclones in as many days.

BUALOI was expected to continue northwest and to make landfall over southern Luzon Island between 25 and 26 September. It will then cross central and northern Philippines – particularly southern Luzon and Mindoro – from 26 to 27 September, bringing heavy rain and strong winds. After that, it should continue north-west over the South China Sea and make landfall over north-eastern Viet Nam on 29-30 September.

Thank you to GDACS for all those reports.

Meanwhile, in the Atlantic, Hurricane Gabrielle, which approached the Caribbean, and then veered up north east, along the coast of the US, before drifting off in an easterly direction, is now threatening Portugal. Carlos Nora CT1END, the emergency comms coordinator for Portugal, reports that their communications group will be on standby on 3.680MHz, 7.110MHz, 14.300MHz, and a variety of VHF simplex and repeater frequencies in the country from Saturday the 27^th, until the danger is passed. Please be mindful of the HF frequencies, and don’t call in, unless it is clear that you can help.

Danie ZS1OSS has sent me a report of an event in Cape Town this last Monday. He writes:

“Cape Town hosted a G20 outreach on climate resilience and coastal protection this last week. It was a pre-cursor to a main event expected later in October.

“The high-level gathering on 22 September 2025 was themed ‘Coastal Protection and Eco-Based Disaster Risk Reduction’. It was led by the National Minister for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Minister Velenkosini Hlabisa, and the Deputy Mayor of Cape Town was also in attendance.

“The outreach aimed to demonstrate the urgent need for stronger coastal defences as rising seas, storm surges and erosion threaten cities worldwide. The event also featured exhibitions of local disaster risk reduction projects, volunteer programmes, and community-based resilience efforts.

“Participants included the City of Cape Town Disaster Management, various NGOs, private sector partners, the National Sea Rescue Institute, the South African Weather Service, the Langa Community Advice Services, and other emergency and community organizations.

“HAMNET was also present and had our emergency communications trailer there. The Minister was briefed by our HAMNET WC Director, Michael ZS1MJT around what HAMNET is, and what it has been doing locally and nationally for various coastal and air related call-outs. The Minister was invited inside the trailer where Danie ZS1OSS showed him the APRS radio-based tracking we have on a screen, and the various other pieces of radio equipment. Whilst the Minister then made a statement to the media outside our trailer, we fielded a number of additional questions from ministerial advisors and delegates, and also had a member of the local Fire Rescue Service express interest in obtaining his amateur radio licence.

“The event was a success from HAMNET’s perspective, and also goes to show that our smart trailer does draw a lot of attention, and it was well worth having it present.”

Thank you, Danie, for that nice report.

Universe.com reports that the satellite Psyche launched in 2023, with the aim of studying the 220-kilometer metal asteroid also named Psyche that, according to one hypothesis, may be a fragment of the core of a dead protoplanet. The spacecraft is scheduled to reach Psyche in 2029.

In addition to studying the asteroid, Psyche also has the function of a “tester.” NASA specialists installed an experimental optical communication system on board. Its main advantage over traditional radio communication is its 10 to 100 times higher data transfer rate. Lasers can transmit complex scientific information, as well as high-definition images and videos. This is especially important for the next stage of space exploration, when humans will travel to the Moon and Mars and will need to send large amounts of data back to Earth quickly.

The first experiment took place on December 11, 2023, when Psyche was 31 million kilometers from Earth. The spacecraft sent a 15-second video of a cat to Earth (which was preloaded before launch). The data transfer rate was 267 Mbit/s. This is a couple of orders of magnitude faster than when using radio communication.

JPL specialists repeated the experiment several times thereafter. As Psyche moved away from Earth, the data transfer rate gradually decreased (for example, when the spacecraft was 226 million km away, it was 25 Mbit/s), but it was still much faster than traditional radio communications. In addition, engineers tested another innovation in the form of duplicate data. The spacecraft successfully demonstrated that it can simultaneously use both radio and laser communication systems to communicate with Earth. The radio data was transmitted to NASA’s Deep Space Network, and the laser data was received by the Hale telescope at Palomar Observatory. The photons captured by it were then directed to a highly efficient detector array, where the information encoded in them was processed.

Almost two years after the start, JPL specialists conducted the 65th and final experiment. During the mission, Psyche once again broke the distance record by successfully sending a signal from a distance of 350 million km. This corresponds to the radius of the inner boundary of the asteroid belt.

According to scientists, the experiments successfully demonstrated the effectiveness of the technology. Data encoded by lasers can be reliably transmitted, received, and decoded after passing hundreds of millions of kilometers. In total, Psyche transmitted 13.6 terabits of data to Earth over the entire period. At the same time, the data transfer rate turned out to be even higher than expected. All this means that the technology has great prospects, especially when space agencies face the challenge of transmitting large amounts of high-resolution images and data from the Moon and Mars.

All I can say is “Cor Blimey, ain’t science wunnerful?!”

This is Dave Reece ZS1DFR reporting for HAMNET in South Africa.

The far eastern shores of Russia, in the Kamchatka region has suffered two earthquakes of about magnitude 7.6 this week, the first of 7.4 on Monday past, and the second of 7.8 on Thursday evening our time. There have been many aftershocks, but luckily the epicentres have been off-shore, and casualties not recorded. Tsunami warnings were originally issued, but subsequently withdrawn. A total of 44 aftershocks of 4.5 magnitude or greater, in exactly the same spot, were reported on in Friday’s GDACS bulletin alone.

Since the 18^th September, Philippines and China have been threatened by Tropical Cyclone RAGASA, with maximum wind speeds of 220km/h, which arose in the north western Pacific, and which has moved across the northern tip of Philippines, in the direction of the south eastern coast of China. Its passage over northern Luzon affected more than 63,000 people and displaced nearly 800 individuals across at least five regions, primarily in Luzon Island.

RAGASA is expected to strengthen as a tropical storm while continuing its north west trajectory and is forecast to make landfall along the southeastern coast of Guangdong Province, near Hong Kong, on 19 September.

From 18–20 September, heavy to very heavy rainfall will occur in southeastern China, while moderate to locally heavy rainfall is expected across most of the Philippines.

And on 20^th September, the alert level for RAGASA was raised to RED, with maximum windspeeds of up to 220km/h expected, as it crossed the northern tip of Luzon Island on its way to China.

Additionally, a new tropical cyclone – named NANDO in the Philippines – formed over the central Philippine Sea, and is moving north-west, projected to cross the northern islands of the Philippines, Babuyan and Batanes on 23 September.

From Malaysia, we learn that Amateur radio operators in Sabah have activated the frequency of 7.110MHz as an emergency channel following widespread floods that cut off power and phone services.

Kelab Radio Amateur Utara Selatan Sabah (KRAUSS) President Janson Juwily said the move was to help channel critical information from affected areas where roads were blocked by landslides and communications disrupted.

“KRAUSS is coordinating information received from operators and passing on important or emergency updates to the relevant agencies,” he said.

He said 10 emergency stations manned by KRAUSS members are operating round the clock in Tuaran, Beaufort, Penampang and Kota Kinabalu, besides mobile stations.

In Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian Amateur Radio Emergency Committee confirmed 7.110 MHz has been designated as the official channel for flood-related communications in Beaufort, Papar and Penampang.

The committee urged amateur radio users to vacate the frequency for emergency use only, prioritizing urgent messages, relief coordination and vital updates.

The International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) also issued a global notice, with Region 3 Secretary-General Ken Yamamoto calling for the frequency to be reserved strictly for emergency, rescue and relief communications.

Meanwhile, reports from Penampang said transmission towers had collapsed, causing major power disruptions, water supply cuts and loss of phone services.

Thank you to dailyexpress.com.my for these paragraphs.

The website gdc.govt.nz notes that a casual chat about how to connect communication blackspots around Tairāwhiti has led to an ingenious system that will work when all else fails.

It all started when Tairāwhiti went dark during Cyclone Gabrielle – all communications were cut off. Cell towers and data networks went offline and there was no Wi-Fi or phone coverage.

“There had to be a better way,” says Tairāwhiti Emergency Management (TEMO) Group Manager, Ben Green. It led him to a conversation with Liam Cottle, a local, self-taught software engineering and radio communications expert.

Before the cyclone, Tairāwhiti already had black spots, but the issue was magnified during an emergency.

“Communication infrastructure is prone to failing,” says Mr Green. “That’s a real-time, today issue. Liam and I had a discussion around how we could solve the problem of communities without communications.”

A proof of concept was produced using a mesh communication system, Meshtastic, as a test bed. After testing identified technical limitations a new system called MeshCore was developed. It is a network where each device connects directly with others without relying on a central hub or cell tower.

Mr Cottle also designed an app and web interface that enables the users to text others on the network which connects to the Emergency Coordination Centre. TEMO has also invested in building solar powered repeaters that will create a backbone of the regional network.

“We wanted to embed a low cost but resilient communication network across the region that was easily deployable,” says Mr Green.

“Liam has taken a problem statement to create a bespoke solution for which he has developed and built MeshCore. This system improves on existing open-sourced solutions and has been designed as a complete regionally connected system that can operate off-grid, to provide secure, text-based messaging.”

“The user interface turns it into a command-and-control network that is easy to use. It is a low bandwidth slow system that is ideal for emergency communications.” Ben says the potential for even more to come from the encrypted MeshCore system is exciting.

“StarLink was seen as the great hope, and it does well but recent events have shown that satellite systems can be affected and taken offline. For our regional emergency planning, we have at least six back up modes of communication and MeshCore is now one of those.”

There has been a revolving door of members of parliament visiting the TEMO Emergency Co-ordination Centre in Lytton West, and Mr Green says he loves to show them the initiatives being rolled out in one of the nation’s most disaster-hit areas.

“This is real bang for buck for the taxpayer dollar,” he says. “MeshCore provides a capability that would otherwise cost thousands of dollars.”

Mr Cottle works alongside other like-minded engineers in Australia, the United Kingdom and Europe.

“There are lots playing with this technology all over the world, but not the way we are doing it here,” he says.

Thanks to ngt.govt.nz for the article.

It appears we are doing the same sort of thing here in South Africa, with meshtastic nodes which connect directly to each other, without use of a central hub or cell tower, but our encoding is different from MeshCore. And meshtastic, being licenceless, is used and promoted by all, not only radio hams.

This is Dave Reece ZS1DFR reporting for HAMNET in South Africa.

In a follow-up to the petition to the FCC to refuse the use of amateur frequencies between 430 and 440MHz by a space-based internet service called AST SpaceMobile, the FCC has granted the service limited use of the 430–440 MHz amateur radio band. The license grants use of amateur radio spectrum for emergency purposes only.

The IARU relays that the volume of comments filed by amateur radio organizations and operators contributed to the limited grant by the FCC Space Bureau. The IARU continues to maintain that AST SpaceMobile has failed to show a legitimate need to utilize amateur radio spectrum.

Hopefully, there will be recourse to appeal this allocation in the future, if interference to ham activity becomes more and more intrusive.

This is a quick warning of a moderate tropical storm BLOSSOM, which has arisen north east of the tip of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean. It is not threatening any landmass yet, and has wind speeds of about 75km/h, so is of no great concern at present. GDACS will continue to follow it, and report daily on its position.

The ARRL letter of 11^th September says that Amateur radio volunteers serving in the ARRL Amateur Radio Emergency Service and the National Weather Service SKYWARN program were active over the weekend. They were serving their communities in New England as tornado-warned storms moved across New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. Five EF1 tornadoes struck the central Massachusetts communities of Paxton, Holden, Berlin and Stow.

A squall line of severe thunderstorms that would eventually have embedded tornadoes in central Massachusetts swept across the region. SKYWARN nets were activated on repeaters across the area. Reports came in rapidly of downed trees and wires, as well as hail up to 20mm in diameter in western Massachusetts, with radio amateurs sharing critical damage reports from this area. In addition, reports of damage were received in all of the tornado path areas in near real time and were shared with the National Weather Service, Boston / Norton Weather Forecast Office, WX1BOX, amateur radio team, directly via repeaters, using various applications, email, or social media that the amateur radio team utilizes.

“It had been a below normal 2025 severe weather season with only one large-scale severe weather event [in July] across Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts,” said Rob Macedo, KD1CY, ARRL Eastern Massachusetts Section Emergency Coordinator and SKYWARN Coordinator. “That all changed on September 6th.”

Southern New England averages 2 tornadoes per year. The 6 states of New England average 8 tornadoes per year and there had been none in 2025 until Saturday the 6th, when 2/3 of the average yearly total occurred. This outbreak also put southern New England above average for tornadoes in the 2025 season.

All active SKYWARN nets were secured around 6:30 PM local time on Saturday.  Thanks to the ARRL for that news.

BBC.com/news reports that a mural is to be created to celebrate a radio communications station in Warwickshire dating back to the 1920s. The Rugby radio station was used for global communications in both peacetime and during the war.

It was used to broadcast time signals and linked the Royal Navy across the British Empire. The site is now being redeveloped and the developers have brought in an artist to create a mosaic made up of thousands of photos from the local community.

The radio station opened in 1926 and by the 1950s it was the biggest such station with nearly sixty masts, but it closed in the early 2000s and a school now stands on part of the site.

The artist, Allan Levy, said his mural would show “what Rugby radio was really about in its heyday when it was transmitting to the rest of the world and we were at the cutting edge of technology”. Mr Levy is still searching for more photos from the local community and aims to have the mural complete in time for the radio station’s 100th anniversary next year.

Thanks to the BBC for that report.

Reporting in theguardian.com/news, Kate Marvel says “Once upon a time, the world was powered by whale. Oil made from whale blubber burns cleanly and well, though it smells strongly of fish. It was, for a while, the perfect fuel. To meet the growing demand, whales were hunted almost to extinction.

“And then we discovered that oil could come from the ground. Lamps once lit by rendered blubber were swiftly changed over to run on what Americans call kerosene and the British call paraffin. Later, those lamps were changed to run on electricity, and instead of burning oil in the lamps themselves, we began to burn it in power plants miles away.

“This is where we find ourselves today. When a fossil fuel is combusted, it releases energy, which boils water, which turns to steam, which drives a turbine, which generates electricity. This is an almost comically inefficient process, requiring immense amounts of material: more than 8 billion tons of coal and 4 trillion cubic metres of fossil gas every year. And given the basic chemistry of combustion, it’s unavoidable that burning all this stuff leads to an immense buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Worse, fossil gas itself is made of methane – shorter lived in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, but more than 80 times more potent while it lasts. Around a quarter of annual greenhouse gas emissions come from using fossil fuels to generate electricity.

“To have a hope of limiting warming, this has to change. The transition to clean energy will be difficult, but not impossible. Some of it is already happening. Renewable energy technologies have become good, reliable and inexpensive. Solar and wind, as well as the batteries needed to compensate for their intermittency, are getting cheaper at an astonishing rate. The price of onshore wind power plummeted 70% in the last decade, while solar costs fell by almost 90%. As a result, renewables are already being deployed at rates forecasters never imagined. If you had told me, even five years ago, how quickly the energy transition would be proceeding, I would not have believed you. It’s more than I ever dared to hope for. Finally, things are beginning to move. But they need to move faster. We know they can. They have before.”

Thank you to the theguardian.com for these first paragraphs from their commentary.

This is Dave Reece ZS1DFR very grateful that I don’t have to boil up some whale blubber to extract oil to light a lamp to be able to see what I’m typing, and reporting for HAMNET in South Africa.

Afghanistan experienced a magnitude 6 earthquake in its eastern border area with Pakistan, on Sunday the 31^st August at 21h17 CAT. The epicentre of the quake was a mere 6km below the surface, in a seismically active area because of ongoing friction between the Eurasian and the Indian tectonic plates.

The earthquake struck just before midnight local time on Sunday in a mountainous region near the city of Jalalabad, along the eastern border with Pakistan. It was of a relatively low 6.0 magnitude. But its epicentre was shallow at 8km underground, resulting in strong shaking on the surface and a series of aftershocks.

By Friday, GDACS was reporting a death toll at 2205, with injuries to 3604 people and the destruction of 6782 houses. People in the surrounding areas affected by the earthquake number about 497000, of whom 263000 are children.

Most of the dead and injured were sleeping indoors at the time of the earthquake, and were crushed by collapsing buildings. Because of the remoteness of the affected areas, and also blockage of road networks from landslides caused by the earthquake, the exact death toll may take a long time to find out.

Rural communities in Afghanistan can’t afford sturdy and manufactured building materials. Because of this they build homes with locally available natural materials such as earth, stone and raw lumber.

Such buildings do not follow engineered designs, building codes or formal professional standards that prevent easy damage by earthquakes in wealthier countries.

A typical form of construction in Afghan rural areas is walls made of mud bricks or stone masonry. This is known as “monolithic” construction.

Such construction is unable to resist the strong side-to-side shaking caused by an earthquake. As a result, buildings easily tumble and crush people. Reports of collapsed rubble where there were once buildings are emerging widely from Afghanistan, as was also the case in previous earthquakes.

More than one aftershock has been recorded in the area, the last, of magnitude 5.6 being measured on 4^th September at 18h56 CAT.

Next door, Pakistan is experiencing the heaviest monsoon flooding in 40 years. GDACS says that the flooding is due to unprecedented water releases from the Sutlej, Chenab, and Ravi rivers. This is affecting more than 2.4 million people and displacing more than 1 million people.

As of 6^th September, 884 fatalities and 1,182 injuries had been reported, while the UN reported 1.8 million evacuations and the creation of over 700 relief camps sheltering 12,500 people.

Meanwhile Portugal is mourning a devastating crash of a funicular train in Lisbon, called the Elevador da Gloria, which lost control as the carriage was coming down a steep hillside, derailed and crashed into a building.

Funiculars consist of two carriages on each end of a very strong cable. As one carriage comes down the hill on its end of the cable, the other carriage goes up the hill. In this way, a train coach can ascend or descend a steep slope in a controlled manner.

It seems, though not proven, that the cable snapped and the descending coach’s brakes were unable to slow the 20 ton carriage down or stop it. 16 people of many nationalities were killed and at least 20 injured

The company that operates the Elevador da Gloria has said regular inspections — including daily checks — had been carried out as required. It is therefore unlikely that negligence was at work. Portugal has declared 3 days of national mourning after the accident.

The City of Cape Town’s Disaster Risk Management held its annual Koeberg Nuclear Power Station Exercise, in conjunction with ESKOM this last Thursday, the 4^th September. HAMNET has a MOU with DRM and was represented at the exercise by Danie ZS1OSS, who sent me this report. He says:

“The Annual Koeberg Nuclear Power Station exercise was held by City of Cape Town’s Disaster Risk Management on Thursday 4 September 2025 in conjunction with Eskom and many other national, provincial and local agencies. This is a mandatory exercise that the City Disaster Management and Eskom must conduct to test the readiness of the various departments and agencies that must respond if there were to be a real nuclear disaster. The exercise is also important to identify shortcomings that must be improved on, as well as for the various departments and agencies to practice their own skills and how to operate together with other agencies.

“HAMNET‘s role is one of emergency communications. HAMNET is present to monitor developments, as it is essential to have a situational awareness if deployment is required. If communication dead spots are encountered, or if communications completely fail at any location, a HAMNET member would be deployed to that location to ensure communications can be maintained with the decision makers in the Strategic Room. For this exercise, HAMNET deployed Danie ZS1OSS, assisted by Jannie ZS1JFK and Shawn ZS1LED.

“The exercise started off with a situation being simulated at Koeberg Nuclear Power Station, which escalated to the point that an activation SMS was sent out at 09:30 for all agencies to deploy to their various posts. Such a deployment is all pre-planned and consists of some agencies deploying to one of the Mass Care Centre (MCC) locations, others to traffic road blocks, the mobilization of two passenger bus services for evacuation, and others to their pre-allocated seats in the Strat Room at Goodwood Disaster Risk Management Centre. HAMNET took the opportunity to test their simplex radio communications between the Strat Room and the Auditorium in the building, and the Meshtastic radios were also tested, with one being situated at the border of the Koeberg Nature Reserve. A quick debrief was done when things got quieter nearer the end of the exercise, and it was interesting to note that over repeated exercises there are newer faces asking new questions, as well as more experienced members identifying deeper issues that may arise. This is the whole point of holding exercises and drills, after all! The all clear was given at 13:40 and the exercise ended.”

Thank you, Danie. I believe there may be a follow up report in a future edition of RadioZS.

This is a very disappointed Dave Reece ZS1DFR, packing my green and gold jersey away until next week, and reporting for HAMNET in South Africa.

Phys.org is reporting this week that an international team of astrophysicists and planetary scientists has discovered a possible link between magnetospheric activity and ionospheric turbulence. In their study published in the journal Physical Review Letters, the group used data from two sources to compare magnetospheric activity and ionospheric turbulence occurring at nearly the same time.

As you know, the ionosphere comprises the upper reaches of Earth’s atmosphere—it spans from approximately 48 km to 965 km above sea level, holding ions formed from solar radiation, making it electrically charged. The magnetosphere is an area of space surrounding Earth—it has charged particles that are impacted by Earth’s magnetic field. It exists courtesy of the planet’s internal dynamo, and it extends to approximately 65,000 km from the surface, though the distance varies greatly depending on a variety of factors.

Scientists have long known that turbulence in the ionosphere can cause problems with GPS signals, radio communications and even parts of the internet. Researchers have been looking to understand better why it happens, to figure out a way to predict when it will occur, and how strongly. In this new effort, the research team has taken a step toward solving the latter problems.

The team suspected that activity in the magnetosphere might be responsible for at least some of the turbulence that occurs in the ionosphere. To investigate, they used two sources of observational data: one on activity in the ionosphere (from the Japanese spacecraft Arase) and the other on the magnetosphere (from the ground-based ICEBEAR station in Canada).

By comparing data from both over the period January 2020 to June 2023, they were able to see if activity happening in the magnetosphere was followed soon thereafter by turbulence in the ionosphere and found one such incidence.

Data from Arase showed a burst of activity on May 12, 2021, in the magnetosphere. Seconds later, data from ICEBEAR showed turbulence occurring in the ionosphere. The data also showed the activity for both occurred over roughly the same patch of Earth and that the shape and timing of the signals matched to what the team describes as “a high degree of precision.”

The researchers acknowledge that more work is required before a definitive association can be made between events in the magnetosphere and turbulence in the ionosphere, but they suggest their work is a strong step in proving it to be the case.

Popularmechanics.com has announced this week that a team of scientists announced the detection of dimethyl sulfide (along with a similar detection of dimethyl disulfide) in the atmosphere of an exoplanet called K2-18b. This is actually the second detection of dimethyl sulfide made on this planet, following a tentative detection in 2023. Their announcement was made in a paper published in Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Tons of chemicals are detected in the atmospheres of celestial objects every day. But dimethyl sulfide is different, because on Earth, it’s only produced by living organisms.

“It is a shock to the system,” Nikku Madhusudhan, first author on the paper, told the New York Times. “We spent an enormous amount of time just trying to get rid of the signal.”

It may sound surprising that the scientists were “trying to get rid of the signal,” but that’s exactly how detections like this work. Pretty much all of the exoplanets we’ve ever seen are simply too far away to just look at. Instead, to gather more information about what may lie on their surfaces, scientists observe the chemical makeups of their atmospheres.

This is done by capturing starlight that filters through those gaseous layers as a planet completes a transit in front of its host star. Different wavelengths of that starlight are blocked by different atmospheric chemicals, so by reading which wavelengths get filtered out as they pass through an exoplanets atmosphere, we can tell what that atmosphere is made of.

Astronomers have become very good at making these detections, but it’s still a difficult process. And the first step, every time, is to try to filter out noise—errant spikes in a spectrum that can disguise true detections—and false positives that might be caused by, say, a nearly invisible gas cloud in between us and an exoplanet.

So, when the astronomers spotted dimethyl sulfide in the atmosphere of K2-18b, they did everything to try to rule out the possibility that it was a ‘whoops.’

But even after carefully exhausting all the avenues they could think of over the course of two full observation sessions with JWST (which is rare in astronomy, considering how many teams want time with the coolest telescope we have) they found it impossible to attribute the detection to anything other than atmospheric composition. And if you rule out the impossible, whatever remains—however improbable—must be the truth.

May I end this shortened bulletin with a huge appeal to all you radio communicators who read this bulletin or listen to it, to consider sending me some news of your area? You will have noticed that, for months now, I’ve had virtually nothing to say about the South African Comms scene, or about events, activities or rescues that we have been involved in. Does that really mean nothing happens in South Africa? Please consider sending me as little as a paragraph from your area, and I will incorporate it in the bulletin. Thank you.

And now, bearing in mind which Sunday today is, may I warn you not to join the ranks of those in the statistics, to whom the following epitaph applies: “Death by Chocolate”!

This is Dave Reece ZS1DFR, hastily wiping the chocolate smears off all the keys on his keyboard, and reporting for HAMNET in South Africa.