FROM TOP: GUILLERMO BLANCO; SAUNAK PAL4 SCIENCE NEWS | November 20, 2021FROM TOP: GUILLERMO BLANCO; CASEY REED/NASATHE –EST
A star twirls ultrafast with a little help from a friend
A white dwarf 2,000 light-years from Earth spins every 25 seconds, making it the fastest-
spinning star ever seen — unless you consider such exotic objects as neutron stars and
black holes, some of which spin even faster, to be stars (SN: 3/17/07, p. 173). The typical
white dwarf takes hours or days to spin.
The fast-spinning white dwarf, part of a binary named LAMOST J024048.51+195226.
in the constellation Aries, gets its whirl
from a red dwarf star that revolves around
it. Just as falling water makes a waterwheel
turn, gas falling from the red companion
star makes the white dwarf twirl.
Astronomer Ingrid Pelisoli of the
University of Warwick in Coventry,
England, and colleagues detected a peri-
odic blip of light from the duo. The blip
repeated every 24.93 seconds, revealing
the white dwarf star’s record-breaking
rotation period, the researchers report
August 26 at arXiv.org.
The star’s only known rival is an even
faster-spinning object that may be a white
dwarf in orbit with the blue star HD 49798.
But that rapid rotator’s nature is unclear:
Some recent studies suggest it is probably
a neutron star instead. — Ken CroswellNOTEBOOK50 YEARS AGO
Environmental
advertising
Juan Negro crouched in the shadows just
outside a cave. For a moment, he wasn’t
an ornithologist at the Spanish National
Research Council’s Doñana Biological
S tation in Seville. He was a Neandertal
intent on catching dinner. As Negro waited
in the cold, dark hours of the night, crow-
like birds called choughs entered the cave.
The head lamp–wearing “Neandertal” then
snuck in and began the hunt.UPDATE:Concerns about
“g reenwashing,” a term coined
in the 1980s to describe the
practice of organizations
marketing their products as
environmentally friendly when
they are not, have persisted
into the current climate crisis.
As more consumers have
become environmentally
conscious, corporations’ green-
washing tactics have evolved.
For instance, some energy
companies in the United States
have claimed that natural
gas is a “clean” energy source
because the power plants emit
less carbon dioxide than coal
plants. But natural gas plants
can emit large amounts of
methane, a potent greenhouse
gas. In 2022, the U.S. Federal
Trade Commission plans to
review its “Green Guides,”
rules for companies that make
environmental claims.Excerpt from the
November 27, 1971
issue of Science NewsSome white dwarf stars (one illustrated, center)
twirl thanks to companion stars (upper right)
dumping gas onto them, including the fastest-
spinning white dwarf ever seen.The red-billed chough is hard to hunt
during the day. But the bird’s roosting
habits might have made it easy prey for
Neandertals to catch bare-handed.THE SCIENCE LIFE
Neandertal role-play hints at ancient hunting tacticsA new report published by
the Council on Economic
Priorities clearly outlines
facts showing that much
corporate advertising on
environmental themes is
irrelevant or even decep-
tive.... A large percentage of
the environmental advertis-
ing comes from companies
that are the worst polluters.This idea to role-play started with
butchered bird bones. Piles of ancient
tool- and tooth-nicked chough bones
have been found in the same caves that
Neandertals frequented, suggesting that
the ancient hominids chowed down on
the birds. But catching choughs is tricky.
During the day, they fly far to feed on
invertebrates, seeds and fruit. At night
though, the birds are practically sittingnotebook.indd 4notebook.indd 4 11/3/21 10:51 AM11/3/21 10:51 AM