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  Happivallankumous muutti Maan biosfäärin energiseksi, monisoluisten organismien maailmaksi. Mutta toisilla planeetoilla elämä voi kukoistaa mainiosti vailla happea. Hapen yleisyys elävien planeettojen kaasukehissä on toistaiseksi täysin tuntematonta. https://tuomim.wordpress.com/2026/06/05/happi-kompleksisen-elaman-taustalla/

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  Sand clouds form every morning but clear up by nightfall on WASP-94A b, a well-studied gas giant located nearly 700 light years away from Earth. New research using data from the #JWST is among the first to detect #cloud cycles on a Hot #Jupiter #exoplanet. By isolating the clouds, researchers were able to more accurately measure the properties of the #planet's #atmosphere and provide one of the clearest pictures to date of the planet's composition. Observations revealed that...

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  When a scientific controversy or breakthrough dominates headlines, press officers and journalists often quote a handful of experts. These views may be insightful, but they rarely tell us what the wider scientific community thinks. And yet public discussions frequently rely on phrases such as “the science says” or “scientists believe”, as if there were a clear and measurable answer. In reality, systematic evidence about scientific opinion is often missing. Attempts to find evidence for #life...

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  Tämä on eksoplaneettojen vuosi! Helsingin yliopiston eksoplaneettatutkimuksemme on saanut merkittävää rahoitusta ja ryhmäämme saapuu opinnäytetöitään tekemään jatkuvasti uusia opiskelijoita. Julkaisen myös pian uuden kirjan: Löytöretki eksoplaneetoille. https://tuomim.wordpress.com/2026/06/22/eksoplaneettojen-vuosi/

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  The cosmic shoreline concept was introduced to separate #planets with #atmospheres from those without, by relating the cumulative X-ray and extreme-ultraviolet (XUV) instellation to the planetary escape velocity, using the Solar System planets to anchor the empirical relation. The #exoplanet community has since attempted to refine the cosmic shoreline to provide a consistent ranking or prioritisation tool for exoplanet observations – i.e., to quickly identify which small #planets are most likel...

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  Tähtitieteilijät ovat ensi kertaa kyenneet tekemään yksityiskohtaisia havaintoja eksoplaneetan sääilmiöistä. Kuuman jättiläisplaneetan WASP-94A b tuulisella aamutaivaalla muodostuu magnesiumsilikaattipilviä, kun taas iltataivas on selkeä. https://tuomim.wordpress.com/2026/06/10/aamu-usvaa-eksoplaneetoilla/

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  #ALMA has been in scientific operations for almost 15 years. As of the beginning of February 2026, ALMA had observed 3933 independent coordinates. Here is a collection of ALMAs observations of circumstellar #disks with substructures in dust continuum emission, available in the literature. Each panel is 400 au in size, and the disks are scaled based on the #Gaia DR3 parallax, ranging from largest to smallest continuum disk from top to bottom. #astronomy https://astrobiology.com/2026/06/an-ar...

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  In a shocking discovery, scientific #journal finds that people work better when actually paid for it. In the six-month experiment, reviewers who within four working days delivered a report that their handling editor considered good quality were paid £220 per manuscript. Paying reviewers not only led to faster first editorial decisions — an average of 5.5 working days, down from nearly 38 for unpaid reviews — but review quality, as judged by handling editors on the basis of helpfulness in makin...

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  Yhteiskunnassamme esiintyy niin paljon tieteenkieltämistä, aina valtioneuvostoa myöten, että tarvitaan tieteen kunnianpalautus. Se voidaan tehdä vain palauttamalla Suomi yhdeksi tieteen vapauden kärkimaita. On ensin heitettävä tieteenkieltäjät pois vallasta. https://tuomim.wordpress.com/2026/06/29/taantumuksen-voimat-tieteen-uhkana/

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  Globally, democratic politics are under attack from Electorally Legitimated Misogynist Authoritarian (#ELMA) leaders who successfully use #misogyny as a political strategy and present environmental concern in feminine and inferior terms. The ascendancy of such projects raise questions involving #socioeconomic structures, political communication, and the psychological underpinnings of people's attitudes. misogyny, conceptualized in a specific way – not simply as hatred or disgust for women,...

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  Reliance on artificial-intelligence tools degrades the abilities of physicians and software engineers. Evidence suggests that AI-driven ‘deskilling’ is starting to happen in medicine, computer science and other fields. Researchers are now discussing how to preserve important human expertise in the age of AI. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-01947-1

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  Climate models have long warned that global warming could weaken deep-water formation—the density-driven sinkid that is the engine of the #AMOC. The logic is straightforward: As #Greenland’s ice sheets melt and sea ice formation declines, North #Atlantic waters will freshen. Combined with warmer sea temperatures, the freshening makes surface waters more buoyant. The AMOC was thought to have shut down abruptly during past #climate warmings, and a handful of researchers now argue such a tipping...

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  See the narrow gap in the plotted temperature-luminosity diagram corresponding to the stellar properties of our nearest #stars? It is a narrow region where stars are not allowed, because there is a transition between stars with thin radiative outer layers and those that are fully convective. It was a surprise to be able to obtain such subtle astrophysical information by simply looking at a sample of stars with accurately characterised properties. #astronomy #astrophysics https://aasnova.org/...

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  Kirjoitin vasta hiljattain siitä, kuinka Maa sai alkunsa, mutta uudet tulokset tarjoavat jatkuvasti yksityiskohtaisempaa tietoa planeettakuntamme synnystä. Maa syntyi, koska ei voinut muuta ja siksi niin käy taatusti muissakin samankaltaisissa planeettakunnissa. https://tuomim.wordpress.com/2026/05/20/uusi-malli-maan-synnylle/

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  The earliest known #eukaryotes, the ancestors of all complex #life on Earth, lived in oxygenated, shallow marine environments nearly 1.7 billion years ago. The earliest eukaryotes for which we have #fossils lived in predominantly near-shore, oxygenated, benthic (on the seafloor) settings. This implies that the availability of #oxygen was dictating eukaryote #evolution from its early stages. #biology #astrobiology https://astrobiology.com/2026/05/early-complex-life-lived-in-oxygenated-seas-ch...

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  This picture from the #JWST features an astounding number of #galaxies. The objects in this frame span an incredible range of distances, from stars within our own Milky Way, marked by diffraction spikes, to galaxies billions of light-years away. #astronomy #astrophotography https://esawebb.org/images/potm2504a/

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  Grants managers at two of the US government’s largest funders of scientific research have placed unprecedented limitations on the ability of US scientists to publish with co-authors from other countries. Units of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) are privately directing grantees to request permission in advance for any co-authorship with a scholar affiliated with a foreign institution, even if all the work was done in the United States. NASA, meanwhile, is reportedly telling some grantee...

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  A new image of #Mars from #Psyche mission flyby. #planets #astrophotography

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  Kopernikaaninen periaate tarkoittaa sitä, että emme ole maailmankaikkeudessa minkäänlaisessa erityisasemassa. Myöskään planeettakuntamme synty ei ollut epätodennäköinen sattumus, vaan vain vääjäämätön kehityskulku nuoren tähden kiertoradalla. https://tuomim.wordpress.com/2026/05/20/uusi-malli-maan-synnylle/

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  Luonnontilaiset, vanhat metsät ovat hävinneet Suomesta lähes kokonaan voimakkaan metsienkäytön vuoksi. Vanhojen metsien hiilensidontakykyyn kohdistuu paljon mielenkiintoa, mutta aiheesta on vähäisen tutkimuksen vuoksi ollut saatavilla niukasti tietoa. Uusi tutkimus osoittaa, että vaikka vanhoissa metsissä puuston kasvu on hidasta, kasvua ja hiilensidontaa tapahtuu edelleen. Vanhoissa metsissä hiiltä varastoituu erityisesti lahopuuhun. Tutkimus osoittaa, että luonnontilaisten metsien maaperä o...

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  If you’ve ever witnessed a #whale’s powerful exhalation at the surface, you’ve likely experienced the notorious “whale breath”, that pungent cloud that can clear a whale-watching boat deck in seconds. But while humans can certainly detect these oceanic odors, the question remains: Can whales themselves smell? The answer is more complex than you might expect, with significant differences between toothed whales (#odontocetes) and baleen whales (#mysticetes). #biology #ecology #evolution https:/...

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  Global sea levels may rise faster than previously expected. The reason is that warming oceans appear to be melting #Antarctic ice shelves from below much more rapidly than expected. Ice shelves, which are extensions of gigantic #glaciers that float on the water surface, act like buttresses that slow the flow of gigatons of ice into the sea. Now, researchers have discovered that long, channel-like grooves on the underside of these ice shelves can trap relatively warm ocean water, sharply incr...

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  Our greatest window into the #universe is nearing completion. This soon-to-be #telescope is located at the top of Cerro #Armazones, the mountain that casts a triangular shadow. At 3046 metres above sea level, and with very dry conditions, the #ELT is in the perfect location for astronomical observations under one of the most pristine skies on Earth. Its dome, planned to be fully completed in 2027, protects the telescope and its sensitive components from the extreme desert environment, and fro...

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  Tunnemme jo tuhansia eksoplaneettoja ja olemme oppineet arvioimaan, ainakin karkealla tavalla, niin elinkelpoisuutta. Mitkä ovat parhaita paikkoja ylläpitämään elämää kuten oma planeettamme? Uudet tutkimukset valaiseva asiaa taas hitusen verran lisää. https://tuomim.wordpress.com/2026/05/05/luettelo-parhaista-maailmoista-elamalle/

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  Global #temperature correlates strongly with extreme climatic events. In a new paper, exploiting natural global temperature variability, researchers find that 1ºC warming reduces world #GDP by over 20% in the long run. This implicates that the #macroeconomic damages from #climate change are an order of magnitude larger than previously thought. https://academic.oup.com/qje/article/141/2/889/8490467?login=false

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  Olisi kirja tulossa luettavaksi syksyllä ja tältä se nyt sitten taitaa näyttää. "Eksoplaneetat ovat muita tähtiä kiertäviä planeettoja. Eksoplaneettojen tutkija Mikko Tuomi kertoo näiden uusien maailmojen tutkimuksesta ja erityisesti elämän merkkien etsimisestä niiltä."

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  The White House announced a plan to cancel over 50 #space missions as part of a devastating 46% cut to #NASA #science. The proposal would likely eliminate thousands of jobs at an agency that has just launched astronauts to the #Moon for the first time in decades, and dozens of other space missions would see their operations reduced or slowly wound down to a halt. The following missions are to be cancelled: 1. The Habitable Worlds Observatory being built to search for #life on dozens of Earth...

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  Climate models show considerable discrepancies in their future projections around the Atlantic, mainly due to uncertainties in the fate of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (#AMOC). #Climate models have previously suggested a reduction in AMOC strength of 32±37% by 2100. But a closer examination, however, gives an estimate of the AMOC slowdown of 51±8%. This refinement mainly results from correcting a bias in South Atlantic surface #salinity, consistent with recent studies empha...

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  Desert worlds outside our solar system are unlikely to host #life. This is because an Earth-sized #planet needs at least 20 to 50% of the #water in #Earth's #oceans to maintain a critical natural cycle that keeps water on the surface. Planetary #habitability hinges on the geologic #carbon cycle—a water-driven process that exchanges carbon between the #atmosphere and interior over millions of years, stabilizing surface temperatures. Carbon dioxide, which comes from #volcanoes in a natu...

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  Elokuussa tulee täyteen 20 vuotta akateemisena pätkätyöläisenä. Olen ollut töissä neljässä maassa ja kolmella mantereella määräaikaisena työntekijänä, vierailevana tutkijana, apurahatutkijana, ja ties missä roolissa. Eikä henkihieveriin leikattu akatemia voi tarjota parempaa. https://tuomim.wordpress.com/2020/06/12/maaraaikaisen-tutkijan-helvetti/