Dit is ons nieuw hondje Kira, een kruising van een waterhond en een Podenko. Ze is sinds 7 februari 2024 bij ons en druk bezig ons hart te veroveren. Het is een lief, aanhankelijk hondje, dat zich op een week snel aan ons heeft aangepast. Ze is heel vinnig en nieuwsgierig, een heel ander hondje dan Noleke.
This is our new dog Kira, a cross between a water dog and a Podenko. She has been with us since February 7, 2024 and is busy winning our hearts. She is a sweet, affectionate dog who quickly adapted to us within a week. She is very quick and curious, a very different dog than Noleke.
DEAR VISITOR,
MY BLOG EXISTS ALREADY 12 YEARS AND 10 MONTHS.
ON 06/04/2024 MORE THAN 1.951.050
VISITORS FROM 134 DIFFERENT NATIONS ALREADY FOUND THEIR WAY TO MY BLOG.
THAT IS AN AVERAGE OF 400GUESTS PER DAY.
THANK YOU FOR VISITING MY BLOG AND HOPE YOU ENJOY EACH TIME.
The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
Druk op onderstaande knop om te reageren in mijn forum
Zoeken in blog
Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
Een interessant adres?
UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld In België had je vooral BUFON of het Belgisch UFO-Netwerk, dat zich met UFO's bezighoudt. BEZOEK DUS ZEKER VOOR ALLE OBJECTIEVE INFORMATIE , enkel nog beschikbaar via Facebook en deze blog.
Verder heb je ook het Belgisch-Ufo-meldpunt en Caelestia, die prachtig, doch ZEER kritisch werk leveren, ja soms zelfs héél sceptisch...
Voor Nederland kan je de mooie site www.ufowijzer.nl bezoeken van Paul Harmans. Een mooie site met veel informatie en artikels.
MUFON of het Mutual UFO Network Inc is een Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in alle USA-staten en diverse landen.
MUFON's mission is the analytical and scientific investigation of the UFO- Phenomenon for the benefit of humanity...
Je kan ook hun site bekijken onder www.mufon.com.
Ze geven een maandelijks tijdschrift uit, namelijk The MUFON UFO-Journal.
Since 02/01/2020 is Pieter ex-president (=voorzitter) of BUFON, but also ex-National Director MUFON / Flanders and the Netherlands. We work together with the French MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP.
ER IS EEN NIEUWE GROEPERING DIE ZICH BUFON NOEMT, MAAR DIE HEBBEN NIETS MET ONZE GROEP TE MAKEN. DEZE COLLEGA'S GEBRUIKEN DE NAAM BUFON VOOR HUN SITE... Ik wens hen veel succes met de verdere uitbouw van hun groep. Zij kunnen de naam BUFON wel geregistreerd hebben, maar het rijke verleden van BUFON kunnen ze niet wegnemen...
18-04-2017
Titan's Trick Explained: 'Magic Islands' on Saturn Moon May Be Bubbles
Titan's Trick Explained: 'Magic Islands' on Saturn Moon May Be Bubbles
By Charles Q. Choi, Space.com Contributor
This Cassini radar image shows the Ligeia Mare sea on the Saturn moon Titan's north polar region. Various images of the region are shown in the square labeled "inset area" on the left. Taken during flybys by Cassini from April 2007 to January 2015, the images clearly show the appearance, and then disappearance, of a "magic island" on Ligeia Mare's surface.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASI/Cornell
Mysterious bright anomalies known as "magic islands" that wink in and out of existence on the seas of Saturn's largest moon, Titan, may be streams of bubbles, a new model suggests.
Such bubbles, each up to more than an inch (2.5 centimeters) wide, might complicate any future missions seeking to explore Titan's seas, to the study's researchers said.
Titan is bigger than the planet Mercury, making the natural satellite the largest of the more than 60 known moons orbiting Saturn. It is also the only extraterrestrial body known to regularly support liquid on its surface, with seas and lakes likely made of nitrogen, methane and ethane, researchers have said. [Titan in Pictures: Amaznig Photos of Saturn's Big Moon]
In 2013, using radar aboard NASA's Cassini spacecraft, researchers peered through Titan's thick, hazy atmosphere to analyze the second-largest sea on the moon, Ligeia Mare. Titan's seas and lakes usually appear dark, but Cassini detected bright anomalies in Ligeia Mare that mysteriously disappeared after subsequent observations.
"The physical process behind this strange behavior was, up to now, absolutely not understood," study lead author Daniel Cordier, a planetary scientist at the University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne in France, told Space.com.
Previous research suggested these playfully named magic islands were not alien creatures or spacecraft, but potentially gas bubbles or floating solids. Now, Cordier and his colleagues suggest that these anomalies are due to fizzing in Titan's unstable seas.
To learn more about the magic islands, the researchers developed computer models of how gases and liquids might behave in the frigid seas of Titan. The scientists based their models in part on experimental data previously collected by the oil and gas industry about how similar fluids act under pressure when deep underground.
The new findings suggest that on Titan, surface fluids are usually mixtures richer in methane, while deeper fluids are mixtures rich in ethane. Since the surface fluids are in contact with Titan's nitrogen-rich atmosphere, they are rich in nitrogen as well, the study said.
The researchers suggested that wind, tides, or the effects of heating and cooling may force surface mixtures to flow downward. The liquids in these sinking mixtures then separate because of the increased pressure found at lower depths. Nitrogen gas bubbles released by these separating liquids then rise back to the surface. Bubbles are highly reflective to radio waves, and so look bright under radar scans, the researchers said.
The calculations suggest that the bubbles can reach up to 1.8 inches (4.6 cm) in width and likely form at depths of about 330 to 660 feet (100 to 200 meters). This bubbling is only temporary, which explains why the Cassini spacecraft did not always see it, the researchers said.
Cordier noted that if future missions seek to deploy submarines to Titan's seas, "possible instabilities of the liquid at the sea bottom have to be taken into account."
In early 1991, a small group of U.S. Army special forces operatives encamped near the triple border of Kuwait, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia received a strange warning from their commanders: The Air Force was going to drop a bomb nearby that might appear to be a nuclear weapon but was not. It’s not something the military usually needs to clarify. For weeks, Air Force B-52 bombers had been pounding the area, leaving the soldiers “pretty inured to the massive explosions,” Team Sergeant Michael Adams tells Inverse. The soldiers shrugged off the warning. Then the daisy cutter fell.
“I was about a mile away when it went off,” Adams says. “Despite the B-52s shaking the earth endlessly, that fucking thing was absolutely stunning. Earth-shattering, although I’d prefer another descriptive.”
The U.S. Air Force had dropped a BLU-82, commonly known as the “Daisy Cutter,” a 15,000-pound thermobaric weapon used for clearing minefields and helicopter landing zones in the Vietnam war. Later in its service, the military used the daisy cutter’s massive, raw destructive power as a psychological weapon against the Iraqi Army in the first Gulf War, and again against insurgents in Afghanistan.
On Thursday, the U.S. military dropped the daisy cutter’s successor, the 22,600-pound GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb, on an ISIS-controlled system of caves and tunnels in the Achin district of Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province filled with improvised explosive devices.
The “Mother of All Bombs,” as the GBU-43/B is often called, unleashed the force of 18,700 pounds of TNT on the area, causing a massive blast wave for a mile in every direction that killed dozens of ISIS fighters and destroyed at least three different caves. Civilian casualties, for now, are still unknown. After 16 years of conflict in Afghanistan and Iraq, the MOAB had never been used, even though it was the largest non-nuclear weapon in the U.S.’s arsenal. So why did the Pentagon decide to deploy it now?
Tactically, experts say the military didn’t have to. Instead, the only point of the MOAB strike was sheer shock, awe, and terror, to send a message of strength both at home and abroad.
“I’m guessing somebody wanted to make a statement by using it,” John Ismay, a senior crisis advisor at Amnesty International and former Explosive Ordnance Disposal Officer in the U.S. Navy, tells Inverse. “Unless Central Command or the White House can prove otherwise, from everything that’s come out so far, there doesn’t appear to be any particular reason why you had to use the MOAB.”
According to the military, the MOAB was used to clear an extensive network of booby-trapped tunnels and caves.
“This is the first time we have encountered an extensive obstacle to our progress that was constituted by I.E.D.s, the presence of tunnels and caves, and therefore this was the appropriate weapon to use at this time,” Gen. John W. Nicholson Jr., the commander of American and NATO forces in Afghanistan, said at a news conference in Kabul on Friday.
“It was the right time to use [the Mother of All Bombs] tactically against the right target on the battlefield, and it has enabled us to resume our offensive operations,” Nicholson said.
In a statement sent to Inverse on Sunday, a press officer for the ISAF forces in Afghanistan writes: “Our battle damage assessments are still being conducted. We will release more information as appropriate.”
The case for using the MOAB hinges on the specific way the bomb explodes. Most traditional bombs kill with fragments of their heavy metal casing blown apart by the explosives inside. But like the daisy cutter, the MOAB’s lethality comes from the shockwave it produces, a massive wall of compressed gasses that can clear out tunnels and caves like the ones it struck on Thursday.
“We made MOAB for this kind of target,” Mark Cancian, Senior Advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies told Wired. “My guess is that we just didn’t know where these tunnels were before.”
Ismay, who deployed to Iraq in 2007 and served as an EOD officer for eight out of his 11 years in the Navy, isn’t convinced that the MOAB was the right tool. He says that the Air Force’s BLU-118/B bomb is also a thermobaric weapon designed to destroy or kill targets in dense tunnel systems with the force of its blast. The smaller bomb is far more precise, as it uses a laser guidance system that’s more accurate than the MOAB’s GPS-based guidance. Ismay says a laser-guided bomb could be programmed to detonate inside the mouth of a cave, rather than a few feet above the surface, like the MOAB.
“If you really wanted to damage a cave, you’d want that explosive, that thermobaric explosive to be going off inside the cave itself,” he says. “[The BLU-118/B] can be fitted with a laser guidance package and fly that thing into a cave, so why didn’t you do that?”
Most modern militaries agree that there are four basic principles of the laws of armed conflict that govern any military action undertaken during war. Ismay says watchdog groups like Amnesty International pay special attention to military necessity: Did an attack use the necessary force or did it go overboard for no tactical reason?
“You could have gotten the same lethal effects [as the MOAB] from dropping bombs like the BLU-118 but just dropping several of them,” he says. “I’d be suspicious of the military necessity argument because there were these other options.”
Based on the two bombs’ net explosive weight — the most accurate way of determining their relative power bomb — the MOAB is roughly 33 times more powerful than the BLU-118. But based on the information available about the strike, Ismay says the smaller, more accurate bombs would have been more efficient.
“I don’t think it would’ve taken anything like 33 BLU-118s to do the job,” Ismay says. “It’s definitely not the only time the U.S. has attacked a target like this. Unless, of course, there’s something else the government isn’t telling us about.”
In 1991, Adams says the military was “allegedly trying to clear a minefield” when it dropped the daisy cutter near his unit, “but there was no way they didn’t kill a bunch of people,” he says. An archived NBC News report from February 12, 1991, acknowledges that daisy cutters were used against the Iraqi army in an attempt to force Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to back down, not as a countermeasure against mines.
“[It] leads me to conclude that the use of the MOAB in Afghanistan is completely inappropriate,” Adams says.
The MOAB and the daisy cutter, Adams says, were designed for conventional warfare against conventional formations (like the battle against the Iraqi army in the first Gulf War), not for the asymmetric conflict in Afghanistan where there are “civilians everywhere.” The DoD’s press release about the strike states that “U.S. forces took every precaution to avoid civilian casualties with this strike and will continue offensive operations until ISIS-K is destroyed in Afghanistan.”
On Friday, a Pentagon spokesperson told The Washington Post that the U.S. forces in Afghanistan (USFOR-A) would not put out an official statement on casualties caused by the strike. The press desk for the USFOR-A did not immediately respond to Inverse’s request for comment.
“In my opinion this weapon was used to send a foreign and domestic message,” Adams says. “It’s total bullshit that Trump wasn’t using this to fulfill his ‘bomb the shit out of ISIS’ domestic message.” For North Korea and others “flexing,” Adams says, the show of power is legitimate — but only if it had been dropped on a conventional battlefield, and “not in an area with a large, intermingled civilian population.”
As Ismay points out, violence and war are inherently traumatic. But in areas like Afghanistan, where war has become a fact of daily life for much of the country, he says the U.S. has a duty to minimize the trauma it causes.
“Any time someone’s dropping a bomb near you or trying to kill you it’s scary. I don’t think something needs to be extra scary,” Ismay says. “I think everyone in Afghanistan knows that there are Americans in town that can kill them from the sky in any number of ways.”
“What’s the military benefit of scaring civilians or trying to scare them more than they would be already?”
On Friday, President Donald Trump praised the strike as “another very successful mission.” It’s unclear whether he directly authorized the first use of the MOAB.
“Everybody knows exactly what happened and what I do is authorize my military,” Trump said. “We have the greatest military in the world and they’ve done a job, as usual, and so we have given them total authorization.”
And with that authorization, someone decided to drop a bomb that had never been dropped before.
Photos via Getty Images / USAF
How Does the "Mother of All Bombs" Compare to a Nuclear Bomb?
The United States Air Force has dropped the “mother of all bombs” on Afghanistan on Thursday around 7:32 p.m. local time. It was the first time this 21,600-pound bomb — technically known as a GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb, or MOAB — has been used.
While incredibly destructive, the MOAB, hailed as America’s most powerful non-nuclear weapon, doesn’t hold a candle to the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The MOAB, which contains over 8,000 pounds of an Australian explosive called H6 that’s typically used underwater, is powerful: It has an explosion equivalent to 11 tons of TNT. In comparison, “Little Boy,” the uranium atomic bomb that the U.S. military dropped on Hiroshima in August 1945, had the explosive power of about 16 kilotons — or 16,000 tons — of TNT. “Fat Man,” the bomb dropped on Nagasaki three days later, had an explosiveness of about 20,000 tons (or 20 kilotons). Units are key here; the level of damage caused by the MOAB versus nuclear weapons differs by a factor of 1,000.
Curiously, however, the blast radius — that’s the distance from the point where the bomb is dropped — is comparable. MOAB’s blast radius is estimated to be about 1 mile, which is the same as the radius measured for the bomb dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Conventional bombs are weaker than nukes because they derive their destructive force solely from the explosiveness of the chemicals inside it; in other words, its core reaction is a chemical one. Nuclear bombs, in contrast, release nuclear radiation and heat via a nuclear reaction, which releases an exponentially larger amount of energy. Think back to high school chemistry: A chemical reaction, which involves breaking the bonds between atoms, messes only with the electrons orbiting the atom’s nucleus. A nuclear reaction, on the other hand, requires splitting the neutrons and protons at the atom’s much more tightly bound core. According to the estimate of Nuclear Darkness, a single, small nuclear bomb releases as much energy as about 40,000 conventional bombs.
Splitting protons and neutrons releases way more energy than picking off electrons.
Nuclear bombs are, of course, ultimately more dangerous than non-nuclear bombs because of the fallout that ensues. Conventional bombs wreak havoc by blasting everything within their radius, but their effects don’t linger much longer afterward; the radiation from nuclear weapons, on the other hand, sticks around for a long time and sickens people for years hence in various ways — that’s why the majority of Hiroshima’s and Nagasaki’s deaths occurred well after the atomic bombs were dropped.
There are many metrics we can use to evaluate the potential damage caused by a bomb, and not all of them are readily measurable. The MOAB was originally designed to inflict psychological damage — that is, to scare forces into surrendering rather than to kill them outright. How MOAB compares in psychological impact to World War II’s atomic bombs remains to be seen.
That said, these days neither MOAB, the “father of all bombs,” or atomic bombs are the biggest threat to global security — that sordid distinction goes to modern atomic weapons known as thermonuclear weapons. The B83, a bomb that uses the fission process, releases a blast equivalent to 1,200,000 tons of TNT, making it 80 times more powerful than Little Boy and about 109,000 times stronger than the MOAB.
Although Neil Armstrong’s FBI file is not overflowing with mystery, it’s still well worth noting it, and for several intriguing reasons. The file – on the first man to step on the surface of our nearest neighbor, the Moon – is certainly not a long one, as I quickly found out when I secured a copy. The FBI states, in a covering note: “This release consists of 18 pages of FBI file references to Armstrong ranging from 1969 to 1985 relating primarily to requests for FBI name checks in consideration of executive appointment; no derogatory personnel information was found. Redactions were made primarily to protect the privacy of living persons.”
Neil Armstrong
One specific portion of the small file stands out. On February 2, 1976, the FBI’s Special Agent in Charge at the Cincinnati, Ohio office prepared a memo titled “Neil Armstrong – Information Concerning.” It provides the following information: “On January 29, 1976, Detective [deleted], Lebanon, Ohio advised that he had been contacted by several people working at the Lebanon Town Hall, including his mother. [Deleted] stated that on the previous day, two individuals, one a male Negro, the second a white male, had appeared at the Town Hall asking numerous questions about Neil Armstrong, the former astronaut, what his address was, how many children he had, where his children went to school, and inquired if he frequently ate at the Golden Lamb Restaurant and other personalquestion.”
The document continues: “These two individuals also went to the Town Tax Map Department and viewed diagrams of subject’s property and adjacent property and asked several questions in that department. According to [deleted] no one really questioned these two individuals, although they were suspicious and these individuals stated they had been in town just to take some photographs of the house as they were tourists.
“[Deleted] advised the only description he was able to get was they were both fairly young and male, and well-dressed. The Negro appeared to have a type of necklace, which had a quarter moon with a star on it. No one observed what type of automobile or any other details about these individuals. [Deleted] advised that on the following day, [deleted] came to the Town Hall and was quite concerned as to these two individuals and made a statement to one of the town employees, ‘I didn’t think they would go this far.'” Precisely what that means is anyone’s guess.
The report continues: “[Deleted] stated he is providing the information because of the notoriety of the Armstrong family and the strange activities by these two ‘tourists. [Deleted] stated he could be contacted at number [deleted] and that if anyone were to contact his mother regarding this situation, he wished to be contacted first as his mother has a heart condition.”
Having read the relevant section of the file a couple of times, it wasn’t hard for me to notice the MIB-style aspects of the story. The two men were described as being “well-dressed,” which strongly suggests they were wearing suits. The reference to the mysterious pair being “in town just to take some photographs of the house as they were tourists,” strongly and eerily echoed the actions of the so-called “phantom photographers” of MIB lore and legend and which John Keel investigated in the 1960s and 1970s. Finally, the issue of the pair asking questions concerning “how many children” Armstrong had, and “where his children went to school,” very much reminded me of the actions of the MIB-linked “Phantom Social Workers” (PSW) and “Bogus Social Workers” (BSW) which I wrote about, here at Mysterious Universe, just recently.
Men in Black and the world’s most famous astronaut? Or, a strange and innocent affair that got completely blown out of proportion? Who knows?
The name Travis Walton is well known within UFO circles. The (in?)famous abduction story that took place in Arizona’s Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest made international headlines. While the case does have its detractors, a recent soil study of the site has come up with some very strange findings. Perhaps something otherworldly did occur on that November night in 1975.
On the evening of November 5th, Walton and some friends were driving down a quiet road in the forest after a long day of logging. Noticing a strange light, Walton and his buddies went to investigate. As they approached the strange object emitting a bright light, Travis was hit by some sort of beam and thrown several feet into the air. Panic ensued. His friends left him lying on the forest floor, and ran for it. Minutes later, realising they had just left their friend injured or dead, the men returned to the site. The object was gone, and so was Walton. They went to the local Sheriff’s department, reported the incident, and were suspected of murdering Walton. Five days later, Walton found himself on a lonely stretch of highway, tired, hungry and dehydrated. As Walton’s memory slowly began to return, he remembered being aboard a strange craft, odd alien beings, and a life altering event that has totally reshaped his entire grasp of reality.
Travis Walton
A study of soil samples completed by Frontier Analysis Limited last week of the site where the alleged abduction took place has provided some interesting insight into the story, and perhaps has begun to shed some light onto that mysterious event in 1975. Led by Phyllis A. Budinger, an accomplished chemist and scientist, the report details the soil composition of the location directly beneath the strange object Walton saw that night.
According to the report,
The objective of this project is to determine whether the analysis of the soils will detect any anomalies which can be related to an unknown craft (UFO).
Several soil samples were taken from the supposed abduction site itself, along with several more control samples from the surrounding area. While there was not much difference between the site samples and the controls, two anomalies did present themselves.
The report states,
It is revealed that iron containing particulates amounts are higher in the site soils compared to the control soils. Furthermore, there is indication that the levels tend to be higher in the surface soils compared to the sub-surface soils of the site samples….The exchangeable cations (calcium, magnesium, potassium) are significantly higher in the site samples than the control samples. This would indicate some chemical changes in the site samples. The detection of the differences in cationic activity in the soils is intriguing.
While the report suggests that there may be a natural reason for the cationic activity, such as clay deposits influencing chemical changes, the increased amount of iron in the sample is definitely out of the norm.
Images of the cationic samples, courtesy of The Black Vault.
The report engages in some speculation,
…the hovering craft propulsion system has a powerful electromagnetic effect thereby drawing (and concentrating) these iron particulates toward the surface…And, there is indication that while hovering an electronic force field surrounds the craft, causing an ionizing effect to materials in close proximity.
The team behind the report has apparently done similar soil studies in the past of UFO landing sites. However, their conclusions reflect a strong push for more studies.
Clearly the quantitative results for the iron containing particulates need to be further verified. So definitely, more soil sampling is needed from the site and outside the site…
The report argues that additional studies are required, however, this initial report does lay the groundwork for additional scientific study of the UFO question. Whatever a person’s opinion may be in regards to UFOs and the Travis Walton abduction, when real science engages in these events, a few puzzle pieces begin to fit together. While we may never fully understand what occurred on that November night, this study definitely leads us down a path that, like Walton, may begin to shift our perception of the UFO phenomenon.
If the scientific community does choose to engage in more soil sampling of the site, as well as other evidence from the many UFO events in recent years, will humanity generate a better idea of what UFOs are? Is the truth literally buried in the ground beneath our feet?
If you’ve been wanting to watch a documentary with more ocean friends and less murder, Disneynature has got your back. On Friday, the company’s documentary branch released the trailer for the appropriately titled Dolphins, a film that looks less The Cove and more like something you’d want to see two days before its actual release date on April 22, 2018.
An homage to the most popular animal to get airbrushed on a t-shirt in 1999, Dolphins makes Disneynature’s other dolphin-including documentary Oceans look like There Will Be Blood. It’s cute, very pretty, and it gives us the chance to follow around a dolphin named Echo while “he learns how to survive and find his place in this extraordinary world.” That is a lovely sentiment, but far from the whole picture: There are some pretty fucked-up things that happen in the life of a dolphin. Here are four screwed up facts that you probably won’t see in Dolphins, and if you do, then damn, Disney, I should have had more faith.
Dolphins Love Drama
Dolphins live in what scientists call an “open society,” which means that they basically live in the fucking Wild West. Ranges of dolphin pods overlap with each other, and without clear boundaries, there are plenty of squabbles between dolphins as they compete for both territory and mates.
“I work on the male dolphins, and their social lives are very intense; it seems there is constant drama,” dolphin researcher Richard Connor told NBC News. “I have often thought, as I watched their complicated alliance relationships, that their social lives would be mentally and physically exhausting, and I’m glad I’m not a dolphin.”
Dolphins are so much drama.
Dolphins Sometimes Murder
While dolphins aren’t as murderous as, say, humans (more on that below), they are not chill, either. There’s evidence that dolphins murder porpoises with their sharp teeth, club-like beaks, and their 12-foot-long bodies. Scientists have also documented some, albeit rare, cases of infanticide among dolphins: In the journal Marine Mammal Science, marine biologists observed male dolphins trying to drown the first bottlenose dolphin ever observed being born in the wild. Somehow, I suspect, infanticide will not be included in Dolphins.
Humans Murder and Capture Dolphins
The terrible reality is that dolphins are herded up and either captured or killed by humans every year. This is predominantly documented in Japan, where the government permits fisherman to hunt an estimate of 20,000 dolphins, porpoises, and small whales a year. This practice, shown in the documentary The Cove, results in either the sale of dolphin meat or the trafficking of dolphins to marine parks around the world. Japanese aquariums alone are estimated to receive 124 dolphins a year from the annual dolphin drive.
Dolphins Can Be Sexually Scary
To show dominance, male dolphins sometimes mount and attempt to rape each other. They are equally, if not more so, aggressive with female dolphins in an attempt to mate. Scientists call this “sexual coercion” which is, at the end of the day, the same thing as forced sex. Female dolphins sometimes form alliances to keep away male dolphins, who will try to force females into staying near their pod even when they’re not ovulating. Not a great job there, dolphins.
Dolphins, which will include none of these scenarios, comes out on Earth Day in 2018. Watch the official trailer here:
Scientists at the University of Manchester’s High Voltage Laboratory hit the drone with more than 1 million volts to simulate a lightning strike.
Credit: Enna Bartlett/The University of Manchester
What would happen if a drone got caught in an electrical storm?
That's the question YouTuber Tom Scott asked when he brought two DJI Phantom 3 drones to the University of Manchester’s High Voltage Laboratory. The British university's lab can generate lightning on command, thanks to an impulse generator that can create a bolt of more than 1 million volts. The drones were no match for the lightning, and were fried when caught in the middle of the bolt.
For the first experiment, a drone was tethered to the ground (to ensure it wouldn't fly out of the bolt's path) and shocked with more than 1 million volts of electricity. Slow-motion video of the shock showed that the lightning strike went through the drone, and the robotic flyer came crashing down. [Electric Earth: Stunning Images of Lightning]
"The electricity passed straight through, flowing from one of the propellers to exit through the foot of the drone," Enna Bartlett, digital coordinator for the university, described in a blog post. "Surprisingly there were no visible marks on the outside of the drone, but that doesn’t mean that the insides got away unscathed; as it turns out, the electricity took the path of least resistance and fried all the sensitive internal electronics."
Electrical engineering researchers Vidyadhar Peesapati and Richard Gardner, who carried out the experiments to answer Scott's question, thought they'd try to protect the other drone in the second experiment. Rather than tether the done as is, the researchers added a lightning rod made of copper tape to act as a lightning conductor.
Though the copper tape was intended to attract the lightning atthe highest point on the drone, the propellers were still equally as tall (and attractive) to the bolt of electricity. In that experiment, the drone was more severely damaged than the first experiment. The researchers said the propellers were explosively pulled away from the drone due to the sheer force of the strike.
"With our understanding of how airplanes behave in thunderstorms and how to provide protection for them," Bartlett wrote, "this knowledge could be applied to drone technology to ensure the drone and its pilot stays safe should they fly in adverse weather conditions."
One of the more interesting flying machines, as well as one of a kind, is the US Marine Corps Bell Boeing V22 Osprey. The V22 Osprey project started in 1982 as a joint venture between Bell and Boeing as part of the Advanced Vertical Lift Program. The original purpose of the V22 Osprey was to carry out special missions as a kind of assault transport plane/helicopter. During its development, there were a number of fatal accidents and an 18-month grounding in order to deal with safety issues.
The V22 Osprey has a transport aircraft style fuselage, carries up to 24 troops, has two swiveling helicopter-style rotor pods containing turbo shaft engines, and its wings are controlled by a flap and aileron system.
V22 Ospreys take off and land vertically just as a helicopter, but once aloft can fly like an airplane. The US Department of Defense has issued more than 450 contracts for the V22 Osprey for the Marine Corps, 50 for US Special Operations Command, and 48 for the Navy.
More History Behind the Osprey
According to Wikipedia, a tiltrotor aircraft was needed because of . . .
“The failure of Operation Eagle Claw during the Iran hostage crisis in 1980 underscored the requirement for a new long-range, high-speed, vertical-takeoff aircraft for the United States Department of Defense. In response, the Joint-service Vertical take-off/landing Experimental (JVX) aircraft program started in 1981. A partnership between Bell Helicopter and Boeing Helicopters was awarded a development contract in 1983 for the V-22 tiltrotor aircraft. The Bell Boeing team jointly produce the aircraft.[5] The V-22 first flew in 1989, and began flight testing and design alterations; the complexity and difficulties of being the first tiltrotor for military service led to many years of development.
The United States Marine Corps began crew training for the Osprey in 2000, and fielded it in 2007; it supplemented and then replaced their Boeing Vertol CH-46 Sea Knights. The Osprey’s other operator, the U.S. Air Force, fielded their version of the tiltrotor in 2009. Since entering service with the U.S. Marine Corps and Air Force, the Osprey has been deployed in transportation and medevac operations over Iraq.”
The following video shows the V22 Osprey starting up and taking off.
The New Osprey
In 2015, a project between Sikorsky and Boeing to create a new version of the vertical lift aircraft was announced. See “Sikorsky-Boeing Future Vertical Lift: The Way Forward” below.
David Russell Schilling
David enjoys research and writing about cutting edge technologies that hold the promise of improving conditions for all life on planet earth.
People have known of the huge mollusc for hundreds of years, by the shells they've left behind that were the size of baseball bats. But scientists have only seen dead specimens.
"To me, [finding the giant shipworm] is almost like finding a dinosaur — something that was pretty much only known by fossils," Dan Distel, research professor at Northeastern University, told the Guardian.
The discovery is akin to finding the "unicorn" of mollusks.
Another team member, Margo Haygood, a research professor in medicinal chemistry at the University of Utah College of Pharmacy, said they were led to the discovery by a 2011 Filipino documentary that showed local divers gathering the huge shipworms and cooking them.
Haygood told Popular Science that the team discovered a population of the shipworms, and sent five of them to a laboratory, where they opened the giant shipworm's hard, calcified tube.
She said it was nearly as heavy as a branch. A fully-grown shipworm can reach up to a metre (3.3 ft) long.
Unlike its shipworm cousins, which burrow into rotting wood, this giant shipworm, K. polythalamia lives on hydrogen sulfide, that which gives eggy farts their potent kick.
K. polythalamia rarely eats anything else — its digestive system is stunted, and scientists have found little to no fecal matter in its body.
Hydrogen sulfide — released from decaying vegetation and rotting animals in the swamps where it lives — is digested by symbiotic bacteria that lives in the giant shipworm's outsize gills. The bacteria then produces carbon compounds the giant shipworm consumes.
There are still many questions about the giant shipworm — for instance, scientists have yet to discover its life cycle, and how to measure its age.
"Are the specimens we studied a couple years old, or a couple hundred?" Haygood told Popular Science.
The mollusk's discovery shows how little we know about life on Earth, she added. "Isn't it remarkable that you can find such a bizarre creature in the 21st century? I'm in favor of investigating alien life, but we should put just as much effort into figuring out life down here."
From Area 51 to the search for life on Mars, they've long been a thing of mystery.
But now one keen videographer believes he's captured two UFOs flying high over a technical college in Adelaide, South Australia.
Footage taken last Wednesday shows two bright lights flying high in the sky, which a videographer claims is proof of UFOs - however others claim the lights are just two meteors.
Moving quickly through the morning sky, the two lights soon disappear from view.
Posted to YouTube, the footage was captioned as showing 'two UFOs' flying above Noarlunga, in the south of the city.
One keen videographer believes they captured two UFOs flying in Adelaide, South Australia
The footage captures two lights flying through the sky, however others have commented to say that their close proximity to each other indicates it's most likely a broken meteor
However, others have commented on the fact that the close proximity of the objects means it's more likely they're simply meteors.
On Sunday, another meteor was captured lighting up the sky in Queensland, in the north-east of the country.
Video showed a single bright light blazing across the sky all the way from Bundaberg to the Gold Coast, much to the amazement of stargazers.
Shared thousands of times online, experts said the meteor may have been travelling as fast as 10km/second.
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ALIENS INVOLVED? 15TH CENTURY MAP DEPICTS THE WORLD AND ANTARCTICA IN ASTONISHING DETAIL
ALIENS INVOLVED? 15TH CENTURY MAP DEPICTS THE WORLD AND ANTARCTICA IN ASTONISHING DETAIL
An ancient map dating back to the 15th century that was unearthed in the year 1929 leaves, even more, questions in its wake. So, what is it about this map that is so puzzling?
Simple despite being determined to date back centuries, it is quite accurate in detail. Let's remember that in the 15th century many areas of the earth had yet to be explored, and there were very few ways to map things out perfectly. But somehow, there on this ancient map was the entire earth in great detail.
Perhaps, one of the biggest oddities found on this map is the fact that there is the top of it was the frozen continent of Antarctica, so what is so odd about that, isn't this where this continent is usually found? Well, yes but lets remember that historically the continent wasn't discovered till 1773 by Captain James Cook, which was well after this map apparently came into existence.
So, is it possible that the creator or creators of this map weren't actually from this planet? There are those who suspect this could indeed be the case, but there are also those who wonder if the territory on the map that is believed to be Antarctica is indeed the ice continent or something else. The reason for the doubt on this map the continent seems closer east than it does now. But many researchers believe that this could have to do with environmental shifts on the earth itself.. Over the years the map has been the subject of much study along with books including one written by a history professor at Keene State College by the name of Charles Hapgood, who has been quoted regarding this map and it's origin as saying:
“It appears that the charts must have originated with people unknown and they were passed on, perhaps by the Minoans and the Phoenicians, who were, for a thousand years and more, the greatest sailors of the ancient world.”
As for the creator of the map, it's possible that ancient alien visitors did create it since at that time mankind just wasn't capable of producing something so detailed.
WEIRD UFO CAUGHT FLYING CLOSE TO THE MOON BY A SUPER-POWERFUL CAMERA LENS
WEIRD UFO CAUGHT FLYING CLOSE TO THE MOON BY A SUPER-POWERFUL CAMERA LENS
A mysterious object traveling between the Earth and the Moon has been filmed traveling at high speed and thus far has not been explained or identified by any world government.
In UFO enthusiast circles the footage is already being hailed as one of the clearest examples of footage of extraterrestrial life ever filmed, although there are already numerous other theories as to what the object could be.
Given the political tensions in the Korean peninsula recently, as well as the failed missile launch attempt from North Korea earlier this week, some believe the object to be a missile of some sort.
In the footage, the object passes out of sight as it travels past the face of the moon, no longer contrasted by the reflected sunlight on the Moon's surface. The footage was filmed in Oman, not particularly close to the Korean peninsula and neither very close to anywhere a missile might conceivably have been launched recently. It was however captured by a very powerful camera, so might have been further off than it appeared to have been in the footage.
Analysis of the footage, for the time being, is ongoing and should shed some light on the speed, likely take off point and possible landing points if the object if the trajectory can be calculated. The likelihood of it being a missile for the time being, however, seems unlikely.
That being the case other explanations put forward to include some experimental aircraft launched either by the U.S airforce or NASA, an optical illusion caused by local weather patterns and an alien vessel streaking through the sky.
The fact that more and more exoplanets that are capable of sustaining life are being discovered is lending more credence to the idea that life does exist on other planets. This is also making the public more open to the idea of UFOs and the idea that it is only a matter of time before alien life in some form is encountered.
The strange object is also far from the first mysterious object to be spotted on or around the Moon. Numerous satellite images of the lunar surface containing seemingly man-made shapes and figures have been a regular occurrence for decades.
A New Mexico witness at Albuquerque reported a silent, shape-shifting object crossing the sky just 500 feet away and 50 feet in the air, according to testimony in Case 82456 from the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) witness reporting database.
The witness first thought the object was a flock of birds. Pictured: Albuquerque, NM.
(Credit: Google)
The witness was outside on a lunch break at 12:30 p.m. on March 2, 2017, when a light gray shape was first seen.
“The object was approximately 500 feet away, about 50 feet in the air over a building,” the witness stated.“ At first I thought it was a flock of birds, and I said, that’s interesting, what kind of birds would those be? It seemed to be moving east in a slow flutter. Then it disappeared, like it folded back into the sky.”
The object seemed to change shape as it moved. Pictured: Albuquerque, NM.
(Credit: Google)
The witness at first simply dismissed the sighting as something strange.
“It then reappeared in a fat boomerang shape. It seemed to be made up of multiple, light gray, possibly reflective objects but working together, like a school of fish, or sequins on a purse or dress. It did seem to have a common background that was dark gray or black. It was still fluttering, but it paused and hovered and moved backward, just slightly.”
The view was blocked by a bare tree and the witness continued to walk.
“When I saw the shape again, it had changed, and it seemed to be a soft, billowy, upside down parachute shape, or the bottom of a puffy cloud or a puff of factory smoke. I almost convinced myself it was a deflated weather balloon, but there was no top to the shape, only a distinct bottom. The color of this object seemed to blend with the sky. I could only decipher a dark gray sitting in the bottom of the cloud/parachute.”
The object changed again, and became almost transparent, as if the sun were reflecting on an invisible craft.
The witness lost sight of the object and did not see it move away. Pictured: Albuquerque,
NM. (Credit: Google)
“Now there really is no overall shape that I can make out. I saw a few smaller very rigid shapes, like flat prisms or solar panels, and they seemed to fold backwards into the object and then the whole object faded away.”
The entire sighting had last about 20 – 25 seconds.
“At this point, another sparse tree is blocking my view. I assumed the object would reappear, as it already had, so I said to myself, I will take a picture with my phone when I get to the other side of the tree, but it never appeared again. I looked for it for about 6 more minutes, but saw no sign of it. The object made no sound during this encounter. The other objects in the sky were two passenger planes flying east almost parallel to each other, but they were a mile away. There was a helicopter about 10 miles east circling. There is also a military base close by, and planes are frequently seen. A military cargo plane flew over a few minutes later. Additionally, a CV-22 osprey plane flew over a few minutes after the first military plane. I do not know if it lingered in the vicinity, as I had to go back to work. Of note, the building I believe the object was moving over, processes precious metals.”
MUFON New Mexico State Director Donald R. Burleson is investigating. Please remember that most UFO sightings can be explained as something natural or man-made. The above quotes were edited for clarity. Please report UFO activity to MUFON.com.
Reflective UFOs Seen Over Mountains In Montana, April 4, 2017, Photos, UFO Sighting News.
Reflective UFOs Seen Over Mountains In Montana, April 4, 2017, Photos, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: April 4, 2017
Location of sighting: Three Forks, Montana, USA
Source: MUFON #83187 The digital eye is more precise and exact that our human eyes. It catches everything, where we often overlook the obvious. These UFOs were seen over mountains in Montana last week and the one over the hill is reflecting the forest on its bottom surface, which makes me think its chrome-like in appearance. The big UFO looks to be about the width of a city bus. Scott C. Waring
Eyewitness states:
I was outside taking photographs of the land surrounding my home for my Aunt. I did not see the objects until I reviewed the photographs later that evening. I was outside for several hours before,during and after the photo was taken. Several pictures were taken within the same minute and around that time frame, which show no anomalies. The next day I discussed my odd photo with a close by neighbor.She informed me that she saw the one larger object the same afternoon as the photo but it was slightly southwest of my location. Here is her quote: "I don't have any idea what it was. It was metalic. It looked more oval in person, it looked more teardrop like in the picture. It looked bigger in person than the picture." Although I do believe in extraterrestrial life, I cannot say whether this was extraterrestrial or man made.
UFO Over Newton Abbot, England That Was Seen Coming Out Of Cloud, Photos, UFO Sighting News
UFO Over Newton Abbot, England That Was Seen Coming Out Of Cloud, Photos, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: Sept 13, 2016 (reported today)
Location of sighting: Newton Abbot, Devon, England
Source: MUFON #83175
UFOs often use clouds as cover to hide inside. This one was caught leaving that cover. As you can see, it is a metallic disk and is very far away. Excellent catch by the eyewitness. Its a classic UFO.
Scott C. Waring
Eyewitness states:
I was sky watching when I spotted a flying saucer that had just emerged from some clouds. The flying saucer was just hanging there in the sky. It was like the aliens in the flying saucer wanted me to take a photograph. I quickly took a photograph with my Sony HX300 camera and managed to take one photograph before the UFO went back into the clouds away from sight. The flying saucer was far off in the distance and was only visible through the camera viewfinder. The photograph was taken on the 13th of September 2016 at Newton Abbot Devon England.
Spotting something strange while in a gridlock is something one can never imagine to happen. Stuck in a traffic jam is a situation that would leave anyone with nothing to occupy other than the radio and some ordinary road-based surroundings.
The scene and situation are pretty much what Carlos Arriola had experienced. Arriola was in the city of Morelia, Mexico experiencing extended periods of gridlock when he spotted something that even the brightest minds would find it difficult to explain completely.
During a prolonged period of gridlock, Arriola happened to notice a mysterious flying object high in the sky. He recorded the incident in a video using his smartphone and uploaded it to YouTube afterward.
The clip shows a bizarre black sphere floating in the sky before changing direction and flying off out of the camera view.
Some commenters say that it could be a weather balloon, but it would be the case if a gust of wind took it away from view as weather balloon is unlikely to hold weight with that strange change of direction.
Mexico has its fair share of UFO sightings in the past, with speculations suggesting the region could be the favorite spot of test flights for highly classified advanced flying technology.
It is an area of Mars that is famous for its exotic 'honeycomb-like' formations, but a Martian researcher believes the Noctis Labyrinthyus may be home to more than just clusters of boulders and sand dunes.
NASA recently shared an image snapped by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter that highlights the region between Valles Marineris and the Tharsis upland.
Although the American space agency has suggested the layered mesa is probably comprised of sedimentary deposits that are being exhumed as it erodes, skeptics have claimed it is a 'ventilation roof of an underground city' built by aliens.
Scroll down for video
Noctis Labyrinthyus, which translates to 'the labyrinth of the night is located in the Phoenicis Lacus quadrangle of Mars and has impressed scientists with its maze-like system of deep walled valleys. Although the American space agency has suggested the layered mesa is probably comprised of sedimentary deposits that are being exhumed as it erodes, skeptics have claimed it is a 'ventilation roof of an underground city' built by aliens.
WOULD YOU LIVE ON MARS?
National Geographic surveyed 2,000 Brits about living on Mars.
Almost a third, 30%, said they would consider living on Mars.
Almost a quarter, 24%, said they would definitely consider living on Mars even if it was a one-way ticket with no prospect of returning to Earth.
The most common reason for wanting to move to Mars was Earth getting overcrowded (31.3%) followed by pure adventure (31.1%), with global warming and environmental issues a close third.
As plans for Mars habitation gather significant momentum thanks to the likes of Elon Musk’s SpaceX programme, 16% of those surveyed believe humans will live on the red planet by 2040.
Noctis Labyrinthyus, which translates to 'the labyrinth of the night is located in the Phoenicis Lacus quadrangle of Mars and has impressed scientists with its maze-like system of deep walled valleys.
And it was captured in all of its glory by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has been circling the red planet, capturing pictures using its High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera, since 2006.
Researchers have found that the formations were a result of faulting, but Scott C. Warning believes they were built by extraterrestrials.
'You will see walls that are between 1-30 meters high and in between them you see baleen-like structures,' Warning shared on his site UFO Sightings Daily.
'This is a city created by tiny aliens'.
'You see that below the baleen structures is nothing but blackness, so I assume that this is a ventilation roof of an underground city'.
He continued to rationalize his findings, as the 'ventilation roof' is necessary to combat the 'harsh and unforgiving' environment on Mars, this type of system is necessary to for creating tolerable temperatures in the city.
This is not the first time conspiracy theorists claimed to have found evidence of cities on Mars.
The United Family of Anomaly Hunters, a group of UFO hunters, presented the evidence in a YouTube video that they said highlights 'ancient walled cities' that they found in an image also snapped by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
NASA recently shared an image snapped by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter that highlights the region between Valles Marineris and the Tharsis upland. Skeptics have claimed the layered mesa is a 'ventilation roof of an underground city' built by aliens
Researchers have found that the formations were a result of faulting, but Scott C. Warning believes they were built by extraterrestrials
The video shows a series of aerial NASApictures of Elysium Planitia is a plain near the Martian equator.
The images show a number of aerial views, some of which look like eroded domes that could be surrounded by virtually circular rings.
The ring and cone structures were spotted on Elysium Planitia, a plain near the Martian equator.
The title of the video, 'Nasa Spots Walled Cities on Mars from MRO Satellite', implies Nasa has claimed these structures are walled cities.
The video has been met with mixed reaction - some firmly believed the structures show signs of life.
'This is a city created by tiny aliens', Waring said. 'You see that below the baleen structures is nothing but blackness, so I assume that this is a ventilation roof of an underground city'
'There are structures similar to these all over certain areas in South Africa,' one user said.
'I firmly believe Mars still has some remnants of it's civilization living underground,' said another.
While others put it down to natural geological processes.
This is not the first time conspiracy theorists claimed to have found evidence of cities on Mars. Images from last year show a number of aerial views, some of which look like eroded domes that could be surrounded by virtually circular rings
The title of the video, 'NASA Spots Walled Cities on Mars from MRO Satellite', implies Nasa has claimed these structures are walled cities, but NASA has not claimed this
Mars is now a frozen desert, but geological studies of rocks by previous missions to the surface have suggested the planet used to be warmer and wetter. Elysium Planitia is a plain near the Martian equator
'You should change your channel's name to 'Martian Geology,' because that's what were actually looking at,' one commenter said.
Mars is now a frozen desert, but geological studies of rocks by previous missions to the surface have suggested the planet used to be warmer and wetter.
The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has been circling the red planet, capturing pictures using its High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera, since 2006. Artist's impression pictured
Elysium Planitia is a plain near the Martian equator.
Previously, ESA has released an image of the plain, showing what looks like a dust-covered frozen sea.
NASA images also show the plain was once a highly volcanic region, meaning there was lots of opportunity for the surface to be remolded and reshaped.
BELIEVE IN CONSPIRACY THEORIES? YOU'RE PROBABLY A NARCISSIST
People who doubt the moon landings are more likely to be selfish and attention-seeking, according to a study earlier this year.
Over the course of three online-based studies, researchers at the University of Kent showed strong links between the belief in conspiracy theories and negative psychological traits.
Writing in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, the team explained: 'Previous research linked the endorsement of conspiracy theories to low self-esteem.'
In the first study, a total of 202 participants completed questionnaires on conspiracy beliefs, asking how strongly they agreed with specific statements, such as whether governments carried out acts of terrorism on their own soil.
Alongside this, they were asked to complete a narcissist scale and a self-esteem assessment.
The results showed that those people who rated highly on the narcissism scale and who had low self-esteem were more likely to be conspiracy believers.
In a Universe this massive, it’s hard to imagine we’re the only life form here. I mean, come on. Earth is only one of many, many planets in our Milky Way Galaxy, which is only one among billions of other galaxies in the Universe.
Surely there must be something living on another planet.
But guess what? There just might be! NASA recently announced that there might be alien life in our solar system, based on findings from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft and Hubble Space Telescope.
The findings show that Enceladus, a moon of Saturn that has an icy white shell, has chemical activity under its shell that is important to life on Earth, which suggests there might be aliens or some kind of life form living there.
NASA has been studying Enceladus for a while, suspecting it might be home to aliens due to its massive underground oceans and icy outer shell that is similar to Earth’s protective ozone layer.
And now, with the recent discovery, NASA confirms that there are hydrothermal vents in the oceans on Enceladus, which is important, because on Earth, hydrothermal vents are found deep, deep in the sea and offer food and warmth to weird sea creatures of the abyss.
That said, if hydrothermal vents in oceans keep animals alive here on Earth, they probably keep animals alive in oceans on Enceladus, too.
So, it seems as though the “aliens” on Enceladus aren’t shape-shifting reptilian Martians, and they probably won't come to Earth in UFOs and stick things in our eyes and butts like we see in movies. They're probably just some gross-looking shrimp monsters, or something. Disappointing, I know.
Nevertheless, this is some fascinating new information about extraterrestrial life, and even though aliens might not end up being what Hollywood made us believe, they're still cool.
New species are discovered frequently, but this creature is unlike anything we’ve seen before. Called the giant shipworm, it lives inside a long shell where it consumes noxious chemicals at the bottom of muddy lagoons. An international team of scientists are now the first to study this elusive animal in the flesh, but after taking a closer look at this...thing....we kind of wish they had left it alone.
A new study published in the Proceedings at the National Academy of Sciences is the first to describe the mud-dwelling animal, Kuphus polythalamia. This study, led by scientists at the University of Utah, Northeastern University, University of the Philippines, Sultan Kudarat State University, and Drexel University, is the result of an effort to not just document Philippine biodiversity, but to also enhance the research capacity of the host country. As study co-author Margo Haygood told Gizmodo, “It’s a great example of the power of collaboration...it’s amazing how much we are still learning about life on this planet in the 21st century.”
Scientists have known about the existence of the giant shipworm since the 18th century, sort of. The animal’s tusk-like shell casings—which measure anywhere from three to five feet long—are fairly common, but no one had ever found one with a living creature still inside. Part of the problem was that researchers weren’t sure about the animal’s preferred habitat. That changed after the scientists behind the new study watched a Philippine documentary showing the shells planted into the mud of a shallow lagoon. This inspired them to set up an expedition, during which they successfully managed to collect live specimens in a Philippine lagoon laden with rotting wood.
A scientist removes the top of the shell revealing the worm living inside. (Image: Marvin Altamia)
Once in the lab, the researchers washed putrid mud off an animal’s shell, snapped off the outer cap, and slowly “poured” the inky black contents that is the shipworm onto an examination table.
“It was a thrill, partly because we had longed to get our hands on one for so long, and partly because the animal is so strange,” Haygood told Gizmodo. “When I looked into the tank and saw the strong jet of water shooting from the siphon of the animal, I was so excited that they were alive and healthy. When we opened the tube I was struck by the dramatic dark color of the body, which is so different from the pale body of normal shipworms.”
The giant shipworm without its shell. Image: Marvin Altamia)
Indeed, this animal is a close relative of the more common shipworm—a group of saltwater clams with long, soft naked bodies. The researchers had a strong feeling that the giant shipworm would be radically different than its diminutive cousin, and they weren’t disappointed.
The non-giant version of shipworms burrow deep into the wood of trees that have plunged into the ocean, digesting it with the help of bacteria. Giant shipworms, on the other hand, live in mud.
“Whereas normal shipworm line their tunnels with a thin layer of shell, the giant shipworms have developed that thin layer to a thick, heavy, sturdy tube,” said Haygood. “Normal shipworms don’t cover the deepest part of the burrow with shell because that is where they are grinding up the wood and eating it. The giant shipworm’s tube is capped, covering its mouth, so it can’t eat in that way.”
Instead, the giant shipworm feeds of noxious gasses produced in the mud, and like other brands of shipworm, it recruits bacteria to seek out nourishment. The organic-rich mud in which the giant shipworms live produce hydrogen sulfide, which smells like rotten eggs. These fumes would make a human sick, but they provides a meal for giant shipworms. Or more accurately, a meal for the bacteria living within the animal’s gills. The bacteria takes the hydrogen sulfide and converts it into organic carbon, which the giant shipworms consume as food.
It’s a process that’s actually surprisingly similar to photosynthesis, except that toxic fumes are used for energy in place of the Sun. It’s tempting to describe this creature as being more plant-like than animal-like, but the researchers say it’s most definitely an animal.
“Its bacteria are more plant-like than the symbionts of normal shipworms,” explained Haygood. “Although the giant shipworm is eating the food produced by these plant-like bacteria—like we eat the plants we grow—it is a far more intimate relationship than our relationship to our food.”
Importantly, the giant shipworm partners with different bacteria than the more common shipworm, which may explain how this creature evolved from eating wood to thriving on noxious gases in the mud.
It’s hard to believe that something like this actually exists. But nature is constantly proving itself stranger and more horrifying than human imaginations, so maybe we shouldn’t be that surprised. Life finds a way, as they say.
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Over mijzelf
Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
Ik ben een man en woon in Linter (België) en mijn beroep is Ik ben op rust..
Ik ben geboren op 18/10/1950 en ben nu dus 73 jaar jong.
Mijn hobby's zijn: Ufologie en andere esoterische onderwerpen.
Op deze blog vind je onder artikels, werk van mezelf. Mijn dank gaat ook naar André, Ingrid, Oliver, Paul, Vincent, Georges Filer en MUFON voor de bijdragen voor de verschillende categorieën...
Veel leesplezier en geef je mening over deze blog.
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