Ancient Cataclysms: 9 Catastrophes That Rocked the World

Ancient cultures around the world have passed down their tales of devastating natural disasters in oral traditions, folklore, historical accounts, pictorial representations, and through myths. Catastrophic natural phenomena like earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and floods are obviously nothing new, but the ways people have interpreted these events have changed drastically over time.

Read on to find out more about some of the cataclysms our ancestors faced and how they dealt with natural disasters .

1. A Global Climatic Cataclysm of the 6th Century

Observations of comet C/1532 R1 seen in October and November 1532.

( Public Domain )

Between the years 535 and 536, a series of major global climatic events took place that could easily be described as a global cataclysm with catastrophic consequences. Numerous accounts from all over the world from that period describe the sun as getting dimmer and losing its light. Many also described it as having a bluish color.

The effects were also observed with the moon – it wasn’t as bright anymore. The reduction of the light resulted in the reduction of heat on the planet, no rain, and a very long winter which resulted in crop failures and for birds and other wildlife to perish. Famine and plagues struck many areas and there were a huge number of deaths.

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In China and Japan, the event was recorded in great detail and often referred to massive droughts and thousands of deaths. The water wasn’t enough for the people and the land. Hundreds of thousands of square miles became infertile.

The catastrophic event struck Korea, the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Australia. While written records do not exist for all countries, archaeological and geological data revealed evidence of the climatic changes . Studies done on the trunks of trees, for example, showed that 536 AD had been the coldest in 1,500 years.

There are no definite answers why it happened though one theory is a gigantic volcanic eruption – the dust thrown up into the atmosphere could have caused the dimming of the light. One candidate is Krakatoa, located between the islands of Java and Sumatra in Indonesia.

2. The Catastrophic End of the Mycenaean Bronze Age

Mycanae lions.

(Konstantin Malanchev/ CC BY 2.0 )

Theories of the impact of natural disasters on the downfall of the Mycenaean culture abound; similar events occurring in contemporary Mediterranean cultures, which furthers the likelihood of these events. Specifically, Anatolia (modern day Turkey), Egypt, and the Levant (modern day Iraq, etc.) were damaged by a chain of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions that also rocked the Aegean.

This seismic activity appears to have caused a fiery domino effect due to the centralization of each community—oil-burning lights were common in Mycenaean-Minoan Greece, Anatolia, etc., and the consistent earthquakes that rocked the Mediterranean, quite simply, could have enabled these elevated flames to tip over and set fire to the settlements.

Having the type of communities in which politics, economics, and religion were all focused around singular sites made it far too easy for these fires to almost instantaneously devastate order. One of the most significant instances in which fire is believed to have caused such destruction is the situation at Knossos in Crete.

The destruction of whole societies does not happen overnight; it is likely that if the fall of the Mycenaeans is linked to a natural disaster, this disaster was the starting point of a foreseeable, dangerous chain of events. Weakened environments could lead to weakened economies and thus created political unrest.

3. Neapolis: Sunk by a Tsunami

Underwater archaeologists off the coast of Nabeul in northeastern Tunisia at the site of the ancient Roman city of Neapolis.

( Tunisian National Heritage Institute and the University of Sassari )

After almost a decade of searching, the ruins of the city of Neapolis have finally been located off the coast of Nabeul, in northeast Tunisia. The submerged city stretches over 20 hectares (almost 50 acres). The researchers have discovered monuments, streets, and about 100 tanks that were used in the production of a popular Roman fermented fish condiment known as garum.

As some of Neapolis’ ruins remain aboveground, underwater archaeologists had been searching the region for seven years in hope of finding the underwater counterpart. Based on their finds so far, researchers have confirmed that Neapolis was partially submerged by a tsunami on July 21 in 365 AD, a natural disaster that also damaged Alexandria in Egypt and Greece’s island of Crete. This confirms an account recorded by the Roman soldier and historian Ammien Marcellin.

4. Chinese Cave Inscriptions Reveal Records of Ancient Droughts

An inscription from 1891 found in Dayu Cave.

(L. Tan)

Researchers discovered unique inscriptions on the wall of Dayu Cave in the Qinling Mountains of central China recording the effects of droughts on the local population over the course of 500 years. When there was a drought, people from the local area would go to the cave to collect water and to pray for rain. Some of them recorded the impacts of the drought by writing a graffiti-type scrawl on the yellow rock wall. Seven such droughts occurring between 1520 and 1920 were recorded in this way.

The area receives around 70 percent of its rainfall from the summer monsoon in which torrential rain is the dominant weather pattern over the course of a few months. Changes in the timing of the monsoon as well as its duration have major effects on the local ecosystem, and it is clear that at times this in turn led to severe starvation and social instability.

In 1900, this also led to fierce conflict between the local population and the Chinese government, while in 1528 the drought was so severe that it may have led to incidences of cannibalism. The discovery of the inscriptions is an important reminder that sudden changes in rainfall patterns can very quickly affect large populations.

5. Casts of Pompeii Reveal Last Moments of Volcano Victims

Some of the victims of Pompeii were sitting, some lying when the superhot gas cloud enveloped them.

(Bigstock photo)

Pompeii was a flourishing Roman city from the 6th century BC until it became frozen in time, preserved by the layers of ash that spewed out from the great eruption of Mount Vesuvius in the 1st century AD.

Archaeologists found the city almost entirely intact – loaves of bread still sat in the oven, bodies of men, women, children, and pets were found frozen in their last moments, the expressions of fear still etched on their faces, and the remains of meals remained discarded on the pavement. The astounding discovery meant that researchers could piece together exactly what life was like for the ancient Romans of Pompeii – the food they ate, the jobs they performed and the houses they lived in.

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People of Pompeii were in their death throes when a cloud of gas from the volcano enveloped them, killing them. The gas was 300 degrees centigrade (572 degrees F). Clearly, from the expressions of their faces and their bodily contortions they were caught by surprise when the ash cloud finally consumed them. Archaeologist Giuseppe Fiorelli found the bodies in 1863 and came up with a way to detect and extract the bodies intact from their resting places in Pompeii.

6. Akrotiri, Obliterated in an Eruption

Elaborate and colorful fresco revealed at Akrotiri.

( Public Domain )

Pompeii is not entirely unique, as at least one other site it the ancient world has been destroyed by a volcanic eruption - the settlement of Akrotiri. Unlike Pompeii, however, no literary evidence for the destruction of Akrotiri is available. As a matter of fact, the city was only discovered by an archaeological excavation conducted in 1967.

Akrotiri was a Bronze Age settlement located on the south west of the island of Santorini (Thera) in the Greek Cyclades. This settlement is believed to be associated with the Minoan civilization. By the end of the 3rd millennia, Akrotiri developed and expanded significantly and its prosperity continued for about another 500 years.

This all came to an end, however, by the middle of the 2nd century BC with the volcanic eruption of Thera. Although the powerful eruption destroyed Akrotiri, it also managed to preserve the city. Akrotiri’s frescoes and negatives of disintegrated wooden objects, have been preserved by ash for example. The inhabitants of Akrotiri were evacuated before the volcanic dust reached the site.

Some researchers have even claimed that the effects of the volcanic eruption were felt as far away as China. This is based on records detailing the collapse of the Xia Dynasty at the end of the 17th century BC, and the accompanying meteorological phenomena.

The Greek myth of the Titanomachy in Hesiod’s Theogony may have been inspired by this volcanic eruption and perhaps Plato’s myth of Atlantis too. Thus, Akrotiri and the eruption of Thera serve to show that even in ancient times, a catastrophe in one part of the world can have repercussions on a global scale.

7. Prehistoric Inhabitants of North Sea Islands were Wiped Out by a Tsunami

The Mesolithic people of Doggerland.

( Alexander Maleev )

An ancient civilization located on a group of islands between Britain and Europe was wiped out by a tsunami about 8,200 years ago. Described as a prehistoric ‘garden of Eden’, the islands, known as ‘ Doggerland’, were occupied by Mesolithic tribes, as evidenced by the discovery of a number of artifacts including flint tools and fishing nets.

Doggerland was an area of land between Northern Scotland, Denmark, and the Channel Islands. It was believed to have been home to tens of thousands of people before it disappeared underwater. Beginning around 20,000 years ago, a massive release of meltwater from a giant glacial lake in North America, called Lake Agassiz, caused sea levels to jump by more than two feet. Doggerland gradually become submerged by water, leaving behind a number of islands.

Then a catastrophic landslide near Norway, which was an enormous 3,000 cubic kilometres, created a tsunami which covered the islands in water and wiped out the human inhabitants – the massive wave would have been comparable to the Japanese tsunami of 2011.

8. Severe Drought and the Downfall of the Maya Civilization

Maya ruins surrounded by lush green vegetation of the current climate.

( Public Domain )

The severity of drought conditions during the demise of the Maya civilization about 1000 years ago has been quantified, representing another piece of evidence that could be used to solve the longstanding mystery of what caused the civilization’s downfall.

During the 9th century there was a major political collapse in the central Maya region: their famous limestone cities were abandoned and dynasties ended. And while the Maya people urvived beyond this period, their political and economic power was depleted.

There are multiple theories as to what caused the collapse, such as invasion, war, environmental degradation and collapsing trade routes. In the 1990s, however, researchers were able to piece together climate records for the period of the Maya collapse , and found that it correlated with an extended period of extreme drought.

And more recently, researchers developed a method to measure the different isotopes of water trapped in gypsum, a mineral that forms during times of drought when the water level is lowered, in Lake Chichancanab in Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula where the Maya were based. They found that annual precipitation decreased between 41% and 54% during the period of the Maya civilization's collapse, with periods of up to 70% rainfall reduction during peak drought conditions, and that relative humidity declined by 2% to 7% compared to today.

9. The Comet That Sparked a Worldwide Flood ‘Myth’

‘The Deluge’ (1805) by J.M.W. Turner.

( Public Domain )

Between 10,000 and 12,000 years ago a comet entered the earth’s atmosphere and broke up into thousands of pieces. Those fragments rained down fire and brimstone on the earth. Some of the fragments landed all over the world, including Europe and the Far East.

The craters and impressions left behind by the bombardments are now called Carolina Bays . They are found in North America along the Eastern Seaboard. The comet fragments that landed in the oceans caused worldwide flooding. This included all the shores and islands of both oceans.

Tsunami waves backed up all the rivers, leading to the oceans including those in the Americas, Africa, and Europe, destroying everyone in the area. These waves would have destroyed everything in the low-lying areas, including people on shorelines, in marshes, around bays, and in near shore valleys. This would explain why all cultures all over the world have a flood (myth) story to tell.

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The fragments that hit the Atlantic Ocean would have created a continuous wall of water going across the ocean. All the islands in the Atlantic Ocean would have been covered with water. Both The Canary Islands and Great Britain would have been under water, except for their mountains.

Tsunami waves also forced their way through the Strait of Gibraltar and flooded the Mediterranean Basin. As the basin overflowed, the water flooded towns, villages, and seaports. Sea-levels in the Mediterranean Basin got higher and higher until the runoff went out into the desert

The flood covered everything; including Alexandria, Beirut, Cairo, Egypt, Italy, and Jerusalem. When the floodwaters began to recede from the land, tons of trees, boats, ships, lumber, buildings, and bridges were carried back into the sea. This floating debris converged at the strait and clogged the opening with floating ships, boats, lumber, and trees. Floodwaters would have carried dead bodies, grass, mud, and silt to the dam and sealed it to prevent the flow of water back into the ocean.

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15-05-2020 om 02:05 geschreven door peter  

Scientists Were Shocked To See These Real Sea Monsters Found At The Bottom Of Oceans

Swaying your boat alongside sea waves on a bright sunny day with your fishing rod lowered deep into the waters, in a hope to catch a cute little fish. It sounds relaxing, right? But it wouldn’t be if your fishing hook catches an alien-like horrible sea creature. Today we are going to tell you about 10 sea creatures that would take all your courage to stare at them.

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/ }

14-05-2020 om 23:57 geschreven door peter  

Looking for some good news? You came to the wrong place, but stay anyway because this is the kind of bad news we’re getting early enough to fully prepare for – if not prevent entirely. We’re talking about viruses, of course … in particular, the next deadly virus. A former NASA director has released a new paper warning that the next killer virus may not come from bats … unless there are bats on Mars. His concern, one he claims is shared by many in the space program, is that spaceships returning from Mars may be filled with humans and rocks covered with a super-virus the likes of which have never been seen on Earth. Can we prevent them? Can we prepare? Do we need some bigger masks?

“In my opinion, and that of the science community, the chance that rocks from Mars that are millions of years old will contain an active life form that could infect Earth is extremely low. But, the samples returned by MSR will be quarantined and treated as though they are the Ebola virus until proven safe.”

Ebola virus

The mass media reports on the worldwide pandemic of COVID-19 caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 have overshadowed the Ebola virus, which attacks faster (within two days of exposure) and is extremely deadly (killing 25% to 90% of those infected, with an average of about 50%), which makes its usage as a reference by Scott Hubbard, former director of NASA Ames and current adjunct professor of aeronautics and astronautics at Stanford University, disconcerting at the very least. In an interview with Stanford News about a new paper — co-authored by Hubbard and published by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine – Hubbard warns about the dangers posed by space missions in general and Mars missions in particular … particularly those returning to Earth with samples and humans exposed to the Martian environment. (MSR a proposed Martian Sample Return mission of which the Perseverance Rover is a part.)

“Past missions with large budgets – such as Viking I and II to Mars in the mid-1970s – were able to use heat to sterilize whole spacecraft. That approach is not possible today for a variety of reasons.”

Hubbard talks about the “bioburden” of keeping Earth microbes and diseases from contaminating another planet or asteroid (called ‘forward contamination’) but his main focus is on ‘back contamination’. He describes one plan to “break the chain of contact” between the returning spacecraft and Mars rock samples with autonomous sealing and welding to create multiple levels of containment. Hubbard notes that “the Apollo astronauts from the first few moon missions were quarantined to ensure they showed no signs of illness” until NASA felt there were not harmful contaminants on the Moon. The process must be initiated again for Mars missions. He thinks his old agency can handle NASA missions, but he’s very concerned about the FAA and private space companies.

“The complication is that NASA is a mission agency with huge PP expertise but not a regulatory agency like the Federal Aviation Administration, which has little PP knowledge but issues licenses for commercial launches.”

Apollo 11 astronauts in quarantine.

(Credit: NASA)

Hubbard is very concerned about forward contaminations and “planetary protection (PP)” as well, and shows his disdain for these private space companies – one in particular:

“This phrase refers primarily to space entrepreneurs such as Elon Musk (SpaceX), who launched his own cherry red Tesla Roadster to a Mars-like orbit around the sun aboard a Falcon Heavy rocket. We need some way of knowing whether they are following appropriate PP procedures.”

That also includes privately-launched tiny cubesats. What goes up may come down – sometimes on Earth but, as these tiny satellites and especially laser light sails become more common, potentially on other planets or asteroids. While the FAA might be able to regulate these companies in the U.S., it has no control over those in other countries.

The report was completed before the COVID-19 pandemic began, so Hubbard addresses it in the interview, noting that the paper has “a small section suggesting that NASA and a recommended new advisory group take a very proactive approach toward educating the public about the extraordinary measures being taken to sequester the returned samples and protect the public.”

Hubbard’s concerns and warnings are commendable and needed. However, based on how little we’ve been informed about COVID-19 prevention, potential treatments and possible (if any) vaccines, does anyone feel comfortable about any agency’s (public or private) ability (or obligation or desire) to “educate the public”?

Asking for a lot of friends.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

13-05-2020 om 23:41 geschreven door peter  

Known and feared by those that call the Gobi Desert their home, the Mongolian Death Worm is a beast that has become legendary in monster-hunting circles. At Cryptid Wiki we learn the following: “The Mongolian Death Worm’s native name, Olgoi-Khorkhoi, means ‘intestine worm’, due to its red blood-like color, and size, which is the size of an intestine. It has been described by many to be from 2-7ft long, have the ability to spit out a corrosive yellow saliva and to generate blasts of electricity. However this latter power is thought of as being folkloric by the nomads of the Gobi. Western culture has come to call this monster the ‘Mongolian Death Worm.’ Mongolian nomads believe the giant worm covers its prey with an acidic substance that turns everything a corroded yellow color.”

It was not until the mid-1920s that word of this hideous thing reached the west. Prior to that time it was a case of what happens in the Gobi Desert stays in the Gobi Desert. The news that Mongolia was home to one of the most terrifying of all monsters came from Roy Chapman Andrews, who was not only the author of the 1926 book On the Trail of Ancient Man. He was rumored to have been one of the inspirations for one of Hollywood’s most famous characters of the gung-ho kind, Indiana Jones. It should be stressed, however, this has never been definitively confirmed. It was while seeking evidence of the presence of ancient man in Mongolia that Andrews heard some very weird tales about a certain deadly beast that lived below the sands. Skeptoid’s Brian Dunning wrote: “In the summer of 1919, Andrews and his party were in the Mongolian capital, Ulaanbaatar, then called Urga. They were to meet the Premier, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and other officials in the Mongolian cabinet to finalize the details of their expedition permits.” Andrews wrote:

“Then the Premier asked that, if it were possible, I should capture for the Mongolian government a specimen of the allergorhai-horhai. I doubt whether any of my scientific readers can identify this animal. I could, because I had heard of it often. None of those present ever had seen the creature, but they all firmly believed in its existence and described it minutely. It is shaped like a sausage about two feet long, has no head nor legs and is so poisonous that merely to touch it means instant death. It lives in the most desolate parts of the Gobi Desert, whither we were going. To the Mongols it seems to be what the dragon is to the Chinese. The Premier said that, although he had never seen it himself, he knew a man who had and had lived to tell the tale. Then a Cabinet Minister stated that ‘the cousin of his late wife’s sister’ had also seen it. I promised to produce the allergorhai-horhai if we chanced to cross its path, and explained how it could be seized by means of long steel collecting forceps; moreover, I could wear dark glasses, so that the disastrous effects of even looking at so poisonous a creature would be neutralized. The meeting adjourned with the best of feeling; for we had a common interest in capturing the allergorhai-horhai. I was especially happy because now the doors of Outer Mongolia were open to the expedition.

A depiction of a Mongolian death worm

“Ten years later,” said Skeptoid’s Brian Dunning, “Andrews co-authored an account of further expeditions in the 1932 book The New Conquest of Central Asia, in which he repeated this brief tale.” Andrews stated: “I have never yet found a Mongol who was willing to admit that he had actually seen it himself, although dozens say they know men who have. Moreover, whenever we went to a region which was said to be a favorite habitat of the beast, the Mongols at that particular spot said that it could be found in abundance a few miles away. Were not the belief in its existence so firm and general, I would dismiss it as a myth. I report it here with the hope that future explorers of the Gobi may have better success than we had in running to earth the Allergorhai horhai.”

In his book, Andrews said: “This is probably an entirely mythical animal, but it may have some little basis in fact, for every northern Mongol firmly believes in it and gives essentially the same description. It is said to be about two feet long, the body shaped like a sausage, and to have no head or legs; it is so poisonous that even to touch it means instant death. It is reported to live in the most arid, sandy regions of the western Gobi. What reptile could have furnished the basis for the description is a mystery!”

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13-05-2020 om 23:29 geschreven door peter  

Dare We Call it Disclosure (With a Very Dodgy ‘D’) ?

December 2017 heralded the start of a new era in the field of ufology with the world media, for the first time ever, covering the subject with a degree of seriousness never seen before. Gone was the X-File theme tune that would often accompany any main stream coverage of UFOs or aliens. In its place was prime time coverage & information coming from within the very organisations that had kept a tight lid on these topics for so long. 

To The Stars Academy, headed up by former Blink-182 singer Tom Delonge, brought forward former intelligence officer Luis Elizondo, who claims to have directed the Defense Intelligence Agency’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program – AATIP ,that was tasked with investigating UFOs, or as would come to learn, UAPs (Unidentified Ariel Phenomena). Cockpit videos showing craft displaying aerodynamics & maneuvers that seemingly defied our known laws of physics.

It was everything that anyone with an interest in UFOs could have dreamed of! Finally, information coming from within the secretive world of the military that confirmed we are being visited by craft that were most certainly of the unidentified variety.

Disclosure was finally taking place!

But just what type of “disclosure” & why now is what many of us continue to ask.

These are topics that I have had the pleasure of discussing with author, researcher & my good friend Ben Emlyn-Jones. Ben has himself penned a trilogy of fictional novels tackling the very subject of disclosure so who better to discuss everything related to the ongoing saga of “disclosure” that has now being playing out since TTSA & Elizondo took the world by storm.

Since 2017, the information continued to drip out from TTSA with Elizondo continuing to conduct interviews with main stream media. In 2019 the pace picked up with the new TV show “Unidentified: Inside America’s UFO Investigation”, which is produced by Tom Delonge & also features Christopher Melon, former United States Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence. Now if that doesn’t sounds like a swamp monster from the deep-state, well, i dont know what does!

There are pilots talking about their experiences with UAPs, meetings with politicians, its like a rollercoaster ride with Elizondo & Delonge riding up front & encouraging us all on board for the ride.

If you haven’t seen the History Channel show, then i would urge you to check it out & judge it for yourself. For me this show is a nauseating experience as we see Elizondo meeting in darkened rooms with shady characters hiding in the shadows & rubbing shoulders with the military industrial complex players that have kept a tight grip on what they call the “UFO file” since forever!

Theres just something “off” about the TTSA, and one need only look at their board of directors so see what I’m talking about! It reads like a whose who from the alphabet agencies & military industrial complex corporations.

Neither Ben or I have ever called into questions the information we are being presented, but we do question the motives. Some time ago we discussed this for a full 2 hour show & now we are back again to go over all the latest data that is coming at us as “disclosure” continues.

Its not that i dont want to believe, as Mulder from the X-Files would say, because i most surely do. And its not that I think we are being lied to, either. Its just I cant let my desire for truth to cloud where its coming from. Could it be that these “insiders” want to get the information out the public? Sure, of course that could be the case. However, i cant let confirmation bias blind me along the way, and all I do is encourage you to think for yourself & question the motives behind….. disclosure.

Or is it Disclosure, with a very very dodgy ‘D’?

Dare we even call it disclosure?

BEN’S WEBSITE….. CLICK HERE

The post Dare We Call It Disclosure (with a very dodgy ‘D’) ? appeared first on The Kev Baker Show.

Source: 

• http://kevbakershow.com/dare-we-call-it-disclosure/

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13-05-2020 om 21:23 geschreven door peter  

We Are in for a Huge Surprise... Someone Changed Our DNA Thousands of Years Ago!

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13-05-2020 om 20:45 geschreven door peter  

Robots are patrolling parks in Singapore reminding people to practice social distancing

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13-05-2020 om 00:46 geschreven door peter  

Most Weird Inventions People Used in The Past

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12-05-2020 om 01:51 geschreven door peter  

QUANTUM ENTANGLEMENT COULD FIGHT A DISEASE THAT KILLS 600,000 IN THE US A YEAR

Whether peering back to the beginning of our universe, winning wars, or looking deep inside the human body at dangerous tumors, radar technology has been a reliable extension of human vision for decades. And at 80-years old, thanks to quantum physics, it's about to get even more precise.

Using a supercooled refrigerator and entangled quantum photons, a team of international researchers has designed a proof-of-concept radar that would be more sensitive and less invasive than today's typical models, especially in "noisy" thermal environments. The process is called "MICROWAVE QUANTUM ILLUMINATION."

The researchers say that this could spell big improvements down the road for ultra-low power and sensitive scanners, especially those used for human health. While radar may not be as associated with medical uses as stethoscopes, the technology is used to monitor conditions associated with some of the most deadly diseases in the U.S., including heartbeats, detect strokes, and even identify cancerous tumors. Helping to identify tumor growth alone could improve the lives of nearly 600,000 patients who die each year in the U.S. from cancer.

A study published Friday in the journal Science Advances describes how researchers were able to achieve this sensitivity by taking advantage of a famous property of quantum particles: entanglement.

"Quantum radar or quantum illumination uses a source of entangled microwave radiation, while classical radar uses coherent signals or classically correlated noise signals," lead researcher and professor at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria, Johannes Fink, tells Inverse.

Kind of like best friends with two separate halves of a friendship necklace, entangled quantum pairs are connected to each other even at great distances through residual physical attributes and interactions. That means that information detected by one part of the pair can affect the other, even if they are physically far apart -- something Einstein (fearfully) called "spooky action at a distance."

For Fink's team, this spooky action was paramount. Fink tells Inverse that they used a supercooled dilution refrigerator (kept at just over -450 degrees Fahrenheit) to generate a fickle pair of photons, one of which they called the "signal" photon and the other the "idler" photon. In order to take a "look" at any given object, the signal photon was sent out to scout and the idler photon lingered at its origin. Fink tells Inverse that by comparing the information of these two different photons in the pair they could gather precise information about objects in the radar's field.

"One part of the entangled signal is sent to probe an object and the other part of it is kept and stored. A small amount is reflected by the object and this part is also subject to environmental noise," says Fink. "The noisy signal can then be measured together with the stored part of the source signal. Because of the similarity of the two signals (due to the common origin and the strong quantum correlations) a more efficient detection is possible."

Even though the relationship between these photons isn't long-lasting, their joint information creates a signature or pattern of the object that cuts through any thermal noise that may be around it.

"Compared to classical correlated noise, quantum physics allows for stronger correlations to exist at the source, which helps by a certain amount even though the true entanglement is lost before the two signals are recombined (due to the noise)," says Fink.

But that said, while their study has demonstrated the possibility of creating a quantum radar like this, Fink tells Inverse that it's far from fool-proof yet.

In general, Fink says that quantum radars are primarily effective in noisy, close-range environments. Trying to achieve the same accuracy at a longer range wouldn't be possible due to the quantum nature of the photons. Additionally, Fink says that their system right now works best only when very careful calibration is applied to the system, making moving this technique out of the lab more challenging.

"This means we could show a proof of principle working prototype in the lab, but in practice - and without the applied calibration procedure - we would not have been able to outperform the theoretically strongest classical detection strategy," says Fink.

As these challenges continue to be met in years to come, Fink says he foresees two main ways this technology could be used in practice.

"We believe its usefulness is confined to short and medium range applications where the object is not supposed to know (security applications) or notice (sensitive objects like biological tissue) that it is being detected," says Fink.

Abstract: 

Quantum illumination is a powerful sensing technique that employs entangled signal-idler photon pairs to boost the detection efficiency of low-reflectivity objects in environments with bright thermal noise. The promised advantage over classical strategies is particularly evident at low signal powers, a feature which could make the protocol an ideal prototype for non-invasive biomedical scanning or low-power short-range radar. In this work we experimentally investigate the concept of quantum illumination at microwave frequencies. We generate entangled fields using a Josephson parametric converter to illuminate a room-temperature object at a distance of 1 meter in a free-space detection setup. We implement a digital phase conjugate receiver based on linear quadrature measurements that outperforms a symmetric classical noise radar in the same conditions despite the entanglement-breaking signal path. Starting from experimental data, we also simulate the case of perfect idler photon number detection, which results in a quantum advantage compared to the relative classical benchmark. Our results highlight the opportunities and challenges on the way towards a first room-temperature application of microwave quantum circuits.

{  https://www.inverse.com/ }

11-05-2020 om 17:40 geschreven door peter  

The Mystery of Giant Viruses Thawing from Beneath the Ice in Siberia and Antarctica

Giant virus

Credit: Cryo-EM facility, Michigan State University

In a new study, a team of Michigan State University scientists shed light on these enigmatic, yet captivating giant microbes and key aspects of the process by which they infect cells. With the help of cutting-edge imaging technologies, this study developed a reliable model for studying giant viruses and is the first to identify and characterize several key proteins responsible for orchestrating infection.Cartoon schematic of Samba infecting a cell.  

Credit: Cryo-EM facility

Giant viruses are bigger than 300 nanometers in size and can survive for many millennia. For comparison, the rhinovirus — responsible for the common cold — is roughly 30 nanometers.

“Giant viruses are gargantuan in size and complexity,” said principal investigator Kristin Parent, associate professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at MSU. “The giant viruses recently discovered in Siberia retained the ability to infect after 30,000 years in permafrost.”

The outer shells — or capsids — are rugged and able to withstand harsh environments, protecting the viral genome inside. The capsids of the species analyzed in this study — mimivirus, Antarctica virus, Samba virus and the newly discovered Tupanviruses — are icosahedral, or shaped like a twenty-sided die.

These species have a unique mechanism for releasing their viral genome. A starfish-shaped seal sits atop one of the outer shell vertices. This unique vertex is known as the ‘stargate.’ During infection, the ‘starfish’ and ‘stargate’ open to release the viral genome.

During the study, several roadblocks needed to be addressed. “Giant viruses are difficult to image due to their size and previous studies relied on finding the ‘one-in-a-million’ virus in the correct state of infection,” Parent said.

To solve this issue, Parent’s graduate student Jason Schrad developed a novel method for mimicking infection stages. Using the university’s new Cryo-Electron Microscopy microscope and the university’s Scanning Electron Microscope, Parent’s group subjected various species to an array of harsh chemical and environmental treatments designed to simulate conditions a virus might experience during the infection process. “Cryo-EM allows us to study viruses and protein structures at the atomic level and to capture them in action,” Parent said. “Access to this technology is very important and the new microscope at MSU is opening new doors for research on campus.”

The results revealed three environmental conditions that successfully induced stargate opening: low pH, high temperature and high salt. Even more, each condition induced a different stage of infection.

With this new data, Parent’s group designed a model to effectively and reliably mimic stages of infection for study. “This new model now allows scientists to mimic the stages reliably and with high frequency, opening the door for future study and dramatically simplifying any studies aimed at the virus,” Parent said.

The results yielded several novel findings. “We discovered that the starfish seal above the stargate portal slowly unzips while remaining attached to the capsid rather than simply releasing all at once,” Parent said. “Our description of a new giant virus genome release strategy signifies another paradigm shift in our understanding of virology.”

With the ability to consistently recreate various stages of infection, the researchers studied the proteins released by the virus during the first stage. Proteins act as workers, orchestrating the many biological processes required for a virus to infect and hijack a cell’s reproductive capabilities to make copies of itself.

“The results of this study help to assign putative — or assumed — roles to many proteins with previously unknown functions, highlighting the power of this new model,” Parent said. “We identified key proteins released during the initial stages of infection responsible for helping mediate the process and complete the viral takeover.”

Jason Schrad freezing Samba viruses in liquid ethane, which is part of preparing the grids for cryo-EM data collection. 

Photo by John A. Dover

As for future study? “The exact functions of many of these proteins and how they orchestrate giant virus infection are prime candidates for future study,” Parent said. “Many of the proteins we identified matched proteins that one would expect to be released during the initial stages of viral infections. This greatly supports our hypothesis that the in vitro stages generated in this study are reflective of those that occur in vivo.”

That many of the different giant virus types studied responded similarly in vitro leads the researchers to believe they all share common characteristics and likely similar proteins.

Whether giant viruses are capable of infecting humans ­– unlike the coronavirus ­– is an evolving topic of discussion amongst virologists.

The study, “Structural and Proteomic Characterization of the Initiation of Giant Virus Infections,” appears in Cell.

Try This Egyptian Copper Secret! You'll Never Believe What It Does Until You See the Blood Video!

Parent credits Jônatas S. Abrahão and Juliana R. Cortines, researchers at Federal University of Minas Gerais and Federal University of Rio de Janeiro respectively, for their dedication in the field to discovering and capturing giant virus specimens and their intellectual contributions for the study.

Contacts and sources:

• Kim Ward
• Michigan State University

Publication:

• Structural and Proteomic Characterization of the Initiation of Giant Virus Infection Jason R. Schrad   Jônatas S. Abrahão Juliana R. Cortines Kristin N. Parent.  
• Cell  http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2020.04.032

Videos about virus, selected by peter2011

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/}

10-05-2020 om 17:44 geschreven door peter  

What Was Einstein’s Most Mind-blowing Discovery?

Source: 

• http://coyoteprime-runningcauseicantfly.blogspot.com/2020/05/what-was-einsteins-most-mind-blowing.html

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/ }

08-05-2020 om 21:42 geschreven door peter  

If You See These Insects Now, You Will Run For Your Life

The one thing that you don’t want, is to wake up and find a creepy slimy millipede in your bed. Look at the size of this thing, I guess now you’re grateful that the only things you see crawling around are roaches.

Let’s get into the world of giant Dragonflies and huge sea worms, these are the world’s most dangerous horrifying insects. Relax, all of them are long gone.

Guess what!? some of this giant insects have super large wings of 30 inches or 70 centimeters in size.Some of these insects in their day were able to take out animals that were almost the size of humans, luckily even with their predatory dominance they could not escape extinction.

Other videos, peter2011

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/ }

06-05-2020 om 21:12 geschreven door peter  

"Someone or something is plunging humanity into darkness…Shout Studios has released an official trailer for a sci-fi action thriller titled The Blackout: Invasion Earth (2020). The movie is available, everywhere from June 2, 2020.

Thanks to Firstshowing.net who writes the following regarding to this new movie:

Contact between most towns on Earth has been severed. A small ring-like area in Eastern Europe still has electricity, and maybe even life is being reported from space.

What military forces find outside "the Ring" is shocking. There are dead everywhere: in stores, in cars, on roads, in hospitals and railway stations.

Who or what is destroying all life on Earth? How long will the last outpost of mankind survive? But I'm not really sure what the heck is going on. Aliens?

Is this movie another Hollywood pre-warning for an unprecedented event we may expect soon? Watch the trailer and listen carefully to the dialogue in the movie.

  

{http://ufosightingshotspot.blogspot.com/ }

06-05-2020 om 18:42 geschreven door peter  

Fogbows are rainbows’ cousins – made by much the same process – but with the small water droplets inside a fog instead of larger raindrops.

View larger at EarthSky Community Photos. | Peter Lowenstein caught this fogbow in Mutare, Zimbabwe, on April 29, 2020. He wrote: “Half-an-hour after the Sun rose behind my house on Wednesday, a beautiful fogbow developed in the middle of a misty morning view from my front veranda. All the conditions were right – bright sunshine from the rear with the Sun less than twenty degrees above the horizon and clearing clouds of mist at the antisolar point. The scene was framed by a beautiful flowering Poinsettia to the left, a lush banana grove to the right, and clear blue sky beginning to appear on top!”

Fogbows – sometimes called white rainbows, cloudbows or ghost rainbows – are made much as rainbows are, from the same configuration of sunlight and moisture. Rainbows happen when the air is filled with raindrops, and you always see a rainbow in the direction opposite the sun. Fogbows are much the same, always opposite the sun, but fogbows are caused by the small droplets inside a fog or cloud rather than larger raindrops.

Look for fogbows in a thin fog when the sun is bright. You might see one when the sun breaks through a fog. Or watch for fogbows over the ocean.

Because the water droplets in fog are so small, fogbows have only weak colors or are colorless.

View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Alan Nicolle in New South Wales, Australia, captured this image on July 16, 2019. He wrote: “I was out geocaching in the outskirts of Broken Hill, when I turned back to see this fogbow developing. I took quite a few photos with the iPhone, and rode back to the car on my bike, but by the time I got back to the car to use my SLR, it had faded.” Thank you, Alan!

Edith Smith in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, captured this fogbow on November 1, 2018. She wrote: “The camera spotted it before I did with eye, as I was too engrossed in foggy conditions.”

Tommy Johnson captured this early morning fogbow near Jonesport, Maine, in August 2016. He wrote: “Early in the morning and blueberry rakers are starting to fill their buckets with the fruit. I called out to them to look at the fogbow, it was the first time any of us had seen one.”

Wonderful fogbow caught by Robyn Smith in New Zealand on the morning of September 19, 2017 “… opposite the foggy sunrise.”

GregDiesel Landscape Photography wrote in October 2015: “Saw my first fogbow / white rainbow. Photo taken with cell phone. Moyock, North Carolina.”

Katherine Keyes Millet captured this fogbow in July 2014 at Winter Island Park in Salem, Massachusetts.

Venus and Jupiter above a fogbow in Blacklough, Dungannon, Ireland. Mars is up there, too, but tough to see. John Fagan captured them all in October 2015.

Eileen Claffey in Brookline, Massachusetts, captured this fogbow over a field in September 2014.

Les Cowley of the great website Atmospheric Optics says:

Look away from the sun and at an angle of 35-40 degrees from your shadow which marks the direction of the antisolar point. Some fogbows have very low contrast so look for small brightenings in the misty background. Once caught, they are unmistakable.

The sun must be less than 30-40 degrees high unless you are on a hill or high up on a ship where the mist and fogbow can be viewed from above.

Fogbows are huge, almost as large as a rainbow and much, much broader.

Look here for Les Cowley’s explanation of how fogbows form.

Thomas Kast in Finland captured this fogbow in 2013. He wrote: “In this rather cold August night (+8C [46F]) there was patchy fog, especially in open fields. This lake remained clear for a long time. At one point I saw this white bow with moon in waning gibbous phase behind me.”

Jim Grant caught this fogbow over Sunset Cliffs in San Diego. He wrote: “The skies were sunny and clear, and then the fog rolled in, and with it this beautiful fogbow.”

Lynton Brown of Australia captured this fogbow over a barren field in the autumn of 2012.

• Bottom line: Fogbows are made by much the same process as rainbows, but with the small water droplets inside a fog instead of larger raindrops. Because the water droplets in fog are so small, fogbows have only weak colors or are colorless.

{ https://earthsky.org/ }

01-05-2020 om 01:05 geschreven door peter  

Hundred million-year-old 'river monster' with a powerful fin-like tail is discovered in the Sahara - proving that dinosaurs DID live underwater

• The dinosaur — called Spinosaurus aegyptiacus — had a powerful flat tail  
• It spent most of its life underwater and was well adapted to hunting in rivers  
• Adults reached 50ft long and weighed as much as 20 tonnes when fully grown 
• Part of a tail was found fossilised in Morocco which revealed the animal swam 
• It is the first direct evidence of an aquatic dinosaur and proves they conquered both land and water 

By JOE PINKSTONE FOR MAILONLINE 

The first ever evidence of a dinosaur which swam, lived and hunted underwater has been discovered in the now-barren wilderness of the Saharan desert. 

But 100 million years ago this region would have been a lush oasis interspersed with rivers and waterways teeming with life.

And lurking beneath the surface, sitting atop the entire food chain, was a fearsome aquatic dinosaur.  

The river monster — called Spinosaurus aegyptiacus — powered through the water with a fin-like tail and captured slippery prey with six-inch long conical teeth.

A fossilised tail of a juvenile of the species, which belongs to the therepod group, the same as the T-rex, was found in modern-day Morocco. 

Adults are known to reach up to 50ft long and weigh up to 20 tonnes but this specimen had yet to reach its full size, measuring 35ft from snout to tail and weighing around four tonnes.

Fully-grown individuals had no natural predators, but researchers say juveniles may have been at risk from giant fish and enormous prehistoric crocodiles. 

The researchers who led the project and discovered the fossil deemed this hostile marine world 'the river of death'.   

A 3D rendering of Spinosaurus hunting a group of sawfish. Spinosaurus powered through the water with a fin-like tail and captured slippery prey with six-inch long conical teeth

Pictured, an artist's impression of two Spinosaurus hunting sawfish from National Geographic. Adults are known to reach up to 50ft long and weigh up to 20 tonnes but this specimen had yet to reach its full size, measuring 35ft from snout to tail and weighing around four tonnes

Pictured, part of the tail discovered in modern-day Morocco. The newly discovered tail of Spinosaurus aegyptiacus shows it was well adapted to an aquatic lifestyle

Around the time of Spinosaurus, several other reptile groups had mastered the water, including ichthyosaurs, but no dinosaurs.

The newly discovered tail of Spinosaurus aegyptiacus shows it was well adapted to an aquatic lifestyle. 

Two foot long struts on the main vertebrae broaden the tail into a paddle-like shape.  

Dr David Unwin, Reader in Palaeobiology at the University of Leicester, who was involved in the research, said: 'The Spinosaurus' fin-like tail is a game changing discovery for us that fundamentally alters our understanding of how this dinosaur lived and hunted – it was actually a "river-monster".

'As well as its tail, many other features of this dinosaur, such as the high position of the nostrils, heavy bones, short legs, and paddle-like feet point to a life spent in the water rather than on land.

'Not only did dinosaurs dominate the land and take to the air as birds, they even went back into the water and became the top predators there as well.'

The study, published today in the journal Nature, comes to the conclusion that this animal was a truly water-dwelling, tail-propelled dinosaur which likely spent most of its life underwater.   

National Geographic explorer and University of Detroit Mercy paleontologist Dr Nizar Ibrahim led the research. 

His team included Dr Unwin and Professor David Martill from the University of Portsmouth. 

Academics began excavating a skeleton of Spinosaurus in southern Morocco in 2015 and made the historic discovery of its almost-complete and well preserved tail in 2018. 

Tails of other therapods, which existed on solid land, had a a stiff tapering tail.

But analysis of the vertebrae found in Morocco revealed long spines that supported a large, highly flexible, fin-like tail comparable in shape to that of a crested newt. 

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Reconstruction of Spinosaurus in life: long narrow jaws with conical teeth, and a unique tail for aquatic locomotion

Top: reconstruction of the tail skeleton of Spinosaurus (missing bones shown in white). Center: cross sections through the tail showing changes in the vertebrae, tail volume, and arrangement of major muscles. Bottom: the new - and surprising - look of Spinosaurus (black, soft parts/body outline; red, bones collected in 2008 by a local fossil collector; green, bones from recent scientific excavations; yellow, bone fragments collected in the debris around the main excavation area)

The site in the Sahara where the fossil was found is a hotbed for fossil hunters, with other finds including sawfish, crocodiles, flying reptiles and land-dwelling dinosaurs.

Professor Martill said: 'This fossil site has been incredible. This is the first Spinosaurus skeleton to be found for over a hundred years. It is also one of the few associated dinosaurs skeletons ever to be found in the Kem Kem rocks.

'Scientists have always puzzled about Spinosaurus, because applying new scientific techniques on this animal have, until now, not been possible because the original material was destroyed in World War Two. Now we have a new baby to play with.

'Every time we look at this dinosaur we discover something fascinating about it. Discovering its tail was such an amazing gift. We had no idea that its tail was going to be so different from other dinosaur tails.

'One thing that still puzzles me though, is why only Spinosaurus became aquatic among the dinosaurs. Why are there no aquatic iguanodons, or stegosaurs.'

While it remains a mystery why only one dinosaurs conquered the water, the discovery does put to bed a long-standing belief that dinosaurs never swam. 

Dr Ibrahim said: 'This discovery is the nail in the coffin for the idea that non-avian dinosaurs never invaded the aquatic realm.

'This dinosaur was actively pursuing prey in the water column, not just standing in shallow waters waiting for fish to swim by. It probably spent most of its life in the water.' 

The September 2018 team that unearthed the tail of the only associated Spinosaurus skeleton in existence. Left to right, and top to bottom: Simone Maganuco, Ayoub Amane, M'Barek Fouadassi, Nizar Ibrahim, Samir Zouhri, Cristiano Dal Sasso, Gabriele Bindellini, Marco Auditore, Matteo Fabbri, Diego Mattarelli, Hamid Azroal, Mhamed Azroal

A view of the Kem Kem region, Sahara Desert (south-eastern Morocco), from the excavation site of Spinosaurus

The site in the Sahara where the fossil was found (pictured) is a hotbed for fossil hunters, with other finds including sawfish, crocodiles, flying reptiles and land-living dinosaurs

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

30-04-2020 om 20:56 geschreven door peter  

Experts discovered the remains of a 100-million-year-old “river monster” that proves dinosaurs once lived underwater. In fact, it’s the first time that they have found conclusive evidence that proves some dinosaurs lived, swam, and hunted beneath the water.

The remains were found in the now-barren wilderness of the Saharan desert but it was not always this way as 100 million years ago it contained waterways and rivers. Researchers began excavating the area in southern Morocco back in 2015 and by 2018 they had uncovered a nearly-complete well-preserved skeleton of the dinosaur’s tail. The species belongs to the theropod group which the Tyrannosaurus rex is a part of.

Skeleton of a Spinosaurus.

The dinosaur, which has been named Spinosaurus aegyptiacus, had razor-sharp six-inch long cone-shaped teeth that it used to capture and hold onto its prey. The nostrils were located on the back portion of the head and its snout was quite similar to a crocodile’s. It had very dense bones as well as large flat feet that were more than likely webbed.

Even though it was only a juvenile when it died, it still measured 35 feet long and weighed approximately 4 tonnes. Fully grown adults could have measured as long as 50 feet and weighed up to 20 tonnes. While the adults had no known predators, the juveniles could have been attacked by giant prehistoric crocodiles and fish. In fact, the location in which the skeleton was found has been nicknamed the “river of death” by the researchers. Numerous groups of reptiles inhabited the waters (such as the ichthyosaurs), but this is the first ever evidence of a dinosaur living underwater.

And based on the evidence the researchers found, the Spinosaurus aegyptiacus thrived in the ancient Saharan waters. As for its unique tail, the species had two-foot long struts located on the main vertebrae which made its tail into the shape of a paddle that moved from side to side. This is quite interesting as other therapods that lived on land had a stiff tail that tapered off at the end.

Dr. David Unwin, who is a Reader in Palaeobiology at the University of Leicester and was also involved with the research (their study can be read here), explained this further, “The Spinosaurus’ fin-like tail is a game changing discovery for us that fundamentally alters our understanding of how this dinosaur lived and hunted – it was actually a ‘river-monster’”. “As well as its tail, many other features of this dinosaur, such as the high position of the nostrils, heavy bones, short legs, and paddle-like feet point to a life spent in the water rather than on land,” he said, adding, “Not only did dinosaurs dominate the land and take to the air as birds, they even went back into the water and became the top predators there as well.” A picture of the excavation site can be seen here.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

30-04-2020 om 20:25 geschreven door peter  

'The Most Dangerous Place in the History of Planet Earth' Revealed

Predator paradise – The giant predatory dinosaur Carcharodontosaurus eyes a group of Elosuchus – crocodile-like hunters – near a carcass.

Artwork by Davide Bonadonna

100 million years ago, ferocious predators, including flying reptiles and crocodile-like hunters, made the Sahara the most dangerous place on Earth.

This is according to an international team of scientists, who have published the biggest review in almost 100 years of fossil vertebrates from an area of Cretaceous rock formations in south-eastern Morocco, known as the Kem Kem Group.

The review, published in the journal ZooKeys, “provides a window into Africa’s Age of Dinosaurs” according to lead author Dr Nizar Ibrahim, an Assistant Professor of Biology at the University of Detroit Mercy and Visiting Researcher from the University of Portsmouth.

About 100 million years ago, the area was home to a vast river system, filled with many different species of aquatic and terrestrial animals. Fossils from the Kem Kem Group include three of the largest predatory dinosaurs ever known, including the sabre-toothed Carcharodontosaurus (over 8m in length with enormous jaws and long, serrated teeth up to eight inches long) and Deltadromeus (around 8m in length, a member of the raptor family with long, unusually slender hind limbs for its size), as well as several predatory flying reptiles (pterosaurs) and crocodile-like hunters. Dr Ibrahim said: “This was arguably the most dangerous place in the history of planet Earth, a place where a human time-traveller would not last very long.”

Many of the predators were relying on an abundant supply of fish, according to co-author Professor David Martill from the University of Portsmouth. He said: “This place was filled with absolutely enormous fish, including giant coelacanths and lungfish. The coelacanth, for example, is probably four or even five times large than today’s coelacanth. There is an enormous freshwater saw shark called Onchopristis with the most fearsome of rostral teeth, they are like barbed daggers, but beautifully shiny.”

Researchers from the Universities of Detroit, Chicago, Montana, Portsmouth (UK), Leicester (UK, David Unwin), Casablanca (Morocco), and McGill (Canada), as well as the Paris Museum of Natural History, have produced the first detailed and fully illustrated account of the fossil-rich escarpment, previously known as the “Kem Kem beds”. The researchers now define this sedimentary package as the Kem Kem Group, which consists of two distinct formations, the Gara Sbaa Formation and the Douira Formation.

To assemble the huge datasets and fossil images, which were originally included in his PhD thesis, Dr Ibrahim visited Kem Kem collections on several continents.

Shedding light on Africa’s ancient past is important says Professor Martill, “This is the most comprehensive piece of work on fossil vertebrates from the Sahara in almost a century, since the famous German palaeontologist Ernst Freiherr Stromer von Reichenbach published his last major work in 1936.”

Contacts and sources:

• Kate Daniell
  University of Portsmouth

Publication:

• Geology and paleontology of the Upper Cretaceous Kem Kem Group of eastern Morocco
  Nizar Ibrahim, Paul C. Sereno, David J. Varricchio, David M. Martill, Didier B. Dutheil, David M. Unwin, Lahssen Baidder, Hans C. E. Larsson, Samir Zouhri, Abdelhadi Kaoukaya http://dx.doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.928.47517

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/ }

28-04-2020 om 18:16 geschreven door peter  

“…expeditionary, deployable, reversible offensive space control (OCS) effects applicable across the full spectrum of conflict. It prevents adversary Satellite Communications (SATCOM) in Area of Responsibility (AOR) including Command & Control (C2), Early Warning and Propaganda, and hosts Rapid Reaction Capabilities in response to Urgent Needs.”

As reported in Popular Mechanics, that’s US Space Force-speak for its first weapon, the Counter Communications Systems (CCS) Block 10.2 – a jammer that effectively cuts the electronic cord between ground troops and the satellites they use to communicate with their generals, allies and each other. This is much more effective than trying to know out the transmitter on the ground or the satellite in space, and the latest generation of these jammers covers a greater frequency spectrum than ever before. Needless, to say, Russia is not pleased.

“We also have a lot of questions. We asked them quite a long time ago and want to have an answer after all. A full-fledged meaningful Russian-US dialogue on a wide spectrum of issues of space activities security Russian and US senior diplomats agreed on on January 16 will help resolve mutual concerns.”

Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told TASS that her government is not pleased with what it perceives to be a first step towards an arms race in space. She’s right about a “race” because Russia’s military already has a similar satellite jammer that’s believed to be not as robust as the Space Force’s. Of course, this is also a war of words, as Zakharova was responding to criticism by Gen. John Raymond, chief of space operations for the Space Force, about Russia’s alleged testing of an anti-satellite missile.

“Previously, such claims were voiced by US Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Ford. We have commented on each and every such anti-Russian attack which are all nothing but the United States’ attempt to divert public attention from real threats in space and to justify its moves to deploy weapons in outer space and obtain extra financing for such causes.”

That’s a diplomatic in-your-face response from Zakharova. This may seem like much ado about nothing since the satellite jammer is ground-based, but anything that’s launched must communicate with satellites to get to space. In fact, it’s becoming clear that nearly everything on Earth depends on satellites. The Space Force is part of the Air Force, so using jets to rapidly deploy the jammers around the world seems like a good idea. Meanwhile, NASA and Elon Musk (the distinction between these two is slowly beginning to blur) are covering space with satellites – perhaps in an attempt to overwhelm Russia’s anti-satellite missiles or its own jammers.

 

“It is obvious that serious concerns, if any, cannot be resolved by means of such statements, by means of fakes. It is necessary to use the existing channels for expert and political dialogue for that. We do have such channels and it is necessary simply to use them. Unwillingness to do so is rather an evidence of insufficiently grounded position of our American colleagues.”

Sigh. Even space cannot escape from ‘fake news’ and ‘insufficiently grounded positions’. Are we doomed to resume the Cold War’s massive arms race in space? Strategic space command. Lt. Col. Steve Brogan gives Interesting Engineering an answer.

“CCS is the only offensive system in the United States Space Force arsenal. This upgrade puts the ‘force’ in Space Force and is critical for Space as a warfighting domain.”

Sigh.

Videos, selected by peter2011

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

27-04-2020 om 23:17 geschreven door peter  

By Carolyn Gramling

Modern plate tectonics may have gotten under way as early as 3.2 billion years ago, about 400 million years earlier than scientists thought. That, in turn, suggests that the movement of large pieces of Earth’s crust could have played a role in making the planet more hospitable to life.

Geologist Alec Brenner of Harvard University and his colleagues measured the magnetic orientations of iron-bearing minerals in the Honeyeater Basalt, a layer of rock that formed between 3.19 billion and 3.18 billion years ago. The basalt is part of the East Pilbara Craton, an ancient bit of continent in Western Australia that includes rocks as old as 3.5 billion years.

This craton, the researchers found, was on the move between 3.35 billion and 3.18 billion years ago, drifting around the planet at a rate of at least 2.5 centimeters per year. That’s a speed comparable to modern plate motions, the team reports April 22 in Science Advances.

The basalt layer, which burbled up as lava and hardened during the journey, contains iron-bearing minerals that can act as tiny signposts pointing the way toward Earth’s magnetic poles. While the lava was still molten, the minerals rotated, orienting themselves to align with either the north or south magnetic pole. By tracking the changes in orientation within the lava as more basalt formed during the journey, the researchers were able to determine how quickly the craton was moving.

{ https://www.sciencenews.org/ }

27-04-2020 om 01:23 geschreven door peter  

If you’ve ever been caught in a heavy downpour without an umbrella, hood or awning to duck under, you know that the force of heavy, sometimes wind-driven drops can be painful … especially when the showers last for a long time. But can they carry enough power to trigger a volcano? That’s the premise of a new study which proposes that an extreme and extended heavy rain period triggered the 2018 extreme eruption of Kīlauea in Hawaii, burying a portion of the Big Island with a four-month-long flow of lava. Is it time for weather reporters to start giving “chance of volcano” forecasts?

“The May 2018 rift intrusion and eruption of Kīlauea Volcano, Hawai‘i, represented one of its most extraordinary eruptive sequences in at least 200 years, yet the trigger mechanism remains elusive.”

Kīlauea

Kīlauea is one of Hawaii’s most active volcanoes and has actually been in a period the eruption on , entered an extraordinary new phase on May 3, 2018, throwing incandescent lava nearly two hundred feet in the air and spewing lava over 13 square miles across the well-populated east coast of Hawaii’s Big Island. The unprecedented eruption, which destroyed hundreds of homes, involved the collapse of the summit caldera before it ceased four months later in September 2018. Kīlauea is heavily monitored and has been under especially close scrutiny since 1983 when the latest activities began.

“An eruption happens when the pressure in the magma chamber is high enough to break the surrounding rock and the magma travels to the surface. This pressurization causes inflation of the ground by tens of centimeters. As we did not see any significant inflation in the year prior to the eruption we started to think about alternative explanations.”

In their new study, published in the journal Nature, UM Rosenstiel School scientists Jamie Farquharson and Falk Amelung describe how they were surprised by the extreme May 2018 eruption which launched lava two hundred feet in the air, covering over 13 square miles and destroying hundreds of homes, before the summit caldera collapsed and it quit erupting in September 2018. With the usual warning signs missing, Farquharson and Amelung went looking for others and noticed a sustained period of rain right before it. Could the rain have penetrated the volcano’s edifice and changed the pressure, causing the ground to crack enough to allow an eruption?

“Here we show that immediately before and during the eruption, infiltration of rainfall into Kīlauea Volcano’s subsurface increased pore pressure at depths of 1 to 3 kilometres by 0.1 to 1 kilopascals, to its highest pressure in almost 50 years. We propose that weakening and mechanical failure of the edifice was driven by changes in pore pressure within the rift zone, prompting opportunistic dyke intrusion and ultimately facilitating the eruption.”

Kīlauea

Going back through meteorological records in the Kilauea area, they found that “magmatic intrusions and recorded eruptions are almost twice as likely to occur during the wettest parts of the year. Based on that, the team plans to investigate other volcanoes and their rainfall patterns, giving people living in the area another thing to worry about during heavy downpours – something an umbrella won’t help. And it gets worse, as Farquharson describes in a press release.

“It has been shown that the melting of ice caps in Iceland led to changes of volcanic productivity. As ongoing climate change is predicted to bring about changes in rainfall patterns, we expect that this may similarly influence patterns of volcanic activity.”

Climate change contributing to volcanic activity? Is it time to do something about it or move farther away from Yellowstone?

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

24-04-2020 om 21:51 geschreven door peter