#METEOR TRENDS AS MYSTERIOUS OBJECT FROM OUTER SPACE IS SPOTTED IN LOS ANGELES

01-02-2020 om 20:35 geschreven door peter  

You may scoff at the idea of or the need for a military branch devoted to defending or fighting in outer space. You may laugh at its uniform emblem’s obvious resemblance to the Starfleet Command emblem of the fictional fighters for the United Federation of Planets in the Star trek world. But … who are you going to call when a mysterious Russian spacecraft begins tailing an equally mysterious U.S. spy satellite? Space Force, we have a problem!

“This is all circumstantial evidence, but there are a hell of a lot of circumstances that make it look like a known Russian inspection satellite is currently inspecting a known US spy satellite. A pretty thorough look of the satellite catalog can’t produce another potential target that looks as good as this in terms of the orbits and viewing geometry.”

That’s part of what Purdue University astrodynamics grad student Michael Thompson tweeted after spotting Cosmos 2542 (also called Kosmos 2542), a Russian inspection satellite launched in late November 2019, enter a synchronized orbit with USA 245, a National Reconnaissance Office KH-11 image gathering spy satellites. Military watchers like The Drive quickly picked up on this and pointed out that Cosmos 2542 is one of many so-called space apparatus inspection satellites that the Russian space program has put into orbit over the past decade.

“Space apparatus inspector” is a benign description for satellites that have exhibited very non-benign orbital behavior. In a previous report by The Drive, the satellites were spotted tailing space debris very closely in a manner that suggests something more than them being robotic ‘space pickers’. (Note to self – pitch ‘Space Pickers’ to cable network.) The Pentagon expressed concerns about these “inspectors” at a 2018 meeting of the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, but Russia has continued to launch them. Cosmos 2542 appears to be the first to be ‘inspecting’ an active satellite – USA 245 is one of a number of leading-edge reconnaissance (spy) satellites utilizing electro-optical digital imaging to provide a real-time optical observation capability. In other words, a perfect vehicle for spying on other countries. Why does Thompson and The Drive think Cosmos 2542 is spying on OUR spy?

“As I’m typing this, that offset distance shifts between 150 and 300km depending on the location in the orbit.”

That means Cosmos 2542 has placed itself as close as 93 miles away from USA 245 while speeding at thousands of miles per hour. Even more sinisterly, Thompson observed Cosmos 2542 moving in orbit from one side of USA 245 to the other – giving it a full view of the satellite.

What’s the big deal, you may ask … isn’t this just a real-life playout of Mad Magazine’s iconic “Spy vs. Spy” Cold War cartoons? Maybe – it could just be a sinister game that neither side will win. Since USA 245 is highly classified, we don’t know what its true capabilities or ultimate mission are, nor do we know if it’s capable of its own evasive maneuvers (there haven’t been any yet) or if it’s armed and ready for these types of encounters. However, it’s easy to imagine that Cosmos 2542 is close enough to attack and/or destroy USA 245 or render it useless with electronic jammers, blinding lasers or even just by spraying chemicals on its camera lenses – a perfect ‘Spy vs. Spy’ setup.

Is it time for the Space Force?

“There may come a point where we demonstrate some of our capabilities so that our adversaries understand they cannot deny us the use of space without consequence.”

Then-Secretary of the Air Force Heather Wilson said this at the Space Foundation’s 35th annual Space Symposium in 2019. This sounds like what most people expect the Space Force to do. Can it? Will it live up to its fictional emblem inspiration or will it become one-half of Mad’s ‘Spy vs. Spy’?

“Activate paint shields and spray cans, Mr. Sulu.”

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

01-02-2020 om 16:37 geschreven door peter  

FIRST SQUID MRI STUDY SHOWS BRAIN COMPLEXITY SIMILAR TO DOGS

With their peculiar movement, deep-sea habitat, and surprisingly huge genomes, squid have fascinated humans for centuries. And now, for the first time, scientists have put the cephalopods in an MRI to get a better look at their brains — revealing that they are much more like another animal beloved to humans than we realized.

That's right: Your calamari has a brain just about as complex as a dog.

Scientists used an MRI machine to get a good look at the brain of a juvenile reef squid. They were able to identify 145 previously unknown pathways and connections, which could help unravel the mystery behind a nifty squid skill — camouflage.

It is a big step toward building a complete guide to the squid brain’s complex neural connections — known as a connectome map — the researchers say.

"This the first time modern technology has been used to explore the brain of this amazing animal,” Chung said in a statement.

The study, led by researchers Wen-Sung Chung and Justin Marshall from the University of Queensland, was published this month in the journal iScience.

CLEVER CEPHALOPODS

Chung explained that cephalopods — the family group that include squid and octopus — have “famously complex brains, approaching that of a dog and surpassing mice and rats, at least in neuronal number.”

Some cephalopods have more than 500 million neurons — about the same as dogs, which clock in around 530 million. Rats have just 200 million. Humans, meanwhile, are blessed with somewhere around 100 billion neurons — but don't let that go to your head. Millions of neurons don't always add up to the same skillset — like changing your body color at will.

The brain power of squids like Sepioteuthis lessoniana, the species imaged in the study, is one of the reasons they’re able to change color on cue. Ironically, squids are colorblind — so they’re sadly not too adept at observing their bodies change color. But the skill is among the traits that make squid so cool — like their ability to count and solve problems.

"We can see that a lot of neural circuits are dedicated to camouflage and visual communication,” Chung said. That gives squid a “unique ability” to hide from predators, hunt, and communicate with one another.

But to do the study at all, researchers first had to get the squid in the MRI machine — something that required them first fixing the (dead) squid and then preserving their tissue for examination.

Once in the machine, the researchers were able to image their brain in detail. They also took samples of the squids' brains and performed different analyses to help trace a comprehensive picture of their neural connections.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

From the data, the researchers may be able to get more specific information on some of the squid's characteristics, like figuring out why squid show a certain color at a given time. For instance, a squid might change the color of its body if a predator is nearby, to blend into its surroundings. But if it’s being scoped out from above, the cephalopod may only change its head color.

"Our findings will hopefully provide evidence to help us understand why these fascinating creatures display such diverse behaviour and very different interactions," Chung said.

The new research marks another first for cephalopod studies, following a recent study that decoded the genome of a giant squid. As Inverse reported at the time, the research revealed that the giant squid’s genetic complexity is closing in on that of a human. Giant squid have about 2.7 billion DNA base pairs in their genome, it turns out, while humans have about 3 billion base pairs.

Understanding the brain mechanics behind how squid behave can better allow scientists to make predictions about the history of cephalopods — like when they first evolved to have these adaptations, and what other incredible skills they could be hiding.

Abstract: Using high-resolution diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (dMRI) and a suite of old and new staining techniques, the beginnings of a multi-scale connectome map of the squid brain is erected. The first of its kind for a cephalopod, this includes the confirmation of 281 known connections with the addition of 145 previously undescribed pathways. These and other features suggest a suite of functional attributes, including

• (1) retinotopic organization through the optic lobes and into other brain areas well beyond that previously recognized,
• (2) a level of complexity and sub-division in the basal lobe supporting ideas of convergence with the vertebrate basal ganglia, and
• (3) differential lobe-dependent growth rates that mirror complexity and transitions in ontogeny.

{ https://www.inverse.com/ }

30-01-2020 om 18:39 geschreven door peter  

DINOSAURS LITERALLY WALKED ON FIRE — STUDY

30-01-2020 om 18:12 geschreven door peter  

Scientists drill into Antarctic ‘doomsday glacier’ to see if it will collapse and flood the world

Jasper Hamill

A view of the ice front of Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica

(Image: David Vaughan)

A team of scientists has dug down into a huge ice sheet known as the ‘doomsday glacier’ for the first time.

The Thwaites Glacier is located in ‘one of the most remote and hostile areas of West Antarctica’.

This huge chunk of frozen water was given its ominous apocalyptic nickname because of the risk it will break apart and dump so much freshwater into the ocean that sea levels rise by 65cm – more than two feet.

If this disaster came to pass, it could render coastal and low-lying cities totally uninhabitable and cause chaos around the planet.

Researchers used hot water to drill to a depth of 700 metres and are now carrying out tests to discover if the glacier will fall apart in the coming decades.

Dr Keith Nicholls, an oceanographer from the British Antarctic Survey, said: ‘We know that warmer ocean waters are eroding many of West Antarctica’s glaciers, but we’re particularly concerned about Thwaites.

‘This new data will provide a new perspective of the processes taking place so we can predict future change with more certainty.’

Instruments including a small robot called Icefin were lowered deep into the borehole.

View of a borehole cut into the glacier 

(Image: British Antarctic Survey)

This exploration machine is now swimming about beneath the ice to examine how it interacts with the ocean and study its melting behaviour.

Dr Paul Cutler, who manages the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration (ITGC) at the US National Science Foundation, said: ‘Thwaites Glacier is extremely remote, with only a handful of people setting foot on it until this year.

‘This has been our first season of land-based fieldwork to get a deeper understanding of this important yet under-studied glacier. It’s amazing to think we’ve only now drilled in this remote region some 200 years after the continent was first sighted.’

Our planet could be teetering on the edge of catastrophe

(Image: Getty)

Humanity is about to reach the climate change ‘point of no return’ and our attempts to save the planet have been ‘utterly inadequate’, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned last year.

Speaking before the start of a two-week international climate conference in Madrid, the UN chief said rising temperatures are already causing chaos around the world and suggested we’re approaching the moment when it’s too late to halt the progress of global warming.

He also said the world has the scientific knowledge and the technical ability to tackle global warming, but ‘what is lacking is political will.’

‘The point of no return is no longer over the horizon,’ Guterres told reporters in the Spanish capital.

‘ It is in sight and hurtling toward us.’

Guterres said there was mounting scientific evidence showing the impact man-made emissions of greenhouse gases are already having on the planet, including record temperatures and melting polar ice.

But he insisted that his message was ‘one of hope, not of despair’.

He added: ‘Our war against nature must stop and we know that that is possible.’

‘What is still lacking is political will,’ he added.

‘Political will to put a price on carbon. Political will to stop subsidies on fossil fuels. Political will to stop building coal power plants from 2020 onwards. Political will to shift taxation from income to carbon. Taxing pollution instead of people.’

Global warming ‘threatens the existence of human civilisations’ and we need to cut emissions immediately, researchers warned

(Picture: Getty)

Before the UN leader’s statement, scientists said nine climate change ‘tipping points’ have now been crossed and the ‘cascade of changes’ could spell doom for humanity.

µThey called for the establishment of a ‘state of planetary emergency’ and urged governments to take urgent action to stop the production of greenhouse gases and said global warming risked creating a ‘hothouse Earth’ that ‘could threaten the existence of human civilisations’.

‘A decade ago we identified a suite of potential tipping points in the Earth system, now we see evidence that over half of them have been activated,’ said Professor Tim Lenton, director of the Global Systems Institute at the University of Exeter and lead author of a new paper in the respected journal Nature.

‘The growing threat of rapid, irreversible changes means it is no longer responsible to wait and see. The situation is urgent and we need an emergency response.

‘We might already have crossed the threshold for a cascade of inter-related tipping points.

‘However, the rate at which they progress, and therefore the risk they pose, can be reduced by cutting our emissions.’

Countdown to doomsday:

1. If these nine natural Melting of Arctic sea ice.
2. Loss of Greenland ice sheet.
3. The disappearance of boreal forests.
4. Thawing of Permafrost.
5. Loss of Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (currents which carry warm water from the tropics into the North Atlantic)
6. Death of the Amazon rainforest.
7. The demise of warm-water corals.
8. Melting of West Antarctic Ice Sheet.
9. Loss of parts of East Antarctica.

The collapse of major ice sheets on Greenland, West Antarctica and part of East Antarctica would cause roughly 10 metres of irreversible sea-level rise.

If rainforests, permafrost and boreal forests die off, huge amounts of greenhouse gases will be released into the air and amplify global warming.

We could stave off this disaster by reducing emissions, but this would only ‘allow more time for low-lying populations to move’ to another part of the world.

And once we’ve reached several tipping points, a cataclysmic ‘cascade’ could begin which accelerates climate change to terrifying proportions.

‘If damaging tipping cascades can occur and a global tipping cannot be ruled out, then this is an existential threat to civilization,’ the scientists wrote.

‘No amount of economic cost-benefit analysis is going to help us. We need to change our approach to the climate problem.’

Co-author Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, said: ‘It is not only human pressures on Earth that continue rising to unprecedented levels.

‘It is also that as science advances, we must admit that we have underestimated the risks of unleashing irreversible changes, where the planet self-amplifies global warming.

‘This is what we now start seeing, already at 1°C global warming.

‘Scientifically, this provides strong evidence for declaring a state of planetary emergency, to unleash world action that accelerates the path towards a world that can continue evolving on a stable planet.’

{ https://metro.co.uk/ }

29-01-2020 om 23:27 geschreven door peter  

BY ROBERT KRULWICH

Image: Courtesy of the Neanderthal Museum

 

We have dreamed about it for so long. We've told stories, made movies, imagined what it would be like when we humans have our first "close encounter" with an intelligent alien, a creature about our size, who can gaze back, talk (even if we can't understand what's being said) who can scare us, thrill us, make us feel its mind. Who wouldn't want a moment like the one in E.T., when the little alien puts out his finger? But that's the movies.

We now know how big the universe is, how far the stars are from each other. Just as I was getting used to the idea that even if there's intelligent life out there, there's no way we'll ever be able to find the light years to get together, I opened Chip Walter's new book, Last Ape Standing, and discovered — it's already happened.

First Encounter

We've already met our intelligent alien. We almost certainly had sex with them. And we did it here, right here on Earth, not so many generations ago.

In Chip's book, he describes one such encounter: We're in Europe, in a forest, maybe. It was an ordinary day, around 40,000 years ago, and a small band of Homo sapiens, some hunters, slender, looking much like us, their families nearby, are moving through the woods, looking for a boar, rabbits, something to eat, when all of a sudden "they" appear.

"Imagine this encounter, and its shattering effect," writes Walters. "Each group must have gazed at the other in bewildered amazement."

In an instant they would have seen that these creatures resembled them, but were clearly not one of them. Why didn't they communicate in the same way or even make the same sounds? This wasn't simply a different tribe ... this was another creature altogether, perhaps a god or an animal, or something in between.

God? Animal? Something In Between

On one side of that meadow stood ... us, or rather our ancestors, a group we now call Cro-Magnon (after the cave in France where their bones were discovered). We were modern humans 40,000 years ago, emigrants from Africa, baby-faced, scant of hair, but loaded with brain. We were smart. We probably carried sharp hunting tools of our own design, flint knives and spears for throwing and we had taught ourselves to kill animals from a distance — animals like those aliens making mysterious noises on the other side of the meadow.

What did the other group look like? They looked kind of like us, but stronger. Their hands were huge, their shoulders big, rounded with muscle, their faces, ah, their faces came with enormous noses, rich with nasal membranes that could warm the cold, dry air they breathed up north, where they lived.

We were more recently up from Africa, still dark skinned. They'd been 200,000 years in Europe, had grown fair, freckled and some of them had red or blond hair. And while you wouldn't know it from looking, their brains were even bigger than ours, at over 1700 cubic centimeters. "That's about 300 ccs larger than your brain or mine," says Walter. We had never seen their like, but you, you reading this, you know them from photos and magazines. They were Neanderthals. And Neanderthals have gotten a bum rap for the last hundred years.

Caveman With A Club?

Image: Courtesy of the Neanderthal Museum

We think of Neanderthals as primitives, stooped, brutish, club bearing — one of those not-quite-upright apes in a standard Evolution of Man cartoon. But they weren't stooped. That was an error. In 1908, a prominent French scientist, Marcellin Boule, examined a set of Neanderthal bones found in Southern France, put them together, and discovered an apish, bowed figure. He decided that's what all Neanderthals looked like, but he was wrong.

Boule's specimen was 40 to 50 years old, seriously old for a Neanderthal. He had suffered from chronic arthritis, "a disease that had cruelly twisted the man's spine," Walters writes. (Thus, the stoop.) "Walking must have been agonizing given the state of his bones. He died with no more than two teeth, which would have made eating the normal rough, Neanderthal diet nearly impossible. Yet this man's fellow tribesmen must have carried and fed him specialized foods for years, otherwise he would never have lived to such a ripe age."

So these people (and they were "people" — we share a common ancestor; living up north for 200 thousand years had changed them and made them a different species), they were hardly "brutish." At the very least, they were gentle to their elders. They must have carried, fed and cared for that old fellow for years. What's more, there's evidence they thought about life in complicated ways.

There's a gravesite in Iraq where a Neanderthal was found, "positioned fetal-like, as though he were sleeping." Neanderthals buried their dead before we Homo sapiens did, and on this site, the skeleton appears to have once surrounded by flowers and evergreens. Investigators found traces of pollen below and around him, as if to say, "We didn't abandon this man. We too knew how to love, to grieve, and we laid him here with the same tenderness you have for your people, and like you, we wished him soft passage ..."

Neanderthals, says Steven Mithen of Reading University, may have spoken a more musical, tonal language, a mix of cooing and keening, singsong beats, accompanied by gestures. Chip Walter likes to think that in their speech, and early on with their burial practices, they may have been a touch "more softhearted than we are," but we really don't know.

So what happened that afternoon in our meadow, in that moment of very first encounter? Did we think, "Food!" and attack? Did we flee? Did they? Or did we watch them, wait, take tentative steps toward each other, wondering, "What are they? Can we get closer? Can we trust them?" "The big and primal question — the mastodon in the room so to speak," writes Walters, is the simplest one: "Are they a friend or an enemy?"

Killing Them With Kindness?

Anthropologists differ on what happened. There is some evidence, but not a lot, that we regularly attacked and eventually annihilated the Neanderthals. There's evidence too, that we crowded them out of the best hunting sites, making it harder for them to earn a living (and they needed to eat more than we do to stay alive). But the third possibility, writes Chip Walter, is that "if we killed them at all, we killed them with kindness. We neither murdered them nor outcompeted them. We mated with them and, in time, simply folded them into our species until they disappeared."

Image: Courtesy of the Neanderthal Museum

Love The One You're With

About 35,000 years ago, Homo sapiens and Neanderthals lived within shouting distance of each other in France and Spain for, at the very least, a few thousand years. If they mingled, some might have gone farther. There is a skeleton of a boy, found in Portugal, who lived after the last Neanderthals died in southern Spain, whose body seems to be a hybrid, part them, part us.

But the clincher is in your cells. I'm talking about you, you reading this, unless you are 100 percent Yoruba or San (groups that never emigrated from Africa). In 2010, scientists at the Max Planck Institute in Germany, discovered that most humans on Earth, especially if they descend from Europe and most of Asia, carry about 1 to 4 percent Neanderthal DNA in their cells. Proportions will vary. British comedian Eddie Izzard, discovered he's 2.8 percent Neanderthal. You don't carry Neanderthal DNA unless someone up your family tree coupled with one.

So that's our proof: that our first encounter with an intelligent alien led to ... umm, well ... more.

Image: Gilles Tosello/Science Source

---

Chip Walter's Book is Last Ape Standing: The Seven Million Year Story of How and Why We Survived. It's the story of our family tree, which includes, amazingly, 27 (and still counting) different varieties of walking, upright humans. Nature produced many, many different human species, only one line of which led to us. The rest just blinked out. Here's a gorgeous look at some of our predecessors:

As for close encounters, Neanderthals aren't the only intelligent humans who lived alongside us. In Siberia, a separate species called the Denisovans hunted and settled in the Altai Mountains 40,000 years ago. Another group, the Red Deer Cave people lived in south central China as recently as 11,500 years ago. And a mini-version of humanity, Homo floresiensis, often called "hobbits" may have been on an Indonesian island as recently as 17,000 years ago. Henry Gee, of Cambridge University, likes to think they may still be with us, hiding in some remote cave or forest in Indonesia.

Missing some content? Care to comment? Check the source: NPR

{ https://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/ }

29-01-2020 om 00:00 geschreven door peter  

China Coronavirus Has Passed 50% Mark Diagnosed Compared To SARS. UFO Sighting News.

Source: 

• https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

Did you know that Coronavirus rose 2,000 cases a day for the last 2 days? SARS had a total of 8,000 diagnosed, but Cornonavirus is at 4,474 already, thats past the 50% mark of SARS. This thing is growing fast and is very sneaky since symptoms can take 14 days to show up. Here is a useful interactive site that has stats, graphs, daily increases, maps and more. I hope this helps. 
Scott C. Waring 

{ https://www.etdatabase.com/ }

28-01-2020 om 21:41 geschreven door peter  

Scientists Say We Travel To Parallel Universes When We Dream

Every night, humans have an average of 6-10 dreams. A few minutes after being awoken, these dreams are usually forgotten. However, what if there's actual meaning to dreams that would make them more lucrative to remember?

Modern science, as well as Native American tribes and Mexican nations, believe that we, or at least our brains visit a "parallel universe" when we dream. This would explain why humans can dream in color, and can senses with all five feelings what's happening within the dream. If you've ever dreamed of eating your grandmother's signature apple pie per se, have you ever realized that it feels like you can taste and smell the delicious pie in front of you? Or maybe you've dreamed of riding a roller coaster and felt the thrill of riding it as it climbs up the steep hills and rushes down the ramps.

The True Science Of Parallel Universes

Mystics also believe that there are places where dreaming takes place, but have related it to supernatural beings such as ghosts and spirits. However, since 1920 scientists have been trying to avoid such questionable beings, and in their quest to find the ideal place of nuclear particles to host dreams, they realized that such a formation would be impossible on Earth. Thus they shifted the argument away from the supernatural, and into an arguably more confusing field of physics.

An example of the scientist's theory of parallel universes would be to think of two worlds: one in which you are born, and one in which you aren't. Logically, you can never be in such a "dual" state within one dimension, and thus the need for multiple parallel dimensions arises. Think about it: in another world, there could be a copy of yourself who does things slightly differently, and as a result may have a better life than you. In another world, there could be a person like you who didn't forget his lines at the corporate meeting. In another world, there could be another version of you who understands what is going on with our dreams--and maybe by then, we'll know if the scientists or the mystics win out on this debate.

{ https://www.disclose.tv/ }

25-01-2020 om 23:50 geschreven door peter  

What On Earth Was This Mysterious Light In The Sky Above The West Coast Last Night?

Last night a mysterious light lit up the skies over California, leaving people as far east as Louisiana perplexed. What was that weird blue glow in the sky? Naturally, there was some speculation that perhaps the light was a UFO or even a meteor - but in reality it was the launch of a Trident II (D5) missile by the U.S. Navy. 

The unarmed missile launched from the Kentucky, an Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine that sits off the coast of Southern California in the Pacific Test Range. The test was pre-planned although not announced or confirmed until a few hours after the launch. These types of launches are routine, although rarely announced ahead of time, and help ensure the reliability of Naval systems.

According to the San Diego Times, Cmdr. Ryan Perry with the Navy’s Third Fleet said, “The test was part of a scheduled, on-going system evaluation test. Each test activity provides valuable information about our systems, thus contributing to assurance in our capabilities.”

The Navy frequently uses a test range just northwest of Los Angeles to test fire standard cruise and Tomahawk missiles from submarines and other ships. The airspace over the test range has been activated and all nighttime flights to and from Los Angeles International Airport have been diverted away from that area for the coming week. Neither the military nor the FAA have disclosed what activities will be taking place near the country’s second-busiest airport over the next six nights.

Since there was no advance warning of the test fire, witnesses across the state and several states over speculated that the object streaking across the sky could be part of the annual Taurid meteor shower, which is currently reaching itspeak and is known to produce fireballs. According to astronomer Phil Plait, “this was moving far too slowly to be a meteor, and the behavior was all wrong.” 

Brian Keating, an astrophysicist at UC San Diego told the Times, “The Taurid meteors would be coming from the east — and this light came from the west. We'd also be more likely to see meteors about midnight, and the flash came near sunset.”

Since the launch occurred at sunset, it made for a spectacular show. The missile’s exhaust reflected sunlight as it soared through the sky, producing a stunning view. You may remember earlier this year when an Atlas V launched from Florida’s Cape Canaveral and produced similar striking views. An expanding halo can be seen in most of the pictures and that is most likely due to a staging event. The missile has three stages and as one is shut down and ejected, the next stage ignites via a small explosion known as an ordnance. If the staging event occurred when the missile was high enough in the atmosphere, it would produce a bright flash and a halo of gas. 

Who knows what else we may witness over the next week as the test range remains active. 

2018

2017 

2015

• Strange Objects Discovered Orbiting The Milky Way’s Supermassive Black Hole
• Ancient Star Rich In Oxygen Offers Clues On Elements Produced By The First Stars
• How A Superluminous Supernova Became One Of The Brightest Events Ever Witnessed
• NASA’s Huge Artemis Rocket Core Stage Leaves Assembly Facility For Testing
• Japanese Billionaire Seeks Woman To Be His Date On Flight To The Moon
• These Are The Semifinalist Name Choices For NASA's Mars 2020 Rover

{ https://www.iflscience.com/ }

25-01-2020 om 16:09 geschreven door peter  

Antarctica shock: Scientists' groundbreaking discovery 400ft below ice revealed

ANTARCTICA scientists were stunned by the results of a 400-foot drill into the ice sheet, perhaps revealing a glimpse into the Earth’s future.

24-01-2020 om 18:21 geschreven door peter  

{ https://futurism.com/the-byte }

24-01-2020 om 17:14 geschreven door peter  

Ancient Plants Revive After Being Trapped in Ice for 400 Years

LaFarge was able to identify these moss samples as bryophytes, which are extremely resilient plants that have been on Earth for millenia. They are vital contributors to the health and vitality of polar ecosystems, playing a role in their creation and maintenance. They’d been hardy enough to survive in the harsh Arctic climate in the first place, and now that warming trends had exposed them to the open air they had sprung to life once again. They had likely been exposed to the open air for about two years by the time they’d been discovered by the Canadian scientists.

The scientists took samples of the bryophytes back to their laboratory for further study and experimentation. Radiocarbon dating methods confirmed that the moss was approximately 400 years old, yet its ability to produce new life had not been extinguished by the trauma it had experienced.

To test its potency, LaFarge and her team sliced the moss into sections and placing them in controlled environments where light, temperatures and nutrition were ideal for growing. Eventually, seven out of 24 samples sprouted new plants, which to all appearances were perfectly healthy and vibrant.

As LaFarge explained, new moss doesn’t grow from seeds or spores, but from individual plant cells that can create copies of themselves directly. This unique quality may contribute to moss’s ability to regenerate quickly and robustly, even after being placed in suspended frozen animation underneath a glacier for more than four centuries.

More Moss Miracles

This important discovery forced biologists to revise their ideas about the ability of life to survive frozen conditions. But as remarkable as this finding was, scientists affiliated with the British Antarctic Survey and Reading University did their Canadian counterparts one better .

In 2014, just one year after the Ellesmere Island discovery, the British scientists retrieved moss samples from deep inside a frozen moss bank found on the Antarctic tundra. Using radiocarbon dating, they discovered the moss was approximately 1,500 years old. But despite its tremendous antiquity, when the plants were sliced into sections and placed inside an incubator, after a few weeks they, too, began to regenerate.

Even after suffering through the deepest of deep freezes in the coldest continent on our planet, these moss samples had not lost their capacity to regenerate when given enough light, water and nutrition.

“This experiment shows that multi-cellular organisms, plants in this case, can survive over far longer timescales than previously thought,” said Professor Peter Convey, one of the lead scientists involved in this study. “These mosses, a key part of the ecosystem, could survive century to millennial periods of ice advance.”

“If they can survive in this way,” he continued,” then recolonisation following an Ice Age, once ice retreats, would be a lot easier than migrating trans-oceanic distances from warmer regions. It also maintains diversity in an area that would otherwise be wiped clean of life by the ice advance.”

And while the idea may seem farfetched, Convey mentions another possibility that has probably occurred to everyone who has heard this story.

“Although it would be a big jump from the current finding, this does raise the possibility of complex lifeforms surviving even longer periods once encased in permafrost or ice.”

Convey doesn’t specify what he means by “complex lifeforms.” But it boggles the mind to think about what might be buried under the glaciers that cover the polar realms. One thing we know for sure is that thanks to global warming, much of the land that is currently ice covered above the Arctic Circle and near the South Pole may eventually be exposed.

Could Rampaging Viruses —or Vegetable Men —Be Next?

There are many science fiction movies that feature the reanimation of living creatures frozen solid in ice. In 1951’s “The Thing from Another World,” a man-eating, six-foot tall vegetable from another planet, originally encased in a block of ice, terrorizes the occupants of an Arctic research station after accidentally being thawed out by an electric blanket. In 1967’s “The Frozen Dead,” a mad scientist thaws and resuscitates Nazi soldiers he’s kept stored on his English country estate, unaware that they’ve been converted into bloodthirsty zombies.

Far-out storylines like this might appear to have no connection to defrosted and revived moss. But just because moss is benign, that doesn’t mean there aren’t dangers inherent in thawing out lifeforms that lived in others epoch. Some of these lifeforms could very well represent a threat to the health and safety of humanity, and scientists should think carefully about the possible ramifications before opening Pandora’s box and reviving everything they can find.

In the real world, the concern is not so much about frozen animals, Neanderthals, or aliens from crashed spaceships. The real fear is that scientists might mistakenly activate long-dormant viruses or bacteria that we would have no capacity to resist. As human activity continues to heat the planet, the thawing of the tundra in Siberia and the retreat of the glaciers inside the Arctic Circle and in Antarctica could release and reactivate hidden and potentially lethal microorganisms. If such a scenario were to be realized, we could be exposed to hazards that might be even more deadly than Nazi zombies or alien vegetable-men.

The possibility of such an event is not strictly theoretical. In 2014, a group of French scientists revived an ancient virus found frozen in a soil sample taken from 30 metres below the icy tundra of eastern Siberia. Dubbed Pithovirus Sibericum , this gigantic virus was far larger and more complex than the viruses we see today, and is believed to evolved entirely separately from modern infectious agents. 

Fortunately, this virus was found to be harmless to humans. But the next one or the next one after that could be lethal, and if humans are unwittingly exposed to it because of thawing tundra there is no telling how much damage it might do.

• Top image: Regenerating moss. Credit: mllevphoto / Adobe Stock

By Nathan Falde

{ https://www.ancient-origins.net/ }

24-01-2020 om 16:43 geschreven door peter  

Ancient Mystery Viruses Discovered Sealed Within Tibetan Glacier For 15,000 Years

{ https://in.mashable.com/}

24-01-2020 om 16:31 geschreven door peter  

Even though he passed away in 1566, Nostradamus correctly predicted many events that happened after his death, such as the rise of Hitler and Napoleon, in addition to the 9/11 attacks on America. And based on recent events, it seems as though another one of the French prophet’s predictions has come true.

In one of his passages, he wrote, “The great plague of the maritime city will not cease until there be avenged the death of the just blood, condemned for a price without crime, of the great lady outraged by pretense.” It seems as though he was predicting the SARS-like outbreak that’s happening right now in the world. An outbreak of a new coronavirus started in China and has spread to different countries around the world: Thailand, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and the United States.

Nostradamus

As for the “maritime city” that was mentioned in the passage, a conspiracy theorist has an idea of what location Nostradamus was referring to. “The start of SARS and preponderance of cases are in China, many of which are in Hong Kong. Therefore it is reasonable to view Hong Kong as ‘the maritime city’.”

And the “great lady” could possibly be Wu Yi who was previously the Chinese Health Minister and who helped to control the SARS virus.

So far, the deadly Chinese coronavirus – which has flu-like symptoms that include coughing, fever, shortness of breath, and difficulty breathing – has affected approximately 500 people with 17 deaths. What’s even more frightening is that scientists have warned the public that as many as 10,000 people could have caught the SARS-like virus while visiting Wuhan, China.

There has so far been one diagnosed case in the United States (Washington State) as a man in his 30s caught the virus while visiting Wuhan.

So where did this virus come from? According to a new study (which can be read in full here), it is believed that the virus originated in snakes and spread to humans. There are two types of snakes that are commonly found around the area in which the outbreak originated: Bungarus multicinctus (or the many-banded krait) and Naja atra (or the Chinese cobra).

Nostradamus predicted many disturbing things in history, and this new SARS-like virus is one of the scariest predictions he has made, as more and more people are being affected by this deadly strain.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

23-01-2020 om 11:42 geschreven door peter  

That's because worms like the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans can actually tell us a lot about the workings of the human body. Compared to mammals, these simple little fellas live for only two or three weeks, which makes them perfect for studying various genes and metabolic pathways also shared by humans.

In the past, for instance, scientists have shown that altering the insulin signalling pathway (IIS) in worms yields a 100 percent increase in their lifespan; meanwhile, changes in the so-called TOR pathway (target of rapamycin) result in a 30 percent increase.

This latest study has managed to genetically alter both pathways in just the right way to cause a result four or five times greater than the sum of their separate effects.

"The synergistic extension is really wild," says molecular biologist Jarod Rollins from the the MDI Biological Laboratory in Maine.

"The effect isn't one plus one equals two, it's one plus one equals five."

These findings show that ageing is not simply the result of one individual gene or pathway acting on its own, but rather a confluence of networks all working together in the long-term.

This could certainly explain why no one gene or cellular pathway has been found that can provide longer life for either worms, humans or any other animal for that matter.

When tweaks were made to both the IIS and the TOR pathways, the authors found their downstream activity worked synergistically, inducing a mitochondrial stress response that promoted longevity.

Whether or not something like this mechanism proves directly useful in humans remains to be seen, but knowledge of this relationship has certainly opened up new avenues for research.

Unfortunately, because of the long lives of humans, scientists find it quite hard to study our own ageing (it's also not ideal to play around with our genes just to see what happens), so we have to rely on animal proxies like mice, flies and worms instead. In fact, last year researchers were able to extend the lifespan of a mouse and decrease its chances of cancer by extending its telomeres.

But even with all the scientific limitations on human ageing research, we've had some progress. This year a human clinical trial is going to test the drug metformin, a widely-used treatment for type 2 diabetes that has the potential to delay the onset of age-related diseases like cancer, cardiovascular disease, and Alzheimer's disease.

Perhaps this new research on C. elegans will open similar doors for clinical trials in the future.

"Despite the discovery in C. elegans of cellular pathways that govern ageing, it hasn't been clear how these pathways interact," says nephrologist Hermann Haller, president of the MDI Biological Laboratory.

"By helping to characterise these interactions, our scientists are paving the way for much-needed therapies to increase healthy lifespan for a rapidly ageing population."

• The study was published in Cell Reports.

{ https://www.sciencealert.com/ }

23-01-2020 om 00:09 geschreven door peter  

CHILLING 1200-YEAR-OLD VIKING STONE WARNS OF FUTURE LITTLE ICE AGES

According to new archaeological research, roughly 300 years before Rökstenen was erected, the world was struck by a climate catastrophe which saw global average temperatures plunge significantly. Scandinavia was one of the regions worst impacted by this shift, with crop failure, starvation, and mass death ripping through Northern Europe–more than 50% of the population was lost, along with many species.

Furthermore, a string of violent volcanic eruptions darkened the skies with ash at this time, adding to the cooling, and further amplifying the crop failure, famine, and wars.

“Before the Rök stone was erected, several ominous events occurred,” explained Bo Gräslund, a professor of archeology at Uppsala University. “A strong solar storm painted the sky in dramatic red colors, the harvests were hit by an extremely cold summer, and later a solar eclipse occurred just after the sunrise. It could have been enough of one of these events to trigger concerns about a new Fimbulwinter.”

Why the runes were so deeply encrypted is anyone’s guess.

Perhaps whoever had the Rökstenen engraved didn’t want just anyone to read it.

It was a message of terror, after all.

It was a reminder of a cataclysmic past.

It was a warning of the terrible power of the Sun.

Per Holmberg and his team claim to have uncovered an ominous prophecy. The stone speaks of a “battle enduring for centuries,” but not a fight with man, but one with nature. For a full read of the researchers’ recently published study, click here.

We at Electroverse are also forewarning of the terrible power of the Sun, and that these prophesied cold times are returning in earnest, in line with the historically low solar activity currently being experienced.

Even NASA agrees, in part at least, with their recent forecast revealing this next solar cycle (25) will be “the weakest of the past 200 years,” with the agency correlating previous solar shutdowns to prolonged periods of global cooling here.

With SC25 likely a just stop-off on the Sun’s descent into its next full-blown Grand Solar Minimum:

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And/or become a Patron by clicking here: patreon.com/join/electroverse

The site receives ZERO funding, and never has.

So any way you can, help us spread the message so others can survive and thrive in the coming times.

Grand Solar Minimum + Pole Shift

NASA Predicts Next Solar Cycle will be Lowest in 200 Years (Dalton Minimum Levels) + the Implications

Electroverse

{ https://electroverse.net/ }

21-01-2020 om 21:45 geschreven door peter  

THE ASAHI SHIMBUN/GETTY IMAGES

They named their discovery Lokiarchaeota, after the Loki's Castle hydrothermal vent near Greenland where it was found; but doubt shadowed the finding. Could the sample have been contaminated by something else in the core?

Now, thanks to the work of Japanese scientists, those doubts can be put to rest. For the first time, they have isolated Lokiarchaeota, and grown it in a lab.

That means, for the first time, researchers can closely study and interact with living Lokiarchaeota, which could help us to find our very first ancestors on this incredible blue planet. Their research has been published on preprint server bioRxiv, and awaits peer review.

The tree of life, at its base, is divided into three domains. One of those is occupied by bacteria - single-celled microbes that don't have a nucleus or membrane-bound organelles, and get around by waving hair-like structures called flagella. Another is eukaryotes, organisms whose cells have nuclei and membranes. That domain includes us humans, animals, plants, and algae.

And then there are archaea. These are a lot like bacteria, in that they lack nuclei and membrane-bound organelles, and get around using flagella. But there are a few key differences. They divide differently. Their cell walls are made of slightly different stuff. And their RNA is different enough to separate them on the phylogenetic tree.

But then along came Lokiarchaeota - followed by other archaea specimens that had eukaryotic characteristics. These were named Thorarchaeota, Odinarchaeota and Heimdallarchaeota (to follow the same naming convention).

Collectively, they are called the Asgard archaea, and some scientists think they could be the origin of eukaryotic life - perhaps after an Asgard-like archaeon swallowed up a bacterium.

But it's hard to tell without studying the organisms in isolated detail. This is where the Japanese scientists come in. They retrieved a sediment core from the seabed in the Nankai Trough, 2,533 metres (8,310 feet) below sea level, in 2006.

This was before anyone knew about Asgard archaea. Only later, an RNA analysis of their rich sample revealed the presence of a Lokiarchaeota-like organism.

When the team started their work, they didn't know this yet. They carefully cultivated their samples for five years, in a methane-fed continuous-flow bioreactor system designed to mimic the conditions of a deep-sea methane vent. Very slowly, the microbes multiplied.

The next step was to place samples from the bioreactor in glass tubes with nutrients to keep them fed and growing. There they sat for another year, finally starting to develop a very faint population of Lokiarchaeota.

Then, the team invested even more time into isolating, cultivating and growing this slow-dividing population. Common bacteiral populations usually take about half an hour to double. Lokiarchaeota took 20 days.

"Repeated subcultures gradually enriched the archaeon with extremely slow growth rate and low cell yield," the researchers wrote in their paper.

"The culture consistently had 30-60 days of lag phase and required over 3 months to reach full growth [..] Variation of cultivation temperatures, and substrate combinations and concentrations did not significantly improve the lag phase, growth rate or cell yield."

In all, the experiment took 12 years. The researchers named their cultivated microbe Prometheoarchaeum syntrophicum - after Prometheus, the ancient Greek mythological Titan who was credited with creating humans out of clay.

They made several curious findings. The first is that Prometheoarchaeum would only grow in the presence of one or two other microbes, the archaeon Methanogenium and the bacterium Halodesulfovibrio. When Prometheoarchaeum breaks down amino acids into food, it produces hydrogen, which the other microbes eat.

If the hydrogen was allowed to hang around, the experiments revealed, this could further hinder Prometheoarchaeum's already slow growth, indicating the archaea has a symbiotic relationship with other microbes, in this case syntrophic - meaning the growth of one species or both depends on what the other eats.

Then, when the organism was examined under an electron microscope, it revealed an unusual shape for an archaeon - long tentacles sprouting from its body, within which its partner microbes nestled. When oxygen started increasing on Earth, the researchers hypothesised, this organism could have switched to a relationship with bacteria that used oxygen, increasing its chances of survival, and setting out on the path to eukaryotic life.

And indeed, DNA sequencing revealed the eukaryotic characteristics seen in other Asgard archaea.

Obviously more work needs to be done. Prometheoarchaeum might be quite different from the archaea of billions of years ago. And it's far from definitive proof that eukaryotes evolved from archaea.

The study is so far available ahead of peer-review, so it will be interesting to see what the scientific community makes of it, in time. But no matter what happens now, we're going to learn a heck of a lot from this work.

"This is a monumental paper that reflects a tremendous amount of work and perseverance," evolutionary microbiologist Thijs Ettema of Wageningen University, who wasn't associated with the paper, told Nature.

"It's a major step forward in understanding this important lineage."

The research is available on bioRxiv.

{ https://www.sciencealert.com/ }

19-01-2020 om 23:31 geschreven door peter  

'Monumental': Scientists successfully grow mysterious ancient organism that could be origin of life as we know it

The previously unknown organism was unearthed on the floor of the Arctic ocean in 2010. It was dubbed Lokiarchaeota in honor of the Loki’s Castle hydrothermal vent where it was found.

What made the finding significant was that the peculiar organism was a type of microbe, called an Archaea, but it appeared to have characteristics of a completely separate type of early life form, a eukaryote. Significantly, all animals, including humans, that have ever walked on Earth are eukaryotes.

ALSO ON RT.COM

Heavy metal diet: Meteorite-consuming microbes could offer clues on how life formed on Earth

However, doubt hung over the stunning discovery, with some claiming that it was the result of contamination. That doubt has finally been laid to rest after a team of Japanese scientists, who were already studying deep sea microbes, managed to isolate Lokiarchaeota and regrow it in a laboratory.

To achieve this the researchers collected deep sea sediment core from the Nankai Trough, 2,533 metres (8,310 feet) below sea level, off the coast of Japan in 2006. They then carefully cultivated the samples for five years in a methane-fed system, to mimic the conditions of a deep-sea methane vent. 

The team then placed the samples in glass tubes, fed them with nutrients and watched to see what would develop. After a year the first faint signs of Lokiarchaeota started to develop. 

ALSO ON RT.COM

Before Greta, there were Vikings: Swedish runes warned of impending climate crisis, researchers claim

After several more years the patient scientists had developed a healthy population of the strange organism. They named their cultivated microbe Prometheoarchaeum syntrophicum - after Prometheus, who created humans out of clay in Greek mythology.

Further testing revealed that the organism only grew in conjunction with one or two other microbes and it had long tentacles sprouting from its body, under which the partner microbes nestled.

In their paper, published in Nature this week, the scientists hypothesized that the adaptable organism could have switched its partners to bacteria that used oxygen as that vital element started increasing on Earth. This crucial move would have increased its chances for survival and could have set the course for life as we know it.

“This is a monumental paper that reflects a tremendous amount of work and perseverance,” evolutionary microbiologist Thijs Ettema, who wasn't involved with the research, told Nature. “It's a major step forward in understanding this important lineage.”

ALSO ON RT.COM NASA discovers alien SUGAR on board two fallen meteorites indicating possible origin of LIFE on Earth

{ https://www.rt.com/ }

19-01-2020 om 23:17 geschreven door peter  

Even ‘the most indestructible animals in the world’ cannot survive global warming, as experts find the Achilles' heel of Tardigrades is long-term exposure to high temperatures

•  Tardigrades can survive some of Earth's harshest environments
• A new study found their weakness is long-term exposure to high temperatures 
• Tests showed they have a 50% chance  of surviving temperatures above 98.78F 
• Experts now question how these creatures will survive global warming 

By STACY LIBERATORE FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

Researchers have uncovered the Achilles’ heel Earth’s most indestructible animal – global warming.

Tardigrades can survive the vacuum of space, being frozen or exposure to radiation, but are unable to endure long-term exposure to high temperatures.

A study showed that specimens that were not acclimate to heat had a 50 percent mortality rate of surviving temperatures above 98.78 degrees Fahrenheit over a 24 hour period.

The specimens were collected in Denmark, which officials warn will suffer from warmer summers and longer heatwaves as a result of climate change, leaving experts to question the fate of these creatures in a warmer world.

Scroll down for video 

Researchers have uncovered the Achilles’ heel Earth’s most indestructible animal – global warming. Tardigrades can survive the vacuum of space, being frozen or exposure to radiation, but are unable to endure long-term exposure to high temperatures.

‘Global warming is already having harmful effects on habitats worldwide and it is therefore important to gain an understanding of how rising temperatures may affect extant animals,’ the researchers from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark wrote in the study published in Scientific Report.

‘Here, we investigate the tolerance to high temperatures of Ramazzottius varieornatus, a tardigrade frequently found in transient freshwater habitats.’

‘Using logistic modelling on activity we evaluate the effect of 24 hour temperature exposures on active tardigrades, with or without a short acclimation period, compared to exposures of desiccated tardigrades.’

The team collected a sediment sample from a roof gutter in Denmark that contained adult tardigrades.

Postdoc Ricardo Neves, who i involved in the research, said: ‘The specimens used in this study were obtained from roof gutters of a house located in Nivå, Denmark.’

‘We evaluated the effect of exposures to high temperature in active and desiccated tardigrades, and we also investigated the effect of a brief acclimation period on active animals’

They found that about 50 percent of tardigrades in the active state died when the temperature was put up to 98.78 degrees Fahrenheit.

A study showed that specimens that were not acclimate to heat had a 50 percent mortality rate of surviving temperatures above 98.78 degrees Fahrenheit over a 24 hour period

If they were given time to acclimatize, they made it to 99.68 degrees.

However, the team observed specimens while in a cryptobiosis state, when they adapt to environmental stress, they could survive temperatures of up to 108.86 degrees for one hour.

And if exposed for 24 hours, the maximum temperature was 145.58 degrees Fahrenheit. 

According to Climate Change Adaptation, a website run by Denmark's Ministry of the Environment and Food of Denmark and the Environmental Protection Agency, climate change will result in the country having warmer summers, longer heatwaves and more periods of drought. 

‘The fact that the median lethal temperature for active R. varieornatus is so close to the median maximum temperature in Denmark—where the specimens used in this study have been sampled—is quite worrying in our opinion,’ Neves told Newsweek.

‘Before our study tardigrades were regarded as the only organism on Earth to survive a cataclysmic event, but now we know this is not true.’

‘[While tardigrades are] among the most resilient organisms inhabiting our planet, it is now clear that they are vulnerable to high temperatures. Therefore, it seems that even tardigrades will have a hard time handling rising temperatures due to global warming.’

WHAT ARE TARDIGRADES?

Tardigrades, also known as water bears, are said to be the most indestructible animals in the world.

These small, segmented creatures come in many forms - there are more than 900 species of them - and they're found everywhere in the world, from the highest mountains to the deepest oceans.

Tardigrades, also known as water bears, are said to be the most indestructible animals in the world.

They have eight legs (four pairs) and each leg has four to eight claws that resemble the claws of a bear.

Boil the 1mm creatures, freeze them, dry them, expose them to radiation and they're so resilient they'll still be alive 200 years later.

An illustration of a tardigrade (water bear) is pictured 

Water bears can live through temperatures as low as -457 degrees, heat as high as 357 degrees, and 5,700 grays of radiation, when 10-20 grays would kill humans and most other animals.

Tardigrades have been around for 530 million years and outlived the dinosaurs.

The animals can also live for a decade without water and even survive in space.

Read more:

• Tardigrades, the Toughest Creatures on Earth, Have an Achilles' Heel—Global Warming

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

16-01-2020 om 23:18 geschreven door peter  

• Media via Ricardo Neves, Sebastian Kaulitzki/Shutterstock

{ https://www.inverse.com/ }

16-01-2020 om 22:41 geschreven door peter