Dit is ons nieuw hondje Kira, een kruising van een waterhond en een Podenko. Ze is sinds 7 februari 2024 bij ons en druk bezig ons hart te veroveren. Het is een lief, aanhankelijk hondje, dat zich op een week snel aan ons heeft aangepast. Ze is heel vinnig en nieuwsgierig, een heel ander hondje dan Noleke.
This is our new dog Kira, a cross between a water dog and a Podenko. She has been with us since February 7, 2024 and is busy winning our hearts. She is a sweet, affectionate dog who quickly adapted to us within a week. She is very quick and curious, a very different dog than Noleke.
DEAR VISITOR,
MY BLOG EXISTS ALREADY 12 YEARS AND 10 MONTHS.
ON 06/04/2024 MORE THAN 1.951.050
VISITORS FROM 134 DIFFERENT NATIONS ALREADY FOUND THEIR WAY TO MY BLOG.
THAT IS AN AVERAGE OF 400GUESTS PER DAY.
THANK YOU FOR VISITING MY BLOG AND HOPE YOU ENJOY EACH TIME.
The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
Druk op onderstaande knop om te reageren in mijn forum
Zoeken in blog
Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
Een interessant adres?
UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld In België had je vooral BUFON of het Belgisch UFO-Netwerk, dat zich met UFO's bezighoudt. BEZOEK DUS ZEKER VOOR ALLE OBJECTIEVE INFORMATIE , enkel nog beschikbaar via Facebook en deze blog.
Verder heb je ook het Belgisch-Ufo-meldpunt en Caelestia, die prachtig, doch ZEER kritisch werk leveren, ja soms zelfs héél sceptisch...
Voor Nederland kan je de mooie site www.ufowijzer.nl bezoeken van Paul Harmans. Een mooie site met veel informatie en artikels.
MUFON of het Mutual UFO Network Inc is een Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in alle USA-staten en diverse landen.
MUFON's mission is the analytical and scientific investigation of the UFO- Phenomenon for the benefit of humanity...
Je kan ook hun site bekijken onder www.mufon.com.
Ze geven een maandelijks tijdschrift uit, namelijk The MUFON UFO-Journal.
Since 02/01/2020 is Pieter ex-president (=voorzitter) of BUFON, but also ex-National Director MUFON / Flanders and the Netherlands. We work together with the French MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP.
ER IS EEN NIEUWE GROEPERING DIE ZICH BUFON NOEMT, MAAR DIE HEBBEN NIETS MET ONZE GROEP TE MAKEN. DEZE COLLEGA'S GEBRUIKEN DE NAAM BUFON VOOR HUN SITE... Ik wens hen veel succes met de verdere uitbouw van hun groep. Zij kunnen de naam BUFON wel geregistreerd hebben, maar het rijke verleden van BUFON kunnen ze niet wegnemen...
20-03-2018
Brain-Boosting Headband Could Be Hacked For Mind Control
Brain-Boosting Headband Could Be Hacked For Mind Control
We all want to be a little smarter, a little more effective and skilled. Some people exercise and take vitamins, some people do jigsaw puzzles, and some of our Silicon Valley overlords micro-dose themselves with LSD every morning. Now an Australian company has developed a new tool in our eternal quest for perfection. HUMM Tech recently announced the Edge V One, a wearable device—a headband, to be precise—they claim can boost brain power by up to 20%, but some experts worry that this headband of intellect could be hacked to mind control the person wearing it.
The Edge V One works by reading the electrical signals produced by the brain and delivering a small jolt of electricity approximately equivalent to the power of an electric toothbrush to parts of the brain that are not performing at optimum levels. CEO of HUMM Tech Iain Mcintyre described it like this:
What we’re doing is artificially connecting parts of the brain and letting those parts of the brain talk to each other better.
Our understanding of consciousness and the human brain is being upended all the time. Recently, we’ve learned that about the role of brain waves in consciousness, and we have a better picture of what the mind looks like. This brain boosting headband seems to fall in line with many other current discoveries.
Studies show that the mind looks like a wave of electricity through the brain. This device can, allegedly, redirect that electricity to boost brain power.
HUMM Tech says that their headband is the “beginning of a revolution,” that will lead to direct human interfacing with machines. They did, however, agree that there was a risk to the technologies. Asked if the tech was a type of mind-control, HUMM Tech co-founder Dr. Tim Fiori said it was “kind of mind-control.” Iain Mcintyre also agreed that, if the technology was abused, it might be possible for bad actors to hack the brains of those who wear this device.
Perhaps we should be concerned with this potential mind control technology falling into the hands of companies who have already admitted efforts to manipulate populations getting their hands on it. Facebook is currently working on similar technologies, as is Elon Musk, and as our own Brent Swancer recently examined, government research into mind control is a well established tradition.
Iain Mcintyre described the potential applications of machine interfacing technologies in a way that sounds like a dream come true for Facebook, and many Facebook users:
“Instead of needing to type on your phone, your brain can send the word to the person you want to message.”
So, machine enabled telepathy. Telepathy filtered through the corporate service providing it. Yikes. Will we soon see targeted ads based on our dreams and private thoughts?
This is what the zombie apocalypse looks like.
Of course, none of this is a new idea. Transhumanism has been around for a long time, but it’s only now that the first wave of technologies are being released to the civilian population. Should we run for the hills?
That’s up to you. Every technological revolution carries with it new and weird risks that were impossible to conceive of before it was invented. As our capability for incredible and amazing feats of progress increases, so too does our capability for exciting new ways to do terrible things to each other. So it goes.
At least this headband might let you savagely beat your friends at video games before Facebook completely zombifies you.
The Edge V One will be released on Kickstarter later this year.
Scientists Are Amazed By Stone Age Tools They Dug Up In Kenya
Scientists Are Amazed By Stone Age Tools They Dug Up In Kenya
Rhitu Chatterjee
Assortment of Early and Middle Stone Age tools found in the Olorgesailie Basin, Kenya. The tool at left is a hand axe.
Jay Reed/NPR
Our ancestors in Kenya's Southern Rift Valley made some pretty innovative tools. And they made them far earlier than previously thought.
The oldest innovations were axes designed to be held in the palm of the hand. They were shaped like a tear drop, with a rounded end and a pointed eye. The edges were wavy and sharp. And they look as if they were great at chopping down branches — or chopping up the carcass of a large animal.
This early Stone Age hand axe was excavated at Olorgesailie, Kenya. A chemical analysis of the stone shows it was made with locally available rocks.
Jay Reed/NPR
"I think of the hand axes as the Swiss army knife of the Stone Age," says paleoanthropologist Rick Potts, director of the Human Origins program at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History and one of the lead scientists in a new study by a team of international scientists.
The researchers also found that the next technological revolution, marking the beginning of the Middle Stone Age happened tens of thousands of years earlier than previously thought.
And the researchers think that long periods of stress from repeated earthquakes and cycles of drought and heavy rains may have pushed these early humans to partner up with neighboring communities to come up with ways to cope.
Rick Potts, director of the National Museum of Natural History's Human Origins Program at the Smithsonian. He has been excavating in the Southern Rift Valley in Kenya since the 1980s.
Jay Reed
The team was digging in a region called Olorgesailie in southern Kenya, an area filled with layers of sediment dating back 1.2 million years. The oldest stone tools discovered there are characteristic of what's called the Acheulian culture of the Early Stone Age and consisted mostly of the hand axes.
In this Olorgesailie Basin excavation site, red ocher pigments were found with Middle Stone Age artifacts. This is the earliest evidence of the extraction and use of pigments among ancient humans.
Human Origins Program/Smithsonian
In addition to branch- and carcass-chopping, the axes were likely used to dig for water to drink or tubers to eat. The carcasses probably belonged to large animals like the giant (now extinct) ancestors of hippos, elephants and wild pigs that roamed the grasslands back then. Potts says the ancient humans of that time likely scavenged dead animals, as their heavy, clunky hand axes wouldn't have served well for hunting big game. "These are very large tools," he says. "They might have been thrown but not very accurately."
The hand axe was a multipurpose tool used by our ancestors for chopping up branches and carcasses as well as digging for tubers. They remained unchanged for several hundred thousand years.
Jay Reed/NPR
Nevertheless, these hand axes served the ancient humans well for several hundred thousand years — from 1.2 million years ago to 500,000 years ago — and the technology remained largely unchanged during the time.
But around 320,000 years ago, the ancient humans seem to have switched to an entirely new technology. The scientists found numerous smaller, flatter, sharper stone tools.
"We see a smaller technology, a more diverse series of stone tools," says Potts. These tools were designed for specific purposes — some were used as blades, some as scrapers or spear heads. The scientists report their findings in three new studies published Thursday in the journal Science.
"In Olorgesailie, you have the only record of the last million years in Africa," says Marta Mirazon Lahr, a paleoanthropologist who wasn't involved in the new study. And it's "the earliest ever documented Middle Stone Age in the whole continent."
The new studies also show that by 320,000 years ago this technology was well established in the region, suggesting that human ancestors likely started developing it even earlier, she says.
"The technology they have is not a crude, early version of the Middle Stone Age. It is the full-blown Middle Stone Age," Lahr says. "They have stone tools that are small, that are prepared and retouched, that are made with technique thought to come hundreds of thousands of years later."
Obsidian rock found at Olorgesailie was originally brought by the ancient humans from distant places, some as far away as 50 miles from the site. Scientists think this is evidence of a larger social network of groups of ancient people who stayed in touch and exchanged obsidian and other resources.
Jay Reed/NPR
The diversity of stone tools from the Middle Stone Age suggests advanced thinking and planning. "The flakes are being much more carefully prepared for a particular purpose," says Alison Brooks, an anthropologist at George Washington University and an author of the three studies.
"They are fairly small in size, compared to the technology of earlier people. And in addition, they are made with much finer grained material," which allowed them to better control shapes and sizes of the stone tools.
"We see the ability to produce small triangular points, that look like they were projectile points," says Potts. "They were tapered at the end, so that could have been put on the shaft of something that flewthrough the air." In other words, a potentially lethal spear.
So our ancestors likely shifted from scavenging to hunting. An analysis of the fossilized animal bones found in the sediments show that people in that periodwere eating a range of mammals — which were by now much smaller, and closer in size to the animals of today — including hares, rabbits and springbok and even a couple of species of birds and fishes, says Brooks.
And they weren't just picking up nearby stones to create their weapons. Earlier hand axes were made primarily from volcanic basalt, sourced within 2 to 2.5 miles of where these humans lived. The latter weapons were made of stoneslike obsidian, which originated far from Olorgesailie.
A small stone point made of non-local obsidian. The chemical composition of the artifact matches obsidian sources as far as 55 miles away.
Jay Reed/NPR
"That black obsidian, that rare rock was being transported, brought in in chunks, from 15 to 30 miles away," says Potts. "We have a couple of rocks that were brought from up to 55 miles away."
These distances are far greater than what modern-day hunter gatherers travel over the course of a year, he says.
"They weren't just traveling long distances and chipping rocks as they go," he adds. "If they did that, then there would have just been small chips of obsidian left at the archaeological sites where we dig. Instead we see large pieces of raw material coming in. The rocks were shaped at Olorgesaile itself."
That kind of exchange of raw materials is a tell-tale sign of exchange between different groups of people, the scientists say. "In the Middle Stone Age, we begin to see the early stages of social networks, of being aware of another group and exchanging rocks over longer distances."
Potts and his colleagues also find evidence of exchange of brightly colored red and black rocks that were then drilled into, possibly to extract pigment. This is the earliest evidence of the extraction of pigments, says Lahr.
It's also evidence of a complex culture, where the ancient humans probably used pigments symbolically — perhaps to paint themselves, or their hides, or weapons. And where different groups exchanged raw materials (and possibly food).
Red rock found on the site. There is evidence that the rock was drilled to extract its red pigment.
Jay Reed/NPR
There's that same kind of exchange today, says Brooks, referring to hunter gatherer groups like the Hadza people of northern Tanzania.
"They deliberately maintain distant contacts with people in these other groups," she says. They have strategies to maintain these contacts — either by encouraging their children to marry into these other groups, or they take trips to visit the groups, to maintain ties by giving gifts. "It's a way of building up these distant contacts, which are extremely important for their survival."
During times of stress, when food or water is scarce, people from one group can disperse and take shelter with other groups that they've cultivated a relationship with. "So the networks are like money in the bank, or wheat in your silo or cows in your barn," says Brooks. "They don't have any other way of saving for a rainy day."
And as she and her colleagues show, the beginning of the Middle Stone Age in Kenya was preceded by a long and tumultuous phase in the region.
"Things were going haywire, in terms of the development of geological faults, earthquake activity that moved the low places high and the high places low," says Potts. "It changed the shape of the landscape." This was accompanied by repeated cycles of droughts and high rainfall.
"And it is precisely during those time periods that we expect to see hunting and gathering people to move further distances," says Potts, "and to begin to nurture relationships with groups beyond their own group."
It is no different than what humans all over the world do today, he adds. When times are tough, we look for greener pastures. The archaeological records from the Middle Stone Age at Olorgesailie reveal "the roots of that kind of migration," he says.
It seems like each month, there’s a new discovery proclaimed to have the potential to “rewrite the history of human civilization.” Like in every scientific discipline, the exponential rate of technological growth and development has led to many new breakthroughs in human archaeology and anthropology lately. Last year, a set of fossil teeth were discovered in Germany which were claimed to push the earliest known date of human migration back by millions of years. Even as those claims are still being validated, a new discovery published this week has yet again generated headlines of “rewriting” human history.
According to two twinstudies published this week in Science, archaeologists have discovered sophisticated stone tools in Kenya’s Olorgesailie Basin which are the oldest of their kind. In confirmed, this discovery could mean early humans were trading with one another, fashioning tools, and painting objects far earlier than we know – implying a level of intelligence and sophistication usually associated with much more recent ancestors.
Kenya’s Olorgesailie region contains some of the best examples of Stone Age tools known to science.
The majority of the excavation was performed under the direction of by Richard Potts of the Smithsonian Institution in conjunction with the National Museums of Kenya. The bulk of the discovery consists of stone tools, nearly half of which were carved from obsidian sourced from volcanic areas 50 kilometers away from where they were discovered. These Middle Stone Age tools have been dated to 320,000 years old. Eighty-eight lumps of pigment were also discovered, some of which show evidence of grinding or tooling. The researchers believe these pigments could have been used to signal some sort of group identity or social status, and the fact that they were carried long distances shows they were of some specific significance to the group of humans or human ancestors who left them there.
Unfortunately, the excavation of this site has yet to reveal any hominid fossils, so it’s impossible to tell if these tools were used by early Homo sapiens or by another human ancestor species. George Washington University’s Alison Brooks co-authored these new papers and says that without any definitive fossil record, the identity of these tools’ creators remains a mystery:
There was the argument that Homo sapiens came along and then developed all these things. But now it seems that the behavior and the morphology came along together. Maybe the behavior even came first.
Will we ever really know the early history of our species? Who knows what hidden aspects of history lie just under our feet, forgotten along with so many other vestiges of the past? While this new discovery might not be a perfectly-preserved early human found in a block of ice, it adds to the growing body of evidence which suggests human civilizations could be much older than we think.
Though it may come as a surprise to many, debates surrounding extraterrestrial invasion are not restricted to the UFO community and Hollywood. In recent years, mainstream science and even the US defense establishment have openly discussed ‘falling skies’ scenarios and what humanity might do to repel potential alien aggressors.
The late, great Sir Stephen Hawking was perhaps the most high-profile individual to warn of the potential dangers of extraterrestrial contact. In April 2010, Hawking made international news by stating his firm belief that humanity should seek to avoid any form of interaction with aliens. In an episode of the Discovery Channel’s Into the Universewith Stephen Hawking, the professor said: “If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn’t turn out very well for the American Indians.” Hawking suggested that aliens “might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet” and would perhaps be “looking to conquer and colonize whatever planets they can reach.”
Hawking’s anti-alien comments captured the attention of Hollywood and, later that same year, were incorporated into the marketing campaign for the alien invasion blockbuster, Skyline(2010). The trailer for the film begins with bold text against a cosmic backdrop, reading: “On 28 August 2009, NASA sent a message into space farther than we ever thought possible in an effort to reach extraterrestrial life.”
This is true. On the date specified, the Australian government, through its “Hello from Earth” science initiative, and with the help of NASA, sent some 26,000 carefully vetted messages from the public to the extra-solar Earth-like planet Gliese 581d in a single transmission. This proactive approach to alien contact, known as METI (Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence), differs from the traditional passive approach favored by SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), which devotes its efforts simply to listening for any potential incoming alien signals. Stephen Hawking was not a fan of the METI approach as he considered it unwise to knowingly alert our presence in the galaxy to any technologically superior civilizations.
In a bid to blur fact and fantasy for viral marketing purposes, Skyline made use of Hawking’s comments in its trailer, which featured well known American newsreaders—including Dan Rather—citing the famed professor on the potential dangers of extraterrestrial contact. The trailer then cuts to panoramic views of an American city being obliterated by dozens of the “massive ships” to which Hawking had referred. Against a black screen, and again referring to the professor’s warning, bold text then reads: “Maybe we should have listened.”
Skyline wasn’t the only movie to draw inspiration from METI initiative, or from Hawking’s dire warnings against phoning E.T. The 2012 movie, Battleship, opens with a scene in which NASA prepares to transmit a signal to the Gliese system, exactly as the space agency had done in real life two-years prior. In the movie, a wise-cracking scientist paraphrases Stephen Hawking, quipping, “it’s going to be like Columbus and the Indians—only we’re the Indians.” But the signal is sent anyway, and NASA gives itself a hearty pat on the back. Needless to say, alien contact ensues, and it ain’t pretty.
In April 2012, a month before the release of Battleship in American cinemas, Professor Paul Springer of the US Air Command and Staff College was granted special clearance by his employers at the Pentagon to discuss how the military would respond in the event of an alien invasion. Springer’s comments were aired in a televised interview for Australia’s Channel 9.
When asked by his interviewer exactly how an alien invasion might unfold, Springer replied:
“That really depends on why they are here in the first place. If they are here for the extraction of a specific resource, for example, they might just want to eliminate any resistance that might block them from their objective. If, on the other hand, their goal was actual occupation and conquest, then they would probably have to prioritize anything they perceive as a threat to their own dominance. So, they would probably start by wiping out as many communications networks as possible and eliminating as many weapons that might represent some form of threat either to them, or to the resources they are trying to extract.”
However, any plans the Pentagon may have drawn to fight-off evil aliens are almost certainly in vein. If any aliens out there do harbor plans for invasion, it is probable that their tactics and technology would make any resistance on our part entirely futile. “If they are hostile,” warns Professor Michio Kaku, “it would be like Bambi meeting Godzilla if we ever had to fight them… we would present no military challenge to such an advanced civilization… We would be a pushover for them. Forget all the Hollywood movies.”
In my book, Silver Screen Saucers, I take Hollywood to task for its simplistic, pumped-up depictions of how an interstellar civilization might invade our planet. If aliens should ever decide to attack Earth for its natural resources (water, minerals, human DNA, etc.), it seems unlikely in the extreme that they would opt for the scorched earth approach depicted in the likes of War of the Worlds and Independence Day. Actually, it seems improbable that the aliens would launch air strikes at all, let alone anything so messy as the ground invasions seen in, say, Falling Skies or Battle: Los Angeles. Any tactics that would provoke a military response from Earth’s leaders would probably result in damage to the very resources the aliens are seeking to acquire, especially if weapons of mass destruction are used by either side.
Even if the aliens’ goal is simply to eradicate humanity, direct engagement with our military forces would likely be entirely unnecessary. Many UFO movies depict aliens using psychic forces to harm or control those around them—but if real aliens have developed advanced psychic abilities, might they be able to use these on a mass scale? If so, our psychically puny species would be conquered within a matter of hours, or instantly, even.
Possible psychic abilities aside, advanced ETs might very well have psychotronic and psychotropic weapons with which to attack the mind, or even weapons that target specific parts of the body, both external and internal—even the heart or brain—causing targets to fall down dead en masse, and all without inflicting so much as a scratch on the skin. There would be no resistance from us, and minimal effort on their part. For Hollywood’s purposes, however, such scenarios are utterly lacking in spectacle and drama.
In his later years, Stephen Hawking remained firm in his stance that the universe is likely teeming with life, some of it intelligent, but he was less optimistic about the inherent benevolence of advanced ET civilizations, believing that advanced technology does not necessarily go hand-in-hand with moral and ethical enlightenment.
Jill Tarter, former Director of SETI.
Before Hawking died, former SETI director Jill Tarter (the real-life Ellie Arroway from Contact) voiced her disagreement with the Cambridge professor about the probable nature of any future alien contact scenarios. Tarter also advised the public to disregard Hollywood entirely as an even remotely realistic representation of what to expect on contact day. “Often the aliens of science fiction say more about us than they do about themselves,” Tarter remarked on the SETI website in 2012. “While Sir Stephen Hawking warned that alien life might try to conquer or colonize Earth, I respectfully disagree. If aliens were able to visit Earth that would mean they would have technological capabilities sophisticated enough not to need slaves, food, or other planets. If aliens were to come here it would be simply to explore.”
Tarter added: “Considering the age of the universe, we probably wouldn’t be their first extraterrestrial encounter, either. We should look at movies like Men in Black, Prometheusand Battleship as great entertainment and metaphors for our own fears, but we should not consider them harbingers of alien visitation.”
David Bowie asked the question. Last week, Barry DiGregorio looked at rover photosof the surface of Mars and decided the grooves in the surface are the same type of fossilized trails and tracks left by bacterial life forms on prehistoric Earth … and NASA is covering up this fact to protect its upcoming manned space missions to allow humans to “discover” life on Mars. Now in a new interview in the Daily Star Online he’s warning NASA – not to mention Elon Musk — that sending humans to Mars would cause the late Mr. Bowie to write a sequel to his song, calling it “Is There Death on Mars?” and the girl with the mousy hair will find out why America has a tortured brow … the life on Mars will kill us.
“Astronauts could be exposed to unknown pathogenic microbes and viruses that we have no idea how to control. That is why it is so important to fly additional life detection instruments to Mars – to make sure it is safe to send human beings or to return samples to Earth.”
Dr. DiGregorio has a point – one that NASA dealt with during the Apollo lunar missions by quarantining everything that they brought back until it was determined there was no life on the astronauts, their equipment or their rocks. Since they were only there for a short period, covered a small area and never breathed the atmosphere – what little there is – NASA felt comfortable nothing would happen to the astronauts while on the Moon. That won’t be the case on Mars and DiGregorio singles out Elon Musk first, since he seems to be leading the way to not just visiting but establishing permanent colonies on the Red Planet.
“He’s totally ignoring the fact that there could be microbial life on Mars, and as far as being a scientist goes, the one thing you want to make sure of is that your people have a degree of confidence that the surface of Mars is sterile.”
Musk might be impressed that DiGregorio thinks he’s a scientist, but he’d most likely disagree that Mars needs to be “sterile” before going there. Livable, breathable and non-fatal are probably good enough for Elon. However, DiGregorio points out another thing that has nothing to do with science.
“If you sent astronauts to Mars and they die of pathogenic diseases from indigenous microbes, you’re not going to have another mission go back there, the publicity would be terrible.”
Have humans really evolved from the days of massive Earth exploration to the point where it will not take on a non-military mission with the near-certainty that some people won’t come back? DiGregorio wants NASA to reduce that risk to near-nothing by sending more robots and autonomous exploration vehicles to Mars with the equipment onboard to find and identify life forms without the need for humans on the Martian surface.
Not everyone in the Martian exploration community believes DiGregorio’s theory that the tracks on Mars are indications of bacterial life. However, his arguments for continued robotic exploration make sense. Is a robot discovering life forms on Mars really anathema to NASA management? NASA public relations? Elon Musk?
Are they spitting in the eyes of fools as they ask us to focus on the best-selling show?
The demise of honey bee populations worldwide has become one of the most pressing ecological concerns of our time. Over the last decade, it’s been estimated that some 30–70% European honey bee colonies have collapsed or disappeared, prompting fears of agricultural collapse due to the vital role honey bees play in pollinating crops. Scientists still aren’t sure what the exact cause of colony collapse might be, although it is believed pesticides, genetically modified crops, or even electromagnetic radiation from cellphone towers might be factors.
Selective commercial breeding is also suspected as contributing to a diminished bee gene pool, opening the doors for many diseases.
To help stave off agricultural catastrophe, engineers around the world have begun tossing around ideas to create tiny droneswhich might pollinate crops in the absence of real bees. While this idea sounds like exactly like a recent Black Mirror episode, things got even more dystopian with the recent discovery of the filing of patent applications for robo-bee systems on behalf of retail giant and all-around nefarious corporation Walmart. What exactly might Walmart be up to?
The same thing they’re up to every night, Pinky: trying to take over the world.
The patent was found and posted online by CB Insights, a market research firm which leverages artificial intelligence to analyze trends and identify future disruptions. The patentdescribes a pretty straightforward centralized network which can control legions of tiny bee drones which go from flower to flower pollinating crops. The patent lists many variations of the same system of pollinating unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), some of which do not require human control whatsoever:
In some embodiments, the UAV deployed in the exemplary system does not require physical operation by a human operator and wirelessly communicates with, and is wholly or largely controlled by, the computing device.
Hmm… hordes of tiny autonomous flying bee-bots controlled by the world’s largest retailer…say it with me now: what could go wrong?
A lot, once Wal-Bee version 2.1.0 rolls out.
Walmart has already been aggressively pursuing the grocery market, and many analysts believe these patents show that the massive multinational corporation might be attempting to control the food supply chain. While many of us (myself included) tend to view anything Walmart does with disdain and loathing, CB Insights notes that such a drone bee system could help the retailer “manage crop yields more effectively” and “increase its emphasis on transparency and sustainability to attract shoppers.” Still, is it wise to allow a retailer to have so much control over such a vital part of our society? Time, as always, will tell.
On Saturday, March 3rd, two men armed with instructions on how to contact extraterrestrials and a protocol on what to do if they show up tried to contact aliens on the shore of a lake in Sicamous, British Columbia, Canada. After a few hours of meditating and watching, they left without a successful contact. Did they leave too soon?
On the morning of Sunday, March 4th, a woman walked to the very same lake and spotted a series of mysterious ice circles on the lake’s frozen surface. Coincidence? Contact? Something else?
Let’s start with the location. Shuswap Lake is in south-central British Columbia, Canada, and is known for (among other things) its odd shape – the four fingers of the lake look like the letter H from the air. The name comes from the Shuswap or Secwepemc First Nations people and it’s now a popular recreational lake centered around the city of Salmon Arm, which gets ITS name from the fish and the lake’s appendage. Besides salmon and trout, Shuswap Lake is Like many other lakes, Shuswap Lake has a legendary 25-foot long monster known as the Shuswap Lake Monster or Shuswaggi.
Does it also have close encounters of the third-thru-fifth kind? The Salmon Arm Observer reports that local (Sunnybrae) area resident Grace Edwards was walking on the lake shore in nearby Tappen when she spotted and photographed the ice circles on the frozen lake. These were not ice discs, which are circular pieces of ice formed in cold rivers as the chunks break off and are swirled and worn into circles. What Edwards saw were more like swirling patterns made in the ice – kind of like frozen crop circles. One thought is that they were made by spinning snowmobilers who someone managed to make perfect circles without leaving any other visible tracks. Another thought might be …
Aliens!
Grace Edwards’s photos (see here) were published by the Salmon Arm Observer and other local media, where they eventually were shown to Dan Berg (Berg? As in iceberg? Another coincidence?). Berg is the man who attempted to contact aliens on the night of March 3rd in Sicamous, another small town on Shuswap Lake. He told the Observer that he and a friend from Salmon Arm he met through SETI social media decided to celebrate International CE-5 day by conducting a Close Encounter of the Fifth Kind (direct communications with ETs) using the CE-5 protocol developed by Steven M. Greer of the Center for the Study of Extraterrestrial Intelligence (CSETI). For Berg, that was “meditation through consciousness.”
“In my meditation all I did was concentrate on the edge of the Rocky Mountains and Shuswap Lake for 40 minutes nonstop.”
After scanning the skies and their minds for a few hours and seeing nor hearing nothing, Berg and his friend left and thought no more about the incident until someone showed the article about Edwards and the ice circles to Berg. What did he think now?
“I think it was kind of cool and kind of ironic that something as strange as those circles that no one has ever seen before showed up the night that we were out here.”
As with crop circles, the Shuswap Lake ice circles could be explained by humans making very precise patterns in the dark on snowmobiles. Possible? Yes, but the perfection leaves an opening. Is the lake’s H pattern a beacon or marker for aliens? What about the Shuswaggi? Some crytozoologists believe these creatures are visitors from other planets.
Berg has piqued the interest of others and will probably have a crowd with him the next time he tries a CE-5. Let’s hope they bring cameras and a net for the Shuswaggi.
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Triangle-shaped formation filmed over Colorado Springs 3-Mar-2018
Triangle-shaped formation filmed over Colorado Springs 3-Mar-2018
This UFO sighting was filmed in the sky above Colorado Springs on 3rd March 2018.
Witness report:
Bright large stationary orbs disappearing then reappearing. Vacationing with friends and spouse at Cheyanne Mountain resort in Colorado Springs, Co. After a long day of outside activities we returned to the resort for dinner. Afterwards we went to the outside patio to sit at the fire pit and talk about our day.
At first I didn’t notice anything strange but my friend pointed out a weird light in the sky that just hovered. When I looked to where he was pointing I pulled out my iPhone and began recording it. Shortly after a 2nd orb materialized above the 1st. Once they were both visible they simultaneously got brighter and slightly larger.
At the time I was confused as to what I was looking at. There was a lake between the orbs and myself and the lights were reflecting off the water. The lower light suddenly disappeared and another orb appeared ABOVE the remaining one. At one point there were 3 visible orbs that from my angle appeared to be in a relatively straight line. I wondered if maybe they were flares but every orb held it’s place in the sky with no apparent descent or change. I tried at various times to zoom in but it would not hold focus. This went on for over 2min so I felt I was neglecting my group. I stopped the recording and returned to the fire pit, which was about 30’ away.
When I turned back around all of the orbs were gone. I still don’t know what I saw but during the incident the server came out and my friend asked if he knew what it was. His reply was, “I’ve been here for 10 yrs and have never seen anything like it”, which adds to the mystery. There were other vacations making some noise in the pool but we’re no airplanes in the sky and other than those talking it was silent.
Mysterious Loch Ness like sea creature washes up on South Georgia Beach
Mysterious Loch Ness like sea creature washes up on South Georgia Beach
A mysterious sea creature washed ashore in St. Simons Island and it has beachgoers scratching their heads.
Credit images: News4Jax and Jeff Warren.
Jeff Warren and his son were at Wolf Island National Wildlife Refuge just north of St. Simons Island in Georgia Friday when they came upon the creature on a barrier island.
Warren thought it was a dead seal, but said when he got a closer look it resembled more of the Loch Ness monster.
Warren sent the photo to News4Jax and said the creature was about 4 to 5 feet long with two fins.
Credit images: News4Jax and Jeff Warren.
A local writer and novelist contacted News4Jax saying he believes the mysterious sea creature looks exactly like the legendary Altamaha-ha, a river monster of the Altamaha River located just west of Wolf Island and could be a survivor of the Mesozoic Era.
'It's a space WAR' Alien ‘battle’ near Area 51 baffles UFO hunters
'It's a space WAR' Alien ‘battle’ near Area 51 baffles UFO hunters
ALIEN hunters were left in a frenzy when they spotted what they believed to be a UFO ‘battle’ in the skies above a city in Nevada which is just a two hour driver from Area 51 – an alleged extraterrestrial hotspot.
On February 19, a driver in Henderson, Nevada, just a short drive from Las Vegas, was waiting in his car when he saw bright lights in the sky.
The unnamed motorist says the bright star-like lights in the footage, which was taken during broad daylight, started moving towards each other at a rapid speed as if they were attacking each other.
The witness said: "I was waiting in the car while my buddy went into the store. I noticed about 9 to 10 brights dots in the sky that looked like stars.
“The dots were in a line on approx 45 degree angle. All of a sudden they started to move upward on that same angle and it looked like they were attacking each other.”
'It's a space WAR' Alien ‘battle’ near Area 51 baffles UFO hunters
The man says that there were many bursts of energy and it lasted for about 20 seconds
To add more fuel to the conspiracy, the location where the footage was taken is just a two hour drive from Lincoln County, where Area 51 is based.
Area 51 is a top secret US military base which has been the centre of countless UFO theories over the years, including the infamous Roswell crash.
Some comments left beneath the video shows that some people are convinced this is a genuine UFO battle.
YOUTUBE
Alien ‘battle’ spotted near Area 51 by UFO hunters
GETTY
The incident took place near roswell
Rico Greem said: “Space war for the freedom of mankind.”
Corine Thomas said: “I believe this video, it's only a matter of time folks. The watchers are protecting us from the unruly greys.”
However, there were doubters of the authenticity, claiming that it was just reflection playing tricks on the mind.
Dan Aliyev wrote: “It’s reflections of cars turning.”
Carlos Urquides said: “It's the reflection of cars lights. If they were shooting lasers like that something would have clearly been destroyed. I believe in ufos but not this!”
The cameraman was reading at home when they zoomed in to capture the bright object flying near the jet in the skies over Lincoln, New Hampshire.
They said: "I was reading on my deck around 7 o'clock.
"I am told that military pilots train in the mountains around where I live and I've always enjoyed seeing them fly through."
The mysterious object emerged from behind the plane's contrails
"This happens all the time, jets and helicopters are a common sighting. So I naturally saw the jet and did a double take, because there was something following it.
"I immediately thought I was witnessing some strange aircraft, possibly military but it was not a jet.
"I knew it wasn't a jet because it was actually right behind one. The jet it was chasing left a long contrail behind it, but the UFO did not.
"The UFO was gaining on a jet. No helicopter could do that. I was blown away and luckily got out my phone in time to take a video.”
The UFO appeared to 'chase' the jet, according to the witness who captured the footage
The footage was originally captured in 2016, but reemerged on YouTube this week where it has racked up thousands of views.
"I watched the object gaining on the jet for about 10 seconds when I lost them in the trees," the witness added.
"I was very excited and anxious. I felt I has witnessed something very hard to dismiss as a 'weather balloon' or some obvious type of aircraft.
"Shortly after the jet and object left my range of sight I saw three more jets and 1 helicopters going the same direction (in my opinion chasing the UFO)."
The object eventually 'overtook' the jet
But not all viewers were convinced the video was proof of alien visitors , with many thinking the object was just another plane.
One viewer commented: “Two planes flying at different height which causes the contrail.”
Another added: "It's two planes traveling at different altitudes, one creating a vapor trail."
The video displays the vehicle zooming through the sky at pace, leaving a thick contrail behind it.
But another object emerges from behind the cloud-like stream, sparking wild speculation online.
It then proceeds to follow the jet, before eventually overtaking it.
The footage then zooms in to show the subject as a round, peculiar-shaped craft.
NOWYOUKNOW
UFO? Bizarre footage shows the object following a plane
It was captured in the US in 2016, but has only been shared now.
A witness said: "I am told that military pilots train in the mountains around where I live and I’ve always enjoyed seeing them fly through.
"This happens all the time. jets and helicopters are a common sighting. So I naturally saw the jet and did a double take, because there was something following it.”
The clip was uploaded to YouTube channel NowYouKnow on Saturday and has already racked up over 16,000 hits.
And some users were convinced it is proof of alien life.
One comment read: “I am actually baffled. This looks legit, as to why — who knows.”
And another added: “No s*** the UFO is following a jet that's leaving a stream of chemtrail.”
The chemtrail theory is a conspiracy that aims to prove the condensation trails left in the sky are deliberately sprayed with harmful chemicals in order to control weather modification, radiation management and a number of other claims.
But other viewers believed there was a more reasonable explanation for the activity.
“This looks like an air refuelling plane,” someone claimed.
And others passed the video off for a number of other reasons, such as CGI or a possible military exercise.
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Researchers Find ‘Advanced’ 320,000-Year-Old Human Tools In Kenya
Researchers Find ‘Advanced’ 320,000-Year-Old Human Tools In Kenya
This evidence of early innovation pushes back the human evolutionary timeline, effectively rewriting history and everything we knew about our ancestors. This also means that complex human cultures are much older than previously thought.
An international group of scientists has discovered that more than 320,000 years ago, humans were much more developed than initially thought.
The new discovery proves how ancient people developed impressive social structures and technological innovations used color pigments and manufactured more sophisticated tools than previously thought.
Image Credit: Human Origins Program, Smithsonian
As noted by the Smithsonian, these newly discovered activities approximately date to the oldest known fossil record of Homo sapiens and occur tens of thousands of years earlier than previous evidence has shown in eastern Africa.
Evidence for mankind’s ancient milestones originates from the Olorgesailie Basin in southern Kenya, where experts have excavated an archaeological site that offers an unprecedented record of early human life spanning more than a million years.
Archeologists say that many of the tools discovered on the site were crafted from obsidian – a hard, dark, glass-like volcanic rock.
In addition to the numerous tools, experts also found that ancient cultures used color pigments much sooner than previously thought.
The new findings are reported in three different studies published in the journal Science. The papers suggest that trading of different artifacts emerged during a period of tremendous environmental upheaval in the region when earthquakes ravaged the area and temperatures, and the climate, in general, fluctuated between wet and dry periods.
The Excavation site in Kenya.
Image credit: Human Origins Program, Smithsonian
“This change to a very sophisticated set of behaviors that involved greater mental abilities and more complex social lives may have been the leading edge that distinguished our lineage from other early humans,” said Dr Rick Potts, director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History’s human origins program in the United States, and author of one of the three studies.
Experts say that trading networks, early communication, and technological innovation helped ancient people survive by obtaining all necessary resources they needed through crafting or trading.
Dr. Potts notes that first evidence of human life in the Olorgesailie Basin dates back to around 1.2 million years ago.
There, for hundreds of thousands of years, people living in the region used large stone-cutting tools called handaxes. In addition to being used as tools, researchers have found evidence that some were also used as projectile weapons, while others were shaped into tools to craft and sculpt wood.
Then, in 2002, researchers discovered smaller, more carefully shaped tools in the Olorgesailie Basin.
Using isotopic dating, researchers found that the tools were incredibly old; between 320,000 and 305,000 years ago. These tools, researchers note, were carefully crafted and were more specialized than the all-purpose handaxes.
Furthermore, experts found that the smaller, more sophisticated handaxes were crafted from a wide range of obsidian, not found locally, but up to 90 kilometers away.
The Smithsonian team found small stone points (above) made of non-local obsidian at their Middle Stone Age sites.
Image credit: Human Origins Program, Smithsonian
In addition, experts discovered black and red rocks, evidence that the rocks had been ‘processed’ for use as a coloring material.
“We don’t know what the coloring was used on, but the coloring is often taken by archaeologists as the root of complex symbolic communication. Just as color is used today in clothing or flags to express identity, these pigments may have helped people communicate membership in alliances and maintain ties with distant groups.”
After integrating data from a variety of sources, researchers wanted to understand what may have driven such changes in early human behavior. Their findings suggest that the period when these changes appeared was one of changing landscapes and climate, and resources would have been extremely scarce.
Scientists discovered that geological, geochemical, paleobotanical and faunal evidence indicates that an extended period of climate instability affected the region, beginning approximately 360,000 years ago.
Here Are Five Ways Stephen Hawking Predicted The World Could End
Here Are Five Ways Stephen Hawking Predicted The World Could End
Not long ago, the great Stephen Hawking left us to travel among the stars.
The last great scientists on Earth died aged 76, and the news shocked the scientific world. But before leaving on his eternal trip, professor Hawking left us a lot to think about.
The Earth will disappear and become a massive ball of fire. By that time, 600 years from now, humanity must have colonized another planet. These warnings would not be given credit were it not because they came from famous astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, one of the voices that have spoken the most about the end of the world.
Hawking argued that the Alpha Centauri star system could be the most viable option for humanity, reason why he worked on the Breakthrough Starshot project, so future spacecraft could travel to this planet in the next 20 years using small spaceship that could travel at the speed of light.
Resumed, professor Hawking was THE scientist who made science more appealing and exciting to the general public. He Loved science, and science loved him back.
Dubbed as one of the most important physicists of the twentieth century, professor Hawking had become famous not only for his intelligence but also for his status as a celebrity, being one of the few people who had survived amyotrophic lateral sclerosis for so many years.
From the Big Bang theory to studies on black holes, his contributions to these fields will forever remain in the analogs of science, and his legacy will live on.
However, the British physicist was not only a great scientist, but he was also very concerned about our planet, our civilization, and the future that awaits us.
In this article, we take a look at five of the most worrying future predictions made by Hawking.
1. A deadly Virus destroying mankind
In 2001 Stephen Hawking warned that a virus would end the human race in this millennium. According to the researcher, “it will be a virus and not an atomic bomb” that will bring Earth’s population to its knees. However, the scientist offered a solution to the problem; establishing colonies in space.
2. Nuclear war and climate change
Stephen Hawking and other scientists announced in 2007 that Doomsday Clock was set at five minutes before midnight. Since 1947, the board of directors of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists of the University of Chicago, of which Hawking is a member, manage to Doomsday clock as a symbol that represents how close we are to the end of civilization because of a nuclear war. In 2018 the clock was set two minutes to midnight. The failure of world leaders to deal with looming threats of nuclear war and climate change. This is the clock’s closest approach to midnight, matching that of 1953.
On the effects of climate change, Hawking has warned that “the worst scenario for the Earth would be to become something like its sister planet, Venus, with a temperature of 250 degrees and rain of sulfuric acid.”
3. Alien Invasion
Like many other scientists, Professor Hawking was convinced there’s life elsewhere in the universe. However, Professor Hawking believed that these beings might have exhausted resources and become space nomads in search of new planets and resources. “If aliens visited us, the result would be similar to when Columbus arrived in America, which was not very good for Native Americans.”
4. Artificial Intelligence
Like many other futurists and researchers, professor Stephen Hawking too warned of the dangers of Artificial Intelligence.
“Unless we learn to prepare for the potential risks and avoid them, Artificial Intelligence could be the worst event in the history of our civilization” the astrophysicist has stated on more than one occasion.
For Hawking, humans must be aware of the dangers posed by robots, identify them and prepare for their consequences in advance. In addition to Hawking, Elon Musk also spoke out about the potential dangers Artificial Intelligence poses for humans.
5. Humans, and our need for another world
The constant increase in the world population and the abusive consumption of resources and energy are too much for our planet to handle. Our civilization seems to be losing its grip on reality, and we are abusing our planet, bringing it to the limit.
Professor Hawking has warned that if we are to survive as a species, we must look for other planets other than Earth, and colonize them as soon as possible.
Hawking argued that the best option, perhaps, is the Alpha Centauri star system, which is the closest to our solar system.
The Breakthrough Starshot project, in which the physicist was involved, is precisely looking for the way to reach this system in 20 years through the development of spacecraft capable of traveling at the speed of light.
Check Out These Amazing Images Snapped By NASA’s $1 Billion Spacecraft Orbiting Jupiter
Check Out These Amazing Images Snapped By NASA’s $1 Billion Spacecraft Orbiting Jupiter
Jupiter is, without a doubt, one of the most fascinating planets in our solar system.
Jupiter is huge. Mysterious. Colorful. Hypnotizing. And did I say it so big it doesn’t actually ‘orbit’ the sun?
Anyway, the gas giant has remained one of the most studied and revered planets since ancient times.
After the Sun, Jupiter is the largest celestial body in the solar system, with a mass almost two and a half times that of the other planets together (with a mass 318 times greater than that of Earth and three times greater than Saturn), besides being in terms of volume, 1317 times larger than Earth).
It is also the oldest planet in the solar system, being even older than the sun; this discovery was made by researchers from the University of Münster in Germany.
The Gas Giant has been explored on several occasions by spacecraft, most notably during the early Pioneer and Voyager flyby missions and later by the Galileo orbiter. In late February 2007, Jupiter was visited by the New Horizons probe, which used Jupiter’s gravity to increase its speed and bend its trajectory en route to Pluto. The latest probe to visit the planet is Juno, which entered into orbit around Jupiter on July 4, 2016.
Jupiter is the planet with the largest mass in the solar system: it is about 2.48 times the sum of the masses of all the other planets together.
Despite this, it is not the most massive planet known: more than a hundred extrasolar planets that have been discovered have masses similar or superior to Jupiter.
Jupiter also has the fastest rotation speed of the planets of the solar system: it rotates in less than ten hours on its axis.
Altogether, it is one heck of a planet.
The main satellites of Jupiter were discovered by Galileo Galilei on January 7, 1610, which is why they are called Galilean satellites.
They receive their names from Greek mythology although, in Galileo’s time, they were referred to by Roman numerals depending on their order of proximity to the planet.
The discovery of these satellites constituted a point of inflection in the already long dispute between those who supported the idea of a geocentric system, that is, with the Earth at the center of the universe, and the Copernican (or heliocentric system, that is, with the Sun at the center of the solar system), in which it was much easier to explain the movement and the very existence of Jupiter’s natural satellites.
And while I can continue writing about Jupiter the rest of the day, words can’t describe just how beautiful the largest planet in our solar system is.
Thankfully, images speak a thousand words so here we bring you some of the most fascinating images of Jupiter taken by the Juno Spacecraft.
Jupiter you SEXY beast! Image Credit: NASA/SwRI/MSSS/Uriel
Image Credit: NASA/SwRI/MSSS/Roman Tkachenko
This image shows Jupiter’s south pole, as seen by NASA’s Juno spacecraft from an altitude of 32,000 miles (52,000 kilometers). Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Betsy Asher Hall/Gervasio Robles
A swirling white spot captured by Juno. Image Credit: NASA / MSSS / JPL / SwRI / Bjorn Jonsson
Bizarre footage appears to have captured the moment a UFO appears to chase a passenger jet through the sky. The incident was caught on camera by a baffled resident in the US who has recently uploaded the footage in a bid to get some answers.
The witness told the Mutual UFO Network : “I am told that military pilots train in the mountains around where I live and I’ve always enjoyed seeing them fly through. “This happens all the time. Jets and helicopters are a common sighting. So I naturally saw the jet and did a double take, because there was something following it.”
Deep-Space Radiation May Be Getting More Dangerous for Future Astronauts
Deep-Space Radiation May Be Getting More Dangerous for Future Astronauts
By Mike Wall, Space.com Senior Writer
Photo of a coronal mass ejection, along with part of a solar filament, fired off by the sun on Feb. 24, 2015. When the sun is active, its magnetic field gains strength and extends farther out into space, helping deflect energetic cosmic rays away from the inner solar system.
Credit: Solar Dynamics Observatory, NASA
Space radiation may be a bigger worry for voyaging astronauts than scientists had thought, at least in the near future, a new study suggests.
"The radiation dose rates from measurements obtained over the last four years exceeded trends from previous solar cycles by at least 30 percent, showing that the radiation environment is getting far more intense," study lead author Nathan Schwadron, a professor of physics at the University of New Hampshire's Space Science Center, said in a statement.
"These particle radiation conditions present important environmental factors for space travel and space weather, and must be carefully studied and accounted for in the planning and design of future missions to the moon, Mars, asteroids and beyond," Schwadron added. [How Radiation in Space Poses a Threat to Human Exploration (Infographic)]
Schwadron and his colleagues studied observations made by NASA'sLunar Reconnaissance Orbiter(LRO), which has been circling the moon since 2009. Specifically, they looked at dose rates of galactic cosmic rays measured over the past four years by LRO's Cosmic Ray Telescope for the Effects of Radiation (CRATER).
Galactic cosmic rays (GCRs) are super-energetic particles — mostly protons and atomic nuclei — that have been accelerated to tremendous speeds by distant and dramatic events, such as supernova explosions. GCRs can do damage to spacecraft electronics and, in large enough doses, can cause radiation sickness in astronauts, or longer-term problems such as cancer.
"We now know that the radiation environment of deep space that we could send human crews into at this point is quite different compared to that of previous crewed missions to the moon," Schwadron said, referring to NASA's Apollo missions, which landed six crews on the lunar surface between July 1969 and December 1972.
The rise in GCR levels is related to a prolonged stretch of low solar activity, which ebbs and flows on an 11-year cycle. During active phases, the sun's magnetic field spreads throughout the solar system more extensively (by the flow of charged particles known as the solar wind), and it deflects more incoming GCRs.
But an active sun poses its own problems. Solar flares and coronal mass ejections — powerful blasts that send huge clouds of superheated plasma rocketing out into space at millions of miles per hour — can also raise radiation levels significantly.
And big solar outbursts aren't limited to active periods in the solar cycle. Indeed, a series of solar outbursts in September 2017 raised deep-space radiation levels significantly, the researchers said.
The new study has been accepted for publication in the journal Space Weather.
The putative oceans on Mars may have been aided by an unlikely ally: volcanoes.
A depiction of how oceans on Mars might have looked like.
Image credits: Kevin McGill / Flickr.
The saga of Martian oceans — and if they truly existed or not — continues with a new episode. A team of geophysicists at the University of California, Berkeley, suggests that volcanoes may have helped pave the way for liquid water, by raising temperatures.
“Volcanoes may be important in creating the conditions for Mars to be wet,” said Michael Manga, a UC Berkeley professor of earth and planetary science and senior author of a paper appearing in Nature this week and posted online March 19.
While there is significant evidence that Mars once had oceans of liquid water, not everybody is convinced of their existence. The main argument against this existence is that… we don’t see them today. The estimated mass of the oceans just doesn’t fit with the how much water could be hidden today as permafrost underground and how much could have escaped into space. In other words, if Mars once had oceans, we should still see some water.
But Manga and his colleagues developed a new model which would help explain this disparity. They propose that the first ocean on the Red Planet (called Arabia) formed at about the same time as the planet’s largest volcanic feature, Tharsis, or even a bit sooner — instead of after it, as previous models suggested.
“The assumption was that Tharsis formed quickly and early, rather than gradually, and that the oceans came later,” Manga said. “We’re saying that the oceans predate and accompany the lava outpourings that made Tharsis.”
In particular, because Tharsis was smaller in its earlier days, it didn’t distort the seabed as much, meaning that the oceans were much shallower than previously assumed. This theory can also explain another counterargument to Martian oceans: the seashore problem. The proposed seashores are highly irregular, varying in height by up to 1 kilometer (0.6 miles), whereas on Earth seashores are largely at the same level (sea level).
If oceans were formed in the initial stages of Tharsis’ development, the volcano would have significantly depressed the land and deformed the shoreline, which would help explain the irregularity.
“These shorelines could have been emplaced by a large body of liquid water that existed before and during the emplacement of Tharsis, instead of afterwards,” said first author Robert Citron, a UC Berkeley graduate student.
Lastly, this model also proposes that Tharsis spewed gases into the atmosphere that created a global warming or greenhouse effect, which favored the formation of liquid water. However, more studies will be needed to confirm this theory.
The study has not been peer-reviewed, but Citron will present a paper about the new analysis on March 20 at the annual Lunar and Planetary Science conference in Texas.
Without an atmosphere to protect it, the Moon is under constant assault from meteorites and asteroids, hitting the satellite and leaving behind a horde of craters. Using a novel AI-based technique, a team of researchers has developed a new way to identify and count these craters.
An artificially colored mosaic constructed from a series of 53 images taken by the Galileo Spacecraft. Can you see the craters?
“When it comes to counting craters on the moon, it’s a pretty archaic method,” says Mohamad Ali-Dib, a postdoctoral fellow in the Centre for Planetary Sciences (CPS).
Indeed, while astronomy has benefitted from the automation of many processes, crater counting had lagged behind — but not anymore.
“Basically we need to manually look at an image, locate and count the craters and then calculate how large they are based off the size of the image. Here we’ve developed a technique from artificial intelligence that can automate this entire process that saves significant time and effort.”
Ali-Dib wasn’t the first to come up with this idea. Several projects have attempted to develop algorithms for the detection of lunar craters, but they performed rather poorly. However, the new algorithm, which was trained on a large dataset covering two-thirds of the moon, performed much better. It was so good at understanding the general shape and characteristics of a crater that it was even able to detect craters on other bodies, such as Mercury.
“It’s the first time we have an algorithm that can detect craters really well for not only parts of the moon, but also areas of Mercury,” says Ali-Dib, who developed the technique along with Ari Silburt, Chenchong Charles Zhu, and a group of researchers at CPS and the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics (CITA).
They fed 90,000 images of the moon’s surface into an artificial neural network (ANN). ANNs mimic the vast network of neurons in a brain, simulating the biological learning process. After the learning process, the neural network was able to not only identify but also categorize craters larger than five kilometers. The team believes that with further “training” it will also be able to zoom in on smaller craters.
Some lunar craters last for billions of years.
Image credits: NASA.
Since the moon also doesn’t have tectonics or strong erosion, the craters can remain visible for extremely long periods of time, with Ali-Dib’s team finding craters as old as four billion years. However, this is also the main drawback of the algorithm: it requires an atmosphere-less body, without erosion, and clearly visible craters.
Journal Reference: Ari Silburt et al. Lunar Crater Identification via Deep Learning. arxiv.org/abs/1803.02192
It was 53 years ago when a man walked in space for the first time, and he wasn’t American.
On March 18, 1965, the USSR took a big lead in the space race against the U.S. when cosmonaut Alexey Leonov left his spacecraft, the Voskhod 2, to enter into history as taking the first-ever spacewalk. Moments later, his life was in danger.
“My suit was becoming deformed, my hands had slipped out of the gloves, my feet came out of the boots,” Leonov told the BBC in 2014. “The suit felt loose around my body. I had to do something.”
The problem was the lack of atmospheric pressure in space causing his suit to inflate. Tethered to the spacecraft and with a suit too big to make it through the hatch, Leonov acted quickly by releasing oxygen from his suit to relieve the pressure.
He did make his way back into the capsule but the small explosive that opened the hatch had now caused it to rotate. This also caused a rise in oxygen making the cabin flammable.
It didn’t stop there for Leonov. He and his pilot, Pavel Belyayev, had to wait several hours before they could fire the retro-rockets to return to Earth. They found out quickly that the automated rockets did not work so they had to control the rockets manually. A miscalculation of how long to fire the rockets could either bounce them right back into space or crash into the ground.
The cosmonaunts did end up landing safely in Siberia.
The U.S. and NASA also ramped up the space program with multiple spaceflights in 1965. The Apollo and Gemini flights continued to make progress leading to the moon landing on Nov. 19, 1969.
Still, as the first person to see the Earth from 500km above, Leonov made an impact on history. What he saw on his trip also made an impact on him.
“My feeling was that I was a grain of sand,” he said. “You just can’t comprehend it. Only out there can you feel the greatness, the huge size of all that surrounds us.”
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Over mijzelf
Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
Ik ben een man en woon in Linter (België) en mijn beroep is Ik ben op rust..
Ik ben geboren op 18/10/1950 en ben nu dus 73 jaar jong.
Mijn hobby's zijn: Ufologie en andere esoterische onderwerpen.
Op deze blog vind je onder artikels, werk van mezelf. Mijn dank gaat ook naar André, Ingrid, Oliver, Paul, Vincent, Georges Filer en MUFON voor de bijdragen voor de verschillende categorieën...
Veel leesplezier en geef je mening over deze blog.
