09-05-2018 om 20:12 geschreven door peter  

Five so-called “conspiracy theories” that are actually supported by mainstream science

 by: Vicki Batts

(Natural News) Telling the truth about a scandal that hasn’t been approved by the legacy media and their owners often yields a predictable result: You’ll be labeled a conspiracy theorist — even when there is plenty of evidence to support the truth. Comfortable lies may help some people sleep at night, but the truth is that many supposed “conspiracy theories” are actually real, and are supported by science. Who would have thought? Here are five truths that are widely misrepresented as conspiracy theories, and the evidence which supports them:

1. Atrazine disrupts, damages the endocrine system

Atrazine is on the fast-track to becoming one of the most widely used pesticides in the United States. And because of this, there is a high amount of it in groundwater. It is consistently detected in public water supplies — which in and of itself is really quite concerning. But when the profound potential for this toxic chemical to spur endocrine disruption is taken into account, atrazine becomes downright frightening.

Research led by Dr. Tyrone Hayes, a scientist from the University of California at Berkeley, has shown that in frogs, atrazine is capable of causing lasting endocrine damage. In males, the disruption to endocrine function can be so severe that it results in chemical castration. In one study, Hayes exposed 40 tadpoles to water tainted with atrazine, at a concentration of 2.5 parts per billion — well within the EPA’s allotment for drinking water.

Nearly one-tenth of the tadpoles that were reared in the atrazine-laden water became “functionally female,” according to Hayes. Despite reportedly being born male, they ended up producing eggs.

And as sources report, “After being exposed to atrazine, many of the 36 male-presenting frogs reportedly showed decreased testosterone, reduced breeding gland size, poor laryngeal development, suppressed mating behavior, and reduced fertility. Similar effects have been seen in other amphibious creatures.”

Studies from Purdue University and other esteemed research teams have found similar results regarding atrazine’s potential to disrupt the endocrine system — even at amounts regarded by federal agencies as “safe.” Indeed, it would seem they are emphatically notsafe. Perhaps that’s why Europe banned atrazine. So, why is it still used in the U.S.?

2. Cellphones cause brain tumors

Is this really that far-fetched? That cellphones produce radiation is well established at this point — as is radiation’s connection to cancer. It’s often reported that because cellphones produce a different type of radiation (compared to say, nuclear radiation), it poses no health risk. But numerous scientific studies have said otherwise. Indeed, the risk of cellphone use is widely under-reported.

Recently, research again implicated cellphones as a player in the cancer-causing game: This time, mobile devices were linked to brain and heart tumors. In a study of rats, exposure to radio frequency radiation produced by cellphones led to the onset of a few different types of cancer — including rare Schwann cell tumors in the brain and heart.

At a 2016 conference, one doctor bravely declared that the potential for cellphones to cause cancer was obvious. “The weight of the evidence is clear: Cell phones do cause brain cancer,” stated Dr. Devra Davis, president of the Environmental Health Trust. Children are particularly susceptible to the woes of cellphones, and Davis contended further that pregnant women should be especially careful about their cellphone use and storage. “Keep the phone away from the abdomen — especially toward the end of pregnancy,” she cautioned.

There have been multiple warnings about the threat of cancer posed by cellphones, but many refuse to acknowledge the science that backs it up.

3. Chemtrails and geoengineering are real

Mentioning the word “chemtrails” is a great way to earn the scorn of mainstream media pundits and their ilk. But a quick search of the term “geoengineering” yields a number of results — including a Geoengineering program at University of Oxford. The program page notes that stratospheric aerosols (more commonly known as chemtrails) are one tool of choice in the geoengineering industry.

There are many reports on the facts about geoengineering efforts. While there are many facets to the geoengineering scheme, chemtrails have long been one of the most easily visible tactics — and also the most denied. According to the U.S. government’s own records, aerosol spraying efforts have been underway for decades. Even NASA has reportedly admitted to spraying lithium into the atmosphere. And in 2017, an EPA scientist was fired for sounding the alarm on the dangers of spraying aluminum into the atmosphere.

These efforts may be an attempt at controlling the climate — but as many have warned, geoengineering may come with a hefty price.

It seems that the only thing “fake” about geoengineering are the claims that it isn’thappening.

4. Fluoride is a neurotoxin

The mass fluoridation of the American people is probably one of the greatest shams of all time. First and foremost, there is no evidence to support the claim that fluoride consumption prevents cavities. Fluoride is not an essential nutrient (quite the opposite, really) and it is not necessary for human health in any way, shape or form.

But it’s not just “nonessential,” this compound is actually quite dangerous to human health — especially when it comes to the health of your brain. Nearly 60 studies have reported a link between fluoride consumption and a reduction in IQ.

Water fluoridation has also been linked other health problems, like bone loss, cancer, and negative effects on the immune system, thyroid and pineal gland. Many have likened the fluoridation of public water supplies to mass medication, especially given fluoride’s link to lower IQs in children and other neurological impairments. Even research from Harvard University has shown this potential for harm.

There is no shortage of reasons to end water fluoridation, but mainstream media and their keepers surely don’t want you to know about that.

5. Vaccines contain mercury, aborted fetal cells and other hazardous ingredients

Last but certainly not least is perhaps the most widely contested truth of all: Vaccines are a veritable cocktail of unsavory ingredients. From thimerosal in flu shots to aluminum adjuvants to human diploid cells from fetal tissue, there’s no shortage of things to be disgusted with when it comes to vaccines — or the vaccine industry’s propaganda, for that matter.

Despite media attempts at misinforming the public, the FDA admits that some vaccines still contain thimerosal as a preservative — and some vaccine-makers still use thimerosal as part of their “manufacturing process.”

As the FDA itself notes, thimerosal is 50 percent mercury by weight — and a thimerosal-containing vaccine will deliver a 25-microgram dose of mercury to its recipients that are over the age of three. Children under three get a half-dose, which means they’re still being injected with over 12 micrograms of mercury. This may not sound like a lot, but as Trace Amounts explains — that is more than enough to do harm. A child would have to weigh 550 pounds to safely withstand a 25-microgram dose of mercury. Mercury is a toxic heavy metal with no currently identified safe level of exposure. It does not belong in any vaccine, whether it’s being labeled as “preservative” or a “manufacturing process” agent.

Mike Adams, founder of Natural News and Director of CWC Labs, has repeatedly broken stories about the presence of other detestable vaccine ingredients. In 2017, the Health Ranger revealed that the chicken pox vaccine was made with human embryonic lung cell cultures and human diploid cell cultures, among other crazy things like guinea pig cells — information he pulled from the CDC’s own website.

Adams has also reported on the presence of African Green monkey kidney cells in vaccines intended for people — a find which a CDC report later confirmed as 100 percent correct.

Sadly, the list of scandalous ingredients in vaccines doesn’t end there; there are many parts to a vaccine cocktail, and none of them sound like anything you’d want injected into your body.

Learn more about the truth behind so-called conspiracy theories at Conspiracy.news.

Sources for this article include:

• EcoWatch.com
• WakingTimes.com
• FDA.gov
• WakingTimes.com
• FluorideAlert.org

{ https://www.naturalnews.com/}

09-05-2018 om 20:00 geschreven door peter  

09-05-2018 om 19:49 geschreven door peter  

As someone who has worked in radio and as a writer, the passing this spring of two legends in those fields is a time for respect and reflection. Last month, the paranormal world lost broadcaster Art Bell and today we learned of the passing of prolific paranormal author Brad Steiger.

Brad E Steiger

February 19, 1936 - May 6, 2018

Obituary for Brad E Steiger

Brad Steiger, 82, of Mason City, IA, died Sunday, May 6, 2018, at the Muse Norris Hospice Inpatient Unit. A private family gathering will take place at a later date.

To send flowers or a remembrance gift to the family of Brad E Steiger, please visit our Tribute Store.

“The Strange World of Brad Steiger” (a syndicated newspaper column he wrote in the early 1970s) began in Fort Dodge, Iowa, on February 19, 1936. Born Eugene E. Olson, he was a typical Iowa farm boy until August of 1947 when a severe farm equipment accident gave him a near-death experience that altered the directions of his religion, his career ambitions and his life. While he recovered physically, everything else seemed to have changed. In an interview with the Des Moines Register, Steiger gave an example:

“Among my earliest memories are the man and the woman who would walk into my bedroom at night and stand at my bedside, looking down at me.”

He believed that couple was his great-grandparents who had lived in the house.

Steiger left the farm after college to teach English at a high school and then journalism and creative writing at Luther College, his alma mater. Fortunately for the world, he wrote in his spare time and a published biography of silent movie star Rudolph Valentino and his interest in the paranormal drew him into the field and led to his first book contracts, starting with Ghosts, Ghouls and Other Peculiar People, published in 1965. When he quit teaching to write full-time, a woman gave him his pen name, which she said meant “to one who guides others to higher awareness” (possibly from the Dutch meaning of ‘steiger’ which is ‘scaffolding’). Steiger always believed that he was one to be guided as well.

“We are all spiritual beings. The paranormal is just part of the world we all share but do not fully comprehend.”

One area where he needed no guidance was writing. In his long career he penned over 2,000 articles on paranormal subjects and authored or co-authored over 175 books, both fiction and non-fiction, which have sold 17 million copies. Everyone’s list of Steiger favorites will be different, but they’re sure to include such popular titles as “Mysteries of Time and Space”, “Real Ghosts, Restless Spirits and Haunted Places”, “Conspiracies and Secret Societies: The Complete Dossier”, “Project Bluebook”, “The Rainbow Conspiracy” and many more. Don’t forget “The Source: Journey Through the Unexplained,”which he co-authored with none other than Art Bell, and “Four-legged Miracles: Heartwarming Tales of Lost Dogs’ Journeys Home” which he wrote with his second wife and spiritual companion, Sherry Hansen Steiger.

With his many books and articles and accompanying appearances on paranormal radio shows and podcasts, Steiger attracted countless fans, widespread admiration and, of course, some criticism. That comes with the territory when the territory includes Atlantis, giant humans, ancient aliens and numerous other controversial paranormal topics that Brad wrote and talked about.

Brad Steiger will surely be missed by Sherry, their two sons, three daughters, and ten grandchildren. His passing will leave a hole in our bookshelves and on the schedules of paranormal podcasters worldwide. The best way to honor his life and contributions to the field is to continue to read his books … and remember:

“We are all spiritual beings. The paranormal is just part of the world we all share but do not fully comprehend.”

{ http://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

09-05-2018 om 19:36 geschreven door peter  

It’s no surprise that the United States Air Force is up to some pretty secretive stuff. Area 51, for example, is an Air Force-run facility and detachment of Edwards Air Force Base in nearby southern California. It’s public knowledge that the USAF tests some of its most secretive and cutting-edge technologies in Nevada’s Groom Lake and the Nevada Test Site, but little information about what goes on at these bases is actually made public. Still, there are some tidbits of information available to the public if you look in the right places. The military units which operate at these top-secret bases, for example, don’t always hide the fact that they’re up to some weird stuff out in the desert.

This week, Tyler Rogoway’s military technology blog The War Zone shared pictures of the official challenge coin of the USAF’s 72d Test and Evaluation Squadron Detachment Two, and the coin seems to imply that the unit revels in the fact its testing ground is steeped in UFO, alien, and otherwise spooky lore. The bizarre challenge coin, which can be seen here, is a collage of odd symbols, cryptic imagery, and mysterious slogans all of which point to the fact that this unit is up to some seriously shadowy work in the Nevada desert. What exactly was this unit trying to depict with the coin?

Challenge coins.

Challenge coins are small tokens of appreciation or commemoration issued by units of the military and often traded among service members. The most prominent aspect of this strange coin is a large B-2 bomber spanning the entire width of one of its faces. The 72nd Test and Evaluation Squadron Detachment Two is charged with testing and evaluating the B-2 Spirit aircraft, more commonly referred to as the Stealth Bomber. It’s believed that this single-wing aircraft is responsible for many “flying saucer” sightings due to its flat profile and near-silent operation. Surrounding the bomber is the unit’s cloud and lightning bolt insignia and a series of strange unknown symbols believed to depict antenna arrays at Area 51. The edge of the face contains the US Post Office’s motto of “neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.”

B-2 Spirit, otherwise known as ‘hot death from above.’

The coin’s other face bears the motto ‘Denego, Decipio, Depopulor,’ Latin for “Deny, Deceive, Destroy,” and depicts the Las Vegas skyline with a cryptic map-looking image beneath it. The meaning of this image is unknown, but it appears to depict some sort of tunnel system, road map, or other similar structure. Superimposed on this image is a typical grey alien which appears to be scratching its head in disbelief as a B-2 flies over Las Vegas as a lightning bolt striking the ground before it. It’s a truly disconcerting image, and I encourage you to visit The War Zone to check it out and read Rogoway’s analysis of the coin and the history of the unit behind it.

Is this coin merely a tongue-in-cheek reference to the otherwordly folklore surrounding the USAF’s bases like Area 51, or might this coin be a way of hiding knowledge of higher mysteries in plain sight? What would be the gain in that, other than to laugh at us mortals down here in the dark? Like all things with these top secret units, we’ll likely never know.

{ http://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

09-05-2018 om 19:26 geschreven door peter  

Having extensively written about the “Contactee”/”Space Brothers” issue in my 2006 book, On the Trail of the Saucer Spies, and in my 2009 book, Contactees, I quite often get asked what I think about the likes of George Adamski, Dana Howard, Truman Bethurum, Orfeo Angelucci, and the many others who, in the 1950s, claimed face-to-face contact with long-haired aliens from other worlds. I think some of them had legitimate experiences with...something (but definitely not with space-hippies from Venus). Others may have been the victims of early “mind-control” operations. Some were definitely engaged in hoaxing. Others were just plain nuts. But, there is one Contactee-linked affair that I get asked about at least a couple of times a year – an affair that is highly entertaining, but for reasons you might not think. It’s a story of how two men hoaxed George Adamski and created something that still circulates among his followers. Well, among at least some of them.

It all began back in 1957 and involved a pair of friends who decided to play a prank on Adamski – which they did. But, it had unforeseen circumstances. That aforementioned pair of friends were Jim Moseley and Gray Barker. Moseley, who died in 2012, is mostly noted for his highly amusing newsletter, Saucer Smear and his 2002 book, Shockingly Close to the Truth, co-written with Karl Pflock, which is hilarious. As for the late Gray Barker, he’s noted for having written the first book on the Men in Black (1956’s They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers), as well as the first book on Mothman (The Silver Bridge, which was published in 1970). Both men were notorious pranksters. Barker was someone who played fast and loose with facts – particularly so in his books. And Moseley, at times, would go along with Barker’s escapades. All of which brings us to the matter of what went down one night in 1957, and of what became known as the Straith Letter.

At the time, Barker had a friend who, back in the 1950s, was in his late teens. It turns out that the kid’s father worked for the U.S. Government, specifically in an office of the Department of State. Barker and the unnamed teenager got talking one day and the kid brought up the fact that he had seen a bunch of unused Department of State-headed paperwork in his father’s office. This gave Barker an idea: he asked his friend if he could get his hands on some of that same letter-headed paperwork. So, the next time the kid visited his father’s office, he quietly and quickly grabbed a bunch of DoS documents and stealthily got them to Barker. He even provided Barker with Department of State envelopes. It wasn’t at all long before the Barker-Moseley caper began.

On one drunken night in Clarksburg, West Virginia – where Barker lived – the two cooked up a plot to hoax Adamski, then the most famous Contactee on the planet. And, having got not photocopies of Department of State-headed paper, but originals, made their plan even easier to con Adamski. Barker started to type. The pair decided they would create a completely fictitious employee of the Department of State. They called him “R.E. Straith,” of the “Cultural Affairs Committee.” In the letter, the actually-non-existent Straith tells Adamski that he – Straith – and several of his colleagues are right behind Adamski, but cannot publicly provide support for him and his claims of contact with aliens, because of their jobs in the government. And then, Barker and Moseley mailed the letter to Adamski – in one of those Department of State envelopes. Of course, Adamski loved it. Whether he believed the letter to be the real deal, or if he suspected it was a hoax, is a matter we’ll never likely know. But, for Adamski, it didn’t really matter: this was just what he needed to show to his followers (and his critics too) that he had government support. Which he didn’t. Then, things got a bit worrying for Barker. Not so much for Moseley though, who thought it was all great fun.

It turns out that Adamski began showing the faked letter to various people in Ufology, and waving it around at lectures. Not only that, a copy of the Straith Letter reached the FBI (maybe even from Adamski himself, who enjoyed mixing things up to his advantage). The G-Men were, unsurprisingly, far from impressed. They quite rightly suspected a hoax and told him to quit all of his foolishness. When word of all this got to Barker, he totally freaked out – and to the point that he actually broke the typewriter into small pieces and, one day, buried the bits and pieces in the fresh cement of a building then being constructed in Clarksburg. Of course, the “cement story” may have been yet another of Barker’s jokes, adding even more layers to the legend. But, we know for sure that Barker wasdeeply worried by the fact that the FBI were now onto a matter than began as a late-night prank put together by a couple of booze-soaked buddies. Barker was even grilled by the FBI, but it came to nothing. Barker never revealed the name of the kid who got the Department of State paperwork – at least, not publicly. He certainly shared the name with Moseley, though, who took it with him to the grave (his name, however, was James Villard). The FBI eventually dropped the matter.

The reason why I mention all of this, is because just last week I was asked about the Straith Letter – yet again – and by someone convinced that it was (and still is) the real deal. It’s not! The Straith Letter is the product of two people who liked to screw with the collective minds of Ufology for their own entertainment. And, in this case, they excelled themselves. Far too many people – whose “I want to believe” approach to Ufology has affected their common-sense – see the letter as something notable. But, let’s be clear: it’s a joke. It was alwaysa joke. And it always will be a joke. Case closed? I dunno. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if – in the not too distant future – someone else resurrects the letter and waves it around as evidence that the U.S. Government was secretly supporting George Adamski.

{ http://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

09-05-2018 om 19:20 geschreven door peter  

Vast Reserve of Frozen Water Might Hide Beneath the Moon’s Surface

We often forget how mysterious our moon is. Maybe it’s due to seeing it every night, just hanging out in the sky, predictably waxing and waning. Of all the celestial bodies in our solar system, the moon is probably taken for granted the most. That’s too bad, because the moon is weird, and scientists are making new discoveries about our dear Luna all the time. The latest is that the moon is likely hiding huge amounts of ice under her dusty surface, which could be mined and used as crucial supplies for space exploration and colonization missions.

The discovery was made after analyzing a lunar meteor that fell in the African desert 13 years ago, according to Space.com. Scientists discovered that the meteor fell from the moon containing large amounts of moganite, a mineral close in structure to quartz but which is only formed in the presence of alkaline fluids like water. Specifically, it’s formed in the evaporation of  water. Masahiro Kayama, a scientist at Tohoku University in Japan who led the team that made the discovery, believes that this moganite formed when water in the surface dust of the moon was evaporated by the harsh rays of the sun, and says that there is likely more water below the surface:

In a moganite, there is less water, because moganite forms from the evaporation of water. That’s the case on the surface of the moon. But in the subsurface, much water remains as ice, because it’s protected from the sunlight.

There may be large amounts of water ice beneath the moon’s dusty surface.

Kayama says that the concentration of moganite in the lunar meteor suggests that the subsurface of the moon may be made of as much as 0.6 percent water, meaning that extraction could yield 6 liters of water for every cubic meter processed. While that pales in comparison to the amount of water on Earth, it could be enough that future colonists on the moon wouldn’t need to rely on water from Earth to survive. It could also be used to supply missions to Mars and beyond, and hydrogen could be extracted for rocket fuel. Kayama says:

We wouldn’t need to bring all the water for drinking and the fuel to return to Earth or to travel to Mars, for example, with us from Earth. If water is abundant in the lunar subsurface, we can easily use it.

We may be able to mine the Moon for water as well as hydrogen and helium, facilitating space travel.

While this is the first sign of ice in the lunar soil, we’ve already detected water on the moon. NASA’s Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite found water near the Moon’s south pole, and India’s Chandrayaan-1 found traces of water in the thin atmosphere surrounding the moon. Perhaps water is far more abundant in our solar system and galaxy-at-large than we’ve always assumed.

{ http://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

09-05-2018 om 19:15 geschreven door peter  

Rare footage of disappearing moon filmed from the International Space Station

Russian cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev posted a video of a disappearing moon on Saturday. He filmed the interesting natural phenomenon, called a moonset, from the International Space Station (ISS).

Watching the footage it looks really odd, the moon appears to be distorted and turns completely blue.

  

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

09-05-2018 om 19:03 geschreven door peter  

Newest Crops Circle Found In Wiltshire, UK On May 2018, Video, UFO Sighting News.

Location of discovery: Willoughby Hedge, Nr Mere, Wiltshire, UK
Date of discovery: May 2018 

Here is an drones view of a crop formation found in Wiltshire, UK this week. Inside the circle is a six pointed object. On the edge of the circle are four round patches, possibly planets. Inside the circle are one patch that could be a planet and and an location where there should be a round patch but has nothing there. 

It has been long believed that crop formations are messages sent from aliens who cannot travel here themselves. Also some say these are the landing marks of the UFOs. 

Scott C. Waring

{ http://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/ }

09-05-2018 om 18:58 geschreven door peter  

This Alien World Is the 1st Cloudless Exoplanet Ever Discovered

In a first, an international team of scientists has discovered an exoplanet with no clouds.

The team, led by Nikolay Nikolov, an astronomer at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, detected this hot gas giant, known as WASP-96b, using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile. The team determined the atmospheric makeup of the exoplanet by studying it as it passed in front of its host star and measuring how the planet and its atmosphere affected light from the star.

A planet's atmospheric makeup influences the light that scientists can measure as it passes by its host star. This creates a spectrum, which is like a unique fingerprint. Typically, clouds obscure the light released by a planet and affect the spectrum that researchers can study from Earth, according to a statement released yesterday (May 7) by the University of Exeter. [The Biggest Mysteries of Saturn]

But for WASP-96b, an extremely clear signature for the element sodium was observed. Because clouds typically obscure such signatures, the clarity of this spectrum suggested that the planet's atmosphere has no clouds at all. With its his is the first evidence of an entirely cloudless planet and the first time a planet with such a clear sodium signature has been found, the researchers said.With its uniquely clear signature, WASP-96b is the first-ever cloudless planet discovered. Being the first of its kind, the exoplanet is now considered "a benchmark for characterization," Nikolov said in the statement.

This characterizing spectrum appears in the shape of a camping tent. This uncommon and easy-to-identify shape had never been seen before "because the characteristic 'tent-shaped' profile can only be produced deep in the atmosphere," Nikolov said. He added that for most planets, clouds get in the way, making this shape difficult to discern. 

Aside from having an unusually cloudless, sodium-rich atmosphere, WASP-96b is extremely hot, at 1,300 kelvins (1,900 degrees Fahrenheit, or 1,000 degrees Celsius), and extremely large — 20 percent larger than Jupiter. The planet's mass is similar to Saturn's, so researchers classify the alien world as a "hot Saturn."

In addition, the sodium levels in WASP-96b's atmosphere are similar to those found throughout our solar system. Sodium is the seventh most abundant element in the universe, and for a long time, scientists have thought that large gas giants had sodium-rich atmospheres, according to the statement. But until now, such clear evidence to support this idea has not existed, so the observance of WASP-96b solidifies scientists' understanding of gas giants.

Because of WASP-96b's cloudless skies, studying the exoplanet will provide researchers with a "unique opportunity to determine the abundances of other molecules, such as water, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide, with future observations," Ernst de Mooij,a researcher at Dublin City University and a co-author of a new study describing the findings, said in the statement.

So, by identifying the signatures of other molecules using telescopes like Hubble and the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope, scientists can gain a better understanding of planets both within and outside our solar system, the researchers said.

• The new work was detailed yesterday (May 7) in the journal Nature.
• Email Chelsea Gohd at cgohd@space.com or follow her @chelsea_gohd. 
• Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+.
• Original article on Space.com.

{https://www.space.com/ }

09-05-2018 om 01:33 geschreven door peter  

On 'One Strange Rock,' How Terraforming Makes Our Planet Even Stranger

09-05-2018 om 01:25 geschreven door peter  

Disappearing Moon Filmed By Astronauts Aboard The ISS

What better way to observe the moon than while orbiting our planet?

Astronauts on board the International Space Station have one of the best views not only of Earth but Earth’s faithful companion the moon as well.

Now, a recent video has emerged showing the moon like many of us have never seen it before.

Russian Cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev has managed to film a uniquevideo of Earth’s moon “vanishing” mysteriously behind the Earth during moonset, while in low orbit around Earth.

Oleg Germanovich Artemyev is a Russian Cosmonaut for the Russian Federal Space Agency. He was selected as part of the RKKE-15 Cosmonaut group in 2003.

He was a Flight engineer of Expedition 39and 40 to the International Space Station, and in 2018 he returned to space as the Commander of Soyuz MS-08.

Artemyev was a crew member in the 15-day and 105-day precursor studies of the MARS-500 program between 2007 and 2009.

The short video filmed by the Russian cosmonaut was published on a number of social networks around the globe and provides a fresh, unique, and extraordinary perspective of Earth’s satellite.

“The Moon is setting. It’s like the heartbeat,” Artemyev says while filming the rapidly moving satellite. “Now a little more and it will reach the atmosphere.”

This doesn’t mean there’s a mystery to it. In the video filmed by Artemyev, we can observe the moon gently touching our planet’s atmosphere as it ‘vanishes’ without actually reaching its edge.

This strange disappearing moon phenomenon can only be witnessed while in low orbit around Earth.

According to Artemyev, the video speed of the moon was not altered and actually represents the real-time speed of the moon, as seen from the International Space Station.

The moon seems to travel very fast because the International Space Station itself travels at a staggering 7.66 kilometers per second.

The Russian cosmonaut has filmed a number of stunning videos and images from the International Space Station.

This video below, for example, is the @SpaceX #Dragon CRS-14 cargo ship after undocking from the International Space Station.

The below image was filmed by Atemyev as the International Space Station was just above Dubai.

Video Courtesy: Oleg Artemyev: https://www.instagram.com/olegmks/

Featured Image Credit: Oleg Artemyev / Instagram

{ https://www.ancient-code.com/ }

09-05-2018 om 01:15 geschreven door peter  

{ https://curiosity.com/ }

09-05-2018 om 01:07 geschreven door peter  

09-05-2018 om 00:53 geschreven door peter  

Breakthrough Listen Project Begins Massive Survey To Search For Aliens In Our Galaxy

We could soon find out whether or not there is intelligent alienlife in our galaxy.

In recent decades, the idea that life exists elsewhere in our galaxy has aroused the interests of astronomers around the globe.

The Milky Way has a diameter between 100,000 and 180,000 light-years and experts estimate that it contains up to 400 Million stars. According to calculation, astronomers further estimate that our galaxy alone contains some 100 billion planets.

(Check out this 9-gigapixel map of the Milky Way Galaxy. The jaw-dropping image contains around 84 million stars and its unlike anything I’ve ever seen. The original image has 24.6 gigabytes).

This is just one SMALL part of the massive 9-gigapixel image. Image credit ESO.

Image Illustration: Prometheus movie.

If we take a look at a larger picture, we’ll find that there are around 500 billion galaxies in the known universe, which means there are around 50,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (5×10²²) habitable planets.

Now, the Breakthrough Listen Project has launched a massive survey to search for signs of intelligent alien life in the universe.

Astronomers plan to use the Parkes Radio Telescope in New South Wales in order to comb through millions of stars in our galaxy, looking for signs, more precisely signals, of intelligent alien civilizations.

According to reports, a recent upgrade on the telescope will allow astronomers to record unprecedented data over huge areas of the sky.

The Parkes Radio Telescope in New South Wales was recently equipped with 13 brand new beams, which means the Parkes telescope has the ability to cover ALL of the galactic plane visible from New South Wales in Australia.

It is one of the most massive searches for intelligent life ever done. Thanks to the upgrade of the Parkes Telescope, the Breakthrough Listen project will be able to handle 130 gigabits of data per second. Furthermore, each of the 13 beams will scan more than 100 million radio channels.

As noted by astrobiology.com, the new survey commits the Parkes telescope to 1500 hours of observations in 2018, resulting in raw data volumes totaling almost 100 petabytes.

Feeling small yet?

Danny Price, Parkes Project Scientist with the Breakthrough Listen project at UC Berkeley, explained that “With these new capabilities, we are scanning our galaxy in unprecedented detail.”

“By trawling through these huge datasets for signatures of technological civilizations, we hope to uncover evidence that our planet, among the hundreds of billions in our galaxy, is not the only where intelligent life has arisen,” added Price.

However, the Breakthrough listen project will also have the ability to peak into the Milky Way’s Galactic center, one of the densest areas in our galaxy, and home to a number of massive black holes.

The raw details of the search:

– Total observing time: 1500 hours
– Galactic Plane survey: galactic longitude -174 degrees to +60 degrees, and galactic latitudes of 6.5 degrees above and below the plane (total area 3000 square degrees, or the equivalent of 15,000 full moons)
– Galactic Bulge: +/- 12 degrees in Galactic latitude and longitude
– Other targets including nearby dwarf galaxies, the Magellanic Clouds
– Frequencies covered: 1.23 – 1.53 GHz
– Sensitivity (5-minute integration, 3 Hz bandwidth): 420 mJy (8 sigmas)
– Sensitivity to a transmitter at the distance of the Galactic Center: 4 x 1014 W equivalent isotropic radiated power (8 sigmas) – 20 times the power of the Arecibo radar

So, what do you think? Will the new project finally find traces of advanced alien civilizations in the Milky Way?

{ https://www.ancient-code.com/ }

09-05-2018 om 00:36 geschreven door peter  

Has NASA Just Accidentally Exposed Life On Mars? UFO Hunters Claims Spark Online Debate

Has NASA just accidentally revealed there is in fact alien life on Mars? Claims made by UFO hunters have sent the internet into a heated debate about an image snapped by NASA’s Curiosity rover.

The Bizarre footage, which has recently emerged on various Social Networks claims that NASA is HIDING traces of life on Mars.

A Video uploaded to YouTube by ArtAlienTV shows the alleged evidence which was photographed on January 20, 2018, on the surface of the red planet.

This image was taken by Front Hazcam: Left B (FHAZ_LEFT_B) onboard NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity on Sol 1940 (2018-01-20 14:57:11 UTC). 

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The image reveals an eerie Martian landscape and something ‘flying’ in the sky.

The miniature object, according to UFO hunters, represents some sort of alien bird.

“What looks like a UFO on Mars in Gale Crater. It is probably quite small and close to the rover but it is hard to tell. It may be some windblown debris of some sort but seems to have symmetry and an almost insect-like appearance. Rocks don’t fly. An open mind is required when viewing images from other planets. One day our very survival may depend on it,” wrote the uploader in the video’s description.

The narrator of the video explains that the object seen by NASA’s Curiosity rover cannot be something on the lens, as following images taken by Curiosity do not show the object anymore.

Some even claim that the image wasn’t actually taken on Mars, but that the image was snapped on Earth, suggesting that NASA never made it to Mars.

The video, images and theories surrounding the bizarre claims have created a heated online debate, resulting in different comments and opinions.

One user wrote Wow that is awesome – absolutely crazy, and another one added: “Woah, what the Hell.”

Other users suggested that the enigmatic object may have been a meteor that was caught burning up in the thin Martian atmosphere: “It could have been a little meteorite that hit the upper layer of the atmosphere. That would mean that they briefly light up brightly and leave a splash/static charge in the atmosphere, as this one but only for a very short period,” commented Star Zone.

In the past, numerous wild claims have been made about Mars. Many videos have surfaced on YouTube (and still continue to do so) showing what uploaders hail as the ultimate evidence of alien life on Mars.

However, many of these videos can easily be explained as Pareidolia— a psychological phenomenon in which the mind responds to a stimulus, usually an image or a sound, by perceiving a familiar pattern where none exists. Common examples are perceived images of animals, faces, or objects in cloud formations, the Man in the Moon, the Moon rabbit, etc.

On the other hand, a very few images are spot on and really do make you wonder if there is a slight possibility that in the distant past, perhaps millions of years ago, there was intelligent alien life on Mars, as some scientists have suggested in the past.

{ https://www.ancient-code.com/ }

09-05-2018 om 00:26 geschreven door peter  

Scientists Want To Bring Dinosaurs And Neanderthals Back To Life

Remember that not long ago, scientists said they wanted to clone Mammoths? Well apparently, Mammoths aren’t really that interesting, and as experts say, we could bring back dinosaurs and Neanderthals back to life.

Speaking to Big Think, Dr. Michio Kaku, professor of theoretical physics at the City College of New York, asks what if we could bring back Neanderthals back to life, or a dinosaur, using only their genomes?

Do we have that sort of technology? Technically we could, but the idea of doing so raises a number of problems, the biggest one being Bioethics: is it ethical to clone a Neanderthal? Is it inhumane? And should we even attempt it?

According to Dr. George Church, a geneticist, and director of Harvard University’s Church Labs thinks that not only can we clone a Neanderthal, we can do so in our lifetime.

According to Dr. Church, the only thing we’d need to start cloning ancient humans is “one extremely adventurous human female.”

However, Dr. Church isn’t saying we should attempt cloning a Neanderthal right away, but he does encourage the scientific community should discuss the matter.

Dr. Church believes that with current stem cell technology and our completed sequence of the Neanderthal genome, we are equipped with all the necessary prerequisites to successfully clone a Neanderthal.

The idea of cloning a Neanderthal dates back to 2013, when Dr. Church said it could be possible. Back then, Arthur Caplan, a bioethicist at the NYU Center for Bioethics said that cloning a Neanderthal “lurches too close to exploitation. It rubs up too closely as starting to turn into bringing somebody into existence just as an object of other people’s interest.”

And if we actually manage to clone a Neanderthal—not saying we should—what about trying to clone a living creature that existed on Earth some 65 million years ago? What about trying to clone a dinosaur?

I know what you are thinking: Jurassic Park in real life.

Dr. Kaku believes that successfully cloning a Dinosaur is going to be a really difficult project, not nearly as complicated as cloning a Neanderthal or a Mammoth. However, he notes, that doesn’t mean it is impossible.

According to Dr. Kaku, we need to create a genetic sequence in order to clone dinosaurs. This could be achieved using a supercomputer. According to Dr. Kaku, proteins discovered in the soft tissues of dinosaur femurs resemble those of chickens, frogs, and reptiles, and confirm they are somehow related.

If we manage to produce a genetic sequence, we could then create the necessary prerequisites to clone Dinosaurs though epigenetics.

We’ve got the necessary tools, but should we do it?

When you think about cloning dinosaurs and mammoths there aren’t really that many ethical questions in the way.

However, when it comes down to cloning living human beings, Neanderthals, a lot of issues pop up, the biggest one being how ethical it would be.

Dr. Kaku asks a number of really important questions regarding the cloning of a Neanderthal.

What would society do after bringing a Neanderthal child to life: Should he or she be placed in captivity like some kind of zoo animal? Would they face a lifetime of study? What if the Neanderthal is naturally aggressive — should it be drugged or confined at all times?

Many scientists would agree that attempting to clone a Neanderthal is too inhumane, and we should not even attempt it.

Source: YouTube, LiveScience, howstuffworks, Futurism

Featured image credit:

• Nikola Solic/Reuters
• Shutterstock

{ https://www.ancient-code.com/ }

09-05-2018 om 00:18 geschreven door peter  

An alien child asking father if there is life on Earth?

DO ALIENS EXIST?

Yes, they do.

No! I mean they don’t.

Aww! What am I saying? Do aliens exist or do they not? Well, that’s the question I’m going to answer from my knowledge in the next few minutes.

First of all, let’s see what we know about aliens. According to the Pocket Oxford Dictionary, an alien typically means a “being from another world”. And then you know the rest. Green body, large black eyes (sometimes white), evil little green men, and so on. But in fact, do aliens really exist? And if they do, how exactly do they look like? My answer: Yes, they do exist. And as for what they look like, I’ll leave that to your own imagination.

So going forward with our topic, science believes that aliens do not in fact exist. But for some conspiracy theorists, they claim that not only do aliens exist, but they have also been visiting Earth since the ancient past. The conspiracy theorists believe that when aliens do arrive Earth, they are usually held captive by the united states and held in “Area 51”. If you’ve watched the movie “Race to Witch Mountain”, starred by Johnson Dwayne, that movie is a very typical example of many people’s belief about the existence of aliens. Another movie that centers around aliens is the movie series “Roswell”. It also talks about aliens visiting Earth and the government trying to cover it up by trying to hold the alien guys captive. “Men in Black” is also another good example of alien movie. The aliens visit Earth, but this organization of Men in Black has their duty in ensuring the general public do not know about their existence, let alone their visits. They are sort of the alien police force. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of other movies and books too that centers about the existence of aliens and sometimes their visiting our planet Earth. Yet science tells us that it simply is not possible for aliens to exist. One, they say, Earth is the only planet that has enough of both the two important elements which life needs before it can thrive, which are water and oxygen. And two, we’ve been searching since eternity and yet haven’t found any traces of them anywhere.

ANSWER THE QUESTION!

But I’m not here to talk about movies or books. I’m rather going to answer the question of whether aliens exist or not. Like I have said above: yes, they do exist and the following are my reasons for saying that.

1. Science tells us that only water and oxygen can support life, both of which can be found abundantly on Earth only. I agree with the second part of them being found on Earth only (if we’re talking about our own solar system alone, that is). However, let me point out a possible flaw in this theory of science. The Universe contains a very large number of Galaxies. So large that even physicists and cosmologists do not have an exact idea of how many they are and therefore put the approximate value at around 100 billion galaxies (according to Hubble), a number which they say is still likely to increase to about 200 billion as “telescope technology in space improves”. Looking at this fact, let us consider how many of these galaxies have been studied thoroughly. A very infinitesimal number I’d say.

   

   Still, in our own Milky Way galaxy alone, there are about 200 billion stars present, our sun inclusive, and judging by this, if we say that only about 10% of these stars have their own solar systems (that is, planets revolving around them), that should put us to about 20 billion solar systems. And now let’s just imagine that each of these solar systems contain only a single planet (not minding the fact that our own solar system contains 9, or eight? planets), that should give us an estimated value of 20 billion planets in our own Milky Way galaxy alone. Just imagine that! 20 billion planets. That is 200,000,000,000! If we have “only” 200 billion planets in our own galaxy, then how slim is the chance that at least another one of all these planets, apart from Earth, have the right combination of all the necessary requirements to sustain life? But that’s not all. If we go back to our calculations above about the number of galaxies we have, which we say is 100 billion, then imagine again that each of these galaxies also has approximately 20 billion solar systems too, multiply that by the possible number of solar systems in the possible number of stars we have, we should be having around 2,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 planets. That’s two sextillion planets! And it’s just a very rough estimate.

   Now again. What is the probability that not another one of these planets apart from Earth contains life? How come none of them will have the water and oxygen in abundance enough for life to thrive there? I’d say the probability of that is about really, really slim.

   

2. Second reason: On Earth, and according to science, before life can exist, two things have to be present and abundant, and they have been mentioned above: water and oxygen. But what if that is the situation for ONLY Earth? What if in another planet in another solar system, they DO NOT need water, or oxygen, before life can exist? Here on Earth, it has been discovered that some animals actually do exist in conditions of no oxygen. Read about it here. If this was discovered in our own home, then what about out there? There is the very real possibility that it is only on our own planet that life needs oxygen and water. It is possible that life on other planets need maybe methane to survive. What if it was actually hydrogen that some species on some other planets need to survive? Considering the fact that here on Earth, we are carbon based life forms and we need oxygen to survive, then maybe, just maybe, on some other planets, they are phosphorus based, or chlorine based, or fluorine based (just check your periodic table). If we look at this from this viewpoint, then we are bound to accept the fact that there may very possibly be life on other planets too. Intelligent life too, at that!
3. The third reason is rather simple. What if the only reason we have not discovered life on other worlds is simply because we’re not looking in the right places? It may be that we have been seeing alien life all around us, but have only been too blind to see it.

   If you know this concept called “expectancy theory”, then you know that sometimes when we are looking for something, which we already believed will not be there in the first place, we may end up not seeing that thing. The reason is simply because once we have believed and convinced our brain that it’s not there before looking for it, our brain then constructs the image of that thing not being there even when we are looking at it. This may actually be the reason why we’ve not seen alien life in the universe so far. Generally speaking, when science goes looking for signs of alien life in space, we usually expect to find something quite near to our own physiology. We expect the aliens we see to be at least humanoid in form. With this in mind, is it so surprising that when scientists do see something that does not at all fill our own expectancy of life in other planets, they simply agree that it is some chance of nature that has formed it and not living beings at all.

   In this regard, the movies and books may have actually been getting it right when they show us aliens that are simply too grotesque for human beings. If we agree with number 2 above, then we will also agree that different genetic and chemical makeup will bring about different physiological makeup as well. If you have watched Tom and Jerry’s trip to Mars, you will see that the aliens in that movie all look like mice, but that does not in any way reduce their intelligence.

4. Lastly, we may not have discovered alien life so far because scientists have been landing in the wrong place during interplanetary expeditions! Imagine, if an alien spaceship coming to Earth lands in the middle of the Sahara Desert, or the Arctic region (also a desert too, in case you don’t know), and then explored many kilometers north, south, east and west, what do you think will be their conclusion. You probably guessed it, that there is no life on Earth. The same may be true for scientists leaving our Earth too for other planets. They may have been landing in the wrong places, where there are no life or signs of life, and just as well concluded that there is no life, what with all the evidences as discussed in number two above.

So, having considered all the above stated reasons, I arrived at the conclusion that there is indeed life on other planets apart from our Earth. The only thing that I’m worried about is that I still be around when it is finally discovered.

And perhaps, aliens have been visiting Earth already, and as discussed in number 3, we simply have been too blind to see them, or like some conspiracy theorists will argue, they are simply being held hidden in Area 51, considering the many UFO sightings been yearly reported.

But what do YOU believe about extraterrestrial life? Please leave your comments below!

{ https://planetdynamo.wordpress.com/ }

09-05-2018 om 00:07 geschreven door peter  

Deep learning is a form of artificial intelligence. In 2 unrelated studies, astronomers report “surprising” success using it to perform research that’s hard or impossible otherwise.

Deep learning is a subset of machine learning in artificial intelligence (AI) that has networks which are capable of learning unsupervised from data that is unstructured or unlabeled.

Image and caption via Quora.

We published a story in April about an art historian using an innovative analysis technique to unlock architectural secrets. He was using a machine learning method called deep learning – which is used in, for example, facial recognition and speech recognition software – to do science. Similarly, more and more astronomers are reporting the use of machine deep learning techniques to perform research that humans can’t do using more traditional methods.

Below we describe two recent examples of using deep learning for astronomy. The first is related to planets orbiting two stars, and the second to classifying galaxies.

Artist’s impression of Kepler-16b, discovered by NASA’s Kepler mission and the first confirmed circumbinary planet. It is a gas giant that orbits close to the edge of its binary system’s habitable zone.

Image via T. Pyle/NASA/JPL-Caltech/RAS.

First, planets orbiting two stars. 

Can computers predict whether planets orbiting binary stars remain in stable orbits? That’s an important question because many (perhaps most) stars in our Milky Way galaxy appear to be in multiple star systems, and because planets in stable orbits might be expected to be the most habitable planets.

And, it turns out, the answer is yes. Researchers reported on April 23, 2018, that computers which undergo deep learning can predict the stability of planets in binary star systems more successfully than human astronomers. A studyon this subject looked at what many astronomers call Tatooines, planets orbiting two stars, named for the fictional Tatooine first introduced in 1977 as Luke Skywalker’s home in the original Star Wars movie. Researchers Chris Lam and David Kipping were both, at the time, at the Cool Worlds lab at Columbia University in New York (Lam has since obtained his Ph.D. and moved on). Their study is published in the peer-reviewed journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. The authors explained in a statement:

Tens of these planets have so far been discovered, but working out whether they may be habitable or not can be difficult.

Moving around two stars instead of just one can lead to large changes in a planet’s orbit, which mean that it is often either ejected from the system entirely, or it crashes violently into one of its twin stars. Traditional approaches to calculating which of these occurs for a given planet get significantly more complicated as soon as the extra star is thrown into the mix.

These researchers simulated millions of possible planets with different orbits using traditional methods and found that planets were being predicted as stable that were clearly not, and vice versa. Their new study showed how machine learning could make accurate predictions possible, even if the standard approach – based on Newton’s laws of gravity and motion – breaks down. They said:

After creating ten million hypothetical Tatooines with different orbits, and simulating each one to test for stability, this huge training set was fed into the deep learning network. Within just a few hours, the network was able to out-perform the accuracy of the standard approach.

Read more about this study via the RAS

In the video below from Cool Worlds Lab, David Kipping explains why three-body systems are so tricky and how deep learning analysis methods can save the day. It’s called Droids [Machines] Ponder Tatooine:

Second, classifying galaxies.

 Also on April 23, 2018, astronomers at UC Santa Cruz reported using machine deep learning techniques to analyze images of galaxies, with the goal of understanding how galaxies form and evolve. This new study has been accepted for publication in the peer-reviewed Astrophysical Journal and is available online. In the study, researchers used computer simulations of galaxy formation to train a deep learning algorithm, which then:

… proved surprisingly good at analyzing images of galaxies from the Hubble Space Telescope.

The researchers said they used output from their simulations to generate mock images of simulated galaxies as they would look in ordinary Hubble observations. The mock images were used to train the deep learning system to recognize three key phases of galaxy evolution. The researchers then gave their artificial neutral network a large set of actual Hubble images to classify.

The results showed a remarkable level of consistency, the astronomers said, in the classifications of simulated and real galaxies. Joel Primack of UC Santa Cruz said:

We were not expecting it to be all that successful. I’m amazed at how powerful this is. We know the simulations have limitations, so we don’t want to make too strong a claim. But we don’t think this is just a lucky fluke.

• Read more about this study from UC Santa Cruz.

{ http://earthsky.org/ }

08-05-2018 om 23:53 geschreven door peter  

Un OVNI triangulaire apparaît au cours d'un orage

Source

www.outerplaces.com 

08-05-2018 om 23:41 geschreven door peter