“We remember that we were always the first in the cosmos, and we are still the first in many ways, so we would like the first man born in space to be a Russian citizen, and the fact that a person is born healthy, and in this respect we are really competitive, because in many studies we lead.”

Russia wants to be the first nation to have a citizen born in space, and you would think its cosmonauts would be lining up for the opportunity to be the father. You would be wrong, and it’s surprisingly not because there’s a lack of female cosmonauts lining up to be the first to give birth in space. It’s because the guys are refusing to part with their essential contribution … their sperm! What gives … or in this case, doesn’t give?

“We cannot conduct through the Coordination Scientific and Technical Council, which approves of conducting experiments on the Russian segment of the ISS, such a routine procedure as cosmonauts spermograms.”

Irina Ogneva, head of the cell biophysics laboratory at the Institute of Biomedical Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences, explained the problem blocking the first space conception to RIA Novosti in rocket scientist terms. What the expression “spermogram” means is a sperm donation of the Russian-porn-magazine-in-one-hand kind. Ogneva complained that her numerous requests for donations …

“… causes everyone to smile and reject.”

That rejection of an ejection puts the kibosh on Ogneva’s experiment in spermatogenesis, which involves studying the differences in cosmonaut sperm before, during and after spaceflight. Apparently, the guys have no problem with the before and after donations … it’s the ‘during’ one that they’re reluctant to perform. Are they afraid the American astronauts on the ISS will catch them in the act and post pictures on Facebook?

What part of “Nyet!” don’t you understand?

“We constantly encounter obstacles of a moral and psychological and ethical nature. There are no cosmonauts who want to.”

Morals and ethics never got in the way of a good time in space back in “The Right Stuff” days when the early astronauts and cosmonauts were daring ex-fighter pilots sneaking sandwiches, golf clubs and more into their capsules. One can easily imagine a pinup photo taped to the wall and some “the Eagle has landed … that’s what SHE said!” gags. Nowadays, having scientists, engineers and philosophers in space is a good thing – except when a fellow scientist needs just one little spurt into a test tube. Ogneva points out to Sputnik News that sex in space not only is inevitable (if it hasn’t happened already despite the challenges of microgravity, shrinkage and lack of privacy … to name just a few that have never stopped humans before) but necessary for long space flights and colonization. She just wants to make sure the baby is born healthy despite a gestation period full of weightlessness, magnetic field changes, radiation and other stresses and dangers. If those can affect an astronaut – as the Scott and Mark Kelly twin experiments showed – then they would certainly affect an embryo that is much more sensitive to them.

How does Irina Ogneva change cosmonaut attitudes from “smile and reject” to “smile and eject”? Maybe she should offer the experiment to a paying space tourist.

I’ll do it!

Scientists have recently discovered two Earth-like exoplanets relatively close to us in comparison to other planets that have been found in the last several years. Teegarden’s star is the 24^th closest star to our sun and it’s only 12.5 light years away from us in the constellation of Aries. What’s even more exciting is that these two planets – named Teegarden b and Teegarden c – are ranked in the top 19 known exoplanets that could potentially contain habitable environments. And Teegarden b ranked the highest on the Earth Similarity Index.

Mathias Zechmeister, who is the lead author of the study (which can be read here) and is also an astrophysicist at the University of Göttingen, stated, “The two planets resemble the inner planets of our Solar System.” As a matter of fact, one of the two planets could be the most similar to Earth that they’ve ever found. The planets are just a bit heavier than Earth and they’re positioned conveniently in the habitable zone, meaning that liquid water could very well be present there.

Scientists only discovered Teegarden’s star in 2003 and it’s one of the smallest stars that they’ve ever found – approximately ten times lighter than our sun and around 8 billion years old. With a star that small, they’ve had a hard time studying it in order to find any planets orbiting it. Astronomers had to use the CARMENES next-generation telescope located at the Calar Alto Observatory in Spain to find out if the star had any changes to its radial velocity.

They studied the star for three years and during that time was when they discovered Teegarden b and Teegarden c. “These studies demonstrate that the signals of the two planets cannot be due to the activity of the star, even though we could not detect the transits of the two new planets,” explained astronomer Victor Sánchez Béjar who is from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (AIS).

Of the two planets, Teegarden b is the closest to the sun and has a 60 percent chance of having a temperature of between 0 degrees and 50 degrees Celsius, with the most likely surface temperature being around 28 degrees Celsius. Since Teegarden c is further away, it would have a surface temperature of around -47 degrees Celsius – similar to Mars.

The research team believes that Teegarden b does a full orbit in 4.9 Earth days, while Teegarden c completes its orbit in 11.4 days. However, it’s still possible that they could complete their orbits in even lesser time, which would reduce the possibility of them being able to sustain any life. They’re also unsure as to the length of time it takes for Teegarden to rotate on its axis.

While much more research needs to be done, it’s still exciting to think that two newly discovered exoplanets that are located not too far from us could possibly sustain life.

“Blame it on the Chupacabra” sounds like it could be the title of a country western song (note to self: dust off guitar and call agent) but it’s more likely to be the lament of farmers – particularly in Puerto Rico, Texas and Central and South America – who have lost goats, sheep and chickens under mysterious circumstances. However, cattle mutilations, at least in the U.S., are often attributed to aliens, especially if they occur in the 37th parallel latitude which is home to many UFO sightings. But not in Argentina, where a particularly brutal cow mutilation last week is being blamed on a Chupacabra. Unfortunately, this is eerily similar to another series of cattle mutilations in September 2018 in Argentina that were also blamed on Chupacabras. Are they connected? Is this story worthy of a song … or an investigation?

“The Chupacabras is back, in action , and with such inexplicable consequences that they never cease to surprise others and others. The precision of the cuts, the state of the animal that does not seem to decompose, the absence of scavengers, are some of the many curiosities that are in suspense to the town of La Paz, in Catamarca where the event occurred.”

Infocampo, an agricultural media source in Argentina, appears to be the first to report the incident on the farm owned by Ariel Sorribes in the northwestern province of Catamarca on the Chilean border. (Apologies to them for the poor Google translations.) After noticing the herd count down by one, a worker found the mutilated cow under a tree. Sorribes stated that the cow had been healthy and vaccinated. The site cautioned that the photos were horrific (see them here) and the report listed the missing organs (udder, vulva, anus, eyes, tongue, and maxillary muscle) and complimented the killer on the precise cuts made to remove them – cuts that in the U.S. would be blamed on aliens or a surgeon who dabbles as a weird rustler or a provider of organs to cults. But wait … there’s more:

“No one can make such a perfect cut with a scalpel, in addition all the wounds seem sealed. There are even rarer things, for example, no scavenger comes close to the body of the animal. Nothing eh, nothing at all. Not a carancho, not a vulture, nothing. Above, it seems that the meat does not decompose and is all intact.”

OK, now it’s getting strange … and beyond the powers of a normal Chupacabra. No decomposition, wounds sealed and no vultures. If only there were more pictures …

“In addition to all that, when the pawn wanted to take more pictures, his cell phone was turned off. He thought it was the battery that had run out, but no. Then came a teacher from a nearby school, because she wanted to film the cow, and neither did her cell phone … It is as if it were a magnetic field, or something that prevents taking pictures.”

Whoa! This is obviously the work of aliens, right? Farmer Ariel Sorribes asked for an answer and this is what he got from SENASA, the National Service of Agri-Food Health and Quality:

“For similar cases, SENASA has said that it is the work of the snout mouse.”

The what? Believe it or not, the Hocicudo is a long-snouted mouse that was blamed for the mutilations last year. Hocicudo are scavengers that like to dine on the soft parts of dead animals and there are plenty of dead animals in cattle country.

What about the dead phones? The precise cuts that seemed to heal themselves? The lack of vultures? The web site La Gran Epoca (The Epoch Times) says the ranchers are nervous because the unexplained mutilations have been going on for years. One explained the financial consequences:

“It’s not just in my field, it’s in the whole region. Behind the Cerrito killed five, in Malabrigo a while ago killed seven, a neighbor killed two, so they add up and when you get the count are 20 or 30 animals per month … and are 15,000 pesos (about 335 dollars) each heifer.”

Would you blame the Chupacabra? Aliens? If not those, then who … or what? What latitude is Catamarca? (28th south.) Does anyone dare follow it to search for more dead cattle?

In the meantime … what rhymes with Chupacabra besides macabre and candelabra?

I killed that Chupacabra
With my candelabra
It was real macabre

The famous Nazca Lines in the Nazca desert of southern Peru have a number of mysteries … not the least of which is the mystery of who made them. And why. And what exactly are the drawings supposed to represent? That last mystery may have been partially answered in a new study by a group of ornithologists who focused on the sixteen giant geoglyphs that look like birds. They believe they’ve identified the species and where they come from and, most importantly, why they became the subjects of these mysterious glyphs.

Concentrating on just the Nazca birds makes sense because they account for the largest number of the geoglyphs that depict plants and animals. Researchers from the Hokkaido University Museum, the Yamashina Institute for Ornithology and Yamagata University agree, especially since no one has really identified them beyond general descriptions. In a press release announcing the publication of their study in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, Masaki Eda of The Hokkaido University Museum described their process of analysis:

“Until now, the birds in these drawings have been identified based on general impressions or a few morphological traits present in each figure. We closely noted the shapes and relative sizes of the birds’ beaks, heads, necks, bodies, wings, tails and feet and compared them with those of modern birds in Peru.”

As a result, the team determined that a shape previously thought to be a hummingbird is actually a depiction of a hermit – a dull-colored hummingbird cousin in the same family (Trochilidae). Two other birds – one a mystery and the other thought to be a guano bird (seabirds that create massive amounts of … you can figure it out) – are actually pelicans. Another strange bird that has defied identification was determined to be a baby parrot. The team could neither confirm nor deny other bird drawing thought to depict condors and flamingos so they stuck with those identities. Eda points out that the fact that these drawings come close to what the real birds look like is amazing considering their size and the lack of technology the artists had.

“The Nasca people who drew the images could have seen pelicans while food-gathering on the coast. Our findings show that they drew exotic birds, not local birds, and this could be a clue as to why they drew them in the first place.”

Identifying the birds led to the real “Aha!” discovery – these were not local desert birds. Pelicans are coastal birds, guano birds live on islands, and hermits and parrots live in the rain forest. The Nazca people may have seen them on food-gathering excursions. This implies that they were special to the Nazca culture in some way. But how?

“The amount of rainfall in the highlands was estimated by observing the migrations of seabirds. When seabirds migrate to mountainous regions of the Nazca pampas during November and December, it is expected that rain will fall in the highlands. On the other hand, if migrating seabirds are not observed, water shortages are feared.”

Some things never change. These ancient Peruvians were constantly concerned about the weather and especially rain and believed the birds brought water from the ocean and the rainforests. The drawings may have been drawn to honor or worship the birds, thank them for their gifts and perhaps even be a big welcoming sign letting them know where to stop the next time.

Eda and the ornithologists plan to analyze bird drawings on pottery and bird remains from Nazca ruins to further identify the bird drawings.

What about the other strange creatures in the Nazca lines like the monkey, the whale, the spider and the dog? What species are they and why were they drawn? More studies of this type are obviously needed. Can they be protected from destruction until that happens?

One thing you can say about the Nazca lines – they’re great job creators.