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 NEARLY 13 YEARS AND 4 MONTH.
ON /30/09/2024 MORE THAN 2.230.520
VISITORS FROM 135 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...
30-07-2021
LATEST UFO SIGHTINGS AND VIDEOS - 30 - 07 - 2021
LATEST UFO SIGHTINGS AND VIDEOS - 30 - 07 - 2021
UFO Sighted Over Herriman, Utah ( July 29, 2021 )
UFO sighted over Herriman, southwestern Salt Lake County, Utah, on July 29, 2021
STATEMENT : Herriman, UT
credit : U.S.F
Strange Events On Earth ( July 2021 )
The planet is waking up with Record Breaking Natural Disasters : July has seen some crazy events. : The planet waking up, but most of the population is still fast asleep
UFO Sighted Over Sobral, Ceará, Brazil. ( July 29, 2021 )
UFO sighted over Sobral municipality in the state of Ceará, Brazil on July 29, 2021
STATEMENT : Região de Sobral, Ceará-Brasil : Sobral Region Ceará-Brazil
credit : U.S.F
UFO Sighted Over Tbilisi, Georgia ( July 28, 2021 )
Amazing UFO sighted over Tbilisi, Georgia on July 28, 2021
STATEMENT : Has been shot yesterday in Tbilis Country of Georgia. Just an UFO watching for parking place
Here I present the original and approach.
More evident everyday
credit : Lev Kc
UFOs Sighted Over Louisville, Kentucky ( July 24, 2021 )
Amazing UFOs captured in Louisville, Kentucky on the night of 24/07/2021 : Here I present the original and in the wake with approach.
Witness captured an unknown object that moved smoothly and steadily. There were no visible wings or other directional or control surfaces; no vapor trails or sound.
Bright shining object flying over Santa Clara, California.
Witness while traveling near Santa Clara captured an unknown object flying very swiftly until it could not be seen anymore.
This bright unidentified flying object was seen flying over Crediton, UK on 28th July 2021.
Witness report:
It was late evening and we were outside the front of the house with the dogs. The sun was low but it was still daylight with good visibility. The sky was mostly clear blue with very high thin cloud in places and broken cumulus to the west. I looked up to the south where a bright object in the sky caught my attention. It wasn’t bright like a star, but appeared to glow. It moved smoothly and steadily, passing over our heads, from the south to the north. It was difficult to make out its size or altitude; but it appeared to be below the high level thin haze. To me, it appeared to be a similar height to that maintained by the light aircraft that fly from the local airport. So, not very high. There were no visible wings or other directional or control surfaces; no vapour trails or sound. My girlfriend, who had the presence of mind to start filming it, thought she saw a flashing light above it at one point, but I did not observe any flashing, flickering or strobing. The object continued to head north until it our view was obscured by our house roof. We then moved indoors and upstairs to where we could observe it again from our landing window. We watched it continue north at the same steady pace, with the same brightness, until we lost sight of it. We cannot be sure if it just winked out, or moved off at great speed; but it was there one minute and gone the next.
These unknown lights were maneuvering in the sky above Louisville, Kentucky on 24th July 2021. Don’t forget to check out new private Telegram group about UFOs: https://t.me/joinchat/rrN8h_ZVrsljMDNk
The Event Horizon Telescope Zooms in on Another Supermassive Black Hole
The Event Horizon Telescope Zooms in on Another Supermassive Black Hole
On April 10th, 2019, the world was treated to the first image of a black hole, courtesy of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT). Specifically, the image was of the Supermassive Black Hole (SMBH) at the center of the supergiant elliptical galaxy known as M87 (aka. Virgo A). These powerful forces of nature are found at the centers of most massive galaxies, which include the Milky Way (where the SMBH known as Sagittarius A* is located).
Using a technique known as Very-Long-Baseline Interferometry (VLBI), this image signaled the birth of a new era for astronomers, where they can finally conduct detailed studies of these powerful forces of nature. Thanks to research performed by the EHT Collaboration team during a six-hour observation period in 2017, astronomers are now being treated to images of the core region of Centaurus A and the radio jet emanating from it.
Image of the Centaurus A galaxy, combining optical, x-ray, and infrared data. Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: Rolf Olsen; Infrared: NASA/JPL-Caltech
For decades, astronomers have known that SMBHs reside at the heart of most massive galaxies surrounded by massive rings of dust and gas. These rings are caused by the SMBHs tremendous gravitational pull, which accelerates the dust and gas to relativistic speeds (a fraction of the speed of light) and triggers the release of massive amounts of electromagnetic energy (including radio waves).
This process is what leads to galactic nuclei becoming “active” – aka. an Active Galactic Nucleus (AGN) or quasar – where the core region vastly outshines the galactic disc many times over. Whereas matter on the edge of the black hole is accreted onto its face, some of the surrounding matter escapes into space moments before it is captured in the form of relativistic jets – one of the most energetic features in the known Universe.
As they indicate in their study, the data obtained from the 2017 EHT observation campaign allowed the team to capture images that were ten times higher in terms of frequency and sixteen times sharper in resolution. This was made possible by the EHTs resolving power, which is the result of eight radio observatories that – when combined – make up a virtual telescope with an aperture the size of Earth.
Located over 13 million light-years from the Milky Way, Centaurus A is the closest radio galaxy to our own and (when imaged in radio wavelengths) is one of the largest and brightest objects in the night sky. Using the same interferometry technique that allowed for images of M87 to be taken, the team to observe Centaurus A with incredibly sharp resolution at a wavelength of 1.3 mm.
Close-up images of the relativistic jet emanating from Centaurus A. Credit: M. Janssen, H. Falcke, M. Kadler, E. Ros, M. Wielgus et al.
As study co-author Heino Falcke, an EHT board member and professor for Astrophysics at Radboud University, said in a NOVA press release:
“This allows us for the first time to see and study an extragalactic radio jet on scales smaller than the distance light travels in one day. We see up close and personally how a monstrously gigantic jet launched by a supermassive black hole is being born…
“These data are from the same observing campaign that delivered the famous image of the black hole in M87. The new results show that the EHT provides a treasure trove of data on the rich variety of black holes and there is still more to come.”
Previously, the task of monitoring Centaurus A at radio wavelengths was overseen by Tracking Active Galactic Nuclei with Austral Milliarcsecond Interferometry (TANAMI), a multiwavelength program that consists of nine radio telescopes located on four continents. Since the mid-2000s, TANAMI has been studying the core region of Centaurus A with VLBI at centimeter wavelengths, as well as other relativistic jets and Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) in the Southern Sky.
However, the new image was not only much higher in terms of resolution, but it also revealed features of Centaurus A that were never before seen. For example, the EHT team noticed that Centaurus A is brighter at the edges compared to the center, a phenomenon that has been observed with other jets but never as pronounced. These observations will inform astrophysicists’ attempts to model how matter behaves in the presence of SMBHs, which is still unclear.
In particular, astrophysicists are still trying to figure out exactly how relativistic jets are launched or how they can extend for light-years without dispersal. “We found it challenging to explain with the same models we used for M87,” Said Sera Markoff, the Vice-Chair of the EHT Science Council and a co-author on the study. “Something different must be happening, like helical magnetic fields, which gives us new clues about how they may ‘squeeze’ the jets.”
Thanks to the new EHT observations of the Centaurus A jet, it is believed that the launching point of the jets conforms to the likely location of the SMBH. Based on this, the research team predicts that future observations at even shorter wavelengths and resolutions would be able to photograph the SMBH at the center of Centaurus A – similar to what was done in 2019 with M87.
This will likely require space-based observations, which will allow for more precise baseline interferometry (being free of atmospheric distortion). The ongoing study of this phenomena, made possible thanks to arrays like the EHT, is also letting astronomers observe how the laws of physics work in the most extreme environments in the Universe.
A black horny sponge (Scalarispongia scalaris) growing off the coast of France. Some types of horny sponge are today harvested for bath sponges.
Credit: Biosphoto/Alamy
Most major groups of animals — including arthropods, molluscs and worms — first appear in the fossil record during the Cambrian explosion, 541 million years ago. But according to a paper published today in Nature1, sponge fossils from northwestern Canada could be 350 million years older, significantly pushing back the date of Earth’s earliest-known animals.
The ancient discovery is igniting debate among palaeontologists, who have long contested when complex animal life first evolved.
“If I’m right, animals emerged long, long before the first appearance of traditional animal fossils,” says study author Elizabeth Turner, a sedimentary geologist at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Canada. “That would mean there’s a deep back history of animals that just didn’t get preserved very well.”
Weird and wonderful shapes
Some scientists, however, are not convinced that the microscopic patterns in Turner’s 890-million-year-old fossils indicate an ancient sponge, given the evidence provided in the study.
“It’s such a big claim that you really have to eliminate all the other possibilities,” says Rachel Wood, a geoscientist at the University of Edinburgh, UK, who researches fossil reefs. “Microbes, for example, produce weird and wonderful shapes and forms.” Sometimes crystals also grow in a way that looks like patterns formed by living organisms, she says, meaning that the rock samples Turner found might not be fossils at all.
Crystalline tubes seen in rocks (left) might have been formed when the collagen-like skeleton of an 890-million-year-old sponge decayed and fossilized. Some modern sponges have internal scaffolding (right) that resembles the shapes in the rocks.
Credit: Elizabeth C. Turner
Turner counters that none of the known reef-building organisms that existed 890 million years ago, such as cyanobacteria or algae, can explain the complex structures in her samples.
She collected the purported fossils from ancient microbial reefs preserved in the rocks of Canada’s remote Northwest Territories, starting during her graduate studies in the 1990s.
When Turner examined slices of the rock under a microscope, she saw branching networks of crystalline tubes. She later realized that these structures resemble the internal scaffolding of modern horny sponges, and line up with the expected decay and fossilization patterns of spongin, a collagen protein that forms their scaffolding.
“These rocks are beautiful, but you don’t expect to find something that complicated or weird in them,” she says.
Early history of animal life
It wasn’t until the past few years, when she saw studies that described similar structures in much younger rocks — from a time when sponges were known to exist — that Turner felt confident in publishing her results. But those studies, too, are disputed on the grounds that they might not be actual sponge fossils.
The authors of one of these papers2 took photographs of many thin slices of their rock sample and used them to generate a 3D model of the purported sponge. Wood says that a similar piece of evidence would have strengthened Turner’s claim.
If Turner’s structures do prove to be sponge fossils, says David Gold, a geobiologist at the University of California, Davis, “it would be very exciting, and help us nail down the early story of animal evolution”, a subject that has been hotly debated for decades.
But although “it’s easy to find things that look like sponges in the fossil record”, he says, it’s more difficult to back them up with other evidence. He and other researchers, for instance, have supported3 fossil claims by pointing to rock samples containing traces of biological molecules that are linked to sponges. Unfortunately, given the sheer age and type of Turner’s rock samples, this type of preservation isn’t really possible, he adds.
It’s not inconceivable that sponges could have pre-dated the Cambrian explosion, says Phoebe Cohen, a geobiologist at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. Scientists estimate how long ago the ancestors of groups of living animals diverged using ‘molecular clocks’, which measure the rate of mutation in DNA and proteins over time.
The majority of these estimates suggest that the last common ancestor of all animals alive today evolved before the Cambrian explosion, but not by as much as 350 million years, says Cohen. Nevertheless, she says she could be convinced that Turner’s samples are sponge fossils if she saw more evidence, including studies on how horny sponges fossilize.
Molecular-clock estimates
The palaeontological community is split on whether the dearth of animal fossils from before the Cambrian period is because the creatures that lived then rarely survived as fossils to the present day, or because molecular-clock estimates of animal origins are wrong. Gold is convinced there were sponges before the Cambrian, but says that exactly how far back is a big, unresolved question.
Ancient worm fossil rolls back origins of animal life
If the ancestors of modern sponges really were alive 890 million years ago, then it means early animals survived through very trying conditions for life, such as extremely low levels of oxygen and ‘snowball Earth’ periods during which the surface of the planet almost entirely froze over, says Gold.
Turner argues that sponges could have survived the low-oxygen environment by eking out a living in cavities and crevices in the microbial reef next to photosynthetic cyanobacteria, which release oxygen. The sponges might also have been nourished by organic ooze that the bacteria produced. “There was probably a delicious and very copious supply of ‘snot’ for these filter-feeding organisms to have eaten,” she says.
Scientists are passionate about their views of when animal life started on Earth. The paper could reinvigorate the debate that has been quietly simmering for decades, says Gold. “But I suspect it’s not going to change a lot of minds for those who have made a decision about how old animals are.”
For the first time on camera... Commander Chad Underwood clarifies and informs what happened when he encountered and recorded what is now the most famous modern UFO footage of all-time. Cmdr. Underwood is a badass Navy Weapon Systems Officer from VFA-41 (the legendary Black Aces). He was flying in an F/A-18 Super Hornet - and was responsible for fighting the aircraft. Underwood’s testimony represents the first time in history a military “whizzo” recorded a UFO during operations - and the encounter footage has been confirmed directly by the United States Government as being ACTUAL footage of an Advanced Aerospace Vehicle of unknown origin - a real UFO.
Cmdr. Underwood’s account and footage also represents independent corroborating evidence to accompany the experience of Cmdr. David Fravor - the man who CHASED a TIC TAC shaped UFO with his fighter jet for our military.
The advanced and unidentified craft they observed and engaged that day - was able to outpace & outmaneuver our nation's most advanced war planes. It did in-fact “zoom off” to the left of Underwood’s wing - and it broke the lock on his ATFLIR targeting pod. It had no typical aeronautics or aerospace propulsion signatures - no tail, no wings, no exhaust plumes - and it also was able to Offensively Jam our fighter plane's radar & weapons systems. This is NOT an isolated event - quite the opposite.
Under the circumstances of this encounter - this is considered an ACT OF WAR by the United States Department of Defense. And typically - there are consequences. However - nothing about Cmdr. Underwood’s & Cmdr. Fravor’s experiences - were typical.
What you are about to hear in this interview is important. It has historic value. It’s evidence - of advanced and unknown aerospace vehicles operating in our restricted airspace - with impunity. Displaying instantaneous acceleration and impossible speeds - technology, we simply do not have. If this is not a National Security issue - I don’t know what is. Certainly, this is an existential conundrum - and it’s time we face the UFO reality head on - whatever it might represent.But let’s hear what Commander Underwood has to say about it - after all - he is the man that filmed it… and he was there.
Impressive clear footage of a UFO that was recorded over a Temple in Thailand on July 28, 2021
STATEMENT : ประเทศไทย : Thailand
credit : U.S.F
UFO Sighted Over Samara, Russia
This is a UFO Institute Special : The amazing UFO from Samara Russia : This footage was captured by the camera of an automobile on 25/02/2020 stationed in Russia in Samara, Michurina Street / Ovrag Podpolschikov area : Here I present the original and approach.
credit : Mikhailovich.
note : no audio
Strange Phenomena Sighted In The Skies ( July 28, 2021 )
This extraordinary video shows a Strange Phenomena causing a flashing light to come from behind a cloud. The strange flashing was sighted in the skies on July 28, 2021 video :
submitted : no location
related video
UFO Sighted Inside Apocalyptic Cloud Over Mendoza, Argentina ( July 28, 2021 )
Stunning apocalyptic cloud was sighted with a UFO inside. This was recorded in the skies of Mendoza, in Argentina’s Cuyo region on July 28, 2021
credit : Giezon Patricio
UFO Sighted Over Fontana, California ( July 28, 2021 )
STATEMENT : Dude my neighbor and i finally saw a UFO... it disappeared and kept coming back ... it looks like the extraterrestrials "RECONNAISSANCE"... [I think it was a interdimensional vehicle of some kind]... not a space ship but their "RECONNAISSANCE".... If you don't know what "RECONNAISSANCE" mean or is plz look it up... this is truly FASCINATING to me ....❤
credit : Nyce Rockwell
UFO Fleet Sighted Over Atlanta, Georgia ( July 24, 2021 )
Amazing record of this UFO fleet held in Atlanta Georgia on 24/07/2021 Here I present the original and following with embossed filter application for better observation. They are already here
Telescope Mount Assembly at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, currently under construction. Credit:Rubin Obs/NSF/AURA(CC BY 4.0)
Avi Loeb, a Harvard astrophysicist who doesn’t hesitate to swim in the shark-infested waters of controversy, is proposing a major effort to find aliens in our solar system, perhaps even in our airspace. He has raised $1.7 million in private funding to launch something he calls the Galileo Project, an initiative to bring the rigor of experimental science to ufology.
Loeb’s plan is to use a telescope now under construction, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, to study interstellar objects that come into our solar system. In addition, the project envisions building a network of small telescopes, in groups of two, that can photograph and determine the distance to anything they see in our atmosphere.
Is this project something to be lauded, or laughed at? Although academe may dismiss the Galileo Project as nothing more than pandering to a gullible public, such prejudice is unhelpful and myopic.
Even critics acknowledge that Loeb has credentials and talent. Nonetheless, he is regarded by some in the astronomy community as a knight-errant, tilting at windmills. That’s largely because of his unorthodox views about the object ‘Oumuamua. Roughly the size of a strip mall, ‘Oumuamua was first seen as a dot on a telescope image four years ago. Its orbit tells us that it comes not from the outer reaches of our own solar system, but from somewhere else in the galaxy. While many astronomers say that ‘Oumuamua is either a comet or an asteroid, eroded and encrusted thanks to its lengthy journey through space, Loeb has suggested that it might be a chunk of alien hardware—perhaps a solar sail.
Clearly, that’s a radical hypothesis. It’s also a rebuff to Occam’s razor. The latter would caution against invoking extraterrestrial engineering when more conventional explanations suffice for understanding ‘Oumuamua.
But Loeb stands by his suggestion, and he’s recently weighed in on another puzzle, one produced by the recently released report to Congress about UAP (unidentified aerial phenomena). This study was the result of a bill passed last December instructing government intelligence agencies to put on the table all they know about UAP (also known as UFOs). In particular, the report was to address the experiences of some Navy pilots who’ve seen and photographed mysterious objects in the sky. That report, delivered in late June, said nothing about alien spacecraft (at least not in the publicly released version), but did admit that of 144 intriguing incidents, the intelligence agencies could explain only one.
So, the Galileo Project is stepping in to say “Enough already.” Let’s try and nail down such enticing phenomena with legitimate science.
The public has been whipsawed by these stories. For seven decades, the UFO believers have been belittled by serious scientists for making extraordinary claims without offering any extraordinary evidence. Now a credentialed researcher seems ready to step in to help.
That will cause some folks to roll their eyes and conclude that Loeb has gone over to the dark side. But that’s too easy. The subject is obviously important, and it should be addressed without preconceived notions or opinions based on the poor UFO evidence of the past.
But while it may be tough for Loeb to find support from his peers, those are the very people who should be grateful for his effort. The SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence) community, has so far failed to find either a radio or light signal from other star systems. Yes, this type of SETI experiment is getting faster all the time, and its practitioners (including myself) are hopeful that when a substantially larger number of targets has been scrutinized, an unequivocal alien signal will be found.
But an alternative SETI strategy is to search for artifacts that highly advanced societies may have constructed. That’s certainly a legitimate approach to uncovering aliens, and one that doesn’t rely on a signal reaching us just as we’re looking for it. It also takes note of the fact that the universe is three times the age of the Earth. Consequently, there should be intelligence in the galaxy at a level that is millions or billions of years beyond our own. Maybe that intelligence really does have an interest in sending hardware to other star systems.
So, it’s at least possible that we are being visited, and the Galileo Project says it will perform observations to check that out.
Still, the project is a long shot, motivated by phenomena that only a few scientists think are worthy of study. The feeling among most astronomers is that ‘Oumuamua is simply a well-traveled rock. The three tantalizing videos released by the Navy can be understood by invoking aircraft and balloons. And as for that network of telescopes put in place to record extraterrestrial hardware cruising our cluttered skies … well, the 700 orbiting satellites that already surveil our planet haven’t seen anything that humans didn’t put there.
In other words, none of the phenomena that have spurred the Galileo Project is likely to be the handiwork of aliens.
But is that good enough reason to dismiss Loeb’s exercise? In his defense, one must admit that the road less traveled occasionally leads to something interesting.
Loeb has secured private funding and has the intellectual chops to ensure the project’s scientific rigor. Anyone with lesser credentials would have difficulty getting it off the ground.
Free from the banal consideration of tenure, and with a willingness to ignore side-eye from peers, Avi Loeb is able to bet on a dark horse. As a SETI scientist, I’m grateful that he has the freedom, and the guts, to sidestep the barrier of conventional wisdom and boldly go where few would dare to go.
This is an opinion and analysis article; the views expressed by the author or authors are not necessarily those of Scientific American.
Telescope Mount Assembly at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, currently under construction. Credit:Rubin Obs/NSF/AURA(CC BY 4.0)
Avi Loeb, a Harvard astrophysicist who doesn’t hesitate to swim in the shark-infested waters of controversy, is proposing a major effort to find aliens in our solar system, perhaps even in our airspace. He has raised $1.7 million in private funding to launch something he calls the Galileo Project, an initiative to bring the rigor of experimental science to ufology.
Loeb’s plan is to use a telescope now under construction, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, to study interstellar objects that come into our solar system. In addition, the project envisions building a network of small telescopes, in groups of two, that can photograph and determine the distance to anything they see in our atmosphere.
Is this project something to be lauded, or laughed at? Although academe may dismiss the Galileo Project as nothing more than pandering to a gullible public, such prejudice is unhelpful and myopic.
Even critics acknowledge that Loeb has credentials and talent. Nonetheless, he is regarded by some in the astronomy community as a knight-errant, tilting at windmills. That’s largely because of his unorthodox views about the object ‘Oumuamua. Roughly the size of a strip mall, ‘Oumuamua was first seen as a dot on a telescope image four years ago. Its orbit tells us that it comes not from the outer reaches of our own solar system, but from somewhere else in the galaxy. While many astronomers say that ‘Oumuamua is either a comet or an asteroid, eroded and encrusted thanks to its lengthy journey through space, Loeb has suggested that it might be a chunk of alien hardware—perhaps a solar sail.
Clearly, that’s a radical hypothesis. It’s also a rebuff to Occam’s razor. The latter would caution against invoking extraterrestrial engineering when more conventional explanations suffice for understanding ‘Oumuamua.
But Loeb stands by his suggestion, and he’s recently weighed in on another puzzle, one produced by the recently released report to Congress about UAP (unidentified aerial phenomena). This study was the result of a bill passed last December instructing government intelligence agencies to put on the table all they know about UAP (also known as UFOs). In particular, the report was to address the experiences of some Navy pilots who’ve seen and photographed mysterious objects in the sky. That report, delivered in late June, said nothing about alien spacecraft (at least not in the publicly released version), but did admit that of 144 intriguing incidents, the intelligence agencies could explain only one.
So, the Galileo Project is stepping in to say “Enough already.” Let’s try and nail down such enticing phenomena with legitimate science.
The public has been whipsawed by these stories. For seven decades, the UFO believers have been belittled by serious scientists for making extraordinary claims without offering any extraordinary evidence. Now a credentialed researcher seems ready to step in to help.
That will cause some folks to roll their eyes and conclude that Loeb has gone over to the dark side. But that’s too easy. The subject is obviously important, and it should be addressed without preconceived notions or opinions based on the poor UFO evidence of the past.
But while it may be tough for Loeb to find support from his peers, those are the very people who should be grateful for his effort. The SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence) community, has so far failed to find either a radio or light signal from other star systems. Yes, this type of SETI experiment is getting faster all the time, and its practitioners (including myself) are hopeful that when a substantially larger number of targets has been scrutinized, an unequivocal alien signal will be found.
But an alternative SETI strategy is to search for artifacts that highly advanced societies may have constructed. That’s certainly a legitimate approach to uncovering aliens, and one that doesn’t rely on a signal reaching us just as we’re looking for it. It also takes note of the fact that the universe is three times the age of the Earth. Consequently, there should be intelligence in the galaxy at a level that is millions or billions of years beyond our own. Maybe that intelligence really does have an interest in sending hardware to other star systems.
So, it’s at least possible that we are being visited, and the Galileo Project says it will perform observations to check that out.
Still, the project is a long shot, motivated by phenomena that only a few scientists think are worthy of study. The feeling among most astronomers is that ‘Oumuamua is simply a well-traveled rock. The three tantalizing videos released by the Navy can be understood by invoking aircraft and balloons. And as for that network of telescopes put in place to record extraterrestrial hardware cruising our cluttered skies … well, the 700 orbiting satellites that already surveil our planet haven’t seen anything that humans didn’t put there.
In other words, none of the phenomena that have spurred the Galileo Project is likely to be the handiwork of aliens.
But is that good enough reason to dismiss Loeb’s exercise? In his defense, one must admit that the road less traveled occasionally leads to something interesting.
Loeb has secured private funding and has the intellectual chops to ensure the project’s scientific rigor. Anyone with lesser credentials would have difficulty getting it off the ground.
Free from the banal consideration of tenure, and with a willingness to ignore side-eye from peers, Avi Loeb is able to bet on a dark horse. As a SETI scientist, I’m grateful that he has the freedom, and the guts, to sidestep the barrier of conventional wisdom and boldly go where few would dare to go.
This is an opinion and analysis article; the views expressed by the author or authors are not necessarily those of Scientific American.
Alien invaders will ‘crack this planet open like a nut’ warns UFO expert
Alien invaders will ‘crack this planet open like a nut’ warns UFO expert
Nick Pope is a UFO expert who formerly worked at the Ministry of Defence (Picture: File images)
If alien visitors ever arrived to take over planet Earth, humans wouldn’t stand a chance.
In fact, they’d ‘crack this planet open like a nut’, according to one famed UFO expert.
Nick Pope, who investigated UFOs for the Ministry of Defence, says humans are toast if E.Ts invade because their weapon technology will probably be billions of years ahead of ours.
He says sci-fi flicks where humans vanquish hordes of invading little green men are unrealistic, as their weapons would be so advanced they’d seem like ‘magic’ to us.
It concluded that 143 unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) sightings by US military pilots since 2004 remained unexplained, fuelling further fears of alien invasion.
The report added: ‘UAP clearly pose a safety of flight issue and may pose a challenge to US national security.’
But Mr Pope slammed the ‘idea we would suddenly pull something out of the bag and defeat an alien invasion’.
He added: ‘Just to put this in context, the universe is nearly 14 billion years old, and there might be civilisations out there with a billion year head start on us.’
Alien invaders would have sufficiently advanced weaponry to defeat humankind without much trouble (Credits: Getty Images)
‘Now if you think about the difference in technology, think how far we’ve come in the last two three hundred years, basically from horse and cart and ships sailing across the ocean using the wind, we have come from that to stealth fighters, space probes and smartphones in just that short period of time.
‘Now imagine that hypothetical civilisation or rather civilisations, look, the chances of there being just one other civilisation in the universe are as vanishingly small as the chances of being alone, it’s going to be very crowded out there.
‘The chances that we will encounter a civilization and it will be 20/30 years ahead of us in scientific understanding and technological advancement, that’s not going to be the situation.
‘They will be, like I say, millions, maybe a couple of billion years ahead of us and their technology will be indistinguishable from magic.
‘Again, people say we have a space program so we’re doing it too, well, yes and no,
‘Our fastest space probes that we have ever built, if we had pointed them at the nearest star aside from our own sun, they would take 75,000 years to get there.
‘So if we are being visited, a civilisation that has figured out viable interstellar travel is going to be able to crack this planet open like a nut, if they wanted to.’
Baroness Goldie told the House of Lords last month that while the MoD doesn’t hold information on UAPs, it ‘constantly monitors UK airspace to identify and respond to any credible threat to its integrity, and is confident in the existing measures in place to protect it’
She added: ‘The MoD deals with actual threats substantiated by evidence. The government continues to take any potential threat to the UK seriously.’
Infrared cockpit-camera footage taken by the U.S. Navy squadron showing Unidentified Aerial Phenomena mystery flying objects (Picture: U.S. Department of Defense)
Lady Goldie also told the Lords: ‘The MoD has no plans to conduct its own report into UAP because in over 50 years no such reporting had indicated the existence of any military threat to the United Kingdom.’
One Tory peer, Viscount Ridley, said: ‘Unidentified does not mean suspicious. Does the minister recognise the US report referred to says there is no clear indication that there is any non-terrestrial explanation for the 144 sightings?’
‘The idea that in an era of mobile phone cameras, drones and frequent travel there could possibly be alien spaceships whizzing about undetected in our atmosphere on a regular basis is not I think very plausible.
‘It’s much more likely that these blurred images have boring explanations, alas.’
Lady Goldie said in response: ‘The UK air defence community detect and monitor all flying air systems 24 hours a day to provide an identified air picture as part of the UK’s national security posture and our commitment to the integrity of Nato airspace.’
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Alien invaders will ‘crack this planet open like a nut’ warns UFO expert
Alien invaders will ‘crack this planet open like a nut’ warns UFO expert
Nick Pope is a UFO expert who formerly worked at the Ministry of Defence (Picture: File images)
If alien visitors ever arrived to take over planet Earth, humans wouldn’t stand a chance.
In fact, they’d ‘crack this planet open like a nut’, according to one famed UFO expert.
Nick Pope, who investigated UFOs for the Ministry of Defence, says humans are toast if E.Ts invade because their weapon technology will probably be billions of years ahead of ours.
He says sci-fi flicks where humans vanquish hordes of invading little green men are unrealistic, as their weapons would be so advanced they’d seem like ‘magic’ to us.
It concluded that 143 unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) sightings by US military pilots since 2004 remained unexplained, fuelling further fears of alien invasion.
The report added: ‘UAP clearly pose a safety of flight issue and may pose a challenge to US national security.’
But Mr Pope slammed the ‘idea we would suddenly pull something out of the bag and defeat an alien invasion’.
He added: ‘Just to put this in context, the universe is nearly 14 billion years old, and there might be civilisations out there with a billion year head start on us.’
Alien invaders would have sufficiently advanced weaponry to defeat humankind without much trouble (Credits: Getty Images)
‘Now if you think about the difference in technology, think how far we’ve come in the last two three hundred years, basically from horse and cart and ships sailing across the ocean using the wind, we have come from that to stealth fighters, space probes and smartphones in just that short period of time.
‘Now imagine that hypothetical civilisation or rather civilisations, look, the chances of there being just one other civilisation in the universe are as vanishingly small as the chances of being alone, it’s going to be very crowded out there.
‘The chances that we will encounter a civilization and it will be 20/30 years ahead of us in scientific understanding and technological advancement, that’s not going to be the situation.
‘They will be, like I say, millions, maybe a couple of billion years ahead of us and their technology will be indistinguishable from magic.
‘Again, people say we have a space program so we’re doing it too, well, yes and no,
‘Our fastest space probes that we have ever built, if we had pointed them at the nearest star aside from our own sun, they would take 75,000 years to get there.
‘So if we are being visited, a civilisation that has figured out viable interstellar travel is going to be able to crack this planet open like a nut, if they wanted to.’
Baroness Goldie told the House of Lords last month that while the MoD doesn’t hold information on UAPs, it ‘constantly monitors UK airspace to identify and respond to any credible threat to its integrity, and is confident in the existing measures in place to protect it’
She added: ‘The MoD deals with actual threats substantiated by evidence. The government continues to take any potential threat to the UK seriously.’
Infrared cockpit-camera footage taken by the U.S. Navy squadron showing Unidentified Aerial Phenomena mystery flying objects (Picture: U.S. Department of Defense)
Lady Goldie also told the Lords: ‘The MoD has no plans to conduct its own report into UAP because in over 50 years no such reporting had indicated the existence of any military threat to the United Kingdom.’
One Tory peer, Viscount Ridley, said: ‘Unidentified does not mean suspicious. Does the minister recognise the US report referred to says there is no clear indication that there is any non-terrestrial explanation for the 144 sightings?’
‘The idea that in an era of mobile phone cameras, drones and frequent travel there could possibly be alien spaceships whizzing about undetected in our atmosphere on a regular basis is not I think very plausible.
‘It’s much more likely that these blurred images have boring explanations, alas.’
Lady Goldie said in response: ‘The UK air defence community detect and monitor all flying air systems 24 hours a day to provide an identified air picture as part of the UK’s national security posture and our commitment to the integrity of Nato airspace.’
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Little appetite in Japan to search for E.T. following U.S. UFO report
Little appetite in Japan to search for E.T. following U.S. UFO report
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
A video image of an unidentified flying object taken by American filmmaker Jeremy Corbell
(Captured from Twitter)
Though the U.S. government has released video and a report concerning unidentified flying objects, the Air Self-Defense Force and Japanese scholars are only slowly moving to catch up with research efforts in the West on the phenomena.
The official position of the Defense Ministry is that no eyewitness sighting of UFOs has yet been confirmed, but some of those connected with the ASDF admit seeing objects they could not identify.
A few years ago, a pilot of a surveillance plane was puzzled when the plane's infrared detection device found something making irregular movements.
“What is that?” a member of the radar crew asked.
The object was about 10 kilometers in front of the plane and was not only not visible to the naked eye, but also didn't show up on radar.
Less than a minute later, the object “disappeared” from the infrared detection device so the crew verbally reported they had lost sight of it.
No official report of the sighting was made by the plane crew.
In response to questions from The Asahi Shimbun, the pilot said, “I felt no one would believe us and so it was difficult to say we saw something. But there are a number of colleagues who claim to have seen similar objects.”
Other SDF members also said they had heard about similar experiences from their colleagues.
Gen. Shunji Izutsu, the ASDF chief of staff, revealed at a July news conference that 30 years ago a senior ASDF member told him about sighting a large object that remained stationary in the air.
“The fact that we are here does not mean we can deny intelligent life similar to us exists somewhere different and very far away,” Izutsu added.
After the U.S. Department of Defense released the videos last year, the SDF also compiled measures for dealing with similar encounters.
The objects in such encounters were defined as “any flying unidentified object that could have an effect on Japan’s defense and security.” The compiled measures stated that efforts should be made to photograph the object so that further analysis could be conducted.
But the measures, despite being quite broad, contain no specific steps to be taken should a UFO be spotted.
Ordinarily, ASDF jets are scrambled whenever a suspect plane is spotted near territorial airspace. The jets call on the plane to not enter Japanese airspace and if no response is received, one option is to fire warning shots.
But as there is no telling what a UFO might do in return, the most realistic response would be to leave the scene if an ASDF jet came under attack, an official in charge said.
INTERNATIONAL PLAN JUST FOR RADIO SIGNALS
The International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) in 1989 compiled a set of principles in the event that signals from extraterrestrial intelligence were detected.
The three major steps are to first verify and confirm with other researchers before actually announcing the detection; inform the United Nations secretary-general and other international organizations about the confirmation of detection of such signals; and release the findings to the world through the mass media.
But the principles were meant to deal with radio signals rather than actual encounters with UFOs.
Since the 1960s, research under the acronym of SETI, or Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, has been taking place around the world using radio telescopes.
SETI researchers in Japan met in 2009 to discuss how to proceed with their research, according to Shinya Narusawa, a senior researcher at the University of Hyogo Nishi-Harima Astronomical Laboratory.
One agreement reached should a signal be detected in Japan was to report the matter to the Cabinet Office, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan and the Science Council of Japan.
While researchers at a number of prominent Western universities are engaged in SETI research, there is no similar enthusiasm in Japan, given that many scholars do not want to spend their entire careers trying to detect extraterrestrial intelligence when the possibility of finding it is astronomically small.
Narusawa, however, said, “SETI is an opportunity to think about the future of humans living on Earth and is a journey in search of oneself.”
(This article was written by Yu Miyaji, Yoshitaka Ito and Kaigo Narisawa.)
Alien, angel or shapeshifter? New viral footage of some strange aerial phenomenon is the choose-your-own-adventure story of the conspiracy theory hive right now.
In a video that reportedly first appeared in June on Facebook, a UFO — for lack of a better term — was spotted by an air traveler against a clear blue sky backdrop, with characteristics that looked more like something seen in a biology book, according to some who saw the clip.
YouTuber Neal “Grimreefar” Evans, whose channel Disclose Screen regularly publishes sightings of UFOs and other “bizarre” phenomena, soon picked up on the new footage, which has even skeptics scratching their heads.
“This one has me stumped. No clue,” one said.
Is this shapeshifting phantasm just an optical illusion?
“People are going to call this a UFO,” Evans narrates in a voiceover, heard by over 42,000 on YouTube so far. “Well, technically, it is, but I’m leaning more towards this being a biological entity or a plasma-based life form living in our upper atmosphere.”
However, one viewer’s plasmodial mirage is another’s heavenly glow, while others have suggested the phantasm could be a “portal” to other worlds.
“It is real close to the huge Angel type sightings by some of our Astronauts,” said one viewer, referring to the story of Russian cosmonauts aboard the Salyut 7 in 1984 who saw what the men later described as angelic beings.
Those disseminating the footage claim the ghost-like apparition was captured with a high-resolution Nikon P900 camera, from the window of a plane flying between 10,000 and 30,000 feet in the air.
“Nice hoax,” said one viewer, who blamed the reflection on a double-paned airplane window for the optic trickery, along with others who proposed that moisture at high altitudes could also fool the eyes. “Ice crystals in the double-glazed windows….. They jump and move around and shift shape in an instant,” another hypothesized.
Perhaps the most convincing theory is even simpler than that: “It’s a high altitude balloon, used by organizations like NASA, NOAA and the military.”
Indeed, giant balloons are often used by scientific and government agencies for a variety of research purposes, and they don’t always look like the floating rubber orbs we see at birthday parties. As with those sometimes used in weather research, they can instead resemble a formless plastic bag caught in the wind.
Air officials have yet to weigh in on the mysterious shapeshifting phenomenon. However, the pursuit of truth remains a priority for astronomy researchers as controversial Harvard professor Avi Loeb has recently announced the launch of the Galileo Project, which aims to search for extraterrestrial life by developing new algorithms to parse data from astronomical surveys and a global network of telescopes.
Loeb has decried those who stigmatize his study as hurdles to “the scientific method of unbiased, empirical inquiry.” He told Live Science in a statement this week, “Science should not reject potential extraterrestrial explanations because of social stigma or cultural preferences … We now must ‘dare to look through new telescopes,’ both literally and figuratively.”
This Harvard Astronomer says Aliens Are Real and he thinks you should believe that too!
This Harvard Astronomer says Aliens Are Real and he thinks you should believe that too!
When an object called Oumuamua was detected flying through our solar system in 2017, scientists were baffled by its strange behavior.
Many said it was just a bizarre space rock, but Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb believes it was most likely a relic of an alien civilization. And he thinks you should believe that too.
Now, astrophysicist Avi Loeb has started up The Galileo Project for the Systematic Scientific Search for Evidence of Extraterrestrial Technological Artifact.
According to the official website of the Galileo Project: The Galileo Project is dedicated to the proposition that humans can no longer ignore the possible existence of Extraterrestrial Technological Civilizations (ETCs), and that science should not dogmatically reject potential extraterrestrial explanations because of social stigma or cultural preferences, factors which are not conducive to the scientific method of unbiased, empirical inquiry.
The goal of the Galileo Project is to bring the search for extraterrestrial technological signatures of Extraterrestrial Technological Civilizations (ETCs) from accidental or anecdotal observations and legends to the mainstream of transparent, validated and systematic scientific research.
The US government has released a highly anticipated UFO report. The Pentagon studied more than 140 incidents reported by navy pilots of UAP seen over the last two decades for the report. Many were seen from the summer of 2014 into the spring of 2015. The report said that some incidents could be the result of technical errors in sensors or observers, but it noted that most of the UAP reported: “probably do represent physical objects” since they were registered across multiple sensors. UFO researcher Prof Tim Murithi spoke to SABC News about the report explaining how significant this first-of-its-kind report is.
The US government has released a highly anticipated UFO report. The Pentagon studied more than 140 incidents reported by navy pilots of UAP seen over the last two decades for the report. Many were seen from the summer of 2014 into the spring of 2015. The report said that some incidents could be the result of technical errors in sensors or observers, but it noted that most of the UAP reported: “probably do represent physical objects” since they were registered across multiple sensors. UFO researcher Prof Tim Murithi spoke to SABC News about the report explaining how significant this first-of-its-kind report is.
Borgs seem to be associated with single-celled microorganisms known as archaea, shown in this scanning-electron microscopy image.
Credit: Eye of Science/SPL
The Borg have landed — or, at least, researchers have discovered their counterparts here on Earth. Scientists analysing samples from muddy sites in the western United States have found novel DNA structures that seem to scavenge and ‘assimilate’ genes from microorganisms in their environment, much like the fictional Star Trek ‘Borg’ aliens who assimilate the knowledge and technology of other species.
Borgs seem to be associated with single-celled microorganisms known as archaea, shown in this scanning-electron microscopy image of Sulfolobus sp. archaea.
These extra-long DNA strands, which the scientists named in honour of the aliens, join a diverse collection of genetic structures — circular plasmids, for example — known as extrachromosomal elements (ECEs). Most microbes have one or two chromosomes that encode their primary genetic blueprint. But they can host, and often share between them, many distinct ECEs. These carry non-essential but useful genes, such as those for antibiotic resistance.
Borgs are a previously unknown, unique and “absolutely fascinating” type of ECE, says Jill Banfield, a geomicrobiologist at the University of California, Berkeley. She and her colleagues describe their discovery of the structures in a preprint posted to the server bioRxiv1. The work is yet to be peer-reviewed.
Unlike anything seen before
Borgs are DNA structures “not like any that’s been seen before”, says Brett Baker, a microbiologist at the University of Texas at Austin. Other scientists agree that the find is exciting, but have questioned whether Borgs really are unique, noting similarities between them and other large ECEs.
In recent years “people have become used to surprises in the field of ECEs”, says Huang Li, a microbiologist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. “However, the discovery of Borgs, which undoubtedly enriches the concept of ECEs, has fascinated many in the field.”
Their vast size, ranging between more than 600,000 and about 1 million DNA base pairs in length, is one feature that distinguishes Borgs from many other ECEs. In fact, Borgs are so huge that they are up to one-third of the length of the main chromosome in their host microbes, Banfield says.
Banfield studies how microbes influence the carbon cycle — including the production and degradation of methane, a potent greenhouse gas — and, in October 2019, she and her colleagues went hunting for ECEs containing genes involved in the carbon cycle in Californian wetlands. There, they found the first Borgs and later identified 19 different types from this and similar sites in Colorado and California.
Borgs seem to be associated with archaea, which are single-celled microorganisms distinct from bacteria. Specifically, those Banfield and her team have discovered are linked to the Methanoperedens variety, which digest and destroy methane. And Borg genes seem to be involved in this process, says Banfield.
Researchers found Borgs at this site on the East River, Colorado.
Credit: Jordan Hoff
Scientists can’t yet culture Methanoperedens in the laboratory — an ongoing challenge for many microbes — so the team’s conclusions that Borgs might be used by the archaea for methane processing are based on sequence data alone.
“They’ve made an interesting observation,” says systems biologist Nitin Baliga, at the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, Washington. But he cautions that when researchers sift through fragments of many genomes and piece them together, as Banfield’s team has done, it’s possible to make errors. Finding Borgs in cultured Methanoperedens will be necessary for the finding to be considered definitive, he adds.
Costs and benefits
Assuming Borgs are real, maintaining such a massive ECE would be costly for Methanoperedens, Banfield and colleagues say, so the DNA structures must provide some benefit. To learn what that might be, the researchers analysed the sequences of hundreds of Borg genes and compared them with known genes.
Borgs seem to house many genes needed for entire metabolic processes, including digesting methane, says Banfield. She describes these collections as “a toolbox” that might super-charge the abilities of Methanoperedens.
So what makes a Borg a Borg? In addition to their remarkable size, Borgs share several structural features: they’re linear, not circular as many ECEs are; they have mirrored repetitive sequences at each end of the strand; and they have many other repetitive sequences both within and between the presumptive genes.
Individually, these features of Borgs can overlap with those seen in other large ECEs, such as elements in certain salt-loving archaea, so Baliga says the novelty of Borgs is still debatable at this stage. Borgs also resemble giant linear plasmids found in soil-dwelling Actinobacteria, says Julián Rafael Dib, a microbiologist at the Pilot Plant for Microbiological Industrial Processes in Tucumán, Argentina.
Banfield counters that although the individual features of Borgs have been seen before, “the size, combination and metabolic gene load” is what makes them different. She speculates that they were once entire microbes, and were assimilated by Methanoperedens in much the same way that eukaryotic cells gained energy-generating mitochondria by assimilating free-living bacteria.
Now that scientists know what to look for, they might find more Borgs by sifting through old data, says Baker, who used to work in Banfield's lab. He thinks he might already have discovered some candidates in his own genetic database since the preprint was posted.
Resistance is futile
When analysing the Borg genome, Banfield and colleagues also saw features suggesting that Borgs have assimilated genes from diverse sources, including the main Methanoperedens chromosome, Banfield says. This potential to ‘assimilate’ genes led her son to propose the name ‘Borg’ over Thanksgiving dinner in 2020.
Banfield’s team is now investigating the function of Borgs and the role of their DNA repeats. Repeats are important to microbes: differently-structured repeats called CRISPR are snippets of genetic code from viruses that microbes incorporate into their own DNA to ‘remember’ the pathogens so they can defend against them in the future.
CRISPR and its associated proteins have been a boon for biotechnology because they have been adapted into a powerful gene-editing technique — hinting that Borg genomes might also yield useful tools. “It could be as important and interesting as CRISPR, but I think it’s going to be a new thing,” says Banfield, who is collaborating on future investigations with her preprint co-author, Jennifer Doudna, a pioneer of CRISPR-based gene editing at the University of California.
One potential application that the researchers see for Borgs could be as an aid in the fight against climate change. Fostering the growth of microbes containing them could, perhaps, cut down the methane emissions generated by soil-dwelling archaea, which add up to about 1 gigatonne globally each year. It would be risky to do this in natural wetlands, Banfield says, but it might be appropriate at agricultural sites. So, as a first step, her group is now hunting Borgs in Californian rice paddies.
A mysterious crop circle has appeared on a field in Dorset.
These striking drone images captured from the skies show the geometric pattern on a field at Okeford Hill, near Blandford.
Incredible aerial shots clearly show the geometric pattern
Picture: Droning On (Echo Camera Club)
The images were taken after a heavy mist yesterday evening by a member of the Echo Camera Club, 'Droning On,' who said: "Whatever your views of such formations, I have to say this was an impeccably chosen location, made all the more stunning by the weather.
"The passing thunder storm and rising mist made for some great shots."
The pictures were made all the more dramatic by the weather Picture: Droning On
(Echo Camera Club)
Crop circles, or crop formations, are patterns produced by flattening crops.
Experts agree they are man-made although some people claim there are mysterious forces behind the patterns.
In May 2015 the Echo reported that an impressive crop circle, in a Celtic design, had appeared in a field at Thornicombe, near Blandford.
Farmers have reported finding strange circles in their fields for centuries. The earliest mention of a crop circle dates back to the 1500s.
Mentions of crop circles were rare until the 20th century, when circles began appearing in the 1960s and '70s in England and the United States.
The crop circle close up Picture: Droning On
(Echo Camera Club)
But the phenomenon didn't gain attention until 1980, when a farmer in Wiltshire county, England, discovered three circles, about 60 feet (18 meters) across each, in his oat crops.
UFO researchers and media descended on the farm, and the world first began to learn about crop circles.
The coronavirus sports a luxurious sugar coat. “It’s striking,” thought Rommie Amaro, staring at her computer simulation of one of the trademark spike proteins of SARS-CoV-2, which stick out from the virus’s surface. It was swathed in sugar molecules, known as glycans.
“When you see it with all the glycans, it’s almost unrecognizable,” says Amaro, a computational biophysical chemist at the University of California, San Diego.
Many viruses have glycans covering their outer proteins, camouflaging them from the human immune system like a wolf in sheep’s clothing. But last year, Amaro’s laboratory group and collaborators created the most detailed visualization yet of this coat, based on structural and genetic data and rendered atom-by-atom by a supercomputer. On 22 March 2020, she posted the simulation to Twitter. Within an hour, one researcher asked in a comment: what was the naked, uncoated loop sticking out of the top of the protein?
Amaro had no idea. But ten minutes later, structural biologist Jason McLellan at the University of Texas at Austin chimed in: the uncoated loop was a receptor binding domain (RBD), one of three sections of the spike that bind to receptors on human cells (see ‘A hidden spike’).
Source: Structural image from Lorenzo Casalino, Univ. California, San Diego (Ref. 1); Graphic: Nik Spencer/Nature
In Amaro’s simulation, when the RBD lifted up above the glycan cloud, two glycans swooped in to lock it into place, like a kickstand on a bicycle. When Amaro mutated the glycans in the computer model, the RBD collapsed. McLellan’s team built a way to try the same experiment in the lab, and by June 2020, the collaborators had reported that mutating the two glycans reduced the ability of the spike protein to bind to a human cell receptor1 — a role that no one has previously recognized in coronaviruses, McLellan says. It’s possible that snipping out those two sugars could reduce the virus’s infectivity, says Amaro, although researchers don’t yet have a way to do this.
Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, scientists have been developing a detailed understanding of how SARS-CoV-2 infects cells. By picking apart the infection process, they hope to find better ways to interrupt it through improved treatments and vaccines, and learn why the latest strains, such as the Delta variant, are more transmissible.
What has emerged from 19 months of work, backed by decades of coronavirus research, is a blow-by-blow account of how SARS-CoV-2 invades human cells (see ‘Life cycle of the pandemic coronavirus’). Scientists have discovered key adaptations that help the virus to grab on to human cells with surprising strength and then hide itself once inside. Later, as it leaves cells, SARS-CoV-2 executes a crucial processing step to prepare its particles for infecting even more human cells. These are some of the tools that have enabled the virus to spread so quickly and claim millions of lives. “That’s why it’s so difficult to control,” says Wendy Barclay, a virologist at Imperial College London.
It starts with the spikes. Each SARS-CoV-2 virion (virus particle) has an outer surface peppered with 24–40 haphazardly arranged spike proteins that are its key to fusing with human cells2. For other types of virus, such as influenza, external fusion proteins are relatively rigid. SARS-CoV-2 spikes, however, are wildly flexible and hinge at three points, according to work published in August 2020 by biochemist Martin Beck at the Max Planck Institute of Biophysics in Frankfurt, Germany, and his colleagues3.
That allows the spikes to flop around, sway and rotate, which could make it easier for them to scan the cell surface and for multiple spikes to bind to a human cell. There are no similar experimental data for other coronaviruses, but because spike-protein sequences are highly evolutionarily conserved, it is fair to assume the trait is shared, says Beck.
Cryo-electron tomography images of SARS-CoV-2 virions. (Scale bar: 30 nanometres.)
Credit: B. Turoňová et al./Science
Early in the pandemic, researchers confirmed that the RBDs of SARS-CoV-2 spike proteins attach to a familiar protein called the ACE2 receptor, which adorns the outside of most human throat and lung cells. This receptor is also the docking point for SARS-CoV, the virus that causes severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). But compared with SARS-CoV, SARS-CoV-2 binds to ACE2 an estimated 2–4 times more strongly4, because several changes in the RBD stabilize its virus-binding hotspots5.
Worrying variants of SARS-CoV-2 tend to have mutations in the S1 subunit of the spike protein, which hosts the RBDs and is responsible for binding to the ACE2 receptor. (A second spike subunit, S2, prompts viral fusion with the host cell’s membrane.)
The Alpha variant, for example, includes ten changes in the spike-protein sequence, which result in RBDs being more likely to stay in the ‘up’ position6. “It is helping the virus along by making it easier to enter into cells,” says Priyamvada Acharya, a structural biologist at the Duke Human Vaccine Institute in Durham, North Carolina, who is studying the spike mutations.
The Delta variant, which is now spreading around the world, hosts multiple mutations in the S1 subunit, including three in the RBD that seem to improve the RBD’s ability to bind to ACE2 and evade the immune system7.
Restricted entry
Once the viral spikes bind to ACE2, other proteins on the host cell’s surface initiate a process that leads to the merging of viral and cell membranes (see ‘Viral entry up close’).
The virus that causes SARS, SARS-CoV, uses either of two host protease enzymes to break in: TMPRSS2 (pronounced ‘tempress two’) or cathepsin L. TMPRSS2 is the faster route in, but SARS-CoV often enters instead through an endosome — a lipid-surrounded bubble — which relies on cathepsin L. When virions enter cells by this route, however, antiviral proteins can trap them.
SARS-CoV-2 differs from SARS-CoV because it efficiently uses TMPRSS2, an enzyme found in high amounts on the outside of respiratory cells. First, TMPRSS2 cuts a site on the spike’s S2 subunit8. That cut exposes a run of hydrophobic amino acids that rapidly buries itself in the closest membrane — that of the host cell. Next, the extended spike folds back onto itself, like a zipper, forcing the viral and cell membranes to fuse.
An animation of the way SARS-CoV-2 fuses with cells.
The virus then ejects its genome directly into the cell. By invading in this spring-loaded manner, SARS-CoV-2 infects faster than SARS-CoV and avoids being trapped in endosomes, according to work published in April by Barclay and her colleagues at Imperial College London9.
The virus’s speedy entry using TMPRSS2 explains why the malaria drug chloroquine didn’t work in clinical trials as a COVID-19 treatment, despite early promising studies in the lab10. Those turned out to have used cells that rely exclusively on cathepsins for endosomal entry. “When the virus transmits and replicates in the human airway, it doesn’t use endosomes, so chloroquine, which is an endosomal disrupting drug, is not effective in real life,” says Barclay.
The discovery also points to protease inhibitors as a promising therapeutic option to prevent a virus from using TMPRSS2, cathepsin L or other proteases to enter host cells. One TMPRSS2 inhibitor, camostat mesylate, which is approved in Japan to treat pancreatitis, blocked viral entry into lung cells8, but the drug did not improve patients’ outcomes in an initial clinical trial11.
“From my perspective, we should have such protease inhibitors as broad antivirals available to fight new disease outbreaks and prevent future pandemics at the very beginning,” says Stefan Pöhlmann, director of the Infection Biology Unit at the German Primate Center in Göttingen, who has led research on ACE2 binding and the TMPRSS2 pathway.
Deadly competition
The next steps of infection are murkier. “There are a lot more black boxes once you are inside the cell,” says chemist Janet Iwasa at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, who is developing an annotated animation of the viral life cycle. “There’s more uncertainty, and competing hypotheses.”
After the virus shoots its RNA genome into the cell, ribosomes in the cytoplasm translate two sections of viral RNA into long strings of amino acids, which are then snipped into 16 proteins, including many involved in RNA synthesis. Later, more RNAs are generated that code for a total of 26 known viral proteins, including structural ones used to make new virus particles, such as the spike, and other accessory proteins. In this way, the virus begins churning out copies of its own messenger RNA. But it needs the cell’s machinery to translate those mRNAs into proteins.
How a rampant coronavirus variant blunts our immune defences
Coronaviruses take over that machinery in many ways. Virologist Noam Stern-Ginossar and her team at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, zoomed in on three mechanisms by which SARS-CoV-2 suppresses the translation of host mRNA in favour of its own. None are exclusive to this virus, but the combination, speed and magnitude of the effects seem unique, says Stern-Ginossar.
First, the virus eliminates the competition: viral protein Nsp1, one of the first proteins translated when the virus arrives, recruits host proteins to systematically chop up all cellular mRNAs that don’t have a viral tag. When Stern-Ginossar’s team put that same tag on the end of a host mRNA, the mRNA was not chopped up12.
Second, infection reduces overall protein translation in the cell by 70%. Nsp1 is again the main culprit, this time physically blocking the entry channel of ribosomes so mRNA can’t get inside, according to work from two research teams13,14. The little translation capacity that remains is dedicated to viral RNAs, says Stern-Ginossar.
Finally, the virus shuts down the cell’s alarm system. This happens in numerous ways, but Stern-Ginossar’s team identified one clear mechanism for SARS-CoV-2: the virus prevents cellular mRNA from getting out of the nucleus, including instructions for proteins meant to alert the immune system to infection. A second team confirmed this finding, and again pointed to Nsp1: the protein seems to jam up exit channels in the nucleus so nothing can escape15.
Because gene transcripts can’t get out of the nucleus, the infected cells don’t release many interferons — these are signalling proteins that alert the immune system to the presence of a virus. SARS-Cov-2 is particularly efficient at shutting down this alarm system: compared with other respiratory viruses, including SARS-CoV and respiratory syncytial virus, SARS-CoV-2 infection induces significantly lower levels of interferons16. And this June, researchers reported mutations in the Alpha variant that seem to enable it to subdue interferon production even more efficiently17.
“It’s clear that SARS-CoV-2 is a very fast virus that has a unique ability to prevent our immune system from recognizing and combating infection in the first stages,” says Stern-Ginossar. By the time the immune system does realize there is a virus, there is so much of it that immune-response proteins sometimes flood the bloodstream at a faster rate than normal — which can cause damage. Doctors saw early in the pandemic that some people with COVID-19 who become very ill are harmed by an overactive immune response to SARS-CoV-2, as well as by the virus itself. Some proven treatments work by dampening down this immune response.
Renovation station
Once the virus has taken over host translation, it starts a home makeover, extensively remodelling the interior and exterior of the cell to its needs.
First, some of the newly made viral spike proteins travel to the surface of the cell and poke out of the host-cell membrane. There, they activate a host calcium-ion channel, which expels a fatty coating onto the outside of the cell — the same coating found on cells that naturally fuse together, such as muscle cells. At this point, the infected cell fuses to neighbouring cells expressing ACE2, developing into massive individual respiratory cells filled with up to 20 nuclei.
Fused cell structures (syncytia) seen in cells expressing the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein (green). Nuclei are in blue and the cell skeleton is in red.
Credit: Mauro Giacca
These fused structures, called syncytia, are induced by viral infections such as HIV and herpes simplex virus, but not by the SARS virus, says molecular biologist Mauro Giacca at King’s College London, who led the team that published the finding in April18. He hypothesizes that forming syncytia allows infected cells to thrive for long periods of time, churning out more and more virions. “This is not a hit-and-run virus,” he says. “It persists.” A second team, led by researcher Qiang Sun at the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences in Beijing, found that some COVID-19-infected cells even form syncytia with lymphocytes — one of the body’s own immune cells19. This is a known mechanism of immune evasion by tumour cells, but not by viruses. It suggests that infected cells avoid immune detection by simply grabbing on to and merging with nearby immune scouts.
On the inside of the cell, even more change is occurring. Like other coronaviruses, SARS-CoV-2 transforms the long, thin endoplasmic reticulum (ER), a network of flat membranes involved in protein synthesis and transport, into double-membrane spheres, as if the ER were blowing bubbles. These double-membrane vesicles (DMVs) might provide a safe place for viral RNA to be replicated and translated, shielding it from innate immune sensors in the cell, but that hypothesis is still being investigated.
Proteins involved in making DMVs could be good drug targets, because they seem to be necessary for viral replication. For instance, a host protein, TMEM41B, is needed to mobilize cholesterol and other lipids to expand the ER membranes so that all the virus parts will fit inside20. “When you take TMEM41B out, it has a major impact on infection,” says Vineet Menachery, a coronavirus researcher at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, who was involved in the research. The coronavirus transmembrane protein Nsp3 could also be a target: it creates a crown-like pore in the walls of the DMVs to shuttle out newly made viral RNA21.
Most viruses that have an outer wrapping, known as an envelope, form this feature by assembly directly at the edge of the cell, co-opting some of the cell’s own plasma membrane on their way out. But newly made coronavirus proteins take a different path.
For years, evidence has suggested that coronaviruses are transported out of the cell through the Golgi complex, an organelle that works like a post office, packaging molecules in membranes and sending them off to other parts of the cell. There, the virus forms a lipid envelope from the Golgi complex’s membrane; newly formed virions are then carried inside Golgi vesicles to the cell surface, where they are spat out of the cell, says virologist and cell biologist Carolyn Machamer at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, who has studied coronaviruses for 30 years.
But in December, cell biologist Nihal Altan-Bonnet at the US National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, and her colleagues reported that they had detected coronaviruses leaving the cell through lysosomes — cellular rubbish bins full of enzymes that break down cell parts22. Blocking the Golgi-based secretory pathway didn’t seem to affect the amount of infectious virus being released, says Altan-Bonnet. Her team’s evidence22 suggests that viral proteins form an envelope by budding into the ER, then take over lysosomes to get out of the cell. The researchers are currently testing inhibitors that block the lysosomal exit process as potential antiviral candidates.
Leaving a cell through either the Golgi or lysosomes is slow and inefficient compared with budding out of a plasma membrane, so scientists don’t know why SARS-CoV-2 does it. Machamer suspects that the lipid composition of a Golgi- or lysosome-derived envelope is somehow more beneficial to the virus than one from the plasma membrane. “If we understood this part a little bit better, there would be great opportunities for novel antiviral therapeutics,” she says.
Last slice
On the way out of the cell, one more event makes this virus into an infectious juggernaut: a quick snip at a site of five amino acids prepares the virus to strike its next target.
Where other coronaviruses have a single arginine amino acid at the junction of the S1 and S2 subunits of the spike, SARS-CoV-2 has a line of five amino acids: proline, arginine, arginine, alanine and arginine. “Because the site was unusual, we focused on it, and it turned out that, yes, the site is essential for invasion of lung cells,” says Pöhlmann. In May 2020, he and his colleagues reported that a host-cell protein called furin recognizes and clips that string of amino acids — and the cut is “essential” for the virus to enter human lung cells efficiently23.
It’s not the first time that researchers have identified a furin cleavage site on a virus; highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses also have it, says Barclay. When a colleague sent Barclay a strain of SARS-CoV-2 in culture that had spontaneously lost the furin cleavage site, her team found that ferrets infected with this strain shed viral particles in lower amounts than did those infected with the pandemic strain, and did not transmit the infection to nearby animals9. At the same time as Barclay’s team reported its results in a September 2020 preprint, a study in the Netherlands also found that coronavirus with an intact furin cleavage site enters human airway cells faster than do those without it24.
Furin is suspected to cut the site at some point during virion assembly, or just before release. The timing might explain why the virus exits through the Golgi or lysosomes, says Tom Gallagher, a virologist at Loyola University Chicago in Illinois. “The virus, once assembled, moves into an organelle where it can be bathed in the presence of the furin protease.”
By snipping the bond between the S1 and S2 subunits, the furin cut loosens up virion spike proteins so that during cell entry they respond to a second cut by TMPRSS2, which exposes the hydrophobic area that rapidly buries itself in a host-cell membrane, says Gallagher. If spikes are not pre-clipped by furin —and they aren’t always — they bypass TMPRSS2, and enter through the slower endosomal pathway, if at all.
The race for antiviral drugs to beat COVID — and the next pandemic
Two coronavirus variants, Alpha and Delta, have altered furin cleavage sites. In the Alpha variant, the initial proline amino acid is changed to a histidine (P681H) ; in the Delta variant, it is changed to an arginine (P681R). Both changes make the sequence less acidic, and the more basic the string of amino acids, the more effectively furin recognizes and cuts it, says Barclay. “We would hypothesize that this is the virus getting even better at transmitting.”
More furin cuts mean more spike proteins primed to enter human cells. In SARS-CoV, less than 10% of spike proteins are primed, says Menachery, whose lab group has been quantifying the primed spike proteins but is yet to publish this work. In SARS-CoV-2, that percentage rises to 50%. In the Alpha variant, it’s more than 50%. In the highly transmissible Delta variant, the group has found, greater than 75% of spikes are primed to infect a human cell.
Known unknowns
The scientific community is still scratching the surface of its understanding of SARS-CoV-2. Key unknowns include the number of ACE2 receptors needed to bind to each spike protein; when exactly the S2 site is cleaved by TMPRSS2; and the number of spikes needed for virus–cell membrane fusion, says McLellan — and that’s just for entry. In April 2020, a team at the University of California, San Francisco, identified at least 332 interactions between SARS-CoV-2 and human proteins25.
It is not easy to keep pace with the quickly mutating virus. Most mutations so far are associated with how effectively the virus spreads, not with how much the virus damages the host, experts agree. This month, a study reported that the Delta variant grew more rapidly and at higher levels inside people’s lungs and throats than did earlier versions of the virus26.
But it is not yet certain how Delta’s mutations have supercharged the variant in this way, says Stern-Ginossar. “This is something many labs are trying to figure out.”
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