(Helene Seroussi et al./JGR Solid Earth/Business Insider)

Here's What You Really Need to Know About That Hot Plume Under Antarctica

Don't believe the headlines that say there's a disaster coming.

DAVE MOSHER, BUSINESS INSIDER

The effect, first proposed 30 years ago, seems especially strong in West Antarctica, where ice sheet losses are most dramatic and contributing to sea-level rise. But few scientists believed this was happening, at least initially.

"I thought it was crazy," Hélène Seroussi, a climatologist and ice researcher at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in a press release. "I didn't see how we could have that amount of heat and still have ice on top of it."

Map of antarctic ice flow speeds.

(NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualisation Studio)

However, a new study by Seroussi and others now backs up the idea of a hot mantle plume - and the melting it causes - with advanced computer modelling.

The work was published September 1 in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth.

Rising from the depths

Earth's internal heat is always warming up the ground, including rock under ice sheets all over the planet. While this partially melts them from below, snow and ice accumulation on top is usually enough to balance out these losses.

Over the years, however, researchers who study Antarctic ice melt have detailed an anomaly at West Antarctica. There, ice sheet thinning is more drastic than anywhere else on the continent, according to satellite data.

Thinning ice sheets most dramatic in West Antarctica.

(ESA/Planetary Visions)

Since the industrial revolution, the North and South Poles have warmed at a rate many times faster than other locations on Earth. In Antarctica, this is melting ice sheets from above and pooling water on top of them - possibly helping carve off Delaware-size icebergs.

But a warming climate does not fully explain Antarctica's mounting ice loss. So in recent years, researchers have looked deeper for an answer.

Hiding under the ice

One line of research has discovered, documented, and even drilled into and explored a vast system of sub-glacial lakes and rivers.

This water helps lubricate the movement of ice sheets from the snowy mountains to the sea - and certain parts of the Southern Continent, where there's a lot of sub-glacial water - are moving and melting faster than others.

Antarctica's sub glacial lakes.

(NSF/Zina Deretsky)

Scientists have also dug into the mystery of a bulge in Earth's crust below West Antarctica, called the Marie Byrd Land Dome. At first, it was thought the crust was thicker there. But earthquake-like seismic measurements disproved that idea.

Something else is buoying the region, and recent seismic imaging - essentially 3D-radar for Earth's crust and mantle - suggests there's a warm plume of rock below West Antarctica. (Just as sound waves travel slower through liquids than solids, seismic waves slow down when encountering hotter, more gooey, and less-dense rock.)

Since this could just be an irregularity in the mantle, Seroussi and her colleagues borrowed from a computer model used to simulate the giant plume of hot rock below Yellowstone National Park.

Measurements suggest a hot plume of mantle rock below West Antarctica.

(Helene Seroussi et al./JGR Solid Earth; Business Insider)

Researchers plugged in all of the known physics about the mantle, Antarctica, and its ice sheets - including their changing altitude, movement, friction caused by that movement, melting rates, and more - and produced dozens of simulations, according to NASA JPL.

Those simulations showed that heat spilling from a hot mantle plume could be up to three times greater than it is for a normal, non-volcanic chunk of mantle below the US. And compared to mantle below Yellowstone, the heat output could be 75 percent that of the volcanically active region.

When the researchers compared that heat output to basal (or bottom) melt rates in Antarctica, no places matched - except for West Antarctica. At that location, a crack or rift in the crust may be allowing heat to rapidly escape upward, the researchers wrote in their study.

"Without a plume-like heating source," they said, "our simulations show that intrinsic heating and crustal sources do not provide enough energy to generate significant amounts of basal meltwater."

This article was originally published by Business Insider

{ https://www.sciencealert.com/ }

ALIENS ALREADY LIVE ON PLANET EARTH...

Most of these “slugs” are actually snails that have lost their shells and gained new characteristics through evolution. For example, sacoglossans are sometimes called “solar-powered sea slugs” because they use chloroplasts from the algae they eat in their own tissue.

Sea Sheep (Costasiella Kuroshimae)

Blue Angel (Glaucus Atlanticus) Blue Angel (Glaucus Atlanticus)

Phyllodesmium Poindimiei

Janolus Fuscus

Cadlinella Ornatissima

Dirona Albolineata

Hypselodoris Kanga

Sea Bunny (Acanthodoris Pilosa)

Cyerce Nigricans

Leaf Slug (Elysia Chlorotica)

Lettuce Sea Slug (Elysia Crispata)

Flabellina Iodinea

Chromodoris Alius

Janolus Barbarensis

Hypselodoris Apolegma

PROOF OF TIME TRAVEL? BIZARRE CLAIMS NUCLEAR BOMB WAS DETONATED IN INDIA 12,000 YEARS AGO

A NUCLEAR bomb blast killed half a million people in India 12,000 years ago, according to shocking claims being made.

Videos uploaded by conspiracy theory and UFO websites suggest there is evidence of the ancient blast happening in a desert region near Jodhpur.

Website ufosightingsdaily.com was the latest to link to one of the videos today.

The “evidence” is alleged to be based on “writings” in ancient texts and an area where high levels of radiation were allegedly detected.

Conspiracy theory website Disclose.tv said: “Hindu texts dating from thousands of years ago seem to suggest that some kind of highly advanced weapon resembling an atomic bomb was set off on the Earth some twelve thousand of years ago.”

The theory is based on alleged passages from the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, Sanskrit epics said to be written in around the 8th or 9th century BC, about the Kurukshetra War and battle between Rama and the demon Ravana respectively.

Disclose.tv added: “Could an atomic bomb have gone off on Earth 12,000 years ago? Some of the passages from the Mahabharata suggest a nuclear conflict.”

The website points to these allegedly translated extracts from the texts: “A single projectile charged with all the power in the Universe…An incandescent column of smoke and flame as bright as 10,000 suns, rose in all its splendor…it was an unknown weapon, an iron thunderbolt, a gigantic messenger of death which reduced to ashes an entire race.

“The corpses were so burned as to be unrecognisable. Their hair and nails fell out, pottery broke without any apparent cause, and the birds turned white.

“After a few hours, all foodstuffs were infected. To escape from this fire, the soldiers threw themselves into the river.”

The theory suggests the discovery of an area of high radiation in the 1990s and several corpses found in an ancient city back up the texts.

The claims are that on the eastern edge of the great Thar desert, near the ancient city of Jodhpur, in the 1990s, an area “where radioactivity is so great that residents have long had high rates of cancer and birth defects.”

It suggests that nearby several skeletons were unearthered in an ancient city whiuch appeared to have perished together in the streets.

In some reports alleged Indian historian, Kisari Mohan Ganguli, said: “Indian sacred writings are full of such descriptions, which sound like an atomic blast as experienced in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”

The theory claims there is evidence of a nuclear blast crater – the Lonar Crater near Mumbai, which cannot be explained.

Conspiracy theorists have claimed time travellers or aliens could be explanations for how advanced technology developed in the 20th century was available 12,000 years ago.

Disclose.tv said: “How the ancient Indian powers at the time developed nuclear weapons is a mystery although of course no records exist showing anything like the levels of technology needed to develop these kinds of weapons.”

But, despite appearing on many conspiracy theory and UFO websites, the story has been exposed as “fake news”.

Debunking website skeptoid.com investigated the claims.

It found no evidence of the reported passages in translated versions of the texts.

It also found no evidence outside of conspiracy forums to suggest the area of high radiation had been discovered in the desert.

The images of the ancient city and skeletons used with the reports were found to have actually been taken at the ancient cities of Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa, which are around 300 miles away from the alleged site.

Skeptoid.com said: ” If this was a nuclear war, it was practically a nationwide theatre.

“Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa are both about 500 km from Jodhpur, one to the north and one to the west. None of these places are anywhere near each other.

“Sadly for the legend, there is nothing remotely like this story in any archaeological publications.

“Archaeological information about the excavations of Mohenjo-Daro, Harappa, and other Indus Valley sites is widely available online and in print, and there is simply no such thing as radioactive skeletons or skeletons in large numbers or holding hands or sprawled in any way.”

Skeptoid.com said the Lonar Crater was 470 miles from the alleged site and had been dated back to being formed 52,000 years ago, long before the alleged ancient bomb blast.

{  http://mysteriousthing.com/ }

NASA’s $1 Billion Jupiter Probe Just Sent Back Stunning New Photos Of Jupiter

Traveling above Jupiter at more than 130,000 miles per hour, NASA’s $1 billion Juno probe took its ninth set of stunning flyby images on October 24. But the sun slipped between the giant planet and Earth for more than a week, blocking the spacecraft from beaming home its precious bounty of data.

Now that the conjunction is over, however, new raw image data from Juno’s ninth perijove — as the spacecraft’s high-speed flybys are called — has poured in. Researchers posted it all online on Tuesday, and a community of amateurs and professionals has been busily processing the data to yield colorful and stunning new pictures of Jupiter.

“Brand new Jupiter pics from @NASAJuno Perijove 09! What a blimmin’ gorgeous/diabolical planet,” Seán Doran, a UK-based graphic artist who regularly processes NASA images, tweeted on Tuesday.

Below are some fresh, close-up images of Jupiter, along with other unbelievable views captured from earlier perijoves.

In the most recent flyby, as with the previous eight, Juno’s flyby started over Jupiter’s north pole.

The spacecraft then swept within a few thousand miles of the gas giant, capturing stunning high-resolution views of its cloud tops.

At its closest approach to Jupiter during each flyby, the robot briefly becomes the fastest human-made object in the solar system, reaching speeds of around 130,000 miles per hour.

Then Juno flew back out into deep space, passing over Jupiter’s South Pole on its exit. Churning storms at the poles constantly change their appearance.

Researchers upload the raw data sent by the probe to the mission’s website.

There, enthusiasts take the drab, mostly gray image data and process it all into true-to-life color photos.

Many snapshots of Jupiter take on an artistic quality.

Others dazzle with their detail of the planet’s thick cloud bands and powerful storms. Jupiter is made up predominantly of hydrogen. The simple, basic gas, a prime ingredient on the sun, accounts for 90 percent of the atmosphere. Nearly 10 percent is composed of helium.

The planet’s atmosphere is a turbulent mess of hydrogen and helium gases. The atmosphere of Jupiter is the largest planetary atmosphere in the Solar System. It is mostly made of molecular hydrogen and helium in roughly solar proportions; other chemical compounds are present only in small amounts and include methane, ammonia, hydrogen sulfide and water.Some of the tempests are large enough to swallow planet Earth — or at least a good chunk of it.

There are also traces of molecules like ammonia, methane, sulfur, and water, which give the clouds different colors and properties.

The mixture sometimes creates features that look like faces (as seen on the left in this image).

Other times, shining-white clouds fill up most of a band. With an average temperature of minus 234 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 145 degrees Celsius), Jupiter is frigid even in its warmest weather. Unlike Earth, whose temperature varies as one moves closer to or farther from the equator, Jupiter’s temperature depends more on height above the surface.

Many cloud bands have features called chevrons. These atmospheric disturbances blow at several hundreds of miles per hour and sometimes zig-zag through a band, or punch through into others.

In this older view of Jupiter, from Juno’s eighth perijove, two cloud bands battle for dominance — one of which contains a swirling storm many times larger than a hurricane on Earth.

The spacecraft will continue to document Jupiter for as long as NASA can keep it going. But not forever.

{ http://mysteriousthing.com/ }

Tourist is shocked to see a 'doughnut-shaped UFO' floating above a lake in a picture he took in China

• A Taiwanese man claimed he took pictures of a famous lake in south-west China 
• Later on, his sister-in-law told him she saw a mysterious object in one photo
• The 44-year-old salesman believes the doughnut-shaped object was a UFO
• British UFO expert, Philip Mantle, analysed the pictures but couldn't be sure 

By Tiffany Lo For Mailonline

A Taiwanese businessman claimed he had caught a doughnut-shaped UFO on camera in south-west China. 

Salesman John Chen said he took some picturesque shots of the famous Lake Dian after attending a trade show in Yunnan Province on November 1.

Later on, the 44-year-old and his sister-in-law were shocked to spot a mysterious ring-shaped object in sky when they were looking at one picture at home in Taipei.

Mr Chen, above, sends the pictures to Philip Mantle, a leading UFO expert, for analysis as the flying object has a ridged shape that looks like a doughnut (under).

The object in question has ridged sides and a hole in the middle, and is similar to the shape of a doughnut.

Mr Chen decided to find a UFO expert in a bid to find out what it could be.

Philip Mantle, who is said to be a leading British UFO researcher, told Mr Chen that he could not explain what the flying 'doughnut' was. Mr Mantle called the incident an 'open verdict'.

However, Mr Chen said: 'It just has to be a UFO. It's a strange doughnut shape in the sky.

'The strange thing is I didn't see it at the time. It was my wife's sister who spotted them. She said there was something in the pictures and I just thought she was joking.'

Businessman John Chen took a few pictures of Lake Dian in China the day he attended a trade show (above). Only when he returned to Taiwan, he was told that there was a UFO in it (under)

Other pictures of Lake Dian, however, did not show the strange looking object in the sky

Mr Chen then checked with his colleagues. They shared the photos that they had taken on the day, but his colleagues did not capture any strange object in the sky.

Upon receiving photos sent by Mr Chen, British UFO expert Philip Mantle doubted for the legitimacy of the images. 

'What I can say is that the photographer in question here has always cooperated and seems to be genuinely puzzled by the images on his photos.

He did not see the alleged UFO at the time of taking the photos. Instead it was a relative that noticed them when he posted them on social media.'

Mantel concluded that there was no proof that the pictures were a hoax but the object could also be 'some air born debris that has been caught by the camera;   

'More study needs to be done on these photos before any definite conclusion can be reached, so in the meantime it remains an open verdict,' he added.

{ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

NASA DISCOVERS GIANT MANTLE PLUME THAT’S MELTING ANTARCTICA FROM BELOW

Antarctica has been in the news a lot recently, with gloomy tales of the astonishing icy continent melting and collapsing because of the effects of climate change.

Map of antarctic ice flow speeds. (NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualisation Studio)

SUPER VOLCANO DISCOVERED UNDERNEATH ANTARCTICA

However, according to scientists in one particular area of the continent something else is at work too. Researchers working for NASA have discovered that there is a massive super-volcano underneath Marie Byrd Land in West Antarctica which is generating almost as much heat as the infamous Yellowstone supervolcano and effectively melting the ice from underneath the Earth.  

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The research team have uncovered an enormous amount of hot rock underneath Marie Byrd Land which lies between the gigantic Ross Ice Shelf and the Ross Sea. According to the team, the heat surrounding this area is creating huge lakes and rivers underneath the ice sheet. This heat, they claim, is being generated by a mantle plume. Mantle plumes are part of the anatomy of a super volcano which bring hot material from the interior to the Earth to the surface. The region directly surrounding these mantle plumes is known as a hot spot and can cause a great deal of geographical instability. According to the team, it is likely that the mantle plume is responsible for the ever changing landscape in this particular region on Antarctica and is probably responsible for its rapid collapse towards the end of the last major Ice Age eleven thousand years ago.  

The existence of a blazingly hot mantle plume existing under Marie Byrd land is something which scientists have speculated about for around thirty years because of the unique conditions in this particular area of Antarctica and the domed feature of the landscape there. However, until now there has been no solid evidence to support this idea.

This has all changed because of the work at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory who commenced the project because they were interested to know what was causing the instability in the region. According to the leader of the project Hélène Seroussi, the team were actually initially sceptical about the idea that a mantle plume could be causing the unique conditions. She said that she found the idea ‘crazy’. “I didn’t see how we could have that amount of heat and still have ice on top of it, ” she said.

However, the team created a huge number of advanced numerical models to calculate how much heat would need to be generated underneath the thick ice sheet to account for geological anomalies such as the domed appearance of the landscape and the lakes and rivers in the bedrock and eventually they came to the conclusion that there simply had to be a mantle plume in this area.

Once they had come to the conclusion that it was likely that they were dealing with a mantle plume, the team dispatched to Yellowstone to analyse the geothermal heat created by the super volcano and found that it was comparable to the amount of heat being generated in Marie Byrd Land. At Yellowstone, around 200 milliwatts is generated per square meter every hour by the heat of the volcano. In Marie Byrd land approximately 150 milliwatts is generated in the same space of time. The scientists note that if the supervolcano underneath Antarctica was any hotter then it would certainly melt the ice in the surrounding area.

The team believes that the mantle plume is coming from a rift in the Earth’s crust and that it is likely that this particular rift and mantle plume formed between fifty and a hundred and ten million years ago, prior to the region being covered with ice.

According to the research team, these investigations could prove to be acutely important in the future. As scientists endeavour to understand the nature of the landscape of Antarctica and attempt to

make predictions about how it will evolve and change in the future this kind of information is absolutely essential.

RELATED ARTICLES

• Antarctic glacier is melting fast and may lift seas by 2 meters, study says
• Lava-Like Landslide Of Melting Permafrost Filmed In Tibet 

{ http://www.disclose.tv/ }

Has Britain's most baffling alien abduction UFO case involving police man been solved?

EXCLUSIVE: It was on a cold morning in November 1980 that PC Alan Godfrey, now 70, came face-to-face with a UFO.

Dino’s echte pechvogels: uitgestorven omdat meteoriet net dáár op aarde neerstortte - HLN.be

Joeri Vlemings 

Bron: The Guardian

Detlev van RavenswaayArtistieke weergaven van de Chicxulubkrater.

De prehistorische beesten zouden 65-66 miljoen jaar geleden mogelijk niet uitgestorven zijn, was de meteoriet van, naar schatting, negen km diameter ingeslagen op zowat eender welke andere plaats op onze planeet. Op 87 procent van de aardoppervlakte zou de inslag misschien niet de massale uitroeiing van dino’s tot gevolg hebben gehad, volgens Kunio Kaiho en Naga Oshima van de Tohoku Universiteit in Japan.

Het kolossale stenen gevaarte stortte te pletter op het Mexicaanse schiereiland Yucatán, dat dus - helaas voor de dino’s - tot de dertien andere procent van de aarde behoorde. Een enorme klap moet het geweest zijn: de inslagkrater bij Chicxulub was maar liefst 180 km breed en 20 km diep. De concentratie van koolwaterstoffen in de rotsen was er zo hoog dat de in de lucht vrijgekomen roet- en sulfaatdeeltjes wereldwijd afkoeling en droogte veroorzaakten. Er kwamen tsunami’s en aardbevingen van, over heel de planeet. De zon werd verduisterd door het stof, de temperatuur op aarde zakte met tien graden Celsius. Niet alleen de dino’s - die volgens sommige paleontologen al langer in verval waren - kenden zo een abrupt einde: 75 procent van alle zee- en landdieren stierf uit.

AFPArtistieke impressie van de Sinosauropteryx, een kleine, gevederde dinosaurus.

De onderzoekers zochten uit hoeveel roet en sulfaat een virtuele meteorietinslag de stratosfeer zou inblazen naargelang de hoeveelheid koolwaterstof en sulfaat in de grond. Dan berekenden ze vanaf wanneer de afkoeling van onze planeet zo groot zou zijn dat ze een massavernietiging kan veroorzaken. Volgens Kaiho en Oshima bereikt een meteorietinslag dat punt als er tussen de 230 miljoen en 2.300 miljoen ton roet in de bovenste atmosfeer geblazen wordt. En dat scenario blijkt slechts mogelijk voor dertien procent van de aardoppervlakte.

Uit een internationaal onderzoek in 2014 bleek dat de dinosaurussen mogelijk hadden kunnen overleven. Namelijk als de gigantische steen op een “geschikter tijdstip” was ingeslagen, wanneer de dinosoorten gevarieerder en dus meer bestand zouden geweest zijn.

EPAEen dinomodel in het Sudwala Caves Dinosaur park bij Machadodorp in Zuid-Afrika.

En nu argumenteren wetenschappers bovendien dat niet alleen het tijdstip van cruciaal belang kan geweest zijn, maar ook de plaats van de inslag. Volgens paleontoloog Kaiho zou er “geen afkoeling, of een lichtere afkoeling, geweest zijn” als de meteoriet was neergestort op rotsen met minder organisch materiaal. Hij vat het lot van de dino’s daarom zo samen: “Ze hadden pech”. Voor de mens betekende het dan weer wel dat zoogdieren door de ondergang van de dinosaurussen betere ontwikkelingskansen kregen.

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

Wetenschappers krabben zich in de haren: de ster die weigert te sterven - HLN.be

Bron: ANP

ThinkstockIllustratiebeeld.

WETENSCHAP & PLANEET Als een ster aan het einde van zijn leven is, gaat hij soms met een enorme ontploffing ten onder: een supernova. Maar wetenschappers hebben nu een unieke ster ontdekt: die heeft zijn eigen dood overleefd, bleef schijnen, ontplofte later opnieuw en schijnt nog altijd.

Een Amerikaanse telescoop zag in september 2014 een ontploffing aan de sterrenhemel. De explosie leek aanvankelijk normaal en het licht vervaagde langzaam. Maar waar normale supernova’s na ongeveer honderd dagen doven, bleef deze ster ongeveer twee jaar lang schijnen. Af en toe dimde het licht iets of werd het helderder. Ook nu is de supernova nog helder.

Lees ook

Na de ‘supernova’ is er ook de ‘kilonova’, waar we al het goud in de wereld aan te danken hebben

Toen de wetenschappers in de archieven doken, ontdekten ze dat er al eerder een ontploffing was geweest op precies dezelfde plek in het heelal, in 1954. Met andere woorden: de ster is toen geëxplodeerd, bleef een halve eeuw leven, ontplofte toen weer en is nog altijd niet dood. De onderzoekers begrijpen niet precies hoe het kan dat de ster zich niet houdt aan de natuurwetten. Mogelijk gaat het om een onbekend type ster. De supernova staat beschreven in het wetenschapsblad Nature.

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

Uber en NASA werken samen aan vliegende auto’s - HLN.be

Bron: ANP

Uber heeft de samenwerking vandaag aangekondigd. Het bedrijf is van plan de vliegende taxi’s in 2020 uit te testen in Dallas en Dubai en voegde daar nu een derde stad aan toe: Los Angeles. De stad, waar in 2028 de Olympische Spelen worden gehouden, heeft constant last van verkeersopstoppingen.

Lees ook

Google stuurt zelfrijdende auto zonder bestuurder openbare weg op

Uber had de vliegende auto’s vorig jaar ronkend gepresenteerd. Het is de bedoeling dat elektrische, zelfrijdende wagens verticaal opstijgen van een plat dak en naar een ander dak vliegen, waar ze verticaal op moeten landen.

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

Wetenschappers vinden bos van 260 miljoen jaar oud op Zuidpool - HLN.be

Bron: ANP

AFP

De aarde bestond 260 miljoen jaar geleden uit twee werelddelen: Gondwana in het zuiden en Laurazië in het noorden. Antarctica maakte deel uit van Gondwana, met onder meer Zuid-Amerika, Afrika, India en Australië, en was veel warmer en vochtiger dan nu. Het gebied was waarschijnlijk bedekt met mossen, varens en planten, waar vooral kleine dieren leefden.

Ondanks de temperaturen moesten de bomen extreme omstandigheden overleven. In de zomer ging de zon niet onder en was het ook midden in de nacht licht. In de winter bleef het juist donker. Uit de fossielen concluderen de wetenschappers dat de bomen snel omschakelden van zomer naar winter. Hun ‘herfst’ duurde hooguit een maand.

De universiteit van Wisconsin heeft de bevindingen nu naar buiten gebracht. Wetenschappers van de instelling hebben tussen november en januari onderzoek gedaan op de bevroren hellingen van het zogeheten McIntyre-voorgebergte, diep in de binnenlanden van de Zuidpool. Toen was het daar ‘zomer’, hoewel ook dan de temperatuur tientallen graden onder nul blijft. Komende maanden gaan ze weer, op zoek naar nieuwe sporen.

Vulkaanuitbarstingen

Ongeveer 250 miljoen jaar geleden, dus zo’n 10 miljoen jaar nadat de gevonden bomen leefden, stierven vrijwel alle vroege dieren- en plantensoorten uit. Dat kwam waarschijnlijk door vulkaanuitbarstingen in Siberië. Die vulden de dampkring met giftige gassen. In de lege wereld die achterbleef kwamen langzaam de voorlopers van de dino’s op.

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

300,000-year-old skulls that look shockingly like ours could rewrite the human origin story

Erin Brodwin, Business Insider

Precisely when and where did our species emerge? Anthropologists have struggled with that question for decades, and scattered clues had suggested the answer lay somewhere in sub-Saharan Africa about 200,000 years ago.

But new evidence outlined in two papers published in the journal Nature challenges that hypothesis. Instead, the authors describe recently discovered remains that suggest the first Homo sapiens showed up more than 100,000 years earlier than we thought in a place many experts didn't suspect.

The fossils could represent the earliest known examples of H. sapiens ever found (if confirmed by further research), and they serve as evidence that members of our species lived beyond sub-Saharan Africa.

Skulls in the dust

Anthropologist Jean-Jacques Hublin showing off one of the finds, a crushed human skull whose eye orbits are visible just beyond his fingertip.

(Shannon McPherron, MPI EVA Leipzig)

In 1961, a crew of miners was plowing into a dense wall of limestone in a hilly region west of Marrakesh when they struck a soft patch. The hardened beige surface gave way to a mound of cinnamon-colored dirt. Peeking out of the earth was a sliver of human skull.

A bit more digging revealed a nearly-complete skull, which the miners turned over to their field doctor. As word about the discovery spread, researchers flocked to the area. They uncovered more remains, including several pieces of jaw bone and a fragment of an arm. At the time, scientists pegged the fossils as roughly 40,000 years old, a few thousand years before our extinct European relatives, the Neanderthals, were thought to have vanished.

But they hadn't dug deep enough.

The Jebel Irhoud site in Morocco.

(Shannon McPherron, MPI EVA Leipzig)

Roughly 40 years later, anthropologist Jean-Jacques Hublin and his team from the Max Planck Institute excavated the half-dozen layers of soil beneath the land where the skull and arm bones had been discovered. There, the team found remains that they say belong to at least five individuals, along with a set of flint blades which had likely been burned, perhaps by nearby cooking fires. 

Using a dating technique that measures how much radiation had built up in the flint since it was heated, Hublin and his team say the ancient bones belong to people who lived roughly 300,000-350,000 years ago. 

"These dates were a big wow," Hublin said on a recent call with reporters.

Still, the biggest discovery didn't come until the team looked more closely at the skulls.

A striking resemblance

When Hublin peered into the cavernous eye sockets of one of the skulls, he was astonished.

Instead of the robust features he was accustomed to seeing on the faces of an ancient human ancestor like Homo erectus or Homo heidelbergensis, this face bore a striking resemblance to his own. Where an erectus skull had a single, protruding brow ridge, these individuals had smaller, separated ones. Rather than a large face and a flattened skull, these people had small faces and rounder skulls.

"The face of these people is really a face that falls right in the middle of the modern variation," said Hublin. "They had a skull that is more elongated than most of us, but I'm not sure these people would stand out from a crowd today."

Their braincase (shown below in blue) also seemed to fall somewhere between what one might expect in an ancient human ancestor and a modern human, albeit slightly more similar to those of our archaic ancestors.

(Philipp Gunz, MPI EVA Leipzig)

This unique combination of advanced and archaic features suggests something profound, Hublin said -- he's convinced the Moroccan specimens "represent the very root of our species."

In other words, all of the Homo sapiens ever found -- including those uncovered far beyond Africa -- may trace their ancestral linkages to the land that is today's Morocco. 

That suggestion contradicts the prevailing anthropological logic that our species evolved somewhere deep in sub-Saharan Africa, in what some researchers have referred to as a "Garden of Eden," then gradually moved out to other parts of the world. Instead, Hublin and his team argue that Homo sapiens could have been living in terrain across Africa.

According to Sonia Zakrzewski, an associate professor of archaeology at the University of Southampton, Hublin's discovery could encourage other archaeologists to change the way they think about human origins. "It really sets the world alight in terms of the possibilities for understanding the evolution of Homo sapiens," she said. "It certainly means that we need to rethink our models."

Read the original article on Business Insider UK. © 2017. Follow Business Insider UK on Twitter.

More about: 

• Evolution
• Archaeology

{ http://www.independent.co.uk/ }

Alien Evidence – The Mysterious UFO Landing At Socorro, New Mexico

The Lonnie Zamora incident was an alleged UFO close encounter which occurred on Friday, April 24, 1964, at about 5:50 p.m., on the outskirts of Socorro, New Mexico.

This is a fascinating look from the inside out of the Air Forces investigation of this case, which today is still classified as an “Unknown”.

This UFO case has been researched for years now and there is an impressive amount of new data, including footage and audio recording from original witnesses.

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

Did The American Pilot Die After Seeing A Flying Cone In The Sky?

The mysterious crash in 1970 involved the disappearance of Captain William Schaffner, 28, an American pilot.

The incident took place nearly 50 years ago but created a conspiracy theory that persists until today.

The official conclusion of the unforgettable event regarding the American fighter jet that went down off Britain’s coast was that a tragic accident caused the plane piloted by U.S. Air Force pilot Captain William Schaffner to go down.

However, apparent sightings of flying transparent spheres and mysterious blips on the radar fueled intrigue, mystery, and speculation that UFOs downed the fighter jet XS894.

Adding to the enigma, the body of the pilot was missing after the aircraft was found on the seabed with its canopy closed weeks later.

Captain Schaffner was declared dead, but his body has never been found.

According to RAF Binbrook, Lincolnshire, during the Cold War, the pilot took off on the night of September 8, 1970, into the skies over Grimsby. The 28-year-old pilot then headed out over the North Sea on the way to Flamborough.

But shortly after 10:30 pm, the aircraft ditched into the sea, five miles south of Flamborough Head. Local newspapers covered the air and sea search and rescue operation.

It was revealed on October 7, 1970, that the plane was discovered by Royal Navy divers onboard the HMS Kedleston that sailed to Flamborough but they returned empty-handed as they still did not provide answers.

The plane stayed on the seabed, but the pilot’s body was still missing.

It was only in December that year the submerged plane was brought to the surface. To everyone’s surprise, the cockpit was empty, and the canopy over the cockpit was closed. Immediately rumors started to circulate.

In October 1992, a series of articles written by Pat Otter and published by Grimsby Telegraph brought life to the story with the incident being described as The Riddle of Foxtrot 94.

The writer claimed that there was evidence that out of this world was the cause of the downing and disappearance of the pilot.

Mr. Otter cited unnamed military sources who claimed they had observed UFOs across Grimsby, Flamborough and beyond.

Captain Schaffner was on Quick Reaction Alert duty during this period. He was dispatched to see what was the blips on the radar.

One newspaper report said that the pilot reported spotting a flying cone and a transparent sphere flying around his aircraft, causing malfunctions to his equipment.

In July 1994, the Grimsby Telegraph reported that the cat and mouse chase between Schaffner and the unidentified craft resulted in the death of the captain.

A team at RAF Binbrook said that it was their job to investigate the crash, but they were stalled, and their instruments had disappeared.

Until today, the case remained a mystery despite many things had happened since that day.

{ http://www.latest-ufo-sightings.net/ }

Watch Alleged U.S. Navy Footage Seemingly Shows A UFO That Defies Physics

An unidentified flying object that defied physics is claimed to be in a leaked U.S. Navy video footage, which has emerged after a former Area 51 insider shared about the encounter.

Several F-18 pilots are said to have outmaneuvered by extraordinary UFO during the terrifying encounter. Former U.S. national security chief Chris Mellon, who claimed to have spent time at Area 51 military base, said that U.S. Navy personnel aboard the USS Nimitz recorded the UFO on video during the seven-hour encounter.

Mr. Mellon claimed that he served for nearly 20 years in the U.S. federal government in several national security roles under the administrations of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

The former national security chief was reportedly on a committee with oversight of all special access programs in Department of Defense. He also said to have spent ten years on the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Mr. Mellon is one of the ex-senior government insiders who has gone forward after joining former Blink 182 frontman Tom DeLonge’s alien truth-seeking organization To The Stars Academy.

Mr. Mellon, who also had accessed on classified projects at the highly-secretive military facility in Nevada, detailed the bizarre incident that said to take place off the San Diego coast in broad daylight.

Now, a video has surfaced, claiming to be the footage recorded in 2004. It has been released anonymously and recently doing the rounds on social media.

The clip shows a mysterious object hovering in the skies.

It seems to show one of the F-18’s crosshairs lining the UFO up, but the bizarre thing speeds out of sight.

Many UFO experts believe that the craft disappeared with supersonic speed.

UFOlogist Tyler said that it looks like legit F-18 footage, which has been corroborated by men that were in the incident.

{ http://www.latest-ufo-sightings.net/ }

Is this the original video of the 1942 ‘Battle of Los Angeles UFO Sighting’?

The Battle of Los Angeles, also known as The Great Los Angeles Air Raid, is the name given by contemporary sources to an incident in Los Angeles, California, in which, after city-wide alarms went off due to an alleged enemy attack, the US antiaircraft defenses touched off a massive barrage of anti-aircraft fire, with some 1400 shells shot into the skies over Los Angeles during the frantic evening.

The incident occurred less than three months after the United States joined the Second World War as a result of the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Imperial Japanese Navy, and a day after the Ellwood Bombing on February 23.

Initially, it was thought that the barrage of anti-aircraft fire was in response to an attack from the Japanese air force, but speaking at a press conference shortly afterward, US Navy Secretary Frank Knox described the incident as a “false alarm”.

The newspapers of the time published a series of reports and speculated about cover-ups.

Some ufologists have had even claimed that a massive barrage of anti-aircraft fire did not target Japanese bombers, but alien spaceships.

But, as it seems that all ‘good UFO sightings’ are nothing more than weather balloons, in 1983, the United States Air Force History Office attributed the event to a case of “nerves of war” likely triggered by a lost weather balloon and exacerbated by stray flares and shell bursts from adjoining batteries.

Representative Leland Ford of Santa Monica called for a Congressional investigation, saying, “…none of the explanations so far offered removed the episode from the category of ‘complete mystification’ … this was either a practice raid, or a raid to throw a scare into 2,000,000 people, or a mistaken identity raid, or a raid to lay a political foundation to take away Southern California’s war industries.”

However, based mainly on an image, published in the Los Angeles Times on February 26, 1942, Ufologists around the globe believe that the US military did not shoot at a weather balloon or Japenese bombers on the late hours of 24 February to early 25 February, but a real saucer-shaped UFO.

Ufologists assert that the photo clearly shows searchlights focused on an alien spaceship.

{ https://www.ancient-code.com/ }