THE ELITE STOLE AND SILENCED THESE 5 INVENTIONS FROM NIKOLA TESLA AND RUINED OUR FUTURE

Without a doubt, the intelligent creations of the human mind change the whole pattern of our lives. Naive people would say that everyone in our society follows the path of kindness and unselfishness concerning the best interests of the humankind. Yet, the “crème de la crème” prefers the existing.

Yet, the “crème de la crème” prefers the existing, non-innovated environment. That act caused many inventions to fall down the river.

The mega creations of Nikola Tesla’s, one of the most famous scientists in the world history, unfortunately, fall under this section. Here are five of his inventions hidden by the elite:

1. The Death Ray :

Nikola Tesla called the death ray “Teleforce” and demonstrated it as a powerful weapon able to produce acute energetic rays of light. These beams would have been used for dealing with enemy warplanes, armies from abroad and any other unwanted person or appearance. This invention was never constructed because of its help people would sabotage themselves very quickly. Nikola Tesla said that with the help of this electromagnetic weapon a nation would have a protective wall impenetrable for foreign armies, destroying them from 200 miles away. He annulled his master plan by believing somebody wants to steal his idea.

2. Tesla's Oscillator:

Around 1898, Tesla alleged he had found a weapon capable of generating an earthquake. When he first tested his small, oscillating mechanism that matched the frequencies of what it was attached to, he nearly demolished his laboratory. He thought that this weapon is too dangerous and likely destructive, he smashed it with a hammer.

3. Free Electricity:

Aided financially by JP Morgan, Tesla arranged to build a wireless transmission tower called the Wardenclyffe tower, with the location in New York. While Morgan’s wishes were the tower to transfer wireless communication across the globe, Tesla had other intentions. He had a theory that the Earth can transfer signals and he wanted to prove it by wanting to transmit messages across the ocean to the ships into the sea. If his theory was right, he would have proven that the natural arrangements of the planet can be used for anyone to produce free electrical power. His theory and his plan never came true, of course, because they generated no money earnings.

4. Flying Saucer:

Nikola Tesla made quite a few statements about his flying saucer. He claimed his flying saucer never had wings or propellers, never flown regularly or didn’t even look like a flying object for that matter. Yet, he claimed this object it’s capable of moving ideally in the air with perfect security and with greater speed that people have ever seen. Tesla suggested the saucer can also stay immobile in the air even though the weather is not good or the wind is very strong. He pointed out that the capabilities of his flying saucer depend only on its positive mechanical action.

5. Electric Airships:

Tesla lived in a world where he could be able to make airships drink their power from the atmosphere. He also proposed airships that could work without the skills of a man. His work resulted in the today’s so-called drone ships.

Many of the colleagues and friends of Nikola Tesla suspect that his masterworks were stolen by the FBI and other powerful organizations.

{  http://www.mysterious-times.com/  }

FROZEN ANTARCTICA IS HIDING THE HERITAGE OF THE LOST CONTINENT ATLANTIS?

The dating method by Dr. W.D Urry from Carnegie Institution in Washington D.C. helped scientists to come upon the fact that the rivers of Antarctica were flowing as described on the Orontius Finaeus map 6,000 years ago.

What are the odds that the lost civilization of Atlantis is buried underneath the Antarctica’s ice?

Generally speaking, Antarctica and Atlantis are connected in many mysterious ways. People believe that Atlantis existed sometimes in the past and its location was on Antarctica.

The first masterpiece writer who mentioned the lost continent of Atlantis on paper was Plato, even though before him, many Native Americans had suspicions about it.

The stories and tales of the primitive Americans have different origins and yet they share resemblance in terms of the civilization that vanished but lived in the past. In Central America, the ancient culture that talked about this civilization lived in Aztlan. Myths say Aztlan, belonged to the south, on an island and ceased with no alert due to the devastating natural occurring. The Aztlan place was described as the “place of whiteness” and that feature explains the connection between Atlantis and Antarctica or more simply, that Aztlan might actually be Atlantis, the legendary place on the south.

The devastating events that happened in Aztlan (or Atlantis) left only a few survivors who migrated to different continents and blended with the others.

Doubters tend to reject the theories that associate Atlantis and Antarctica, mainly because Antarctica today illustrates an icy ambiance and no human civilization. Despite the scepticism, old artefacts prove that Antarctica was a place full with vegetation and courtesy. Examples of those artefacts are the ancient maps that paint America with no ice – zones. The most eminent one is the Piri – Reis map created by an admiral who served in the Navy of the Ancient Ottoman Empire.

The Piri – Reis map was established with the help of other, older maps which sketch the shoreline of Antarctica but not as we see it today, they sketch it free of ice. This confirms that whoever explored Antarctica and depicted it on the maps was doing that when the continent wasn’t frigid.

The question that pops now is how a continent with a location to the south could ever be free of ice? The response is that Antarctica wasn’t always occupying the South Pole and was rather between it and the Equator meaning it was based north and seasoned tropical climate and grew forests. Yes, Antarctica in the early history was a place that was home to many people who progressed into societies just like the other fellow continents.

The theory that justifies these allegations is called crustal displacement.

The dominant belief between the traditional scientists is the belief of continental drift. According to this theory, our planet’s layer is branched into tectonic plates that float over the inner layer. With the time passing by, these plates slowly bounce against one another.

The other, revolutionary theory, the theory of crustal displacement, enlarges the traditional history. This theory claims that every 40,000 years, the entire crust of our planet fluctuates as a single entity. After each fluctuation all the land masses on our planet, continents included, are dislocated to their new planet position.

Many researchers apply this is exactly what moved Antarctica from its position in the middle of the South Pole and the Equator to the top of the South Pole.

“We take it for granted that Antarctica has always been a frozen wilderness, but the ice caps only appeared relatively recently in geological history,” told Jane Francis of the University of Leeds.

In the present, Antarctica is built from a kilometre thick ice that consists 98 percent of its property. That means that all of the ancestry the ancient civilization made in the time Antarctica was “a green continent” is now entombed underneath the massive ice.

According the reports from Pravda.ru:

In 1949, Admiral Baird’s exploration drilled holes into the Ross Sea in three spots, where Orontius Finaeus sealed river – beds. At the end there were found fine – grained layers probably brought to the sea with the help of the rivers whose origins were located in zones free of glaciers. The samples were taken from three distinct locations: 70 deg. 17’ S 179 deg. 15’ W 2,990 M deep, 69 deg. 12’ S 180 deg. S. at 3,130 M. deep, 68 deg. 26’ S 179 deg. 15’W at 3,292 M. deep.

The fine – grained debris that was found is from the same kind as the one carried by rivers from non icy continents. Moreover, his expedition brought valuable data of fossils on Mount Weaver.

In 1952 the geologists found two species of a tree plant referred as Glossopteris that was regularly seen on the continents as Africa and Australia.

Core fragments taken from the Ross Sea during the excursion suggest glacial marine sediment from the present first appeared nearly 6,000 years ago.

In addition to that, there is a zone fine – grained sediment 30,000 years old which proves this continent was definitely not icy as it is now.

All these evidences tend to make us believe that between the 4^th and 12^th millennium before Christ, the Earth was housing extremely smart civilization with fascinating intellect of cartography, astronomy and other branches. They were much more advanced than their followers. The modern civilization was a precedent to the long lost civilization called Atlantis and the evidence is hidden the thick ice of Antarctica, theorists claim.

{ http://www.mysterious-times.com/ }

Is Time Travel Possible? Scientists Explore the Past and Future

Visit Exotic Exoplanets with NASA Visualization Tool

AI is better at diagnosing skin cancer than even some of the best human experts

 BY TIBI PUIU

Credit: Flickr, Many Wonderful Artists / Public Domain.

An international team of researchers has shown for the first time that artificial intelligence is better at diagnosing melanoma than human doctors. This particular form of machine learning, known as a deep learning convolutional neural network (CNN), was able to make more correct diagnoses and fewer misdiagnoses than some of the world’s most capable skin care oncologists.

Man vs machine

The CNN starts off as a blank slate. In order to teach the artificial neural network how to identify skin cancer, the researchers fed it a dataset of over 100,000 images of malignant melanomas and benign moles. With each iteration, it learned patterns of features characteristic of malignant and benign tumors, becoming increasingly better at differentiating between the two.

After this initial training round, the team of researchers led by Professor Holger Haenssle, senior managing physician at the University of Heidelberg, Germany, introduced the AI to two new sets of images sourced from the Heidelberg library. These dermoscopic images of various skin lesions were completely new to the CNN. One set of 300 images was meant to solely test the performance of the CNN. Another set of 100 images was comprised of some of the most difficult to diagnose lesions and was used to test both machine and real dermatologists.

Researchers were able to recruit 58 doctors from 17 countries. Among them, 17 (29%) indicated they had less than two years’ experience in dermoscopy, 11 (19%) said they had two to five years of experience, and 30 (52%) were experts with more than five years’ experience.

The volunteers were asked to make a decision about how to manage the condition — whether it was surgery, follow-up, or no action at all — based on two levels of information. At level I, the only information that the dermatologists had at their disposal was from dermoscopic images. Four weeks after making the level I assessment, each participant was asked to review their diagnosis at level II, where they were given far more information about the patient — including age, sex, and the location of the lesion, as well as magnified images of the same case.

At level I, humans could accurately detect melanomas 86.6% of the time and correctly identified benign lesions with an average score of 71.3%. The CNN, however, was able to detect benign moles 95% of the time. At level II, the dermatologists significantly improved their performance, as expected, having diagnosed 88.9% of malignant melanomas and 75.7% that were benign.

Even though the expert doctors were better at spotting melanoma than their less experienced counterparts, they were, on average, outperformed by the AI.

Around 232,000 new cases of melanoma are diagnosed worldwide every year, which result in 55,500 deaths annually. The cancer can be cured, but it typically requires an early diagnosis. This is why this CNN is so impressive — it would be able to identify more cancers early on, thereby saving lives.

“These findings show that deep learning convolutional neural networks are capable of out-performing dermatologists, including extensively trained experts, in the task of detecting melanomas,” Haenssle said.

Of course, all of this doesn’t mean that doctors will soon be scrapped. Far from it: the researchers say that the machine will augment the performance of doctors rather than replace them. Think of a second ‘expert’ opinion which doctors can instantly turn to.

“This CNN may serve physicians involved in skin cancer screening as an aid in their decision whether to biopsy a lesion or not. Most dermatologists already use digital dermoscopy systems to image and store lesions for documentation and follow-up. The CNN can then easily and rapidly evaluate the stored image for an ‘expert opinion’ on the probability of melanoma. We are currently planning prospective studies to assess the real-life impact of the CNN for physicians and patients,” according to Haenssle.

Concerning the study’s limitations, it’s important to note that the study’s participants made diagnoses in an artificial setting. Their decision-making process might look different in a ‘life or death’ situation, which might impact performance. The CNN also had some limitations of its own, such as poor performance with images of melanomas on certain sites such as the fingers, toes, and scalp. For this reason, there is still no substitute for a thorough clinical examination performed by a trained human physician.

That being said, these impressive results indicate that we’re about to experience a paradigm shift, not only in dermatology but in just about every medical field, thanks to developments in artificial intelligence.

The findings appeared in the journal Annals of Oncology.

{ https://www.zmescience.com/ }

AI-expert: “We moeten niet bang zijn van robots. Ze gaan deel uitmaken van ons gezin” -  HLN.be

Bron: The Telegraph

De vrees dat machines een bewustzijn zullen hebben en zich tegen de mensheid keren, is nergens op gebaseerd, zegt Nigel Shadbolt, professor computerwetenschappen aan de universiteit van Oxford.

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De manier waarop robots in Hollywoodfilms afgebeeld worden, geeft ons de indruk dat ze allemaal op een dag gek, slecht en gevaarlijk zullen zijn. “Maar dit gaat voorbij aan het echte probleem. Het is niet artificiële intelligentie waarvan je bang moet zijn. Het is natuurlijke domheid”, aldus Shadbolt op het Hay Festival, een festival voor literatuur in kunst in Wales. “Natuurlijk beginnen mensen zich zorgen te maken: gaan de machines wakker worden? Gaan ze superbekwaam zijn? Ik wil je vertellen: nee, nee dat gaan ze niet zijn.”

Volgens Shadbolt ligt de nadruk op de ontwikkeling van AI die gespecialiseerd is in nauw afgelijnde taken. Het zijn overigens mensen, niet computers die de relatie met robots verder willen ontwikkelen, verduidelijkt hij. Binnenkort zullen we empathie voor hen hebben. He zal niet lang duren voor deze toestellen de metgezellen zijn waarmee onze kinderen opgroeien en die voor ons zorgen als we oud zijn – van de wieg tot het graf.

“We projecteren emoties en bedoelingen op deze systemen. Het maakt niet uit dat er niemand ‘thuis’ is in de elektrische circuits, gewoon een erg goede chatbot. Het doet er niet toe. We zullen buitengewoon gehecht aan hen geraken”, aldus Shadbolt.

Volgens de professor is die evolutie al aan de gang. Hij haalde het voorbeeld aan van een ceremonie in Japan eerder deze maand waarbij boeddhistische monniken een herdenking organiseerden voor 114 “overleden” Sony-robothonden. “Er werd gehuild. Dit waren ook erg geliefde familieleden.”

We proberen gevoelens op robots, terwijl die zelf helemaal geen emoties ervaren, verduidelijkt hij, onder aanhaling van het voorbeeld van de IBM-supercomputer Watson. Die moest het in 2011 opnemen tegen twee kampioenen van de Amerikaanse tv-quiz Jeopardy ( Waagstuk, red.). “Watson presteerde in dit spel op bovenmenselijk niveau omdat hij in essentie een gigantische database gebruikte van feiten en training tijdens voorgaande spelletjes. Hij geeft de indruk slim en bewust te zijn. Maar ik kan je verzekeren dat Watson zich helemaal niet tevreden voelde toen hij de besten van de wereld versloeg.”

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

Archeologen ontdekken nog meer woestijntekeningen in Peru - HLN.be

Bron: Reuters

De geogliefen zijn enorme tekeningen in het woestijnzand in de Peruaanse pampa’s. Dankzij dronebeelden hebben wetenschappers nog meer reusachtige afbeeldingen ontdekt, onder andere van een orka en een dansende vrouw. 

Lees ook

Vrachtwagen beschadigt 2.000 jaar oud werelderfgoed in Peru

De meerderheid van de recent ontdekte afbeeldingen zijn het werk van de Paracascultuur. Ze zijn meer dan 2.000 jaar oud en bijgevolg honderden jaren ouder dan de Nazcalijnen van de hand van het Nazcavolk. Dat zegt Johnny Isla, een archeoloog van het Peruaanse ministerie van Cultuur.

Drones “geven ons de kans om onze documentatie te vergroten en nieuwe groepen van figuren te ontdekken”, aldus Isla. “We hebben nog niet tussen [de geogliefen] gewandeld, we hebben alleen foto’s genomen. Dit is de eerste fase van het onderzoek”, zegt de archeoloog.

In tegenstelling tot de Nazcalijnen, waarvan de meerderheid enkel zichtbaar is vanuit de lucht, zijn de pas ontdekte ‘Palpalijnen’ aangebracht op heuvels en kunnen ze gezien worden vanaf de grond.

Mysterie

De Nazcalijnen zijn tientallen figuren van dieren en geometrische vormen die werden aangebracht in het woestijnzand op de Peruaanse hoogvlakte. Dankzij de unieke klimaatomstandigheden in de regio werden de figuren al die tijd bewaard. Niemand weet precies waartoe de Nazca- en Palpalijnen precies dienen, waarom ze zo groot zijn of waarom ze zo lang deel uitmaakten van de cultuur van de precolumbiaanse volkeren. “In totaal spreken we over ongeveer 1200 jaar waarin geogliefen gemaakt werden” in de regio, aldus Isla.

De Nazcalijnen werden in 1994 uitgeroepen tot UNESCO-werelderfgoed, maar hebben te lijden onder de druk van Peruanen die zich illegaal in het gebied vestigen en verkeer dat van de nabijgelegen snelweg afwijkt.

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

Wondermooi maar o zo dodelijk: drone filmt rivieren van lava op Hawaï - HLN.be

Bron: KameraOne

Vulkaan Kilauea blijft Hawaï teisteren. Sinds de uitbarstingen begonnen op 3 mei zijn al duizenden mensen geëvacueerd. Lavastromen slokten tientallen woningen op, en de vulkaan spuwt assen tot meer dan drie kilometer hoog. De verwoestende kracht levert ook prachtige taferelen op, zoals deze videobeelden van lavastromen die werden gefilmd door een drone.

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

There’s a lot hidden under Antarctica. Spoiler: it’s not Nazi bases or UFO hangers, at least not yet. According to a paper published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, scientists have recently discovered an enormous series of mountain ranges and deep canyons buried beneath the south pole. This is the first real radar look at what’s underneath the South Pole, and gives scientists a better understanding of how the ice will flow out from the center of the world’s largest desert as climate change drives temperatures upwards.

The research was conducted by the European Space Agency PolarGAP project. The researchers discovered three canyons and a vast mountain range along the ice divide, a ridge in the south pole region that determines where ice will flow: the Weddell Sea in the east or the Ross Sea in the west.

Some of these mountains are over 8,000 feet high, and the largest canyon, named the Foundation Trough,  runs 250 miles long and a mile deep.  All of these geological features are completely hidden from view by solid ice. At its deepest point the ice covering these mountains and canyons is a full 1.2 miles thick.

The geographic South Pole, where the discovery was made.

The world’s most mysterious continent is covered almost completely in ice, and due to its incredibly remote location, scientists have been unable to get a decent view of the topographical features they knew were underneath. Because it’s at the South Pole of Earth, no orbiting satellites pass over it, and radio-echo sounding data is obscured by the massive amount of ice.  The PolarGAP project had to use radar sensing aircraft to collect the data on what Dr Fausto Ferraccioli calls “one of the least understood frontiers in the whole of Antarctica.”

Because of this data, scientists now have a far better understanding of the dynamics of how Antarctica might have changed over time and how it could possibly change in the future. Importantly, scientists now know that these mountain ranges are responsible for how ice makes its way across the continent.

Scientists say that these canyons make up an important “bottleneck” that controls the flow of ice into the sea, but say that thinning ice as a result of climate change could speed up this flow. According to lead author of the study, Dr Kate Winter:

“If the ice sheet thins or retreats, these topographically-controlled corridors could facilitate enhanced flow of ice further inland, and could lead to the West Antarctic ice divide moving.

This would, in turn, increase the speed and rate at which ice flows out from the center of Antarctica to its edges, leading to an increase in global sea levels.”

No mention was made, however, of whether or not thinning ice in Antarctica might increase our chances of finding evidence for the hollow Earth.

{ http://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

Despite those beautiful pictures from the New Horizons spacecraft, Pluto continues to be the Rodney Dangerfield of space objects. The latest attack on it comes from a study the journal Icarus where astronomers present their evidence that the former planet and current dwarf planet is actually just a giant comet or, even worse, a giant dirty snowball made of billions of small comets held together by icy nitrogen. Will Pluto be reduced to being a frozen cosmic I-get-no-respect comic telling passing planets that it told its psychiatrist that every astronomer hates it and the shrink says “That can’t be true because every astronomer hasn’t seen you yet”?

“Using chemistry as a detective’s tool, we are able to trace certain features we see on Pluto today to formation processes from long ago. This leads to a new appreciation of the richness of Pluto’s ‘life story,’ which we are only starting to grasp.”

Sputnik Planitia on the right

That spin on the Pluto’s-just-a-ball-of-comets theory comes from Dr. Christopher Glein of the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) Space Science and Engineering Division in San Antonio, Texas, and co-author of the study. According to the press release, Glein and other astronomers got this radical idea not from Pluto itself but from another space object – Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko – which was studied for over two years starting in 2014 by the Rosetta spacecraft. While looking at the Sputnik Planitia glacial area of Pluto in an attempt to determine why it had such a high concentration of nitrogen, Glein and his team had a Comet 67P-generted “Eureka!” moment.

“We found an intriguing consistency between the estimated amount of nitrogen inside the glacier and the amount that would be expected if Pluto was formed by the agglomeration of roughly a billion comets or other Kuiper Belt objects similar in chemical composition to 67P, the comet explored by Rosetta.”

Comet 67P

From that, they developed the “giant comet’ cosmochemical model of Pluto formation.” How did it happen? They’re not sure. In fact, they’re not even sure how much nitrogen Pluto had to start with, how much it leaked into space or why it has so little carbon dioxide. Is it buried under its surface? Was it destroyed by an ancient ocean? And then there’s the big question … how did billions of comets join together to form whatever it is we call Pluto?

“When Pluto was born, it was so ugly, the rest of the universe slapped the Big Bang.”

So what exactly is Pluto? Until more research is conducted and more space probes reach it, International Comet Quarterly (who knew comets had a quarterly publication?) had this to say:

“And, yes, it might be that we will want to consider placing Pluto in different categories, such as (minor) planet and comet. Such “dual status” already exists for some comets and minor planets, which are given formal numbers and names in both kinds of catalogues.”

Here’s an idea. Let’s show Pluto some respect by giving it a name and category all of its own … the Rodney.

“I looked up my cosmic family tree and found three dog stars using it.”

I get no respect. No respect at all.

{ http://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

For the most part human beings have managed to dominate all but the most inaccessible and wild places of this planet of ours. Almost everywhere you go we are the rulers, the masters and subjugators of all around us, ever asserting our will over all we oversee. Yet there are places out over the horizon where we do not rule, and where animals of often mysterious origins have taken over.

One of the strangest and most amazing islands of animals can be found upon a remote speck of rough volcanic land sitting out in the middle of nowhere in the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand. Measuring approximately 10 km long and between 2.0 km and 0.3 km wide, Lord Howe Island is part of an archipelago of 28 scattered islands called the the Lord Howe Island Group, and it was long an uninhabited lost world until 1788, when it was claimed as a British possession by Lieutenant Henry Lidgbird Ball, aboard the passing British prisoner vessel HMS Supply, while on the way to start a penal colony on Norfolk Island.

In the wake of its discovery by Europeans, Lord Howe island became first a major whaling outpost and provisioning port in the early 1800s, then a full-fledged settlement starting from 1834. None of this was particularly good news for the many endemic species here that were found nowhere else in the world. Here there abounded an incredibly diverse ecosystem of unique flora and fauna that had evolved in the complete absence of humans. Indeed, the island displayed a striking amount of biodiversity and a high degree of endemism for its size and relatively short geological history, and it still does. However, the arrival of humans brought with it earth shattering changes for the wildlife here.

Lord Howe Island

Humans readily hunted animals for food and also eliminated any that were perceived as a threat to their crops, which themselves required the clearing of large amounts of the island’s forests. Humans also brought with them invasive weeds that served to spread out to choke out native plant life, as well as various livestock animals such as pigs and goats, and unwanted stowaways in the form of rats and mice, as well as domesticated pets such as cats and dogs, which conspired to cause massive damage to the island’s ecosystem and wipe out many endemic plant and animal species that were found nowhere else on Earth.

The introduction of rats and mice to the island did perhaps even more damage to this previously untouched ecosystem than any other animal brought here by the hands of man. They ate practically anything they could get their paws on, including birds, eggs, insects, and lizards, ravenously bringing about destruction in their wake. The arrival of these rodents was an absolute scourge, and caused a breathtaking trail of decimation of native species, to the point where settlers of the island went to great lengths to eradicate rats and mice, even offering increasingly generous bounties for the tails of the little beasts, all of which made the hunt for rats and mice a very popular pastime and all of which had little effect on reducing the burgeoning rodent population on the island. This all did very little good in the end, and rats were eventually responsible for the apparent extinction of the island’s most enigmatic inhabitant, the massive Lord Howe stick insect.

The Lord Howe stick insect (Dryococelus australis) is truly a behemoth, with adult male specimens measuring up to 15 cm (6 inches) long and weighing in at around 25 grams (0.88 oz.), making them the largest and heaviest flightless stick insects in the world. The Lord Howe stick insect is so large and intimidating looking, in fact, that they have long commonly been aptly called “tree lobsters.” Indeed, they are impressive looking creatures, with thick legs, wingless armored bodies, and a heavy oblong shape. Despite their formidable appearance, they are actually quite harmless; with their main defenses being to climb trees or rocks and running surprisingly fast for their size, using their powerful legs to vault along. Besides their sheer size, the Lord Howe stick insects are known for their tendency to form strong life bonds with mates, and will adjust their behavior based on what the other is doing, follow each other everywhere, and even sleep together with their arms protectively wrapped around each other, which are all rather bizarre traits for an insect species.

Lord Howe stick insect

Once plentiful, the Lord Howe stick insect was found throughout the island, and was a common sight crawling about on trees and bushes, no doubt much to the chagrin of people afraid of very large bugs. In fact, the insects were so abundant that they were once used as bait for fishing. However, they were also seen as a delicacy for the island’s many rats, as was pretty much everything else, and had no real natural defenses against this alien threat. The rats made quick work of these easy targets, relentlessly hunting the stick insects down and eating through their population until by the early 20th century there were nearly none of these truly one-of-a-kind creatures left. The last Lord Howe stick insect was seen in 1920, after which they were considered to be extinct.

This seemed to be the end for these majestic insects, and for decades they were considered extinct. Then, in the 1964 an unusual report came in from a group of climbers who had been out scaling a precarious spire of rock jutting forth 1,844 feet into the air from the ocean off Lord Howe Island called Ball’s Pyramid. More or less a jagged tower of volcanic rock that soars straight out of the depths, the pyramid was a popular spot for climbers who were willing to navigate the treacherous rocks and swirling sea to ascend the spire. It also seemed like the last place anyone would expect to find anything living, but it was here that this particular group of climbers came across a recently deceased carcass of a Lord Howe stick insect, which was both exciting and baffling for biologists because it hinted that the insects were not gone after all, and also no one could figure out how in the world it had ended up on this isolated, forbidding slash of rock.

Ball’s Pyramid

Follow up expeditions were sent over the years to try and find living specimens, but these were unsuccessful and the Lord Howe stick insect became a sort of cryptid, a specter. Then, in 2001 a team of two Australian scientists by the names of David Priddel and Nicholas Carlile, along with their assistants, braved the dizzying heights, unsettling vertical drops, and craggy surface of the pyramid to climb up hundreds of feet above the waves, where they found a single, solitary Melaleuca shrub growing out of a crevice high in the air, under which they found the droppings of some large insect.

It was exciting to say the least, and when the team returned after dark, there upon the branches of this lone bush that was so secluded it may as well have been on another planet they were met with a startling sight; two large, black and shiny bodies scampering about on the branches amid the leaves. A closer look found even more of the enormous things crawling about in the murk, and the excited scientists were able to count 24 Lord Howe insects going about their business as if they had never been gone. Further searches of other similar bushes turned up no further insects, and it became apparent that the total population of remaining Lord Howe stick insects in the entire world consisted of just these 24 individuals, and they all lived in only one place; on and under this one lone spindly little bush perched atop a bleak, craggy spike of rock in the middle of nowhere far from their original habitat. So it was that one of the largest insect species in the world, which had been considered extinct for over 80 years, was found still clinging to life in this remote, very unlikely location.

In the wake of this amazing discovery there have been efforts to preserve this anomalous population of the giant insects, and a very few have been removed from the island in order to breed them for possible reintroduction to their original habitat. At one point, a landslide destroyed the original bush and it was feared that the insects were gone once again, but fortunately there were some breeding pairs remaining. Out of two breeding pairs that were removed from the island, one pair died off, but another has managed to successfully produce eggs, and it was these eggs from this sole female that would serve as the basis to establish a whole captive population of the Lord Howe stick insects numbering in the hundreds, with thousands of eggs, and bring them away from the dark brink of extinction. By 2012, there were over 1,000 adult Lord Howe stick insects in captivity and around 20,000 eggs, many of which have been sent to zoos all over the world, including the Bristol Zoo in Europe, the San Diego Zoo in the United States, and the Toronto Zoo in Canada.

Lord Howe stick insects

The Lord Howe insect is both a remarkable success story and a puzzling conundrum. It is still unknown how these giant bugs managed to wind up on Ball’s Pyramid hundreds of feet above the sea on a craggy rock face, or how they managed to survive all of those years sequestered under that one lone bush. It is thought that they may have hitched a ride on sea birds or floating debris, but the answer remains elusive. With so few remaining specimens it was also unknown just how they had kept their numbers for the past 80 years without dwindling away to nothingness, although it could have been due in large part to the fact that in times of very low numbers the Lord Howe stick insect can demonstrate parthenogenesis, or the ability to procreate without the presence of a male. Whatever the answers may be, the story of the Lord Howe stick insect and their bizarre lost world island lair is intriguing to say the least.

If giant insects aren’t creepy enough for you, then how about an island ruled by poisonous snakes? Ilha de Queimada Grande is an isolated, 110 acre tropical island that lies in the South Atlantic roughly 20 miles off of the coast of Brazil. Other than its quaint beauty, the tiny, uninhabited island seems otherwise fairly innocuous and average from a distance, until one goes ashore and sees that the island is known by its other namesake “Snake Island” for a reason. For slithering through the thick vegetation, lurking in the underbrush, and even hanging from the trees, are thousands upon thousands of deadly snakes of the species Bothrops insularis, known by its common name, the golden lancehead viper.

Indeed, this particular species is only found on this one island, but the truly startling thing about Snake Island is not simply that venomous snakes are found there, but rather just how many of them there are. The island is absolutely teeming with them. Estimates for the density of these venomous snakes on the island vary from a conservative 1 to a horrifying and perhaps exaggerated 5 snakes per square meter. The most common figure given by researchers is around 3 snakes per square meter. It is said that when stepping foot on the island you are never more than 3 feet away from a venomous viper. Since understandably very few scientific expeditions have done a thorough exploration of the island, the exact number is unknown, but it is widely considered to be more snakes per square meter than anywhere else on Earth.

Ilha de Queimada Grande

Over the years the island has perhaps not surprisingly accrued a rather ominous reputation, and there are numerous tales of people venturing there to disappear without a trace or to be found half-melted by the flesh dissolving hemotoxic bites of the snakes. While these reports are for the most part unverified, there is plenty of mystery in the fact that no one really knows why there should be such a remarkable concentration of these snakes on the island. It is known that they feed off of the vast numbers of migratory birds that pass the island, but as to why they are so intensely concentrated here is anyone’s guess. For now Ilha de Queimada Grande is off-limits to visitors, with only a very few scientists permitted to go shore. For those of you who don’t like snakes, that is probably all for the best.

Moving away from creepy crawlies such as bugs and snakes, there are other island’s with perhaps cuter, yet equally enigmatic inhabitants. Big Major Cay, near Exuma Island, in the Bahamas, is in every way a postcard perfect island paradise, with white sand beaches and clear azure waters. The one thing that doesn’t really seem to fit in are all of the pigs that call this little island home. Here on this otherwise uninhabited speck of land dozens and dozens of feral pigs can be seen lounging about on the beach, and very unusually swimming and cavorting about in the crystal clear waters.

As with the other animals we have looked at, no one is quite sure how these hogs got here, although it is suspected that they are descended from domesticated pigs aboard a shipwrecked vessel or a population that was intentionally released here as a food source at some point in history. Today the island and its pigs have become a tourist attraction, with several outfits offering excursions out to see the pigs, which are known to swim right up to boats looking for hand outs, much to the delight of tourists. There are tours that actually go ashore as well, but the pigs are said to be bold, unafraid of humans, and potentially dangerous.

Another island paradise with its own strange denizens is the Aldabra Atoll, in Seychelles, which is composed of four tiny uninhabited coral islands and a lagoon. Here one can find the largest population of giant tortoises in the world, with an estimated 150,000 of the gentle giants wandering the beaches and vegetation. Again it is unclear why such a large concentration of these animals should be here, but their presence has made the island a UNESCO World Heritage site and it is mostly off limits to visitors except for small numbers of scientists and naturalists. Those who wish to visit can undergo a vetting process by the Seychelles Islands Foundation and pay a steep fee, which is used towards conservation of the tortoises.

Japan has several islands that are overrun by animals, such as Tashirojima (Tashiro Island), in Miyagi Prefecture, which is a haven for cats. The animals, which were originally introduced in the Edo period to control the rats that fed on precious silkworms, and the population has since ballooned to the point that cats outnumber humans on the island 6 to 1. The cats are well-cared for and revered as bringers of good luck, to the point that a shrine has been erected in their honor, and they bring in masses of tourists year round.

Japan also has Ōkunoshima, also called Usagi Jima, literally “Rabbit Island,” which lies just off the coast of Hiroshima. Here rabbits are king, with around a thousand of the creatures inhabiting an island with no natural predators and cavorting about with not a care in the world. The island is crawling with rabbits, which are very friendly and will approach people in droves looking for handouts, and as with many of the other animals here their presence on the island has long been a bit of a mystery, as they are not an indigenous species. The main idea is that they are test animals that were abandoned with the closing of a Japanese chemical weapon facility from World War II, the ruins of which can still be seen today. However, it is said that all of these animals were euthanized and could not possibly have been the origins of the island’s rabbits. Another idea is that a few rabbits were released onto the island by schoolchildren in 1971, after which they did what rabbits do and multiplied unchecked and unhindered by any natural predators.

Regardless of how the rabbits got to Ōkunoshima, they have managed to reach numbers over a thousand on this tiny speck of land measuring just 2 miles long. With no predators, and laws in place to protect them, making it illegal to kill or harm them in any way, as well as a complete ban on cats and dogs, the feral rabbits of Ōkunoshima are numerous, and their rather tame, inquisitive nature has made the island a very popular place to go to for curiosity seekers. Here visitors flock to see, play with, and feed the many, many rabbits frolicking about, and videos of tourists interacting with the island’s fluffy denizens swarming around them are quite the sensation in a nation that reveres all things cute, with photos and videos from here proving to be quite popular. Indeed, the island is far more well-known for its rabbits than it is for its dark history or poison gas museum. The rabbits are not particularly good for the island’s ecosystem, but they seem to be here to stay.

Ōkunoshima

Cute and cuddly creatures are all good and well, but last we come to perhaps the most tragic island of animals. Within the African country of Liberia there lies an island within a river that for many years served as a research facility run by the New York Blood Center (NYBC) dedicated to finding a vaccine for the disease Hepatitis. The facility, called Vilab II, was established in 1972 and home to around 100 chimpanzees that were used for testing, and was able to keep up its operations through two civil wars in the war-torn nation. The work done at this island lab is considered to be instrumental in helping to develop the vaccine for Hepatitis B, as well as the perfection of sterilization methods.

Then in 2005 the facility was closed down and the NYBC promised to provide ongoing care for the remaining 66 chimpanzees left on the island by making it a chimp sanctuary. However, the funding did not last and in March of 2017 the chimps were simply abandoned to fend for themselves. This was a devastating proposition for the chimpanzees, as they were trapped on a tiny swampy island with no fresh water supply, no food, and very little chance of escape since chimpanzees are not good swimmers. They had effectively been left to die, and despite the fact that the chimps were sterilized they still have somewhat managed to continue breeding. Life finds a way.

When the plight of these apes came to public attention, conservation organizations such as the Humane Society, the Jane Goodall Institute, and Born Free, as well as private donators and various care groups, came forward to try and provide food and care for this isolated island of chimps, gathering more funds through online campaigns, but this has not proved to be sufficient and the chimps face a bleak future. The NYBC has done nothing to help, simply stating that the island has now gone over to the Liberian government, which itself does not have the funds to take care of a bunch of chimpanzees that were never native to the island. The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) has repeatedly reached out to the NYBC for help, but this has turned up nothing, and Kathleen Conlee, the vice president of animal research issues at the Humane Society told the site Motherboard:

It can’t be us by ourselves. We need that New York Blood Center support. They absolutely should be doing this. We’re always cleaning everybody else’s messes up and they have the capacity here to do right by the animals. They’re going to have to.

Liberia’s Chimp Island

Sporadic donations and a steady but weak influx of money has helped the Humane Society and other groups provide some semblance of care for the island’s chimps, but it is not nearly enough, and in recent days the animals have become noticeably thin and haggard looking. Whenever caretakers arrive to feed them, which only happens every other day at best, the animals eagerly rush forward to meet them, frantically scrambling for every last scrap they are given. It is a sad state of affairs for these close human relatives, and without a steadier influx of money to help this island of chimps they are certainly doomed to die.

It is often uncertain where many of these animals came from, why they have risen to such heights, or what their futures may hold. They hold onto their island domains out past our control, sowing questions and mysteries. While it may not always be clear what the situation is with these strange lost worlds one thing that is for sure is that it seems that for as much as we reach out and usurp nature and its creatures there will always be some isolated pockets where creatures other than us reign supreme.

{ http://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

Daytime UFO caught on tape over Melbourne, Australia 27-May-2018

Here’s one new footage of a bright unidentified flying object that was hovering in the sky above Melbourne in Australia. This was taken on 27th May 2018.

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

Life on Mars? Rocks near ancient lakes indicate there may have once been ALIENS on the Red Planet

Researchers from the University of Edinburgh believe that rocks near ancient lakes may contain traces of tiny creatures, known as microbes on Mars

By Shivali Best

(Image: Collection Mix: Subjects RM)

Mars may once have been home to alien life, according to a new study.

Researchers from the University of Edinburgh believe that rocks near ancient lakes may contain traces of tiny creatures, known as microbes on Mars.

These rocks formed during the Noachian and Hesperian Periods of Martian history between three and four billion years ago, when Mars’s surface was abundant in water.

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In the study, the researchers reviewed studies of fossils on Earth, and assessed the results of lab experiments replicating the conditions on Mars, to identify the most promising sites to look for traces of life.

Their findings could help inform the landing sites for NASA ’s next mission toe Mars, which is scheduled for 2020.

Dr Sean McMahon, who led the study, said: "There are many interesting rock and mineral outcrops on Mars where we would like to search for fossils, but since we can't send rovers to all of them we have tried to prioritise the most promising deposits based on the best available information."

{ https://www.mirror.co.uk/ }

The Voyager 'Golden Record' NASA hoped would help aliens learn about Earth could baffle them with Bulgarian folk music and show them humanity loves to argue, astronomers warn

• Records include 117 pictures, whale sounds and greetings in 54 language
• Experts say the greeting could 'sound like arguing' and warn the inclusion of so many types of music could be very confusing
• Also point out record relies on alien life having the same senses as us 

By Mark Prigg For Dailymail.com

The 'golden record' NASA sent aboard its Voyager craft to help alien life understand humanity may just confuse them, researchers have warned.

The records include maps, images and charts along with 117 pictures, humpback whale sounds, greetings in 54 language, a  20-minute 'sound essay' of life on Earth, and 90 minutes of music. 

However, Rebecca Orchard and Sheri Wells-Jensen at Bowling Green State University in Ohio say it could simply confuse alien lifeforms - and show them humanity likes to argue.

Scroll down for video 

The Voyager probes launched into space with golden records (pictured) on board. Each record was etched with a map (top right) similar to those placed on the Pioneer craft

'If the second one of these senses is absent, or an entirely different sense is added, the Golden Record becomes a bit confusing.'

They say the inclusion of greetings in 54 languages could also be disastrous.

The barrage of greetings 'pile up in a way that could be construed as arguing', said Orchard, in a language that has 'no grammatical congruity' - and also assumes the lifeforms hear in exactly the same way we do.

They say trying to match the images with the audio, assuming they can work out how to listen to is, could also end badly.

This image shows a gold record in its cover, attached to a Voyager space probe before launch in 1977. The records contain sounds from nature, such as volcanoes and thunder, as well as noises linked with humanity including a train and horse and cart

 'What if you pair the image of an open daffodil with the roar of a chainsaw?' said Orchard. 

However, she hoped the mere fact it was sent could bolster our reputation.

'I would hope that the mere fact that we've endeavoured to send a record of humanity shows something about our humanity,' she concluded. 

However, experts say it may be some time before the messages are read. 

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope map (pictured) of the paths of NASA's Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft as they journey through the solar system and into interstellar space. Hubble is gazing at two sight lines (the twin cone-shaped features) along each spacecraft's path. The telescope's goal is to help astronomers map interstellar structure along each spacecraft's star-bound route. Each sight line stretches several light-years to nearby stars

What the golden record shows: The Golden Record CoverIn the upper left-hand corner is an easily recognized drawing of the phonograph record and the stylus carried with it. The stylus is in the correct position to play the record from the beginning. Written around it in binary arithmetic is the correct time of one rotation of the record, 3.6 seconds, expressed in time units of 0,70 billionths of a second, the time period associated with a fundamental transition of the hydrogen atom. The drawing indicates that the record should be played from the outside in. Below this drawing is a side view of the record and stylus, with a binary number giving the time to play one side of the record - about an hour. The information in the upper right-hand portion of the cover is designed to show how pictures are to be constructed from the recorded signals. The top drawing shows the typical signal that occurs at the start of a picture. The picture is made from this signal, which traces the picture as a series of vertical lines

Voyager 1 is currently 13 billion miles away from Earth, travelling northward through space.

However, it will be 40,000 years before it comes close to another star system. 

The probe has recently sent back data to Nasa that cosmic rays are as much as four times more abundant in interstellar space than in the vicinity of Earth.

This suggests that the heliosphere, the region of space that contains our solar system's planets, may act as a radiation shield.

During their 40 years of operation, the Voyagers have set several records.

HOW DID NASA MAKE VOYAGER'S GOLDEN RECORDS?

Many people were instrumental in the design, development and manufacturing of the golden record, NASA says.

Blank records were provided by the Pyral S.A. of Creteil, France. CBS Records contracted the JVC Cutting Center in Boulder, Colorado to cut the lacquer masters which were then sent to the James G. Lee Record Processing center in Gardena, California to cut and gold plate eight Voyager records. 

The record is constructed of gold-plated copper and is 12 inches (30 cm) in diameter

Gold plating took place on August 23, 1977; afterward, the records were mounted in aluminum containers and delivered to JPL. 

The record is constructed of gold-plated copper and is 12 inches (30 cm) in diameter.

 The record's cover is aluminum and electroplated upon it is an ultra-pure sample of the isotope uranium-238. Uranium-238 has a half-life of 4.468 billion years. 

The records also had the inscription "To the makers of music – all worlds, all times" hand-etched on its surface.

The record's cover is aluminum and electroplated upon it is an ultra-pure sample of the isotope uranium-238. Uranium-238 has a half-life of 4.468 billion years

In 2012, Voyager 1 became the only spacecraft to have entered interstellar space, which the Voyager 2 is the only spacecraft to have flown by all four outer planets – Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

Their planetary encounters include the discovery of the first active volcanoes beyond Earth – on Jupiter's moon Io – and the most Earth-like atmosphere in the solar system – on Saturn's moon Titan

The Golden Record was one of four attempts NASA made in the 1970s to send a message to alien lifeforms.

It sent maps revealing Earth's location into space on board four craft, in the hope of communicating with aliens.

But Dr Frank Drake, who designed the maps, last year spoke out about the potentially 'dangerous' decision to send the charts over 40 years ago.

All four craft have now left the solar system and are speeding into deep space with Earth's coordinates on board. 

This image shows the diagram carried aboard Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11, showing aliens how to find Earth. To the right are images of a man and a woman, while the star-like shape on the left pinpoints Earth (centre) relative to a number of pulsar stars (end of each point)

THE MAPS TO EARTH 

Plaques placed inside the Pioneer craft show a man and a woman alongside a basic map of Earth which plots its position in relation to distant pulsar stars.

These star are long-lasting and bright so could still point aliens in the right direction if they are found millions of years from now.

The Voyager probes launched into space with golden records on board etched with similar pulsar maps to our planet.

The records contain sounds from nature, such as volcanoes and thunder, as well as noises linked with humanity including a train, horse and cart as well as a kiss between a mother and child. 

Dr Drake worked with Nasa to design charts placed aboard Pioneer 10 and 11, launched in 1972 and 1973.

And similar maps were placed on Nasa's 1977 probes Voyager 1 and Voyager 2.

In a new interview, Dr Drake spoke about the maps he helped design.

'In those days, all the people I dealt with were optimists, and they thought the ETs would be friendly,' he told his daughter, Nadia Drake, who writes for National Geographic.

'Nobody thought, even for a few seconds, about whether this might be a dangerous thing to do.'  

Plaques placed inside the Pioneer craft show a man and a woman alongside a basic map of Earth which plots its position in relation to distant pulsar stars.

These stars are long-lasting and bright so could still point aliens in the right direction if they are found millions of years from now.

The Voyager probes launched into space with golden records on board etched with similar pulsar maps to our planet.

The goal was to put something on the Voyager that said where it came from, and how long it was travelling.

The records contain sounds from nature, such as volcanoes and thunder, as well as noises linked with humanity including a train, a horse and cart, and even a kiss between a mother and child.

Voyager 1 (artist's impression pictured) and its identical sister craft Voyager 2 were launched to study the outer Solar System and eventually interstellar space 

Despite the potential dangers the interstellar maps pose, Dr Drake said that the chances of aliens picking up the messages are 'very small'.

He added: 'The thing is going something like 10 kilometres [6.2 miles] per second, at which speed it takes - for the typical separation of stars - about half a million years to go from one star to another.'

The astronomer is not the first expert to warn of the risks of contacting aliens.

Renowned physicist Professor Stephen Hawking suggested last year that meeting beings from another planet could lead to humans being wiped out.

Hawking said it could be similar to when the Native Americans first encountered Christopher Columbus – and 'that didn't turn out so well'. 

The physicist believes if aliens discovered Earth, they are likely to want to conquer and colonise our planet. 

{ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/  }

DID NOSTRADAMUS, EDGAR CAYCE, AND BABA VANGA SOMEHOW ACCESS THE AKASHIC RECORDS?

{ https://www.ancient-code.com/ }

HIDDEN WORLD UNDER ANTARCTICA REVEALED: SCIENTISTS FIND A WORLD THEY’VE NEVER IMAGINED

{ https://www.ancient-code.com/ }

WHAT WAS MANNA, THE MYSTERY FOOD ‘GOD’ SENT DOWN FROM HEAVEN?

{ https://www.ancient-code.com/  }

This Remarkable New Crop Circle Formation Just Appeared

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