Scientists have found radio signals coming from the Milky Way, but still don't know what it is. 

TH UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY

Most people would agree that the telephone is one of the greatest inventions in human history, ranking right up there with the telescope. Most people would also agree that one of the greatest innovations to the telephone was Caller-ID, which – at least in concept – tells the receiving party the source of the call. Astronomers wish their telescopes had a similar feature that would identify the origin of the radio waves their modern telescopes pick up. That lack of ID is even more frustrating when the waves are coming from our own space ‘area code’ – the Milky Way galaxy. That’s the case with a new object discovered in the center of the Milky Way whose mysterious radio waves are baffling astronomers. Could it be coming from an intelligent civilization?

“We report the discovery of a highly polarized, highly variable, steep-spectrum radio source, ASKAP J173608.2−321635, located ∼4° from the Galactic Center in the Galactic plane. The source was detected six times between 2020 January and 2020 September as part of the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder Variables and Slow Transients (ASKAP VAST) survey at 888 MHz.”

In new research published in The Astrophysical Journal, scientists from the Sydney Institute for Astronomy, lead author and PhD student in the School of Physics at the University of Sydney Ziteng Wang explains that a signal from the center of the Milky Way picked up six times in nine months strangely oscillates in only one direction (polarization) but the direction changes over time. The on-off periods are random and the brightness varies by a factor of 100. While those things are not strange individually, an object having all of them – and more – is baffling.

“At first we thought it could be a pulsar — a very dense type of spinning dead star — or else a type of star that emits huge solar flares. But the signals from this new source don’t match what we expect from these types of celestial objects.”

The object, as the press release reveals,  is so baffling, it’s only ID so far is its galactic coordinates — J173608.2-321635. Prior to the first detection, there was nothing visible at those coordinates. Then a bright signal started slowly flashing, fading and reappearing – a behavior Wang and his team found “extraordinary.” In September 2020, ASKAP J173608.2−321635 seemed to disappear for good. Fortunately, the more sensitive MeerKAT radio telescope in South Africa picked it up again. However …

“Luckily, the signal returned, but we found that the behaviour of the source was dramatically different — the source disappeared in a single day, even though it had lasted for weeks in our previous ASKAP observations.”

Did you see that?

Astronomers want consistency so they can be ready with the limited time available on these massive and expensive telescopes. So far, they’re at a loss to explain the mysterious ASKAP J173608.2−321635 signal. The best they can do is illustrate it in a YouTube video(watch it here)  and wait for newer and stronger telescopes to arrive. While they don’t address whether the signal could be from an advanced civilization, they can’t rule it out.

If only they had telescopic Caller ID.

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Would it surprise you to find out the Pentagon hasn’t been entirely forthcoming in its revelations and confirmations about its formerly secret internal UFO investigation project? Would you be stunned to learn that the project spent much of its time investigating the air capabilities of the Soviet Union and Russia? Would you be shocked to discover that the project was involved with the Skinwalker Ranch in Utah? Prepare to be surprised, stunned, and shocked as we look at a new book called “Skinwalkers at the Pentagon: An Insiders’ Account of the Secret Government UFO Program” by government insider Dr. James Lacatski, Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies insider Dr. Colm Kelleher, and well-known investigative reporter George Knapp.

“Skinwalkers at the Pentagon unmasks the massive scope of the Pentagon’s landmark UFO study that ran from the Defense Intelligence Agency in Washington, D.C. The Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program, or AAWSAP investigated the “Tic Tac” and other “nuts and bolts” UFO events, analyzed intrusions of UFOs onto US military bases, as well as probed the plethora of bizarre phenomena that government investigators encountered on Skinwalker Ranch.”

The promo for the book reveals surprise #1 – the project which received $22 million in black budget funds authorized by then Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was called AATIP (Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program) by the media was actually AAWSAP, the Advanced Weapons System Application Program. That name reveals why a big part of the resources were focused on the Soviet Union and Russia – weapons.

On his Mystery Wire website, George Knapp interviews fellow author Dr. James Lacatski, who has never before spoken in public about UFOs or AAWSAP. Lacatski worked for the Defense Warning Office within the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) as an intelligence analyst and in that capacity met with Robert Bigelow, owner of the Skinwalker Ranch, to discuss events reported there and secure funding for AAWSAP. Dr. Colm Kelleher was a principal program manager for BAASS (Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies), a subsidiary of Bigelow Aerospace, and was put in chare of hiring “more than 50 scientists, investigators, data systems experts, and others who spent three years probing UFO cases, interviewing eyewitnesses, collecting and analyzing physical evidence, and building what might be the world’s largest UFO/UAP databases on behalf of the D.I.A.”

The Knapp/Lacatski/Kelleher interview covers AAWSAP, AATIP (its replacement) and the process of writing the book, but the most interesting part is the partial summary of their findings. A few of the highlights:

• AAWSAP discovered the Tic Tac case in 2009, deployed personnel to interview the pilots, the Aegis radar operators on the Princeton, and submitted its investigative report to the DIA in 2009 — 8 years before it was made public. case.
• Being in the vicinity of metallic/structured craft (e.g. Skinwalker Ranch) and associated phenomena cause experiencers to bring “something home with them”. AAWSAP proposed an infectious agent model for the “transmission” of anomalies from person-to-person. The nickname for this phenomenon is “hitchhikers.”
• Ansys multiphysics software was used to conduct deep dive analysis into the behavior and performance of Tic Tac by PhD physicists that AAWSAP hired. AAWSAP personnel designed and built a portable autonomous UAP surveillance unit with multiple sensors that could be deployed anywhere in the continental U.S. in a day or two.
• AAWSAP hired Russian translators who aided with translation and analysis of Soviet era documents on their national UAP strategy. Showed a very complex, well organized organizational chart from 1991 that indicated a very sophisticated approach that spanned multiple agencies.
• AAWSAP analyzed and documented hundreds of cases of interactions with UAPs that resulted in physiological and pathological effects, some of which were medically devastating. AAWSAP personnel investigated medical cases as a result of getting zapped with a beam from a UAP in Georgia or as a result of a close encounter with small blue orbs (unidentified flying object) causing multiple medical effects. It obtained enough data to show close encounters are a threat to human health.

That last point checks off all three surprised, stunned and stunned boxes – investigations into medical problems suffered by persons in contact with a UAP in Georgia. A shocking close second would be personnel at the Skinwalker Ranch being in contact with a “metallic/structured craft” and picking up and carrying away an anomaly as the result.

Investigative reporter George Knapp at the Las Vegas KLAS news station, reviewing DIA files about Skinwalker Ranch.

Shocked or skeptical? These are important new revelations if they’re true. Based on the amount of analysis given to the Tic Tac UFOs when they were made public, and the impact those revelations had on the Pentagon, this could move the needle closer to UFO disclosure. However, it’s important to note that the promo for the books states: “Skinwalkers at the Pentagon has been reviewed by the U.S. Department of Defense and CLEARED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE.”

Kudos to Dr. James Lacatski, Dr. Colm Kelleher, and George Knapp for moving the ball downfield. Hopefully, we’ll find out soon if it’s in the red zone.

{  https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

BepiColombo’s First Pictures of Mercury

BepiColombo recently had its first close flyby of Mercury, its eventual mission target, and got to snap some pictures to commemorate the event.  Even at this early stage of the mission, these images are some of the clearest we have ever had of the innermost planet.

The spacecraft itself passed within about 199 km of the planet’s surface.  Unfortunately, it was on the night side of the planet at that point, and as such, nothing was visible on the surface from that close.  However, the probe did start taking photos immediately after the closest approach, and up to 4 hours later.  Impressively, it also directly sent the messages back to its handlers on Earth within 12 hours.

Scientists’ general first impressions of the new images were positive.  In addition to capturing the planet’s surface, mission controllers attempted to capture images of the probe’s equipment itself to check its structural integrity.  All appeared nominal, ensuring the probe will be in good shape to start conducting its scientific mission in 2026 after five more flybys of Mercury (and a few of Earth and Venus).

In the images of the planet, several distinct features are visible, including some craters that are of interest to planetary scientists. Before they get a chance to explore them in more detail, though, the probe will have to slow down to begin its primary science mission. When that starts, BepiColombo will actually split into two different orbiting probes – ESA’s Mercury Planet Orbiter, which will primarily be responsible for mapping the planet’s surface, and JAXA’s Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter, which will take a closer look at the planet’s core.

Some of the scientific instruments on those probes were operating during this first flyby, though their data still needs to be analyzed.  Mission scientists expressed their excitement at getting their hands on some of the first data and what the mission would have in store for when it starts full operations in about five years. Until then, they can look forward to the next Mercury flyby, which is scheduled to take place next June.

Learn more:

• ESA – BepiColombo’s first views of Mercury
• UT – BepiColombo Meets Mercury for the First Time on October 1
• UT – The First Images and Videos from the Double Venus Flyby
• UT – BepiColombo – Mission to Mercury

Lead Image:

• Series of images snapped by the BepiColombo orbiter during its first flyby of Mercury, its eventual target, in October 2021.
  Credit – ESA

The post BepiColombo’s First Pictures of Mercury appeared first on Universe Today.

Source: 

• https://www.universetoday.com/152911/bepicolombos-first-pictures-of-mercury/

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If It Were Not Filmed, No One Would Believe It

At times we come across some funny or unexpected happenings which are just unbelievable, unless seen by one’s own eyes. Let’s consider this dog who is continuously trying to scale the wall. Why do you guess is it making such a relentless efforts? Just wait a minute and see, what crazy thing is going to take place. Today, we will show you plenty of incredible things. May it be a dog shopping in a mall like humans or this innocent creature that loves massaging or a car cut into pieces and several other mind blowing events. Waiting for long would test your patience and may lead to anxiety. So, let’s immediately witness the amusing but unbelievable incidents recorded by the camera at different locations across the globe.

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UFO activity filmed over Indio, California 10-Oct-2021

This UFO sighting was just submitted to me through our Facebook page. It happened on Sunday, 10 October 2021 over Indio in California.

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

New Steve Quayle: ‘Bigfoot Creatures are Transmorphic Demonic Entities’

COAST TO COAST AM INSIDER Archived Show -

Researcher Steve Quayle discussed Bigfoot cases, as well as reports of giants throughout history. Quayle offered analysis of Bigfoot sighting in North Carolina, in which a witness saw a 10 ft. tall creature with blond hair and six fingers on each hand. Bigfoot have individual harmonic frequencies and use specific sounds as dimensional portals to phase in and out of our world, he suggested. He referred to them as “transmorphic demonic entities” that can take on physicality and eat chickens, dogs.

What do you think? Staying cool this week I hope! Thanks for stopping by. Stay tuned for more BIN news.

RELATED VIDEOS, selected and postred by peter2011

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Linda Moulton Howe: Pentagon’s X 37 Robotics Space Plane, and a UFO Incident at Whiteman AFB

COAST TO COAST AM INSIDER Archived Show – Investigative reporter Linda Moulton Howe discussed the Pentagon’s first robotic space plane, and a UFO incident at Whiteman Air Force Base. The unmanned Boeing X-37B spacecraft was launched, and aviation experts have conjectured that its secretive mission could involve testing weapon delivery or even satellite warfare.

In the summer of 1984, the nuclear weapons storage area at Whiteman AFB southeast of Kansas City, Missouri, was “studied” by a huge, silent, disc-shaped unidentified flying object.

What do you think? Staying cool this week I hope! Thanks for stopping by. Stay tuned for more BIN news.

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Images captured by NASA's SDO-AIA 171 satellite show a massive spherical object near the sun until it shoot out into space. 

According to NASA, the strange appearance is actually a type of solar activity called a prominence, a type of solar activity, which is normally attached to the sun before shooting out into space, like the infamous UFO/prominence image from 2012. 

But the object captured on October 11, 2021 is not attached to the sun, we first see an elongated shadow moving through the plasma clouds before the actually spherical object becomes visible.

So, instead of a prominence could this have been a massive spacecraft?

  

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

UFO recorded by Pilot. Cockpit footage. With independent NARCAP report

UAP dropped out of the sky – recorded by Pilot | March 19, 2020

NARCAP Technical Report 20
An Independent Analysis of a March 19, 2020 Aviation Safety-Related Incident involving UAP, Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, Over Mexico, Monterrey, Nuevo Leon – https://www.narcap.org/blog/narcaptr20

Airline pilot (19 years exp. + 10 years of military flight exp.): “I have never in my life been witness to such phenomena however my first officer and I were in complete awe. I have multiple still photos and 4 videos that I would love to share with your network and with the world. forgive a slight delay in the submission as i had my doubts about reporting such occurrences but have no doubts as to what was witnessed. forgive some of the chatter and expletives but this was otherworldly. I have still photos as well.”

Source: MUFON – https://ufostalker.com/sighting/107281

Sighting Basics Case 107281 Occurred 2020-03-19 23:00 Reported 2020-03-28 22:51 (Reported 8 Days Later) Time Zone America/Monterrey Source MUFON Summary Airline pilot with 19 years with additional 10 years military

City Monterrey Region Nuevo Leon Country Mexico Postal Code 70007

Distance 501 Feet – 1 Mile Altitude Over 500 Feet – No Cloudcover Duration 00:20:30 Features Patterned Surface, Other, Unknown Flight Path Path Then Hovering Shape Teardrop

The incident began when the First Officer, looking across to the left side of the cockpit, saw a yellowish white light descend into view from above. He first believed that it was a meteor and began to say so when it suddenly stopped near the same altitude as their aircraft. The UAP/Light then projected an illuminating beam of bright, white, light on their aircraft, and appeared to take a collision heading.

At this moment the Captain also saw the beam of light projected onto their aircraft from the UAP/Light. Both crewmen, in the belief that an aircraft with its landing lights on had turned onto a collision heading with their aircraft, took a defensive attitude and prepared for evasive control inputs.

As they prepared to avoid the apparently approaching UAP/Light, the beam of light illuminating their aircraft ceased, and the UAP/Light suddenly accelerated to the same speed and heading of the aircraft, maintained separation, and paced the aircraft. While estimating distances is difficult the Captain, a former tanker pilot experienced with night-time flight operations, suggested that the UAP/Light maintained a distance of approximately 1-2K ft from the aircraft. Near the minimum allowable separation of 1,000ft.

​​Unfortunately the video doesn’t capture the initial decent and movement of the object. I have no reason to doubt these pilot’s testimony or no explanation what this thing could be. VERY COOL!

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

Most people go to bed expecting to find the same person/pet/pillow or empty space next to them that was there when they fell asleep – anything else would be cause for alarm. A woman in British Columbia awoke last week to find something it’s pretty safe to say no one on Earth has ever found in bed with them before … and lived to tell the media about it. Meet Ruth Hamilton – the woman who woke up next to a space rock.

“I was shaking and scared when it happened, I thought someone had jumped in or it was a gun or something. It’s almost a relief when we realized it could only have fallen out of the sky.”

A relief to find out the rock on your pillow where your head should have been was a meteor and not debris from a construction site? Yep, that’s what Ruth Hamilton of Golden, B.C. told the Castlegar News on October 4th after she first called the police to come look at the rock on her bed and the hole in her roof. (Photos here.)

The hole left in the ceiling, and the space rock that created it.

(Ruth Hamilton photo)

After the police assured her it was not from a burglar nor from road construction in the nearby Kicking Horse Canyon just east of Golden, Hamilton checked with her neighbors and some remembered seeing a meteor streak across the sky the night before. (Photos here and here.)

Meteor over Lake Louise, Alberta, Canada a few nights ago

faboi/Shutterstock

When you least expect it …

“It appeared quite close, and it was to the northwest of me. It went very quickly.”

“(I) saw it right above Elephant mountain, which is about 1130 meters elevation. It disappeared behind the mountain around 10:30 pm.”

Witnesses in Calgary and Nelson, British Columbia, reported their sightings to The Daily Hive, while the International Meteor Organization’s website had nearly a dozen reports from the Alberta area.

“I’m just totally amazed over the fact that it is a star that came out of the sky, It’s maybe billions of years old. The only other thing I can think of saying is life is precious and it could be gone at any moment even when you think you are safe and secure in your bed. I hope I never ever take it for granted again.”

Hamilton plans to keep the space rock as a souvenir, at least until her insurance company figures out if the roof repairs due to meteor strike are covered. And she’s obviously grateful her name wasn’t added to the very short list of people who succumbed to “death by meteorite.” In 2020, historical documents were confirmed to show the only death by meteorite occurred in on August 22, 1888 in Sulaymaniyah, Iraq, when one man was killed and another paralyzed by a space rock. In 1954, Ann Hodges was asleep on her couch in Oak Grove, Alabama, when she was hit by a piece of the Sylacauga or Hodges meteorite that crashed through the roof and seriously injured her hip – it is now in the Alabama Museum of Natural History (the space rock, not her hip).

Follow that rock!

Ruth Hamilton of Golden, BC, beat the death-by-meteorite odds — Tulane University environmental sciences professor Stephen A. Nelson calculated the odds of getting killed by a meteorite and determined them to be about 1 in 250,000.

She needs to buy a lottery ticket.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

It is already known that our moon was volcanically active billion of years ago, but new lunar samples that were brought to Earth from China’s Chang’e-5 mission have changed those estimates.

The moon is approximately 4.5 billion years old and during the first billion years, it was volcanically active. The activity was believed to have lasted for millions or even hundreds of millions of years. Based on the size of the moon, it was estimated that it began cooling down approximately 3 billion years ago, ultimately making the lunar surface rather quiet and uneventful. However, a lack of craters in certain areas of the lunar surface made scientists question whether there was something else going on that they didn’t know about. Lava flows would normally harden up into a smooth shape, meaning that volcanic activity may have lasted much longer than expected.

After conducting several different experiments, researchers came to the conclusion that the rocks of basalt that were collected from the moon (these are rocks that are created from volcanic activity) were indeed formed by lava flows that occurred 2 billion years ago.

But this raises more questions as chemical analysis didn’t provide the concentration of radioactive elements that should have been there if radioactive decay was the explanation for the volcanism. Perhaps there is another reason that kept the moon volcanically active for so long. One theory explores the possibility that Earth’s gravitational forces may have liquefied the interior of the moon, letting the magma flow for a much longer time as explained by Alexander Nemchin who is a planetary scientist at the Beijing SHRIMP Center and Curtin University in Bentley, Australia, “The moon was a lot closer 2 billion years ago.” When the moon started moving away from our planet, the forces would have become less powerful, therefore allowing the volcanic activity to decrease.

Another possibility is that constant bombardment of asteroids and comets may have kept the volcanic activity to continue; however, “at this point, any guess is a good guess,” said Jessica Barnes who is a planetary scientist at the University of Arizona in Tucson but wasn’t involved in the study.

For now, what we do know is that based on the lunar rocks that have been brought back to Earth and analyzed, there was volcanic activity on our moon as recently as just 2 billion years ago – much later than previously thought and by far the youngest moon rocks that have ever been collected. Interestingly, the rocks formed around the same time that multicellular life was first beginning to evolve on our planet.

The study was published in Science where it can be read in full.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

From both the “What could possibly go wrong?” and the “Science fiction becomes reality” files comes word that NASA has officially announced the launch date for a mission to attempt to deflect an asteroid from its path as a test of technology that may one day be needed to save Earth from a meteor or comet on a path to causing mass destruction and possible mass extinction. Movies depicting this scenario (Deep Impact, Armageddon) ended with generally happy conclusions. Will real life follow that script? Get your favorite movie quotes and clichés ready!

“Media accreditation is open for the upcoming launch of NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission, an evaluation of technologies for preventing a hazardous asteroid from striking Earth.

DART is targeted to launch at 10:20 p.m. PST, Nov. 23, 2021, (1:20 a.m. EST, Nov. 24), aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. Live coverage of the launch will air on NASA TV, the NASA app, and the agency’s website.

DART will be the first demonstration of the kinetic impactor technique, which involves sending one or more large, high-speed spacecraft into the path of an asteroid in space to change its motion. Its target is the binary near-Earth asteroid Didymos and its moonlet, which pose no threat to Earth.”

Official DART poster (all images courtesy of NASA)

DART has been talked about for decades, planned since 2018, and needed since science proved that space rock impacts caused many great extinctions. At the same time, astronomers began getting better at tracking Near Earth Objects, terrorizing Earthlings with predictions of “close but no cigar” meteors and having no answers for actual impacts and near hits they seem to miss on a regular basis. Seeing how popular the blast-an-asteroid movies were and having no other near-term options, NASA decided to try it out on a tiny hapless near-but-not-dangerous asteroid named Dimorphos (Didymos B) which is orbiting Didymos A in the 65803 Didymos binary asteroid system. Didymos A is about 780 m (2,560 ft) in diameter while Dimorphos is just 160 m (520 ft) in diameter As the NASA press release reports, “Didymos is not an Earth-crossing asteroid, and there is no possibility that the deflection experiment could create an impact hazard.” Famous last words? So … what is DART going to do?

“The DART spacecraft will achieve the kinetic impact deflection by deliberately crashing itself into the moonlet at a speed of approximately 6.6 km/s, with the aid of an onboard camera (named DRACO) and sophisticated autonomous navigation software. The collision will change the speed of the moonlet in its orbit around the main body by a fraction of one percent, but this will change the orbital period of the moonlet by several minutes – enough to be observed and measured using telescopes on Earth.”

Solar-powered DART will perform more of a nudge than a knockout – pushing Dimorphos slightly out of its orbit 1 km away from Didymos A but far enough that it can be observed and measured by telescopes. That nudge will be caused by DART itself as it self-destructs into Dimorphos in true movie fashion right after it takes one more look back at its home.

Two different views of the DART spacecraft. The DRACO (Didymos Reconnaissance & Asteroid Camera for OpNav) imaging instrument is based on the LORRI high-resolution imager from New Horizons. The left view also shows the Radial Line Slot Array (RLSA) antenna with the ROSAs (Roll-Out Solar Arrays) rolled up. The view on the right shows a clearer view of the NEXT-C ion engine. (credit: NASA)

The DART spacecraft launch window begins November 24, 2021. DART will launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. After separation from the launch vehicle and over a year of cruise it will intercept Didymos’ moonlet in late September 2022, when the Didymos system is within 11 million kilometers of Earth, enabling observations by ground-based telescopes and planetary radar to measure the change in momentum imparted to the moonlet. (Pause a moment to wipe a romantic tear.)

DART is targeted to launch at 10:20 p.m. PST, Nov. 23, 2021, (1:20 a.m. EST, Nov. 24), aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. NASA is obviously excited about this mission as it is promoting this launch more than usual.

Tom Cruise lost his race to shoot the first movie on the ISS. Maybe he still has time to cut a deal for “Armageddon II – This Time It’s Personal.”

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

DURHAM, N.C. – Sixty-three percent. That’s the proportion of mammal species that vanished from Africa and the Arabian Peninsula around 30 million years ago, after Earth’s climate shifted from swampy to icy. But we are only finding out about it now.

Compiling decades of work, a new study published this week in the journal Communications Biology reports on a previously undocumented extinction event that followed the transition between the geological periods called the Eocene and Oligocene.

That time period was marked by dramatic climate change. In a reverse image of what is happening today, the Earth grew cooler, ice sheets expanded, sea levels dropped, forests started changing to grasslands, and carbon dioxide became scarce. Nearly two-thirds of the species known in Europe and Asia at that time went extinct.

African mammals were thought to have possibly escaped unscathed. Africa’s mild climate and proximity to the Equator could have been a buffer from the worst of that period’s cooling trend.

Now, thanks in great part to a large collection of fossils housed at the Duke Lemur Center Division of Fossil Primates (DLCDFP), researchers have shown that, despite their relatively balmy environment, African mammals were just as affected as those from Europe and Asia. The collection was the life’s work of the late Elwyn Simons of Duke, who scoured Egyptian deserts for fossils for decades. 

The team, comprising researchers from the United States, England, and Egypt, looked at fossils of five mammal groups: a group of extinct carnivores called hyaenodonts, two rodent groups, the anomalures (scaly-tail squirrels) and the hystricognaths (a group that includes porcupines and naked mole rats), and two primate groups, the strepsirrhines (lemurs and lorises), and our very own ancestors, the anthropoids (apes and monkeys).

By gathering data on hundreds of fossils from multiple sites in Africa, the team was able to build evolutionary trees for these groups, pinpointing when new lineages branched out and time-stamping each species’ first and last known appearances.

Their results show that all five mammal groups suffered huge losses around the Eocene-Oligocene boundary.

“It was a real reset button,” said Dorien de Vries, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Salford and lead author of the paper.

After a few million years, these groups start popping up again in the fossil record, but with a new look. The fossil species that re-appear later in the Oligocene, after the big extinction event, are not the same as those that were found before.

“It's very clear that there was a huge extinction event, and then a recovery period,” said Steven Heritage, Researcher and Digital Preparator at Duke University’s DLCDFP and coauthor of the paper.

The evidence is in these animals’ teeth. Molar teeth can tell a lot about what a mammal eats, which in turns tells a lot about their environment.

The rodents and primates that reappeared after a few million years had different teeth. These were new species, who ate different things, and had different habitats.

“We see a huge loss in tooth diversity, and then a recovery period with new dental shapes and new adaptations,” said de Vries.

“Extinction is interesting in that way,” said Matt Borths, curator of Duke University’s DLCDFP and coauthor of the paper. “It kills things, but it also opens up new ecological opportunities for the lineages that survive into this new world.”

This decline in diversity followed by a recovery confirms that the Eocene-Oligocene boundary acted as an evolutionary bottleneck: most lineages went extinct, but a few survived. Over the next several millions of years, these surviving lines diversified.

“In our anthropoid ancestors, diversity bottoms out to almost nothing around 30 million years ago, leaving them with a single tooth type,” said Erik R. Seiffert, Professor and Chair of the Department of Integrative Anatomical Sciences at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California, a former graduate student of Simons, and senior coauthor of the paper. “That ancestral tooth shape determined what was possible in terms of later dietary diversification.”

“There's an interesting story about the role of that bottleneck in our own early evolutionary history,” said Seiffert. “We came pretty close to never existing, if our monkey-like ancestors had gone extinct 30 million years ago. Luckily they didn’t.”

A rapidly changing climate wasn’t the only challenge facing these few surviving types of mammals. As temperatures dropped, East Africa was pummeled by a series of major geological events, such as volcanic super eruptions and flood basalts – enormous eruptions that covered vast expanses with molten rock. It was also at that time that the Arabian Peninsula separated from East Africa, opening the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

“We lost a lot of diversity at the Eocene-Oligocene boundary,” said Borths. “But the species that survived apparently had enough of a toolkit to persist through this fluctuating climate.”

“Climate changes through geological time have shaped the evolutionary tree of life,” said Hesham Sallam, founder of the Mansoura University Vertebrate Paleontology Center in Egypt and coauthor of the paper. “Collecting evidence from the past is the easiest way to learn about how climate change will affect ecological systems.”

Funding for this study came from The Leakey Foundation, the U.S. National Science Foundation (BSC-1824745 to DD. and DBI-1612062 to MRB), and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC NE/T000341/1). Field work in the Fayum Depression, Egypt, and digital curation of Fayum fossils were supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation (BCS-0416164, BCS-0819186, and BCS-1231288) as well as Gordon and Ann Getty and The Leakey Foundation. Micro-CT scanning was partially supported by NSF grant DBI-1458192, DBI-2023087, and IMLS grant MA-245704-OMS-20.

CITATION:

• “Widespread Loss of Mammalian Lineage and Dietary Diversity in the Early Oligocene of Afro-Arabia,” Dorien de Vries, Steven Heritage, Matthew R. Borths, Hesham M. Sallam & Erik R. Seiffert. Communications Biology, 10/07/2021. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-021-02707-9

Fig. 1: Lineage diversity shifts in Afro-Arabian primates, rodents, and hyaenodonts.

a Composite time-scaled tree of Afro-Arabian primates and rodents used for calculation of lineage diversity shifts from the Eocene to Recent. See Supplementary Fig. 1 for full tree. b Black line is the lineage through time (LTT) plot based on the composite tree in (a); light blue histogram shows number of tips in the composite tree in 1 Ma long bins; top, high-resolution astronomically dated benthic carbon (δ¹³C‰) and oxygen (δ¹⁸O‰) isotope curves from the early Eocene to Recent, from Westerhold et al.⁴. δ¹⁸O‰ curve provides a proxy for mean temperature difference from the present day. c LTT plot for the composite tree compared to 10,000 random trees with the same tip ages as the composite tree, but random topologies and branch lengths. d LTT plot for Afro-Arabian Hyaenodonta, a clade of carnivorous placentals that were likely the primary mammalian predators of the primates and rodents in the composite tree. Dan. = Danian, Se. = Selandian, Th. = Thanetian, Bart. = Bartonian, Rup. = Rupelian, Chat. = Chattian, Aq. or Aqui. = Aquitanian, Burd. = Burdigalian, L. or Lan. = Langhian, S. or Ser. = Serravallian, Tort. = Tortonian, M or Mes. = Messian, UD = undivided.

Fig. 2: Lineage diversity and dental topographic disparity in Afro-Arabian primates and rodents from the early Eocene to the middle Miocene.

The blue line is the LTT plot for the primate and rodent species for which M₂ dental topographic metrics were calculated; the orange line shows temporal changes in the sum of the square roots of 2D hull areas for all four clades, with 2DHA calculated for each clade (Anomaluroidea, Anthropoidea, Hystricognathi, and Strepsirrhini) independently (sumSR2DHA); the green line shows temporal changes in the length of the minimum spanning tree (MST), calculated for each clade (Anomaluroidea, Anthropoidea, Hystricognathi, and Strepsirrhini) independently (sumMST). sumSR2DHA and sumMST show a tight correlation with lineage number, as shown by the r² values in the insets (n = 80). Bart. = Bartonian, Aqui. = Aquitanian, Burd. = Burdigalian, Lan. = Langhian.

Fig. 3: Long-term trends in primate and rodent dental topography through the Paleogene and early middle Miocene.

 

Violin plots of all ancestral reconstructions for ariaDNE, OPCR, and RFI, collated at 0.5 Ma intervals.

Fig. 4: Movement of dental topographic morphospace centroids through time.

a Plot of Euclidean movement of the centroid of each clade’s dental topographic morphospace from their inferred arrival time in Afro-Arabia (first divergence) to 15 Ma, and overall path length, along the first two principal components derived from PCA of the three dental topographic metrics (ariaDNE, OPCR, and RFI). b Comparison of Euclidean movement of morphospace centroids within each order (Primates and Rodentia), showing relative shifts through time; red and orange circles indicate the position of the Eocene-Oligocene and Oligocene-Miocene boundaries, respectively.

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Approximately 30 million years ago, there was a mass extinction that nobody knew about until recently. As a matter of fact, a whopping 63% of mammals vanished from different parts of the Earth.

The extinction event occurred just after the changes of the geological periods of Eocene and Oligocene. This was also around the time when our planet experienced a drastic climate change from being swampy to icy. The Earth got colder, there were more ice sheets, sea levels dropped, forests turned into grasslands, and there was less carbon dioxide.

As for the mammals living in Africa, they were believed to have survived unharmed because of the continent’s mild temperatures and the proximity to where it was to the equator would have helped in preventing the cooler climates. Unfortunately, based on new research, the African mammals did not survive.

Climate change brought more ice.

A team of international researchers from the United States, England, and Egypt, analyzed a large amount of fossils that are located at the Duke Lemur Center Division of Fossil Primates (DLCDFP) and they found that even though Africa did have warmer weather, the mammals living there were just as tragically affected as those living in Europe and Asia.

The team studied fossils belonging to different groups of mammals – extinct carnivores called hyaenodonts; two rodent groups; anomalures (scaly-tail squirrels) and the hystricognaths (this group includes porcupines and naked mole rats); two primate groups, the strepsirrhines (lemurs and lorises), and the anthropoids (apes and monkeys). By creating a family tree for each of these groups, the team was able to determine that all of them suffered massive losses during the Eocene-Oligocene boundary. On a positive note, millions of years later, they did start appearing again but with different characteristics, specifically the changes in their teeth which indicated a change in their diet and habitat – like a “recovery period”.

Matt Borths, who is a curator of Duke University’s DLCDFP, noted, “Extinction is interesting in that way,” adding, “It kills things, but it also opens up new ecological opportunities for the lineages that survive into this new world.”

The dramatic climate change wasn’t the only factor that these animals had to deal with as East Africa suffered volcanic super eruptions and flood basalts when the temperatures dropped. “We lost a lot of diversity at the Eocene-Oligocene boundary,” Borths explained, “But the species that survived apparently had enough of a toolkit to persist through this fluctuating climate.”

Hesham Sallam, who is the founder of the Mansoura University Vertebrate Paleontology Center in Egypt, weighed in by stating, “Climate changes through geological time have shaped the evolutionary tree of life.” “Collecting evidence from the past is the easiest way to learn about how climate change will affect ecological systems.” A picture of some of the fossils the team analyzed during their research can be seen here.

The study was published in the journal Communications Biology where it can be read in full.

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Think Ancient Egypt Is Remarkable Above Ground? Wait Until You See What They Discovered Under It via Matrix Wisdom

We are awestruck by what they see above the ground in Egypt, but what lies below the ground is even more remarkable. The construction has never been matched by any subsequent civilization. Even modern day experts have no idea how this was created.

Think Ancient Egypt Is Remarkable Above Ground? Wait Until You See What They Discovered Under It via Matrix Wisdom

What do you think? Staying cool this week I hope! Thanks for stopping by. Stay tuned for more BIN news

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Massive Anomaly Discovered...There Is Something Bizarre Under The Alaskan Ice via Matrix Wisdom

There is something very strange going on in Alaska. Something is under the ice and it could be more ancient that humanity itself. Furthermore, there are not one but two anomalies in the region, and both are totally beyond comprehension.

Massive Anomaly Discovered…There Is Something Bizarre Under The Alaskan Ice via Matrix Wisdom

What do you think? Staying cool this week I hope! Thanks for stopping by. Stay tuned for more BIN news.

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Scientists Are Predicting Polar Vortex To Bring Big Freeze And Coldest Winter :”People Should Be Prepared For a Real Flagstaff Winter”

Polar vortex enters Northern U.S.

The stratospheric polar vortex is a large-scale region of air that is contained by a strong west-to-east jet stream that circles the polar region. This jet stream is usually referred to as the polar night jet. The polar vortex extends from the tropopause (the dividing line between the stratosphere and troposphere) through the stratosphere and into the mesosphere (above 50 km). Low values of ozone and cold temperatures are associated with the air inside the vortex.

The stratospheric polar vortex shows quite a bit of day-to-day variability. This variability is caused by weather systems or large-scale waves that move upward from the troposphere into the stratosphere. In the left image , we see some undulations along the edge of the polar vortex, but the vortex is generally centered on the North Pole. Two weeks later we see the center of the polar vortex pushed away from the North Pole. On a constant latitude circle, PV values are high in the eastern hemisphere and low in the western hemisphere. This is referred to as a wave-1 pattern . The wave-1 pattern develops in the troposphere and moves upward (propagates) into the stratosphere.

These stratospheric waves are forced by the large-scale mountain systems and the land-sea contrasts between the continents and oceans. During the northern winter, these waves are continuously forming and moving upward into the stratosphere. The waves can “break”, much like the waves on a beach. These wave-breaking events erode the vortex and keep the polar region warmer and ozone amounts higher. Often, parts of the polar vortex are pulled away from the main vortex. The image on the right shows this, where a large piece of the polar vortex was pulled away from the main vortex (green colored material at the bottom of the image). A comparison between the middle and right images also shows a slight contraction of the polar vortex because of these waves.

Vortex breakup
The polar vortex is a winter phenomena. It develops as the sun sets over the polar region and temperatures cool. During the spring, the sun rises and the absorption of solar radiation by ozone begins to heat the polar stratosphere. This heating eventually causes the vortex to disappear along with the polar night jet. However, this process is helped along by planetary-scale waves that propagate up from the troposphere. This wave event that drives the vortex breakup (or final warming) acts to also increase the temperature of the polar region and ozone levels. We mark the day of the vortex breakup when the winds around the vortex edge decrease below a particular value (about 15 m s -1on the 460 K potential temperature surface).

Health officials have issued a desperate plea to the public, urging them to wrap up warm and turn to pharmacies at the first sign of illness, amid “enormous pressure” on casualty departments. Forecasts suggest could be facing the coldest winter for five years, with average minimum temperatures.
Research has also shown that people with conditions such as heart disease, lung problems including asthma, and dementia are much more likely to die in winter.

It also makes the blood more likely to clot, raising the risk of heart attack and stroke, and reduces the lung’s ability to fight off infection.

The senior doctor advised keeping homes warm, with regular hot drinks and meals, and urged people to see their pharmacist at the first sign of health problems.

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