Jingszo !

South African scientists on Tuesday injected radioactive material into live rhino horns to make them easier to detect at border posts in a pioneering project aimed at curbing poaching.

The country is home to a large majority of the world's rhinos and as such is a hotspot for poaching driven by demand from Asia, where horns are used in traditional medicine for their supposed therapeutic effect.

Rhino horns are highly sought after on black markets, where the price by weight rivals that of gold and cocaine.

The material would last five years on the horn, which was cheaper than dehorning every 18 months.

Lucy was a member of the species Australopithecus afarensis, an extinct hominin – a group that includes humans and our fossil relatives. Australopithecus afarensis lived from 3.8 million years ago to 2.9 million years ago, in the region that is now Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania. Dated to 3.2 million years ago, Lucy was the oldest and most complete human ancestor ever found at the time of her discovery.

Two features set humans apart from all other primates: big brains and standing and walking on two legs instead of four. Prior to Lucy’s discovery, scientists thought that our large brains must have evolved first, because all known human fossils at the time already had large brains. But Lucy stood on two feet and had a small brain, not much larger than that of a chimpanzee.

Caregiving for disabled individuals among Neanderthals has been known for a long time, and there is a debate about the implications of this behavior. Some authors believe that caregiving took place between individuals able to reciprocate the favor, while others argue that caregiving was produced by a feeling of compassion related to other highly adaptive prosocial behaviors. The study of children with severe pathologies is particularly interesting, as children have a very limited possibility to reciprocate the assistance.

We present the case of a Neanderthal child who suffered from a congenital pathology of the inner ear, probably debilitating, and associated with Down syndrome. This child would have required care for at least 6 years, likely necessitating other group members to assist the mother in childcare.

The last population of woolly mammoths was isolated on Wrangel Island off the coast of Siberia 10,000 years ago, when sea levels rose and cut the mountainous island off from the mainland.

A new genomic analysis reveals that the isolated mammoths, who lived on the island for the subsequent 6,000 years, originated from at most eight individuals but grew to 200–300 individuals within 20 generations.

The researchers report June 27 in the journal Cell that the Wrangel Island mammoths' genomes showed signs of inbreeding and low genetic diversity but not to the extent that it can explain their ultimate (and mysterious) extinction.

A type of lemur which communicates in rhythmic song shows how humans have evolved to create music, according to researchers at The University of Warwick.

Indris, known as "singing lemurs" live in small family groups in the Madagascan rainforest and communicate using songs, similar to birds and humans. They also use rhythmic vocalizations like alarm calls to alert family members of predators.

Researchers found that Indris have "isochrony" in their communication, which is where the time between sounds or notes are equal, creating a steady occurrence of events at regular intervals, resulting in a consistent rhythm or beat—much like in music. For example, in an isochronous pattern, each note or beat would be evenly spaced apart, like the ticking of a clock.

Isochrony as ancestral condition to call and song in a primate

https://nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nyas.15151

The Concept

The idea behind the ‘Rod of God’ is strikingly simple: what goes up must come down. The weapon consists of a pair of satellites, one of which houses a series of tungsten rods, each about 20 feet long and one foot in diameter. These rods would be deployed towards Earth, gaining speed as they descend due to the pull of gravity. By the time they reach the surface, the rods would be traveling at a speed of up to 10 kilometers per second—approximately 30 times the speed of sound.

Upon impact, the kinetic energy of the rods would be released, causing an explosion akin to a nuclear bomb but without the associated fallout or radiation. This could, theoretically, allow for highly targeted, extremely powerful strikes without the geopolitical ramifications associated with the use of nuclear weapons.

Of all the peoples of the Middle Ages, it was the Norse who had the best nicknames. You can now explore a list of hundreds of interesting and strange nicknames from the Viking Age.

The sagas and histories of the Norse peoples are filled with names – the Family Sagas alone include over 7,000 named individuals. Most of those people also had nicknames. They needed to have them, for Norse society did not use proper surnames, but used patronyms like x’s son or x’s daughter. Without nicknames it would have been very difficult to differentiate people.

One could get their nickname from their age, appearance, clothing, where one came from, their occupation, or some interesting quality about the person. These nicknames could just as easily be an insult as they could be a compliment. We even have nicknames that were sexually explicit – for example, Kolbeinn Butter Penis – or as Peterson describes “potty humor nicknames,” such as Eystein Foul-Fart.

There are cases where people had multiple nicknames – a man named Hroi had five: ‘The Wealthy’, ‘The Foolish’, ‘The Elegant’, ‘The Wise’, and ‘Mishap’. They could also be changed during their lifetime.

Highlights

•Perforation-type anchor is proposed to adhere living skin to robotic surfaces

•Proposed anchor mimics human skin ligaments by gelling skin tissue via perforations

•3D facial mold and 2D skin robot covered with living skin are created

This research explores the correlation between the size of perforation-type anchors and anchoring strength. As a demonstration of the tissue fixation, we applied perforation-type anchors to cover the 3D facial mold with a skin equivalent. Finally, a robotic face capable of generating smiling expressions via the perforation-type anchors was developed.

The primary advantage of using skin equivalent as a covering material for robots is its self-healing capability. Unlike other self-healing materials, which require heat or pressure to trigger adhesion at cut surfaces, skin equivalent can regenerate defects through cellular proliferation without any triggers.

The near and far sides of the Moon are so different from each other, and no one is sure why. New lunar samples could confirm a wild theory.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Although even our pre-human ancestors were familiar with the near side of the Moon, we didn’t get our first glimpse of the lunar far side until 1959, and wow, is it surprisingly different. 

Unlike the near side, it’s practically devoid of lunar maria, and instead is filled with mountainous, high-altitude, heavily cratered highlands. Even in 2024, no one is sure as to why. 

However, humanity’s first successful sample return mission from the Moon’s far side, conducted by China’s Chang’e-6, might solve the mystery. A wild theory is about to be put to the test.

And now, from a scientific point of view, the fun truly begins.

What will a sample analysis of the material from the lunar far side show?

Will the samples be identical in composition to the ones previously returned: from the lunar near side?

Will they be different in any appreciable way, such as in terms of the abundance of various elements?

Will they shed any new light on the various formation theories — and details about those theories — for the Moon itself?

And will they be consistent with the stories we tell ourselves about the Moon and Earth today, or will there be some novel information that compels us to rewrite what we thought we already knew?

At the site of Berenike, in the desert sands along the Red Sea, archaeologists are uncovering wondrous new finds that challenge old ideas about the makings of the modern world

In antiquity, this site, known as Berenike, was described by chroniclers such as Strabo and Pliny the Elder as the Roman Empire’s maritime gateway to the East: a crucial entry point for mind-boggling riches brought across the sea from eastern Africa, southern Arabia, India and beyond. It is hard to imagine how such vast and complex trade could have been supported here, miles from any natural source of drinking water and many days’ arduous trek across mountainous desert from the Nile. Yet excavations are revealing that the stories are true.

Archaeologists led by Steven Sidebotham, of the University of Delaware, have revealed two harbors and scores of houses, shops and shrines. They have uncovered mounds of administrative detritus, including letters, receipts and customs passes, and imported treasures such as ivory, incense, textiles, gems and foodstuffs such as pots of Indian peppercorns, coconuts and rice. The finds are not only painting a uniquely detailed picture of life at a lesser-known but critical crossroads between East and West. They are also focusing scholarly attention on a vast ancient ocean trade that may have dwarfed the terrestrial Silk Road in economic importance and helped sustain the Roman Empire for centuries.

In our rapidly expanding Universe, the lives of stars follow well-worn tracks, fusing hydrogen and then helium before swelling in size until they exhaust their nuclear fuels and collapse, no longer able to resist the force of gravity.

But some stars in the innermost region of our Milky Way, very close to the galactic center, might be carving out their own path, exhibiting strange properties that don't fit our standard picture of stellar evolution.

New research suggests these anomalies could be powered mostly by dark matter instead of nuclear fusion – with that dark matter 'replenishing' the stars and making them practically ancient by comparison.

Their model predicts the existence of a new class of heavy stars that are kept 'alight' not just by small amounts of fusion of atomic nuclei, but also by the annihilation of an "effectively infinite" supply of dark matter particles colliding with antimatter.

Dark Branches of Immortal Stars at the Galactic Center

https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.12267

Some insects have detachable penises, others produce sperm that is 20 times the size of their own body. Others have evolved with special equipment to help them tear rivals off potential mates. Insects can be creepy, promiscuous or murderous – but they are rarely dull.

More disturbing behaviour is seen in the bed bug. Males simply pierce a female’s abdomen then inject sperm through the wound into her abdominal cavity. As insects have an open circulatory system without arteries and veins, the sperm can easily migrate from the abdominal cavity to the ovaries for fertilisation.

Many male insects only get to mate once, even when they aren’t eaten by their partners. For example, male bees ejaculate with such explosive force that it is loud enough for humans to hear. This ensures the sperm is passed to the female, but it results in paralysis of the male, which kills him. So, males need to make the most of their exploits.

We propose that certain atmospheric technosignatures do not suffer from this longevity problem.

In contrast to industrial pollutants, artificial greenhouse ("terraforming") gases would represent an intentional effort to modify a planet's climate, and could persist for the entire remaining history of a civilization or beyond.

Terraforming, by definition, requires sufficient modification of the atmosphere to adjust a planet's global energy balance, which correspondingly implies a large spectral signature in the thermal infrared portion of the planet's spectrum, incidentally supporting remote detectability.

Maintaining a terraformed atmosphere may also require the consistent and intentional replenishment of the contributing gases.

Fortuitously, many such gases tend to have long atmospheric residence times of thousands to tens of thousands of years, which would help make the cost of doing so nonprohibitive.

Civilizations may be motivated to introduce highly efficient greenhouse gases to forestall a global ice age on their own home world caused by analogs to Earth's Milankovich cycles.

Alternatively, they may use terraforming gases to make another planet in their home system (or beyond) more suitable for life, as humans have proposed for Mars . For the case of Mars, the idea of mobilizing available CO2 and other volatile inventories as a terraforming strategy appears to be largely infeasible, so the use of additional artificial gases would be needed for an effective terraforming strategy.

Hollywood has created an idea of aliens that doesn’t match the science

A botched geoengineering experiment to limit the amount of sunlight hitting Earth hasn’t dimmed donors’ enthusiasm for funding the research

The latest experiment was derailed earlier this month when local officials in Alameda, California, rejected a request by Washington researchers to restart a test to brighten clouds from the deck of a decommissioned aircraft carrier in San Francisco Bay.

Longtime Google executive Alan Eustace, who helped fund the University of Washington's marine cloud brightening program, declined to comment on whether he would continue to support its solar geoengeering tests. Other people or groups backing the program did not respond to requests for comment.

They include the Larsen Lam Climate Change Foundation, which was established by cryptocurrency billionaire Chris Larsen and his wife, Lyna Lam; the Kissick Family Foundation launched by the late investor John Kissick; and the Cohler Charitable Fund of former Facebook executive Matt Cohler.

The program's other supporters are inventor Armand Neukermans, venture capitalists Chris and Crystal Sacca, and software engineer Dan Scales.

The search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) has captivated scientists and the public for decades. However, many misconceptions persist about this field of research. This article examines ten common misunderstandings about SETI to provide a clearer picture of this fascinating scientific endeavor.

1. SETI Only Involves Radio Telescopes

While radio astronomy plays a significant role in SETI, it is not the only method used. Researchers also employ optical telescopes to search for laser signals, analyze exoplanet atmospheres for biosignatures, and explore other potential indicators of technological civilizations.

2. SETI Has Been Ongoing for Centuries

Organized SETI efforts began in the mid-20th century. Although humans have long speculated about life beyond Earth, systematic scientific searches are a relatively recent development.

3. No Signal Means No Aliens

The absence of detected signals does not conclusively prove the non-existence of extraterrestrial intelligence. The vastness of space, limitations of our technology, and the possibility that alien civilizations communicate in ways we haven’t considered all factor into this complex equation.

4. SETI Is Solely About Finding Intelligent Life

While intelligent life is a primary focus, SETI research also contributes to our understanding of astrophysics, planetary science, and the origins of life. These studies have broader implications for our knowledge of the universe.

5. All Radio Signals Are Potential Alien Messages

Many natural phenomena produce radio emissions. SETI researchers use sophisticated techniques to distinguish between natural and potentially artificial signals, reducing the likelihood of false positives.

6. SETI Is Funded by Government Agencies

Contrary to popular belief, most SETI projects rely on private funding and donations. Government support for SETI has been limited and inconsistent over the years.

7. SETI Scientists Believe Aliens Have Visited Earth

Most SETI researchers maintain a skeptical approach to claims of alien visitations. They focus on gathering empirical evidence through rigorous scientific methods rather than speculating about unproven encounters.

8. SETI Is About Immediate Contact

The primary goal of SETI is to detect evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence, not to establish immediate communication. Any potential discovery would likely involve signals from distant star systems, making rapid two-way communication improbable.

9. Advanced Aliens Should Have Found Us by Now

This assumption, known as the Fermi Paradox, overlooks many factors. The vastness of space, the relative brevity of human civilization, and the possibility that advanced civilizations might choose not to reveal themselves all complicate this expectation.

10. SETI Is Purely Theoretical

SETI involves practical, observational science. Researchers use advanced technologies and data analysis techniques to search for anomalous signals and patterns that could indicate the presence of extraterrestrial intelligence.

By addressing these misconceptions, we can better appreciate the complexity and scientific rigor involved in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. SETI continues to push the boundaries of our understanding of the cosmos and our place within it.

The concept of faster-than-light travel has long captivated the imagination of science fiction enthusiasts and scientists alike. While the laws of physics as we currently understand them prohibit objects from moving faster than light, theoretical physicists have proposed various concepts that could potentially allow for effective faster-than-light travel without violating these fundamental laws. One such concept is the warp drive, which involves manipulating the fabric of spacetime itself to achieve rapid transit across vast cosmic distances.

Gravitational Wave Signatures

The simulations revealed that the collapse of a warp drive would indeed produce detectable gravitational waves. These waves would have distinct characteristics that set them apart from other known sources of gravitational radiation, such as binary black hole mergers or neutron star collisions.

Key findings from the gravitational wave analysis include:

Burst-like signal: The gravitational wave emission begins with a sudden burst as the warp bubble starts to collapse.

Oscillatory phase: Following the initial burst, there is a period of oscillatory gravitational wave emission with a characteristic frequency related to the size of the warp bubble.

Frequency range: For a warp bubble roughly one kilometer in size, the emitted gravitational waves would have frequencies in the hundreds of kilohertz range.

Signal strength: The amplitude of the gravitational waves depends on factors such as the mass-energy content of the warp bubble and its velocity at the time of collapse.

Unique waveform: The overall shape of the gravitational waveform is distinct from those produced by known astrophysical sources, potentially allowing for identification of warp drive signatures.

The authors study the context of the skeletal remains of three individuals and associated sediment samples to conclude that the hominin species Homo naledi intentionally buried their dead.

Some authors have argued that mortuary behavior is unlikely for H. naledi, due to its small brain size . The evidence demonstrates that this complex cultural behavior was not a simple function of brain size.

While we cannot at this time exclude H. naledi as part of the ancestral makeup of humans, its overall morphology suggests that its common ancestors with today’s humans and Neandertals go back a million years or more .

This raises the possibility that burial or other mortuary behavior may have arisen much earlier than present evidence for them, or that such behaviors evolved convergently in minds different from our own.

Understanding such behaviors will require comparative study of all hominin lineages in which they occur.

Easter Island is arguably the remotest inhabited spot on Earth, and one of the last to be settled by humans, if not the last. The nearest continental landmass is central Chile, nearly 2,200 miles to the east. Some 3,200 miles to the west lie the tropical Cook Islands, where settlers are thought to have sailed from around 1200 CE.

The 63-square-mile island is made entirely of volcanic rock, but unlike lush tropical islands such as Hawaii and Tahiti, eruptions ceased hundreds of thousands of years ago, and mineral nutrients brought up by lava have long since eroded from soils.

To cope, the settlers used a technique called rock gardening, or lithic mulching. This consists of scattering rocks over low-lying surfaces that are at least partly protected from salt spray and wind. In the interstices between rocks, they planted sweet potatoes.

Research has shown that rocks from golf ball–size to boulders disrupt drying winds and create turbulent airflow, reducing the highest daytime surface temperatures and increasing the lowest nighttime ones. Smaller bits, broken up by hand, expose fresh surfaces laden with mineral nutrients that get released into the soil as they weather.

However, based on isotopes found in bones and teeth and other evidence, people in the past probably managed to get 35% to 45% of their diet from marine sources, and a small amount from other less nutritious crops including bananas, taro and sugar cane. Factoring in these sources would have raised the population carrying capacity to about 3,000―the number observed upon European contact.

Out of Sight, ‘Dark Fungi’ Run the World from the Shadows

The land, water and air around us are chock-full of DNA from fungi that scientists can’t identify

Since then mycologists have realized that such phantoms are everywhere. Point to a patch of dirt, a body of water, even the air you’re breathing, and odds are that it is teeming with mushrooms, molds and yeasts (or their spores) that no one has ever seen. In ocean trenches, Tibetan glaciers and all habitats between, researchers are routinely detecting DNA from obscure fungi.

By sequencing the snippets, they can tell they’re dealing with new species, thousands of them, that are genetically distinct from any known to science. They just can’t match that DNA to tangible organisms growing out in the world.

These slippery beings are so widespread that scientists are calling them “dark fungi.” It’s a comparison to the equally elusive dark matter and dark energy that make up 95 percent of our universe and exert tremendous influence on, well, everything. Like those invisible entities, dark fungi are hidden movers and shakers.

Scientists are convinced they perform the same vital functions as known fungi, directing the flow of energy through ecosystems as they break down organic matter and recycle nutrients. Dark fungi are prime examples of what biologist E. O. Wilson called “the little things that run the world.” But their cryptic lifestyle has made it a maddening challenge for scientists trying to show how exactly they run it.

A former head of the Pentagon's secretive UFO investigation department (turned whistleblower) claims his life is in danger.

“I would like to make this perfectly clear to the American people,” Elizondo continued to say.

“I am not prone to accidents. I am not suicidal. I am not abusing drugs. I am not engaged in any illicit activities.”

“If something happens to me or my family members in the future, you will know what happened.”

Xenophyophores can craft multichambered compounds that resemble morel mushrooms.

Xenophyophores—xenos for short—are some of the deep sea’s most abundant organisms. Able to grow their single-celled bodies as large as a cantaloupe in some cases, they live on seabed rocks or in sediment, often in places where a current can bring by construction materials.

To shelter their huge, blobby bodies, many xenos stick bits of stuff together to form self-built abodes called “tests.” Lacking more solid appendages, xenos use extended threads of protoplasm to collect sediment or other drifting particles and glue them together grain by grain. A few “naked” xenos do things differently, secreting a transparent casing and building tests from their own fecal pellets. “They’re incredible bricklayers,” says Lisa Levin, one of a handful of deep-sea ecologists who has studied them in their natural habitat.

Xenos make good neighbors. Like trees or reefs, they are diversity hot spots, providing other creatures places to perch, feed, and hide. They’re also sediment stabilizers and particle traps on the seafloor. Some researchers have even proposed that xenos may be master gardeners, growing and harvesting microbes down on their sunless, submarine farms.

Disclosure Team

Among the most widely promoted examples of fossil folklore is a supposed link between the Central Asian horned dinosaur Protoceratops and the griffin, a gold-guarding mythical creature combining features of lions and birds. First proposed in the 1990s, this geomyth postulates that tales of Protoceratops fossils were transmitted westward along trade routes from Asian gold mines to inform griffin lore among the ancient Greeks.

An evaluation of the Protoceratops–griffin link, however, finds it uncompelling.

Not only does it ignore established histories of griffin art and myth, but no convincing connections occur between Protoceratops and central aspects of griffin lore, such as gold guarding. In fact, Protoceratops fossils occur hundreds of kilometres from the nearest gold deposits, subverting suggestions that they inspired the griffin's association with gold.

Interpretations of ancient literary references to griffins as pertaining to Protoceratops are unconvincing, and suggested anatomical similarities between griffins and Protoceratops are selectively identified. 

We regard the Protoceratops–griffin link as an ‘ex post facto geomyth’: an effort to find significance in superficial, inconsequential readings of geological phenomena and mythology. We posit that the allure of ancient cultures sharing our modern fascination with dinosaurs has denied this idea due scepticism.

Pantex Unidentified Object Incident Report September 2, 2015

Enclosed for your review is the complete report for the Pantex Unidentified Object that occurred on 2.2015. If you have any questions or concerns,please contact me OP

Personnel were alerted to the object and subsequently dispatched to follow it in an effort to obtain as much information about the objectas possible. PF personnel on the ground confirmed the presence of the object and maintained observation via PF vehicle. PF personnel followed the object for several miles northof theplant until it was no longer visible.

The object was that it was a “diamond”type shape with it being more round at the top