Jingszo !

The dream of traversing the depths of space and planting the seed of human civilization on another planet has existed for generations. For long as we’ve known that most stars in the Universe are likely to have their own system of planets, there have been those who advocated that we explore them (and even settle on them). With the dawn of the Space Age, this idea was no longer just the stuff of science fiction and became a matter of scientific study. Unfortunately, the challenges of venturing beyond Earth and reaching another star system are myriad.

When it comes down to it, there are only two ways to send crewed missions to exoplanets. The first is to develop advanced propulsion systems that can achieve relativistic speeds (a fraction of the speed of light). The second involves building spacecraft that can sustain crews for generations – aka. a Generation Ship (or Worldship). On November 1st, 2024, Project Hyperion launched a design competition for crewed interstellar travel via generation ships that would rely on current and near-future technologies. The competition is open to the public and will award a total of $10,000 (USD) for innovative concepts.

The 2023 Planetary Defense Strategy focuses on six goals in total across Federal Departments and Agencies for the decade ahead:

Goal 1: Enhance NEO detection, tracking, and characterization capabilities. Early detection and tracking of a potential NEO impact threat provides the greatest leverage to adequately respond in time to prevent loss of life and damage to critical infrastructure.

Goal 2: Improve NO modeling, prediction, and information integration. Departments and Agencies will coordinate the development of validated modeling tools and simulation capabilities that aid in characterizing and mitigating NO impact risks while integrating and streamlining data flows to support effective decision-making.

Goal 3: Develop technologies for NO reconnaissance, deflection, and disruption missions. NASA will continue to lead development of technologies that could potentially be used in fast-response NEO reconnaissance missions and timely missions to deflect or disrupt hazardous NEOS.

Goal 4: Increase international cooperation on NO preparedness. The potentially cataclysmic consequences of a NEO impact, independent of national borders and geopolitical dynamics, presents special opportunity for engagement with the international community to foster cooperation in joint research and response efforts.

Goal 5: Strengthen and routinely exercise NO impact emergency procedures and action protocols. The United States will strengthen and exercise procedures and protocols for assessment of NO threats, communication-including to the public and international community-regarding threats, and response and recovery activities.

Goal 6: Improve U.S. management of planetary defense through enhanced interagency collaboration. Actions under this goal will improve ongoing coordination and implementation on projects across Federal agency boundaries.

Saber-toothed cats are iconic creatures often seen in museum dioramas, displays of fossil skeletons, and even the movie Ice Age. Now, for the first time one of these extinct predators has been spotted in the flesh. In a study published this week in Scientific Reports, researchers describe the frozen body of a saber-toothed kitten preserved for 37,000 years in the Siberian permafrost.

The carcass—containing the head, forelimbs, and front part of the animal—was discovered encased in a chunk of ice in 2020 near the Badyarikha River in northern Siberia, above the Arctic Circle. Radiocarbon dating revealed the cat—belonging to the species Homotherium latidens—lived in the late Pleistocene epoch 35,500 to 37,000 years ago.

Based on the emergence of its baby incisor teeth, researchers estimate the cub was about 3 weeks old when it died.

A University of South Florida professor found the first-ever physical evidence of hallucinogens in an Egyptian mug, validating written records and centuries-old myths of ancient Egyptian rituals and practices. Through advanced chemical analyses, Davide Tanasi examined one of the world's few remaining Egyptian Bes mugs.

Such mugs, including the one donated to the Tampa Museum of Art in 1984, are decorated with the head of Bes, an ancient Egyptian god or guardian demon worshiped for protection, fertility, medicinal healing and magical purification.

With a pulverized sample from scraping the inner walls of the vase, the team combined numerous analytical techniques for the first time to uncover what the mug last held.

The new tactic was successful and revealed the vase had a cocktail of psychedelic drugs, bodily fluids and alcohol—a combination that Tanasi believes was used in a magical ritual reenacting an Egyptian myth, likely for fertility. The concoction was flavored with honey, sesame seeds, pine nuts, licorice and grapes, which were commonly used to make the beverage look like blood.

"This research teaches us about magic rituals in the Greco-Roman period in Egypt," Van Oppen said. "Egyptologists believe that people visited the so-called Bes Chambers at Saqqara when they wished to confirm a successful pregnancy because pregnancies in the ancient world were fraught with dangers.

"So, this combination of ingredients may have been used in a dream-vision inducing magic ritual within the context of this dangerous period of childbirth."

Source:

Multianalytical investigation reveals psychotropic substances in a ptolemaic Egyptian vase

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-78721-8

The search for clues after a U.S. Air Force F-16 Viper fighter brought down a still-unidentified object over Lake Huron in February 2023 did result in the recovery of debris it has been disclosed. However, it remains unclear whether or not the wreckage was from that shootdown. The new details continue to raise more questions about the downing of this and two other mystery objects that same month in American and Canadian skies, and why more information has not been made public.

Fun Facts about Teeth across the Animal Kingdom

Two competing theories about the evolutionary origins of teeth have been battling back and forth for decades, vacillating with the latest supporting discoveries in developmental biology or the fossil record. The “outside-in” hypothesis suggests that toothlike dermal scales with pulplike centers covered in hardened mineral—similar to denticles found today—gradually migrated across the body’s exterior surface over successive generations of fish before moving inward to take up residence in our ancestors’ jawbones. The “inside-out” hypothesis suggests that teeth originated internally before migrating forward in the oral cavity to become oral teeth.

An investigation of a fossilized sawtooth shark’s rostral denticles (the “teeth” on the fish’s sawlike bill) showed complex internal structures incredibly similar to those found in shark teeth. This discovery suggests that the developmental gap between dermal scales and teeth is smaller than originally thought, edging the outside-in hypothesis ahead of inside-out once more.

In the Cornish moorlands of southwest England lies a mysterious mound of stone and turf. Now covered with grass, the site was previously thought to be a medieval livestock pen built around 1000 C.E. Now, researchers have concluded the construction is actually 4,000 years older—dating to at least 3000 B.C.E., during the Neolithic period.

Known as King Arthur’s Hall, the unique site is located in Bodmin Moor in Cornwall. It’s about 160 feet long and 70 feet wide, and its walls are made of 56 earth-covered stones, which once stood upright. Now, they are all leaning, lying flat or buried.

“There isn’t another one of these anywhere,”

Last year the British spotter group UFO Identified documented 395 UK sightings - and you can see what UFO encounters have been reported where you live using our interactive map.

The Pentagon provided new details today about how its deployable, readily reconfigurable suite of sensors called GREMLIN works to help set the stage for figuring out what unidentified objects in our skies are and are not, if they appear at all.

In its annual report released on Thursday, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) shared a graphic that gives us our best look yet at what its GREMLIN system is. It was developed by Georgia Tech Research Institute specifically to help gather data about so-called unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAPs. That’s the DoD’s new parlance for what used to be called UFOs.

An international team of researchers has achieved an unprecedented milestone: the creation of mouse stem cells capable of generating a fully developed mouse using genetic tools from a unicellular organism, with which we share a common ancestor that predates animals.

In an experiment that sounds like science fiction, Dr. Alex de Mendoza of Queen Mary University of London collaborated with researchers from The University of Hong Kong to use a gene found in choanoflagellates, a single-celled organism related to animals, to create stem cells which they then used to give rise to a living, breathing mouse.

We use two paleoecological records from the Bass Strait islands to identify the initiation of anthropogenic landscape transformation associated with ancestral Palawa/Pakana land use. People were living on the Tasmanian/Lutruwitan peninsula by ~41.6 ka using fire to penetrate and manipulate forests, an approach possibly used in the first migrations across the last glacial landscape of Sahul.

Climate would have modulated Aboriginal landscape burning during the late Pleistocene, with people burning wet forested/wooded landscapes with high-intensity fires to promote open landscapes , and burned already open dry vegetation types with low-intensity fires to maintain desired conditions. The former likely resulted in high vegetation turnover with the decline in fire-intolerant plants, while the latter favored fire-adapted plants with low turnover. It is possible that Aboriginal people were able to modify and use wet forest communities, including rainforests, much more in the past than presently thought , creating community composition and/or structure very different from today’s wet forest communities.

"Excessive secrecy has led to grave misdeeds against loyal civil servants, military personnel and the public — all to hide the fact that we are not alone in the cosmos."

Like previous congressional UFO hearings, today's event featured testimony from current U.S. military personnel who claim the American government has for decades hidden evidence of advanced technologies and otherworldly visitors from the public. A multitude of anecdotes were presented about flying orbs coming out of the ocean, disc-shaped objects, and craft "exhibiting flight and structural characteristics unlike anything in our arsenal." While such claims are nothing new, what is noteworthy about today's hearing are the pedigrees of some of the whistleblowers who testified, including a former U.S. counterintelligence officer, a retired U.S. Navy rear admiral and a former NASA associate administrator. All of them stressed the need for more government transparency, less stigma about the UFO topic and new policies to bring UAP data out of the "black" classified world and into the public domain.

In early October, The Swan auction house in Tetsworth, Oxfordshire, listed several lots of human remains for sale, including skulls from west Africa and shrunken heads from South America.

They were withdrawn within a couple of days after objections were raised by representatives of the Pitt Rivers museum in Oxford and indigenous activists.

The remains included examples from the Naga people of India, the Ekoi people of present-day Nigeria and Cameroon, and other groups in the Solomon Islands, Benin, Congo, Nigeria, Amazonia and Papua New Guinea.

While the UK’s museums and education institutions increasingly have professional guidelines about the respectful treatment of human remains, those in private collections do not have any protection. Although it is difficult to legislate how people care for private collections, this case raises the question of whether human remains should still be allowed to be bought and sold at all.

The Pentagon’s UFO office has received more than 700 reports, a newly declassified assessment reveals.

It’s a dramatic increase in witness sightings and accounts that adds to a growing list and comes as former Defense Department officials claim the U.S. has technology far beyond human capabilities.

Recently there have been sightings near sensitive U.S. military sites, including dozens of UAP in December 2023 at Langley Air Force Base. The Pentagon later said those UAP were unidentified drones.

In the Thursday report, AARO identified 18 reports of UAP sightings near U.S. nuclear weapons sites, with 10 of those involving flights of five minutes over the sensitive area. Two of the sightings involved flights of near an hour and near two hours. All the sightings involved just one or two UAP.

AARO said that so far it is not aware of “advanced foreign adversarial capabilities or breakthrough aerospace technologies.”

To build their robot, the team started with stick insect designs. They then modified them in ways that mimicked the dung beetle. Then, instead of using machine learning to teach the robot what to do, as is done with many other modern robots, the researchers used a modular, neural-based, loco-manipulation control approach based on just two behaviors—pitch and roll for the upper two pairs of legs and simple biomechanics for the lower pair. The result was a robot they call ALPHA.

Our understanding of admixture between humans and Neanderthals has changed dramatically over the past decade and a half. Once thought not to have occurred at all, there is now ample evidence for gene flow from Neanderthals to humans and vice versa. Li et al. used a new framework to model the increasingly complex dynamics of introgression between humans and Neanderthals and the ramifications for both populations. They identified regions of human ancestry in Neanderthals, estimated population sizes for Neanderthals were about 20% lower than previously thought, and proposed the possibility of two pulses of gene flow from humans to Neanderthals.

There was a very X-Files vibe to a congressional hearing into unidentified anomalous phenomena on Nov. 13. Witness testimony included eyebrow-raising claims about the existence of UAPs and alien technology on Earth. The hearing was focused on testimony with little substantive evidence behind some of the more extraordinary claims.

What this all means for UFO fans

The hearing didn’t deliver any knockout new information No one was beamed into space and no UFOs or alien technologies appeared. The main takeaway was a broad call for the government to be more transparent in sharing UAP data and to protect people who may come forward with UAP-related experiences.

There has been no compelling evidence to prove UFOs or UAPs are extraterrestrial in nature, but the phenomena continue to fascinate the public. UFO sightings still pour in, though many have mundane explanations related to birds, balloons and drones. UAPs are very real in the sense there are some as-yet-unexplained phenomena. Is it aliens? The proof hasn’t appeared. As Gold concluded, "As the saying goes, the truth is out there, we just need to be bold enough and brave enough to face it."

Scientists have reconstructed the face of a woman who was believed to be a vampire and was buried with a sickle around her neck to prevent her from returning from the dead. The remains of the woman were found in 2022 at a gravesite in Poland and archaeologists were stunned by what they were looking at.

Pointing out the irony, Nilsson told Reuters that "they did everything they could in order to prevent her from coming back from the dead ... we have done everything we can in order to bring her back to life."

The chances of intelligent life emerging in our universe—and in any hypothetical ones beyond it—can be estimated by a new theoretical model which has echoes of the famous Drake Equation.

More than 60 years on, astrophysicists led by Durham University have produced a different model which instead focuses on the conditions created by the acceleration of the universe's expansion and the amount of stars formed.

It is thought this expansion is being driven by a mysterious force called dark energy that makes up more than two thirds of the universe.

The new research does not attempt to calculate the absolute number of observers (i.e. intelligent life) in the universe but instead considers the relative probability of a randomly chosen observer inhabiting a universe with particular properties. 

Drake equation explained

Dr. Drake's equation was more of a guide for scientists on how to go about searching for life, rather than an estimating tool or serious attempt to determine an accurate result.

Its parameters included the rate of yearly star formation in the Milky Way, the fraction of stars with planets orbiting them and the number of worlds that could potentially support life.

By comparison, the new model connects the rate of yearly star formation in the universe with its fundamental ingredients, such as the aforementioned dark energy density.

The study involved scientists at the University of Edinburgh and the Université de Genève.

Source Paper:

The impact of the cosmological constant on past and future star formation

https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/535/2/1449/7896079#493432784

The incredible quality of conservation of two complete and 3D preserved specimens from the Middle Triassic Muschelkalk of Lorraine, Eastern France, combined with the latest X-ray technologies, has allowed a complete description of an extinct coelacanth with an unprecedented level of detail, comparable to the work carried out on the skeleton of extant species. Most skeletal elements were deeply embedded in the rock matrix and perfectly preserved, only the external surface of some bones had been slightly damaged during mechanical preparation.

How To Survive a Komodo Dragon Attack

Here, we report the first discovery of Antarctic fossil resin (commonly referred to as amber) within a ~5 cm-thick lignite layer, which constitutes the top part of a ~3 m-long palynomorph-rich and root-bearing carbonaceous mudstone of mid-Cretaceous age.

The palynomorphs preserved in the carbonaceous mudstone containing the amber-bearing lignite indicate a mid-Cretaceous (~92–83 Ma) swampy temperate rainforest environment near the South Pole that was dominated by conifers. Such environmental conditions are ideally suited for the preservation and fossilization of wood and its associated plant resins because these require the presence of trees producing resin with a chemical composition suitable for fossilization as well as burial conditions devoid of oxygen .

Key findings

We carried out a trial, lasting over a month. The larvae were fed either polystyrene alone, bran (a nutrient-dense food) alone, or a combination of polystyrene and bran.

We found that mealworms on the polystyrene-bran diet survived at higher rates than those fed on polystyrene alone. We also found that they consumed polystyrene more efficiently than those on a polystyrene-only diet. This highlights the benefits of ensuring the insects still had a nutrient-dense diet.

In a pristine environment at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, scientists have successfully installed a key component onto the Roman Space Telescope. The Roman Coronagraph Instrument, designed to block out starlight, will allow researchers to detect the faint glow from distant planets beyond our solar system.

Antimatter is kind of the 'evil twin' of regular matter – the main difference is that a particle and its antiparticle have the opposite charge. It sounds simple, but the ramifications are huge. If antimatter particles touch those of normal matter, even air, they annihilate each other in a burst of energy.

To store the stuff long enough to study it, antimatter needs to be suspended in an electromagnetic field to keep it from touching the sides. The BASE experiment does just this, and it can store antimatter particles for well over a year. However, there are only so many experiments that can be done on-site.