Jingszo !

The Boeing 777 disappeared somewhere over the southern Indian Ocean with 239 people onboard, 40 minutes after departing Kuala Lumpur International Airport in 2014. The incident has become one of the most widely-speculated aviation mysteries as several multi-national rescue operations have produced no conclusive results, with costs climbing into hundreds of millions of pounds.

But, now, a retired research scientist claims to have uncovered what he believes to be the missing wreckage in the form of a single yellow pixel, described as an "anomaly" in a global terrain model for the ocean. The flight's cabin crew last communicated with air traffic control roughly 38 minutes after takeoff when the flight was over the South China Sea, leading to initial searches to be in this region.

Few plants are more celebrated in Egyptian mythology than the blue lotus, a stunning water lily that stars in some of archaeology's most significant discoveries. Researchers found its petals covering the body of King Tut when they opened his tomb in 1922, and its flowers often adorn ancient papyri scrolls.

Scholars have long hypothesized that the lilies, when soaked in wine, release psychedelic properties used in hallucination-and-sex-fueled rituals dating back some 3,000 years.

Perhaps, then, it's not surprising that a plant resembling the blue lotus is now marketed online as a soothing flower, one that can be smoked in a vape or infused in tea.

There's just one problem, according to Liam McEvoy: The blue lotus used in ancient Egypt and the water lily advertised online are completely different plants.

Just as we need the electromagnetic force to tell us about protons, neutrons, electrons and the richness of all the particles we know of—collectively called the Standard Model of particle physics—we need more than gravity to unlock the secrets of the dark side. As a result, the past three decades of the search for dark matter have been characterized by null results. For most of that time, researchers have been looking for a single particle to explain dark matter.

Yet dark matter might not be one particular particle—it may be a whole hidden sector of dark particles and forces. In this dark sector, particles would interact through their own independent forces and dynamics, creating a hidden world of cosmology running parallel to our own.

There could be dark atoms—made of dark protons, dark neutrons and dark electrons—held together by a dark version of electromagnetism. The carriers of this force, the dark photons, might (unlike our photons) have mass, allowing huge dark atomic nuclei—so-called nuggets—to form. And the totally different dynamics of dark matter in this dark sector would have different effects on the evolution of normal matter throughout time. The interactions of nuggets in galaxies could help form supermassive black holes in the centers of galaxies, causing them to grow larger than they otherwise would.

Before the discoveries of the Zuul and Borealopelta fossils, some scholars had deduced that the bony armor pieces (called osteoderms) on the likes of Ankylosaurus and Stegosaurus were just cores of bone that supported an outer covering made of keratin (the same material that hair, nails and horns are made of). The new specimens confirmed this speculation, demonstrating that the armor of these dinosaurs had an outer layer of keratin, which was supported by the bony osteoderms.

Moreover, this keratinous covering was far more substantial than previously constructed. The Borealopelta fossil, which preserves the most armor, shows that keratin sheaths increased the linear dimensions of the thickest parts of the armor by 30 to 40 percent. But because the keratin in this specimen is partially worn away, we know that it was even thicker in life.

An indigenous Sami version, surviving in Scandinavia, describes how a great hunt in the skies would go wrong if the hunter is impatient and fires an arrow which misses its target and accidentally strikes the pole star. This would bring the canopy of the night sky crashing down to Earth. Again, fears about misguided human actions and the threat from above fuse.

We can see this in modern technologically driven fears such as UFOlogy. Some hard-core believers in UFOs are not only concerned about hostile visitors, but about secret collaborations among scientists on Earth, or, an entire conspiracy to keep the truth from the public.

Without belief in a conspiracy to suppress the evidence, the whole idea falls apart. But without belief that there is actually something to fear from space, there is nothing for the conspiracy to be about. Fear of space is a necessary part of this picture.

Using cobraa, we present evidence for an extended period of structure in the history of all modern humans, in which two ancestral populations that diverged ~1.5 million years ago came together in an admixture event ~300 thousand years ago, in a ratio of ~80:20%. Immediately after their divergence, we detect a strong bottleneck in the major ancestral population.

Moreover, we found a strong correlation between regions of majority ancestry and human–Neanderthal or human–Denisovan divergence, suggesting the majority population was also ancestral to those archaic humans.

Previously, biologists had proposed that Fiji iguanas may have descended from an older lineage that was more widespread around the Pacific but has since died out, leaving Brachylophus as the sole iguanids in the western Pacific Ocean. Another option was that the iguanas hitchhiked from tropical parts of South America and then through Antarctica or even Australia, though there is no genetic or fossil evidence to support this.

While sailors today can take advantage of favorable winds to reach Fiji from California in about a month, an iguana—or more likely a group of iguanas—would probably have taken much longer to ride flotsam through the doldrums and across the equator to Fiji and Tonga, where this group of iguanas is found.

Luckily, iguanas are large and herbivorous and used to long periods without food and water. And if the flotsam consisted of uprooted trees, the raft itself would have provided food.

Modern birds are the living relatives of dinosaurs. Take a look at the features of flightless birds like chickens and ostriches that walk upright on two hind legs, or predators like eagles and hawks with their sharp talons and keen eyesight, and the similarities to small theropod dinosaurs like the velociraptors of "Jurassic Park" fame are striking.

Yet birds differ from their reptile ancestors in many important ways. A turning point in their evolution was the development of larger brains, which in turn led to changes in the size and shape of their skulls.

The “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Disclosure Act of 2023,” introduced by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Senators Mike Rounds (R-SD), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Todd Young (R-IN), and Martin Heinrich (D-NM), establishes several key provisions to facilitate the release of government UFO records:

• It creates a new “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Records Collection” at the National Archives to centralize and preserve all U.S. government records related to unexplained aerial objects and phenomena.

• The legislation establishes a 9-member oversight board called the “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Records Review Board” to coordinate and oversee review and disclosure of UFO records. Board members, who require security clearances, must be impartial citizens without any prior involvement in government UFO programs.

• All government agencies must identify, organize, and prepare UFO records for disclosure to the review board and archives within 300 days. Records already publicly released cannot be re-classified or withheld.

• Grounds for postponement of disclosure are limited to harm to national security, intelligence sources, or foreign relations. However, the review board can override postponements.

• The board must create a “Controlled Disclosure Campaign Plan” that recommends a timeline and process for periodic review and public release of any postponed records.

• The government must disclose and exercise eminent domain over any “technologies of unknown origin” related to UFOs, even if held privately.

• The review board terminates in 2030 unless Congress extends it. Remaining provisions of the Act terminate once all UFO records have been released.

• $20 million is authorized to fund the Act’s provisions in Fiscal Year 2024.

Analysis indicated that cinnabar was likely intentionally applied to the woman's teeth, rather than resulting from burial contamination. Shamanistic traditions in the region often incorporated red pigments in rituals, and cinnabar was historically associated with spiritual beliefs, including notions of protection and immortality. Other possible explanations based on the evidence suggest that cinnabar's use extended beyond funerary rituals and may have served cosmetic, medicinal, or religious functions.

The use of stone hammers to produce sharp stone flakes—knapping—is thought to represent a significant stage in hominin technological evolution because it facilitated the exploitation of novel resources, including meat obtained from medium-to-large-sized vertebrates.

The invention of knapping may have occurred via an additive (i.e., cumulative) process that combined several innovative stages.

Here, we propose that one of these stages was the hominin use of ‘naturaliths,’ which we define as naturally produced sharp stone fragments that could be used as cutting tools.

Based on a review of the literature and our own research, we first suggest that the ‘typical’ view, namely that sharp-edged stones are seldom produced by nonprimate processes, is likely incorrect. Instead, naturaliths can be, and are being, endlessly produced in a wide range of settings and thus may occur on the landscape in far greater numbers than archaeologists currently understand or acknowledge.

We then explore the potential role this ‘naturalith prevalence’ may have played in the origin of hominin stone knapping. Our hypothesis suggests that the origin of knapping was not a ‘Eureka!’ moment whereby hominins first made a sharp flake by intention or by accident and then sought something to cut, but instead was an emulative process by hominins aiming to reproduce the sharp tools furnished by mother nature and already in demand.

We conclude with a discussion of several corollaries our proposal prompts, and several avenues of future research that can support or question our proposal.

Ferruaspis brocksi is described and placed as an early diverging member of the southern radiation of Osmeriformes.

Preserved stomach contents indicate that the species fed on numerous phantom midge larvae (Chaoborus), adult insects or isolated wings, and a bivalve.

The distribution of melanophores indicates that the species was counter-shaded with two lateral stripes. Based on the locality where the fossils were found it is likely that the species spent its entire life in fresh water, unlike most extant Osmeriformes.

The description of F. brocksi highlights the ability of exceptionally well-preserved specimens to reveal aspects of the paleobiology of extinct species.

Conclusion

The discovery of shackles at Ghozza reveals that at least part of the workforce was composed of forced labour. The exact living conditions of these individuals remain unclear because their dwelling places have not yet been identified, indeed the village set-up seems to suggest that the population was free to move around in general. More than half of the village has been excavated so far, and excavations will continue in the hope of identifying any containment areas.

In the meantime, the discovery of the shackles at Ghozza serves as a reminder of the harsh realities faced by workers in the Ptolemaic gold mines. Beneath the grandeur of Egypt's wealth and the imposing mountains of the Eastern Desert lies a history of exploitation. The gold extracted from these mines helped finance the ambitions of Egypt's rulers, but it came at a significant human cost.

Operation Clockwork Orange - Secret Military Coup Against British Prime Minister

Despite the fear they may inspire in humans, sharks have far more reason to fear us. Nearly one-third of sharks are threatened with extinction globally, mostly as a result of fishing.

A team led by researchers at UC Santa Barbara discovered that mandates to release captured sharks won't be enough to prevent the continued decline of these important ocean predators.

The authors collated available data from more than 150 published papers and reports that have measured shark mortality upon hauling (at-vessel) or soon after release (post-release). The literature spanned nearly 150 different shark species caught by different fishing gears. Using this information, they could estimate mortality rates for an additional 341 shark species incidentally captured by longlines or gillnets but for which empirical data wasn't available.

Small sharks and several threatened species were the most likely to die after being caught. These included thresher sharks and hammerheads. Mortality was also higher for smaller species, those that occur in deeper waters and those that rely on constant swimming to breathe.

Mortality was surprisingly high for some species such as smoothhound sharks, ranging from 30 to 65%.

Science has already proven that sculptures from ancient Greece and Rome were often painted in warm colors, and now a Danish study has revealed that some were also perfumed.

A white marble statue was not intended to be perceived as a statue in stone. It was supposed to resemble a real god or goddess.

In Delos, in Greece, inscriptions in temples reveal that some statues were maintained by rubbing them with rose-scented perfume.

In conclusion, we have demonstrated that water droplets in a spray generate luminescence, which we call microlightning, when they split into smaller droplets in the absence of any external voltage.

This microlightning can excite, dissociate, or ionize the surrounding ground-state molecules, causing chemical reactions to occur in the gas surrounding water microdroplets.

When water microdroplets are surrounded by N2, CH4, CO2, and NH3, we find the same small organic molecules as reported in the classic Miller-Urey experiment and other bulb-discharge experiments studying prebiotic syntheses, which have been postulated to be an important source for making the building blocks of life.

In nature, this microlightning caused by droplet splitting is considered to be common, for example, it frequently occurs in ocean waves and around waterfalls.

On the basis of what we observed in this study, we suggest that this common energy source may provide a route for creating C─N bonds from abiotic gas molecules expected to be present on early Earth.

UFO Lawyer's Alien Confession- Danny Sheehan - DEBRIEFED ep. 29

While current evidence does not tell us exactly when language itself appeared, the genomic studies do allow a fairly accurate estimate of the time by which linguistic capacity must have been present in the modern human lineage. Based on the lower boundary of 135 thousand years ago for language, we propose that language may have triggered the widespread appearance of modern human behavior approximately 100 thousand years ago.

Researchers have long known that many dinosaurs had bold patterns and bright, sometimes flashy feathers—far from the grayish, scaly monsters we often see in movies. Now, a new study of Chinese fossils published today in Science reveals the coloration of some of the early mammals that coexisted with dinosaurs. They were clad in dark brown or grayish fur—a trait that may have played a key role in their survival up to the present.

The new finding also reinforces the idea that “mammals were living in the shadow of the dinosaurs, quite literally” and likely lived nocturnal lifestyles to avoid unwanted attention.

The days are getting shorter and colder for Curiosity as we head into winter.

We are seeing a lot of rocks with different, interesting textures, so Curiosity’s day begins with a lot of targeted imaging of this interesting area. The two rocks right in front of us (see image above) are different from anything that we have looked at before on the mission, so we are eager to know what they are.

After a nap, Curiosity wakes up to get in her arm exercise. I do not envy the Arm Rover Planner today (OK, maybe a little bit) in dealing with this very challenging workspace. The rock of interest (the left-hand rock in the above image) has jagged, vertical surfaces and a lot of crazy rough texture. Examining this rock is even more challenging because our primary targets are on the left side of the rock, rather than the side that is facing the rover. We are looking at two different targets,

If you were asked to describe the scent emanating from an ancient Egyptian mummy like you’d discuss a high-end perfume or the bouquet of a fine wine, you might mention fragrance notes of old linen, pine resin and citrus oils—with just a whiff of pest repellent.

These vivid comparisons stem from a new laboratory analysis of nine mummies from various social classes and historical periods. Researchers from Slovenia, England, Poland and Egypt collaborated with the Egyptian Museum in Cairo to identify more than 50 unique compounds from air samples taken around each mummy. The samples were chemically analyzed and then presented to specially trained human “sniffers,” who were asked to describe them in descriptive, sensory language such as “sour” or “spicy.” The team’s findings, recently published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, demonstrate how the study of smell can help to enrich our understanding of cultural artifacts such as mummies in a noninvasive way that includes local scientists.

Can we expect to grab a bottle of mummy perfume from the museum shop soon? The researchers say this might not be off the table. “Everyone would like to smell like ancient Egyptians: sweet, woody and spicy,” Elnaggar jokes. “What we’d like to do now is to share our experience with museum visitors so they can enjoy it in exhibition—and even take it home!”

Astronomers have discovered a collection of tiny galaxies located roughly 3 million light-years away that includes the smallest and faintest galaxy ever seen.

This galaxy, designated Andromeda XXXV, and its compatriots orbiting our neighbor galaxy, Andromeda, could change how we think about cosmic evolution.

That's because dwarf galaxies this small should have been destroyed in the hotter and denser conditions of the early universe. Yet somehow, this tiny galaxy survived without being fried.

However, this enduring focus on serial killers comes at a cost. The victims of such crimes are frequently overshadowed, their names forgotten, while the killers become cultural icons. Despite his historical significance, Jack the Ripper was ultimately a brutal murderer. Yet the way we remember him today reflects a wider cultural obsession with serial killers that is both compelling and problematic.

There is also a significant amount of pseudoscience surrounding the Whitechapel Murders. There are hoaxed diaries, fake letters, and conspiracy theories involving the Freemasons or the British Royal family. Some deny Jack the Ripper existed at all, and argue that the murders attributed to him were totally unrelated. Many of these conspiracies and hoaxes persist because, after 140 years, we still have no idea who Jack the Ripper was.

But could that be about to change? In recent weeks, multiple news outlets have reported on a DNA analysis claiming to identify the killer as Aaron Kosminski, a Polish barber who lived in Whitechapel at the time.