CaaC (John)

Hadrian's Wall fort gifted to England's historic sites collection SLIDES - 1/4 A Roman fort at Hadrian’s Wall, in Northumberland, built around 122AD and which housed a garrison of 500 soldiers from Gaul, has been given to the nation. English Heritage has announced that Carrawburgh Roman fort has joined sites such as Stonehenge, Tintagel castle, and Eltham Palace, in the national collection of historic sites and properties following its gift by a landowner. Carrawburgh is one of 16 forts along Hadrian’s Wall, a boundary line that stretches 73 miles. It accommodated soldiers, first from the south-west of France and later southern Belgium, as part of the Roman effort to defend the imperial frontier and repel tribes from the north. The fort sits between the Roman cavalry fort at Chesters and the infantry outpost at Housesteads. Nearby is a Roman temple built by the fort’s soldiers and dedicated to Mithras, an eastern god who, according to legend, captured and killed the primaeval bull in a cave. Today sheep are more likely to be grazing on the grassy mounds which largely cover the remains of the 1.4 hectares (three and a half acre) fort. English Heritage said that compared to other sites on the wall Carrawburgh had undergone very little archaeological excavation, which meant it had many secrets and stories to be explored. The site has been looked after by the family of Jennifer Du Cane since 1950. She said: “It has been a great privilege but also a serious responsibility to own Carrawburgh Roman fort. The time has come to pass on this amazing site as a gift to the nation.” Carrawburgh is the first site of its type acquired by English Heritage since the body was made a charity by the government in 2015. Kate Mavor, English Heritage’s chief executive, said: “This is a great start to the new year, not only for English Heritage but for the nation who will get to enjoy this wonderfully evocative site on what was once the edge of the Roman empire.” Legal ownership of the site was transferred to Historic England, the government’s heritage advisor, and it will be cared for by English Heritage as part of the national heritage collection, which comprises about 420 sites, many free to enter, that together tell the story of England. Duncan Wilson, chief executive of Historic England, said: “We are enormously grateful for this generous gift. Hadrian’s Wall is one of England’s most important historic sites and Carrawburgh makes a really valuable addition to our national collection of historic properties. “The fort represents a key part of the Roman frontier and is of outstanding archaeological significance. It has the potential to contribute significantly to our knowledge of the Roman empire and to visitor enjoyment of the wall.” https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/offbeat/hadrians-wall-fort-gifted-to-englands-historic-sites-collection/ar-BBYMaFg

How a mysterious seismic hum led scientists to the birth of an enormous undersea volcano The atmosphere during the visit of the French President in the French Indian Ocean island of Mayotte on October 22, 2019, (Stephane Lemouton/Pool/Abaca/Sipa USA(Sipa via AP Images) The volcano came into the world wailing, but for a while, nobody heard it. It was born in the summer of 2018 just off the coast of the tiny island of Mayotte, a French territory halfway between Madagascar and Mozambique. An earthquake swarm in May of that year precipitated its arrival like a drum roll. Magma rumbled from within a reservoir at the top of the Earth’s mantle. The magma migrated up through the crust, sending tremors across the nearby island as it moved — until finally, sometime in late June or early July, with no precise birth date yet recorded, it popped its head out of the ocean floor. For months, the underwater volcano announced its own birth with mysterious cries: a low seismic humming too faint to feel. It wasn’t until Nov. 11, 2018, that anyone noticed. Something strange happened that day. The seismic waves travelled all over the world, to Kenya and Chile, Canada and Hawaii, nearly 11,000 miles away. And the humming got louder, longer, lasting up to a half-hour. “This is a most odd and unusual seismic signal,” a New Zealand earthquake enthusiast wrote on Twitter while linking to a U.S. Geological Survey seismograph. The post caught the attention of seismologists worldwide, as they tried to pinpoint the source of the bizarre, droning frequency. It was coming from the coast of Mayotte, they soon learned — and now a team of German geoscientists has pieced together exactly why. In a paper published this week in the journal Nature Geoscience, the researchers have deciphered the tumultuous events in the depths of the Indian Ocean that brought the Mayotte volcano into being, tracing the drainage of the “exceptionally deep” magma reservoir up to the ocean floor while discovering the cause of the mysterious humming. Simone Cesca, a seismologist at the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences and the paper’s lead author, told The Washington Post Thursday that this marks “the first time we’ve really observed the birth of a volcano on the seafloor.” Last year, a team of French seismologists were the first to confirm the existence of the new submarine volcano. “The whole episode is really, really rare,” Cesca said. “Seeing the deep magma chamber, seeing the magma’s propagation to the surface, seeing the volcano being born — I think this is unique, absolutely.” Cesca said that what his team tried to do was compile the observations made my numerous geologists over the last 18 months and connect all the dots, starting with the earthquakes. Mayotte, a volcanic island in the Comoros archipelago home to more than 250,000 people, has not experienced a volcano eruption in approximately 4,000 years, according to the Nature Geoscience paper. Earthquakes with a magnitude over 4.0 have only been recorded several times in history in the region, according to the paper — which is why the series of large earthquakes in May 2018, peaking at a magnitude of 5.9, caught seismologists’ attention. It was the largest earthquake ever recorded on Mayotte. Eleonora Rivalta, a physicist who studies earthquakes and volcanoes at the German Research Centre for Geosciences, said that her team began its research that May. A volcanologist on the research team had a sister in Mayotte and worried for her safety, she said. The earthquakes, they soon learned, were a symptom of something much bigger. Deep in the crust of the Earth, the magma was stirring. “A pocket of magma decided it wanted to erupt,” Rivalta said, and so it started heading for the surface — the seafloor. According to the scientists’ estimate, it is one of the largest magma chambers ever discovered, at approximately 25 to 30 kilometres deep. “Once you create a channel to the surface, then the magma starts to pour out and create the volcano,” Rivalta said. “This is the cause of everything.” The magma chamber started to drain as the lava moved toward the ocean floor. And as the chamber became increasingly hollow, its roof started to cave, Rivalta said. Then came phase two: the mysterious humming — the quiet earthquakes you couldn’t feel. “Every time the rock sags into the chamber, it creates a resonance,” Cesca said, “and this produces this strange signal that you see far away.” The seismologists recorded 407 unusual signals coming from the site of the magma chamber near Mayotte, and nearly 7,000 earthquakes of varying intensity, most of which could not be felt on land. The seismic humming started in June, according to data collected in the paper, before finally being picked up Nov. 11, 2018. Stephen P. Hicks, who studies earthquake seismology at the Imperial College of London and who is unrelated to the team of Mayotte researchers, said he does not believe scientists could have made the discovery of the underwater volcano so quickly if the Nov. 11 signal not been detected. In May, the team of French researchers discovered the enormous newborn volcano, three miles in diameter, rising 800 meters (about half a mile) from the seafloor. “We have never seen anything like this,” the Nathalie Feuillet of the Institute of Geophysics in Paris, one of the French research organizations, told Science magazine. The discovery led many scientists to suspect that the seismic hums must have originated from the volcano. Cesca says his team is the first to confirm the connection while identifying the more exact cause: the magma chamber’s sagging roof. Hicks said that a “unique aspect of this study is it shows how quickly the magma can rise and create either a new volcano or an eruption.” “This paper gives us a framework to interpret these seismic events,” he said. “The amount of magma that moved might have been the greatest amount ever observed.” Multiple teams of French researchers have papers forthcoming on their findings, and one was already preprinted last year but not yet peer-reviewed. The preliminary report echoes the findings of the German team. For now, Cesca said he suspects the young volcano is just about done growing, as most of the magma that built the volcano has likely drained to the surface. But the chamber is so deep inside the Earth’s core, he said, that “we never know.” https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/offbeat/how-a-mysterious-seismic-hum-led-scientists-to-the-birth-of-an-enormous-undersea-volcano/ar-BBYMSXy

As I said many a time, a £10 donation for TF365 is even cheaper than buying a packet of cigarettes, at least in here we can have a good healthy debate, laugh and take the piss out of each other have our tiffs here and then but all they are, are 'Handbag fights at 10 paces".

Thank fuck and I hope Sky are right this time around.

Aye FFS, I hope he says fuck off and then he fucks off, the sooner the quicker. Sky Sports

If there is a god let this be true, please. Former Juventus boss Massimiliano Allegri has been delaying a return to management in the hope of replacing Ole Gunnar Solskjaer at Manchester United. (Mail)

Aberdeen manager Derek McInnes hopes he can conclude his deal to sign Greg Leigh on a permanent deal this month. The NAC Breda left-back is on loan until the end of the season from the Dutch club but is not expected to feature again until March after breaking his tibia last month. McInnes is still trying to add to his squad as the Dons prepare to head off to Dubai for their winter training camp but securing Leigh’s services on a permanent deal remains a priority. He said: “I will sit down with Greg over the coming weeks and if it is something he is keen to do then we will try and get that resolved.” The Press & Journal

That's my tenner in today save doing it tomorrow morning, having a wee wine with the wife tonight and I don't want to do another MUFC and add a few more zeroes's on the end of the £10 and end up with a call from my bank tomorrow.

Vast 'star nursery' region found in our galaxy Astronomers have discovered a vast structure in our galaxy, made up of many interconnected "nurseries" where stars are born. The long, thin filament of gas is a whopping 9,000 light-years long and 400 light-years wide. It lies around 500 light-years from our Sun, which is relatively close by in astronomical distances. The discovery, outlined in the journal Nature, came from work to assemble a new map of the Milky Way. An international team analysed data from the European Gaia space telescope, which was launched in 2013. The monolithic structure has been dubbed the Radcliffe Wave, in honour of Harvard University's Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study in Cambridge, Massachusetts. "What we've observed is the largest coherent gas structure we know of in the galaxy, organized not in a ring but in a massive, undulating filament," said co-author Joao Alves, from the University of Vienna, Austria, and Harvard. It is in the spiral arm (the long thin extensions of spiral galaxies that give them their name) located closest to our Solar System. Gaia was launched with the intention of precisely measuring the position, distance and motion of stars in our galaxy. Team members used data from the European Space Agency telescope, along with other measurements, to construct a detailed, 3D map of interstellar matter in the Milky Way. The results correct a previous view of this region of the Milky Way. Many of the star-forming regions found in the Radcliffe Wave were previously thought to be part of a structure called Gould's Belt that was around 3,000 light-years (20 quadrillion km) wide. Small, or far away? First described in 1879, Gould's Belt was thought to be comprised of star-forming regions, believed to be oriented around the Sun in a ring. The new study in Nature transforms that picture into one of a 90 quadrillion-kilometre-long, four quadrillion-kilometre-wide star-forming filament. Co-author Prof Alyssa Goodman, from Harvard, commented: "We were completely shocked when we first realised how long and straight the Radcliffe Wave is, looking down on it from above in 3D." She added: "The wave's very existence is forcing us to rethink our understanding of the Milky Way's 3D structure." All of the stars in the Universe, including our Sun, are formed when clouds of gas and dust undergo a gravitational collapse. But working out how much mass the clouds have and how large they are has been difficult because these things depend on how far away the clouds are. Co-author Douglas Finkbeiner said: "Studying stellar births is complicated by imperfect data. We risk getting the details wrong because if you're confused about distance, you're confused about size." The results are being presented at the 235th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Honolulu, Hawaii. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-51021704

BEWARE, Ole is getting nasty with a smile Manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer says a number of Manchester United players are playing for their futures. England midfielder Jesse Lingard, 27, only has 18 months left on his contract, with Serbia midfielder Nemanja Matic, 31, 22-year-old Dutch full-back Timothy Fosu-Mensah and Ivory Coast defender Eric Bailly, 25, out of contract at the end of the season. (Manchester Evening News)

A Michael Crichton novel Prey, brilliant as per normal from Crichton.

AC Milan 'could swoop for Saint-Etienne starlet Wesley Fofana' as they struggle to conclude a deal for Barcelona defender Jean-Clair Todibo. (MailOnline)

Just saw that when I turned the tv on and went into the BBC news, sad.

Memories, our son is a Hearts of Midlothian supporter here in Bonnie Scotland and goes to the matches but he is also a staunch Liverpool supporter and he maintains one day he will visit Anfield to see his beloved Liverpool play. But he got his biggest wish granted on the 23 August 2012 when Hearts played Liverpool in the 1st leg of a European match at Tynecastle he went and watched them play but as he said to me when I asked who will he support then on the night? he replied, "It has to be Hearts pops as I go to a lot of Hearts matches but I will still support my Liverpool in any other match", Hearts lost 0-1 but I still think he was happy with the result. That's my laddie on the right donned up with his Jambo shirt and scarf with his mate who is a Liverpool supporter on the left who let him use his Liverpool hat for the photo.

I know buddy, he is what you said with a BIG at the beginning.

Talent my arse buddy, he started off ok when he came from the Youth Academy (joined when he was just 7) but once he did his loan bit around and got into the first team I am afraid he got a wee bit big-headed with all his selfies and celebrations on the pitch when he scored, Raiola can have him and try and flog him like he is trying to do with Lingard's disco/dancing partner Pogba.

'The ghost of Manzanar': Japanese WW2 internee's body found in the US A skeleton found in California last October has been identified as a Japanese-American artist who was held in a World War Two internment camp. Giichi Matsumura had gone on a hike with fellow internees from the Manzanar internment camp for people of Japanese ancestry when he died in August 1945. He left the group to paint the scene in solitude when a freak storm hit. Mr Matsumura was given a sparse burial in the mountains, and details of his death were eventually lost to time. But last year, he was rediscovered. 'The ghost of Manzanar' Tyler Hofer and Brandon Follin were hiking near Mount Williamson when they came across an intact skeleton, partially covered by rocks. According to Associated Press, the skeleton had a belt around the waist, leather shoes on the feet, and its arms were crossed over its chest. Officers from Inyo County Sheriff's Office, the local police force, searched their records for missing person reports dating back decades and couldn't find anyone matching the description of the skeleton. However, Mr Matsumura's story had been given renewed attention in 2012 when a documentary about the Manzanar camp came out. Although a segment about his death didn't make it into the final film, director Cory Shiozaki would talk about it at screenings. FULL REPORT

The telescope that looks further back in time A team of astronomers and engineers in Edinburgh have constructed an instrument that can look further back in time than ever before. It is a key part of an international mission to launch a huge new telescope a million miles from Earth. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget. But scientists say it will have the ability to detect any galaxy in the universe. James Webb Space Telescope comes together Launch of Hubble's successor pushed back to 2021 Could Nasa's James Webb Space Telescope detect alien life? How can you look back in time? The telescope will be fitted with a Mid Infrared Instrument (MIRI), which is one of four key detectors. MIRI will be able to look back in time to just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang - thought to have happened more than 13.5 billion years ago. Speed of light This ability to look back in time is based on the fact that even light has a speed limit. It bowls along at 186,000 miles per second. That means that the natural light reaching us now left the sun more than eight minutes ago. However, the larger the distance that you observe in the universe, the more time has passed since the light you are observing set off on its journey towards you. So if you look at a star that is 30 light-years away, that is what it looked like 30 years ago. The same applies to stars that are millions of light-years away. The telescope is perfect for studying those worlds and distant planets that orbit other suns - known as exo-planets because they exist outside our solar system. The existence of the first exoplanet was confirmed in 1995. Now we know of more than 4,000 of them. MIRI will allow astronomers to look at them in greater detail, including looking through their atmospheres for tantalising signs of extra-terrestrial life. How does it work? Like all space telescopes, the JWST starts with an advantage over its earthbound counterparts. There is no atmosphere to distort our view of the stars, so stars do not twinkle in space. All of the JWST's instruments will observe infrared light. One advantage of that is that infrared can pass through the interstellar dust that blocks visible light. Another reason is that visible light travelling from a faraway star is stretched on its way to us. Its wavelength gets longer, meaning light that was in the range we humans can see has shifted down the spectrum into the infrared. The effect is called redshift and means that if you want to look further back in time, you must look at things which appear invisible to us. However, these "invisible" objects are not invisible to the James Webb telescope. Three of its detectors are tuned to the near-infrared. As the term suggests, that is just beyond the reds we can see. But MIRI can look deeper, into the mid-infrared. So further away and long ago. Prof Alistair Glasse is the lead scientist on MIRI and explained how the detector works. "It can see the colours of objects, for example, that are approximately at room temperature," he said. "That makes it particularly interesting if you want to study planets orbiting other stars." And there is more because MIRI will be able to look back almost to the dawn of the universe. MIRI's European Principal Investigator Prof Gillian Wright said: "We think that the first stars that formed were very big and they started the chain of making the elements and the stars we see around us. "We don't know very much about [this era]. We know what the structure of the universe looked like shortly after the Big Bang, and we know from Hubble and the other missions what the galaxies look like now or in later epochs. "But the little piece in the middle? How did the first ones form? We don't know very much about that era." A mirror larger than Hubble's The JWST involves NASA, European Space Agency (ESA) and the Canadian Space Agency. It is a huge undertaking - literally. The telescope's 6.5m mirror is several times larger than that of Hubble's. In its working configuration it is too big for any rocket, so must be unfolded in space. So too the JWST's huge sun shield, designed to keep its working temperature just a few degrees above absolute zero. It is made of five delicate layers as thin as cling film, which will have to be stretched into place. The JWST is being exhaustively tested here on Earth because it is going where no-one can fix it. It will orbit L2, a point in space where the gravitational pull of the Sun and Earth are in balance - roughly a million miles away from here. The mission, scheduled for 2021, is planned to last less than six years. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-50984467

Must be teaming up for a 3sum Disco Dancing. Manchester United's England midfielder Jesse Lingard, 27, is teaming up with leading agent Mino Raiola, following rumours of his departure from Old Trafford. (Mail)

Love this film and the ending is a cracker, 10/10 for me, Den of Thieves (2018).

Glaswegian humour.

Alisher Usmanov keen on Everton investment and stadium naming rights Former Arsenal shareholder Alisher Usmanov says he is keen to join his friend and business partner Farhad Moshiri as an investor in Everton. Usmanov describes himself as a Gunners fan and held 30 per cent of the club until selling his shares to Stan Kroenke in 2018. But the Russian businessman could now turn his attentions to another Premier League club, with Moshiri already established as Everton's majority shareholder. FULL REPORT

Pogba is a big prick, end of the story, I wish the fuck we had never got the prick back, SAF would have never got rid of him if he had seen potential in him but he didn't and gave him the order of the boot.