CaaC (John)

Leicester City has opened talks with manager Brendan Rodgers over a lucrative new contract in a bid to fend off interest from Arsenal. Arsenal has held their first interviews with candidates for their vacant manager's job, with the focus on candidates who are out of work. (Telegraph)

US meteorite adds to origins mystery In January 2018, a falling meteorite created a bright fireball that arced over the outskirts of Detroit, Michigan, followed by loud sonic booms. The visitor not only dropped a slew of meteorites over the snow-covered ground, but it also provided information about its extra-terrestrial source. Although tens of thousands of meteorites have been recovered by humans, scientists have only been able to trace the orbits of a small number. Most of these have been calculated in the last decade. Scientists can use information about how the meteorite burned through Earth's atmosphere to calculate how the rocky object moved through space before it transformed into a fireball. Researchers cannot trace the specific path of an object back through time - there are too many variables that could have affected its motion. But they can determine the most likely paths. Studying the likely orbits of similar asteroids can help to reveal their parent body, the larger asteroid they once were part of. Video of the fireball over Michigan: "This is a great way to do what amounts to a low-cost asteroid sample return mission," says Dr Peter Brown, who studies asteroids at Canada's University of Western Ontario. "In this case, the sample comes to us. We don't have to go to the sample." Dr Brown and his colleagues gathered information from fireball surveys as well as videos posted on social media to reconstruct a potential orbit for the Hamburg meteorite, named after the small Detroit suburb it buzzed. The team then worked with several of the amateur photographers to calibrate their observations. "We spent a lot of time scouring YouTube and Twitter," he says. The researchers found that the Hamburg meteorite was a fairly typical fireball. It likely entered the atmosphere with a mass ranging from 60kg to 220kg and a diameter between 3m and 5m. Travelling at about 16 km/s, it produced two major flares at 24.1km and 21.7km above the ground. The total energy produced by the fireball equalled somewhere between two and seven tonnes of TNT. Metal meteorite quest set to get underway The US detects huge meteor explosion UK meteorite hunt bags large haul A growing trend While some researchers took to the ground to hunt for dark meteorites in the Michigan snow, Dr Brown and his colleagues took to the internet to find reports of the fall. Because the region was densely populated, Dr Brown said there were a lot of video recordings that captured the fall. Out of the wealth of camera phone and security footage, they tracked down almost 30 unique videos that were sharp enough to reveal their location. Of these, only a handful was good enough for the team members to perform detailed calibration. How do you calibrate a casual fireball video? First, you need to have a positional reference that helps to pinpoint where the video was taken from. Ideally, the same camera would be placed in the exact spot where the meteorite fall was originally viewed - though often a similar camera was used instead. Measurements from those videos revealed the angle that the incoming meteorite was travelling on. "A lot of the legwork was just talking to people," Dr Brown says. In addition to the casual imagery, the researchers looked at images from fireball surveys, where the calibration had already been performed. While the official data was easier to work with, Dr Brown says that smartphones and dashboard cameras often tend to have higher resolution, providing better precision data if they can be calibrated. The growing prevalence of these kinds of cameras "has almost revolutionised this area," he says. While humans have collected meteorites for thousands of years, it wasn't until 1959 that the first meteorite orbit was recovered. Cameras operated by the Ondrejov Observatory in the Czech Republic recorded the fall of the Pribram meteorite, allowing the researchers to trace its orbit back to the asteroid belt. For the first time, astronomers were confident that meteors came from asteroids. "That orbit really sort of sealed it," Dr Brown says. Fireball networks came online through the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, and by 2000, four meteorite orbits were known. Three of those were H-chondrites, the iron-rich class of meteorites that most commonly falls, and the group that Hamburg belongs to. Since 2000, those meteorites with orbits that can be calculated have increased. Another 10 were spotted by 2010. The last few years have produced a handful of traceable meteorites annually, Dr Brown says. Today, there are about 30 meteorites whose orbits have been calculated. While the spread of cameras dedicated to tracking fireballs has played an important role, Dr Brown says that casual recordings have also advanced the field. The Hamburg fall "was very well recorded, and that's what makes it so interesting", Dr Brown says. After the more powerful 2013 Chelyabinsk fireball, "there's no other fall that had so many video records". But casual video recordings have their downfall. Because they are so much more difficult to calibrate than official surveys, they take more time. That can move them down the priority list for swamped scientists. Dr Brown knows of researchers working on nearly 10 more meteorite orbits, but he estimates that others exist. "There are data for probably another 20 that people just haven't tried to do because it's so much work," he says. "It's a difficult process." More questions than answers Although H-chondrites make up the bulk of the meteorites that survive the plunge through Earth's atmosphere, their origin remains a mystery. In 1998, astronomers proposed the large main-belt asteroid (6) Hebe as the primary parent body because it resembled H-chondrites. Hebe's orbit sits in a location where Jupiter's gravitational forces can stir up material, allowing it to escape from the asteroid belt. Near-Earth asteroids similar to Hebe have also been spotted, suggesting that something - probably the giant planet Jupiter - slung material from the asteroid belt. However, other main-belt asteroids similar to H-chondrites have been identified in recent years, muddying the picture. Of the 30 or so meteorites with known orbits, nearly half are H-chondrites. So far, however, those objects don't seem to be coming from the outer asteroid belt - the side facing Jupiter - where Hebe orbits. Instead, they appear to start their journey from the middle and inner belt, closer to the Sun. And the new discovery isn't helping. "Hamburg, unfortunately, adds more questions about the orbit of H-chondrites than it answers," Dr Brown says. Narrowing things down will take more meteorite samples. Dr Brown estimates that doubling the existing known orbits for H-chondrites will allow researchers to make more solid associations with a parent body. That assumes the iron-rich asteroids come from a single source; it's possible they come from two or more locations in the asteroid belt. "It's a very complicated story," Dr Brown says. "We need to get more of these if we're going to answer these questions more fully." https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-50419924

Things You Should Never Touch — According to Doctors SLIDES - 1/21

Romelu Lukaku & Chris Smalling: 'Black Friday' headline 'terrible' - Roma Roma have said the 'Black Friday' headline used by Italian newspaper Corriere dello Sport is "terrible". The headline accompanied pictures of Roma defender Chris Smalling and Inter Milan striker Romelu Lukaku prior to Friday's match between their two sides. "The intention of the newspaper article was actually positive," said Roma chief strategy officer Paul Rogers. "But this headline has to tally overshadowed the anti-racist message contained within the story." In a social media post, Inter said: "Football is passion, culture and brotherhood. We are and always will be opposed to any form of discrimination." Corriere dello Sport defended the "innocent" headline in a comment piece on its website. "White, blacks, yellows. To negate every difference is the typical massive error of 'the racism of the anti-racisms'," said the editorial. "The mental rabble of those casual moralists. 'Black Friday', for those who want and can understand it, it was only a way to celebrate diversity. "If you don't understand, it is because you can't or you don't want to understand." Inter are the Serie A leaders on 37 points, while Roma are fifth on 28 points. The article accompanying the headline called former Manchester United team-mates Lukaku and Smalling "the idols of Inter and Roma fans" and that their confrontation would be the "battle inside tomorrow's big game". It added: "They [Lukaku and Smalling] have learned how to respect each other. They have taken strong stances against racism." Rogers said: "Unfortunately, as we've seen on social media, more people will see that ill-judged headline on the front page than read the actual article and it creates new issues at a time when we are all trying to tackle the issue of racism in Italian football." Corriere dello Sport has been asked by BBC Sport for comment. This is the latest controversy during a season in which Serie A has had to deal a number of incidents of racism. Only last week, all 20 Serie A clubs have made a united pledge to combat Italian football's "serious problem" with racism because there is no more "time to waste". In November, Brescia's Mario Balotelli called fans who shouted racist abuse at him "small-minded" and "imbeciles". Lukaku said the abuse he suffered in September, when Cagliari fans made monkey noises after the Belgian scored a penalty against their team, showed the game was "going backwards". The Sardinian club were later cleared of racist chanting, leading the head of anti-discriminatory body Fare to say that Italian football authorities and their disciplinary systems to combat racism were "not fit for purpose". In response to the headline in Corriere dello Sport, Fare said in a social media post that "the media fuels racism every day" https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/50668979

2000-Year-Old Roman Tweezers and Metal Ear Swab Discovered in the UK The ancient Romans took hygiene seriously. They pioneered indoor plumbing, deodorant, and the practice of bathing daily. A recent discovery made at a bridge construction site in the UK reinforces just how committed to cleanliness the Roman civilization was. As Geek.com reports, workers unearthed an ear cleaner and a pair of tweezers thought to date back 2000 years to the Roman Empire. The artefacts were dug up by the Ebbsfleet Development Corporation at the location of the new Springhead Bridge in Ebbsfleet Garden City, a development in Kent. One small tool appears to be designed for pinching and plucking small items just like modern-day tweezers. The other object is thought to have been built for cleaning ears—but instead of cotton, the "swab" is made entirely of metal. They're thought to date back thousands of years, but the scientific analysis will need to be done to determine the exact age. Grooming items weren't the only artefacts uncovered at the site. Workers also found a piece of timber believed to have been meant for an ancient structure. The Ebbsfleet River, where the new bridge is being built, was once a shipping hub and a Roman settlement called Vagniacis. Historical finds are so common in the area that the Ebbsfleet Development Corporation employs full-time archaeologists. The personal hygiene tools have been removed from the archaeological site by experts who will study them to learn more about their origins. The fate of the artefacts is unclear, but the construction company behind the discovery hopes they can remain in the same city where they were found https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/offbeat/2000-year-old-roman-tweezers-and-metal-ear-swab-discovered-in-uk/ar-BBXMuwA

Infrared images reveal hidden tattoos on Egyptian female mummies Thanks to high-tech photography, researchers can now see previously hidden tattoos on ancient Egyptian mummies. Infrared photography was used to help identify tattoos on seven mummified Egyptians dating as far back as around 1000 B.C. at a site known as Deir el-Medina, according to archaeologist Anne Austin of the University of Missouri-St. Louis, who recently reported her findings at a meeting of the American Schools of Oriental Research. Prior to these discoveries, tattoos had only been found on six mummies over more than 100 years of research at ancient sites in Egypt. "When I first saw [the tattoos] with infrared, I felt both the thrill of discovery and the magic of this new technology," Austin told Fox News via email. "We were able to identify dozens of tattoos in a previous mummy published in 2017, which showed imagery of religious symbols, floral motifs and important animals like the cows of the goddess Hathor." Austin explained to Fox News that the more recent finds have established tattoos on other mummies, but they have not yet detected anything identifiable by symbol and place. "It's highly likely that with more evidence, we'll find clearer patterns to the location and symbolism of these tattoos, but that will have to wait we've conducted more research," she said. One expert told Science News that the new discoveries could help researchers determine how the markings were used. “Everything about the new tattoo discoveries is surprising because so little is known about this ancient Egyptian practice,” Egyptologist Kerry Muhlestein of Brigham Young University told Science News. Experts in the U.K. found figurative tattoos on two ancient Egyptian mummies last year and published their findings in the Journal of Archaeological Science. The world's oldest figurative tattoos were found on Ötzi the Iceman, which is an approximately 5,300-year-old Neolithic mummy that was discovered in Italy in 1991. https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/offbeat/infrared-images-reveal-hidden-tattoos-on-egyptian-female-mummies/ar-BBXIav4

Distant star's vision of our Sun's future 'death' A newly discovered planet offers new insights into the Solar System after the Sun reaches the end of its life in 5-6 billion years. Astronomers observed a giant planet orbiting a white dwarf, the small, dense objects some stars become once they have exhausted their nuclear fuel. It's the first direct evidence planets can survive the cataclysmic process that creates a white dwarf. Details of the discovery appear in the journal Nature. The Solar System as we know it won't be around forever. In about six billion years, the Sun, a medium-sized yellow star, will have puffed up to about two hundred times its current size. In this phase, our parent star will be known as a Red Giant. Giant planet discovery bewilders astronomers Planet found circling neighbouring star Star system has record eight exoplanets As it expands, it will swallow and destroy the Earth before collapsing into a small core called a white dwarf. Researchers discovered a white dwarf that lies 2,000 light-years away had a giant planet thought to be about the size of Neptune (though it could be larger) in orbit around it. "The white dwarf we're looking at is about 30,000 Kelvin or 30,000C. So if we compare the Sun, the Sun is 6,000 - almost five times as hot. This means it's going to be producing a lot more UV radiation than the Sun," said Dr Christopher Manser, from the University of Warwick. In addition, he said: "The gravitational forces are very large so if a body gets too close to a white dwarf, like an asteroid, the gravity is so strong the asteroid would be ripped apart." Future-gazing The giant planet is losing its atmosphere to the stellar relic, leaving a comet-like tail in its wake. The white dwarf is bombarding the world with high-energy photons (particles of light) and pulling the gas towards it at a rate of more than 3,000 tonnes per second. "We used the Very Large Telescope in Chile, which is an 8m-class telescope... to collect spectroscopy from the white dwarf. Spectroscopy is a method of splitting up light into its component colours," Dr Manser told BBC News. "By looking at the different colours the system produces, we identified interesting features that told us there was a disc of gas around the white dwarf - which we inferred must be produced by a planet about the size of Neptune or Uranus." The scientists want to further study the system to shed light on what could happen to our own Solar System when the Sun reaches the end of its life. "When the Sun reaches its Red Giant phase, it will expand out roughly to the orbit of Earth. Mercury, Venus and, pretty much, Earth will be engulfed by the Sun. But Mars, the asteroid belt, Jupiter and the rest of the planets in the Solar System will expand out on their orbits, as the Sun loses mass because it will have less of a gravitational pull on those planets. "Eventually, the Sun will become a white dwarf and still have Mars, the asteroid belt and Jupiter orbiting it. As the planets orbit, they can sometimes be scattered and thrown into the white dwarf." But the radiation emitted by the Sun, once it becomes a white dwarf, will be powerful enough to evaporate the atmospheres of Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus where they are orbiting now. This would leave only their rocky cores. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-50665998

Britain's largest golden nugget worth £80,000 found in a river by a treasure hunter A treasure hunter has found the largest gold nugget in Britain - at the bottom of a Scots river. The diver, who wishes to remain anonymous, discovered the 22-carat lump using a method called "sniping". It sees the prospector use a snorkel, dry suit and hand tools to search the bed of a river. Weighing 121.3 grams it is the biggest of its kind in the UK and is thought to be worth £80,000. It was found in two pieces which fit together perfectly but leave a small hole in the middle, earning it the name the Reunion Nugget. The exact location of the discovery is being kept under wraps to avoid a Scottish Gold Rush. Lee Palmer, the author of Gold Occurrences In The UK, was approached by the finder of the nugget while researching for his book. © Paul Jacobs/pictureexclusive.com People panning for gold in the Mennock Water, Scotland in 2017 He said: "This is now the largest nugget in existence in the UK. When you look at it, it's doughnut-shaped. "There are no impurities in it, it is just pure gold nugget of about 22 carats. It really is a remarkable find." The nugget was found in May in a location which is being kept a secret by the finder and the land's owner. The prospector unearthed the larger piece first. Mr Palmer, 50, said: "The man just threw the bigger piece in his bucket, he knew it was big but didn't realise how big." He hopes it will be bought by a national museum.

The Ingenious Reason Medieval Castle Staircases Were Built Clockwise If you’re a fan of Game of Thrones or medieval programs in general, you’re probably familiar with action-packed battle scenes during which soldiers storm castles, dodge arrows, and dash up spiral staircases. And, while those spiral staircases might not necessarily ascend clockwise in every television show or movie you’ve watched, they usually did in real life. According to Nerdist, medieval architects built staircases to wrap around in a clockwise direction in order to disadvantage any enemies who might climb them. Since most soldiers wielded swords in their right hands, this meant that their swings would be inhibited by the inner wall, and they’d have to round each curve before striking—fully exposing themselves in the process. Just as the clockwise spiral hindered attackers, so, too, did it favour the castle’s defenders. As they descended, they could swing their swords in arcs that matched the curve of the outer wall, and use the inner wall as a partial shield. And, because the outer wall runs along the wider edge of the stairs, there was also more room for defenders to swing. So, if you’re planning on storming a medieval castle any time soon, you should try to recruit as many left-handed soldiers as possible. And if you’re defending one, it’s best to station your lefties on crossbow duty and leave the tower-defending to the righties. On his blog All Things Medieval, Will Kalif explains that the individual stairs themselves provided another useful advantage to protectors of the realm. Because the individual steps weren’t all designed with the same specifications, it made for much more uneven staircases than what we see today. This wouldn’t impede the defenders, having grown accustomed to the inconsistencies of the staircases in their home castle, but it could definitely trip up the attackers. Plus, going down a set of stairs is always less labour-intensive than going up. Staircase construction and battle tactics are far from the only things that have changed since the Middle Ages. Back then, people even walked differently than we do—find out how (and why) here. https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/offbeat/the-ingenious-reason-medieval-castle-staircases-were-built-clockwise/ar-BBXJ3Zf

One of the best for England, R.I.P. Bob Bob Willis: Former England cricket captain dies aged 70 Only James Anderson, Stuart Broad and Ian Botham have taken more Test wickets for England than Willis' 325 The fast bowler took 325 wickets in 90 Tests from 1971 to 1984, claiming a career-best 8-43 to help England to a famous win over Australia at Headingley in the 1981 Ashes. He captained England in 18 Tests and 29 one-day internationals before his retirement from all forms of cricket in 1984. In a statement, Willis' family said he had died "after a long illness". "We are heartbroken to lose our beloved Bob, who was an incredible husband, father, brother and grandfather," the statement continued. "He made a huge impact on everybody he knew and we will miss him terribly." FULL REPORT

Space Jungle, NETFLIX. A broken spaceship strands four very tiny aliens on Earth, where they discover an adventure (and strange dangers!) that they never expected. (starring Kim Min-hee, Park Yoon-hee and Sun Sung-wook on American Netflix:): Well, what can I say, it's a kiddie's show but we are still all kiddies at heart, wee Kaiden stuck it on and me and the son started to watch it and enjoyed it, had a few laughs in between.

That Ole plus a lot of other issues with that overpaid toss-pot. Manchester United boss Solskjaer says he wants the club to be quicker in the transfer market, hinting that executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward left deals late last summer. (Evening Standard)

NASA spacecraft finds the crash site of Indian lunar lander A NASA spacecraft in orbit around the Moon spotted the crash site of India’s ill-fated lunar lander, Vikram, which slammed into the Moon’s surface during a landing attempt in September. Images taken by the spacecraft confirm that the lander met an explosive end, revealing the lander’s impact site and the surrounding debris created by the accident. Part of India’s Chandrayaan-2 mission to the Moon, Vikram was supposed to be the first Indian spacecraft to touch down gently on the lunar surface. India had put a vehicle on the Moon before, but that spacecraft purposefully slammed into the ground, kicking up lunar dirt and allowing researchers to learn more about the kinds of materials lurking on the Moon. With Vikram, India hoped to put a spacecraft intact on the Moon, to study the lunar environment in more detail. Vikram was even carrying a rover that was supposed to travel up to 1,640 feet (500 meters) and learn more about the composition of the surface. But during Vikram’s scheduled landing on September 6th, officials with the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) lost contact with the vehicle when it was about 1.3 miles (2.1 kilometres) above the lunar surface. It was unclear exactly what happened to the lander for a while. In the days following the landing, some ISRO officials claimed they had found the spacecraft on the lunar surface and were still trying to establish contact with it. But just last week, ISRO admitted that Vikram had a “hard” landing after the vehicle had trouble braking during its descent to the surface. Now, researchers have provided visual confirmation of this hard impact, thanks to NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has been orbiting the Moon since 2009. A team of scientists operating the camera on the orbiter first took pictures of the landing site on September 17th and released them to the public. They received a tip of possible debris in the pictures and confirmed that it came from Vikram. However, the place where Vikram hit wasn’t well lit, so the team took images of the site again in October and November to get a better look. Ultimately, they found the spot and captured a more detailed image of the site and debris field. While these images provide some closure with Vikram, India’s Chandrayaan-2 mission isn’t a total loss. The Vikram lander travelled to the Moon along with another spacecraft — one designed to study the lunar surface from above. That vehicle successfully entered the Moon’s orbit in August and is still circling overhead, gathering data about the Moon and decoding what’s on the surface below. https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/other/nasa-spacecraft-finds-crash-site-of-indian-lunar-lander/ar-BBXFSdw?ocid=chromentp

Turkish side Besiktas have been linked with a move for Aston Villa's French striker Jonathan Kodjia, 30. Besiktas are willing to pay £2.5m, but Villa wants up to £7m. (Sporx, via Birmingham Mail)

Liz's cure for temperature rise, a cold flannel and am an ice lolly .

I don't get the flu as I have a flu jab every year, I can suffer a cold but the flu would knock me for six before I got the flu jab.

I have been hit by a bug the last two days and I feel shite, I think it's s cold and I must have caught it off wee Kaiden, coughing, headache and sweating like a beauty, I rugged myself up with extra jumpers on and I think that has done the trick, don't feel to bad now.

Celtic plan talks with Israel midfielder Nir Bitton to ensure he does not run down his contract. The 28-year-old has been linked with Burnley. (Glasgow Evening Times)

What @Harry said must be the reason?

Is Brendan Rodgers top of Arsenal's wish-list to replace Unai Emery?

Nothing more enjoyable than waking up, looking out our flat window and seeing a frosty morning, I love it, bring on the snow.