CaaC (John)

Ancient tomb discovered in Egypt dating back 4,500 years Archaeologists have uncovered part of a cemetery thousands of years old near Egypt’s famed pyramids on the Giza plateau near Cairo. The cemetery houses burial shafts and tombs of top officials. The most significant artefact uncovered was a limestone statue of the tomb’s owner, his wife and his son dating back to the fifth dynasty (2465-2323 BC), officials said. File Video Egypt unveils 'one of a kind' ancient tomb, expects more finds (Reuters) Ashraf Mohi, head of the archaeological site, said it was known that the cemetery had been reused extensively in the Late Period (664-332 BC), as archaeologists found painted and decorated wooden anthropoid coffins, and wooden and clay funerary masks from that period. Egypt has touted a series of archaeological finds recently, hoping such discoveries will spur tourism, which suffered a major setback during the unrest that followed the 2011 uprising. Secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Dr Mostafa Waziri, said the tomb belonged to two men. https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/ancient-tomb-discovered-in-egypt-dating-back-4500-years/ar-AAAU6P4?li=BBoPWjQ

Coolest space discoveries Time and again, we have made some of the most amazing discoveries, from the Pillars of Creation to the first asteroid. Let's have a look at some of those discoveries. 1-14 Slides

Just watched this with the wife, based on a true story with Samuel L Jackson in the lead role, Lakeview Terrace quite enjoyed it and I would give it an 8/10.

Nasa instrument heads to space station to map CO2 Nasa has sent up an instrument to the International Space Station (ISS) to help track carbon dioxide on Earth. OCO-3, as the observer is called, was launched on a Falcon rocket from Florida in the early hours of Saturday. The instrument is made from the spare components left over after the assembly of a satellite, OCO-2, which was put in orbit to do the same job in 2014. The data from two missions should give scientists a clearer idea of how CO2 moves through the atmosphere. One way this will be achieved is through the different perspectives OCO-2 and OCO-3 will get. The former flies around the entire globe in what's termed a sun-synchronous polar orbit, which leads to it seeing any given location at the same time of day. The latter, on the other hand, because it will fly aboard the station, will only see locations up to 51 degrees North and South; and see them at many different times of the day. That's interesting because plants' ability to absorb CO2 varies during the course of daylight hours. OCO-3's dataset will, therefore, have much to add to that of its predecessor. "Getting this different time of day information from the orbit of the space station is going to be really valuable," Nasa project scientist Dr Annmarie Eldering told BBC News. "We have a lot of good arguments about diurnal variability: plants' performance over different times of day; what possibly could we learn? So, I think that's going to be exciting scientifically." The Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) missions are trying to tie down the uncertainties in the cycling of CO2 - how and where the greenhouse gas is emitted (sources), versus how and where it's absorbed (sinks). Humans are driving an imbalance in this cycle, increasing the concentration of the gas in the air. Currently, anthropogenic activities pump out just under 40 billion tonnes of CO2 year-on-year, principally from the burning of fossil fuels. Only about half of this sum stays in the atmosphere, where it adds to warming About half of the other half is absorbed into the ocean, with the remainder pulled down into land "sinks". But these "budgets" are imperfectly characterised. Some sizeable sources and sinks - both human and natural - need a fuller description. The OCO instruments incorporate spectrometers that break the sunlight reflected off the Earth's surface into its constituent colours, and then analyse the spectrum to determine how much carbon dioxide is present. The analysis of the data is complex because it requires the use of models to explain how the gas is mixed through the atmosphere. The space station instrument brings a new trick to the OCO observations - a swivelling mirror system that allows the spectrometer system to scan a much wider swath of the Earth's surface than would ordinarily be the case. This snapshot mode means CO2 maps can be built up in a single pass over a target of special interest such as a megacity - a task that will take OCO-2 several days. "The snapshot mode allows us to grab snippets of data over an area of about 80km by 80km in two minutes. Right now we think we may spend about a quarter of our time making these mini maps, up to 100 a day," Dr Eldering said. OCO-3 will be positioned on the Japanese segment of the space station. Its mission lifetime is pretty fixed at three years, therefore. That's because the berth it is taking up on the observation platform is already booked for a future instrument. Carbon monitoring will, however, see many more satellite systems launched in the coming years. Europe is planning a constellation of observers in its Sentinel series that will map CO2 over a much wider area than OCO, but still with the same high precision. This orbiting network would even make it possible to police individual countries' commitments to reduce carbon emissions under international agreements such as the Paris climate accord of 2015. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-48150645

Someone, we know on here might ask you "Any pics? did she have lovely feet?"

Ancient 3,000-year-old tablet suggests Biblical king was real: Archaeologists find name of King Balak who persecuted Jews after they escaped from Egypt on 9th century BC stone Video by FOX News King Balak, a biblical King of the ancient Hebrews, may have been a historical figure, say researchers studying a 2,800-year-old inscribed stone. According to the story, which is in the Old Testament, Balak made many attempts to curse and persecute the Jews. The ancient tablet, called the Mesha Steele, describes various conflicts and conquests that happened during the 9th century. Although parts of the inscription are badly cracked and eroded, line 31, previously thought to refer to 'House of David', may actually be describing King Balak. The team, from Tel Aviv University, think they've spotted three consonants, the first of which is the Hebrew letter 'beth,' which sounds like 'B.' The team can't be sure, but the team think it's 'very likely' the inscription on the 31st line, the bottom of the Stele, refers to King Balak. The new analysis of the stone suggests that Balak, a key character in a biblical parable in the book of Numbers, may be mentioned as a rival to Mesha. © Provided by Associated Newspapers Limited King Balak, a biblical King of the ancient Hebrews, may have actually been a historical figure, say researchers studying a 2,800-year-old inscribed stone. The tablet, called the Mesha Steele, describes various conflicts and conquests that happened during the 9th century 'We are dealing with a name that has three characters, starting with a B. We know from the bible that Balak was the king of Moab and that he ruled from a location in southern Moab—as described in the Stele,' Israel Finkelstein from Tel Aviv University, told NewsWeek. But he admitted that he can't be certain: 'At the end of the day, the reconstruction of the name 'Balak' is circumstantial,' he said. The authors studied new high-resolution photographs of the tablet and of the stele itself. The new analysis suggests that Balak, a Moabite ruler who is a key character in a biblical parable in the book of Numbers (chapters 22-24), may be mentioned in the stele as a rival to Mesha for supremacy over Moab. In the story, he asks the prophet Balaam to curse the people of Israel. The seat of the king referred to in Line 31 was at Horonaim, a place mentioned four times in the Bible in relation to the Moabite territory south of the Arnon River. 'Thus, Balak may be a historical personality like Balaam, who, before the discovery of the Deir Alla inscription, was considered to be an 'invented' figure,' the authors wrote. © Provided by Associated Newspapers Limited The team, from Tel Aviv University, think they've spotted three consonants, the first of which is the Hebrew letter 'beth,' which sounds like 'B.' The team can't be sure, but Finkelstein think it's 'very likely' the inscription on the 31st line refers to King Balak. Here, line 31 Outside of the Bible, and now, the stele, historians haven't found any other mentions of Balak. In their paper, the authors write: 'The new photographs of the Mesha Stele indicate that the reading, House of David—accepted by many scholars for more than two decades—is no longer an option.' If the research is right, it completely changes previous research of the local ruling forces of the time. 'The reading 'Balak' instead of 'House of David' dismisses the possibility that Judah ruled over Moab. And it makes Balak a historical figure,' Mr Finkelstein said. The Mesha Stele itself is a 3-foot-tall (1 meter) black basalt stone that dates to the second half of the ninth century BC. The relic, which is on display at the Louvre in Paris, was discovered 150 years ago in the ruins of the biblical town of Dibon in Moab (present-day Jordan). After westerners were made aware of it, several people tried to buy it from the Bedouins, who owned the stone. © Provided by Associated Newspapers Limited The team can't be sure, but they think it's 'very likely' the inscription on the 31st line refers to King Balak. The new analysis of the stone suggests that Balak, a key character in a biblical parable in the book of Numbers, may be mentioned as a rival to Mesha But negotiations soured between the Bedouins and the prospective buyers, Prussia (North Germany), France and England because of political affiliations with an Ottoman official, whom the Bedouins disliked. So, the Bedouins smashed the Mesha Stele into pieces by heating it up and pouring cold water on it. Parts of the ancient stone are still missing. Since then, archaeologists have tried to reassemble the smashed tablet by connecting the broken pieces. It has proven to be a treasure trove of information on the history of ancient Israel, as well as a constant source of fuel for the debate over the accuracy of the Bible. In the text, dated to the second half of the 9th century B.C.E., the Moabite King Mesha boasts of defeating the northern Kingdom of Israel and its deity. The study was published in Tel Aviv: The Journal of the Institute of Archaeology. WHO WAS KING BALAK OF MOAM Balak was a king of Moab who appears in the Old Testament in Numbers 22-24. His story is in the context of the time of the Israelites' journey to the Promised Land. Moab, the land that Balak ruled, lay on the east side of the Dead Sea. As the Israelites travelled to Canaan, their reputation preceded them, and the Moabites were well aware of the miracles that had accompanied Israel's exodus from Egypt. The inhabitants of the cities in Israel's path knew God was on the Israelites' side. King Balak had witnessed the Israelites' destruction of the Amorites, and the entire region of Moab grew afraid as the Israelites approached. When the Israelites encamped in territory that had once been Moab's, the king decided it was time to act. Balak and the elders of Moab colluded with the neighbouring Midianites to summon a prophet named Balaam. Balaam eventually set out to meet Balak, and during his journey, the famous incident of the talking donkey occurred—God's message to Balaam that he should not curse the Israelites. When Balaam stood before Balak, the king likely believed he had won and that the Israelites would soon be cursed. But instead of cursing the Israelites, Balaam blessed them three times. Balak's 'anger burned against Balaam' and he sent Balaam away without a reward. Balak's plot to curse Israel through a hired prophet failed, but that was not the end of Moabite opposition. https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/offbeat/ancient-3000-year-old-tablet-suggests-biblical-king-was-real-archaeologists-find-name-of-king-balak-who-persecuted-jews-after-they-escaped-from-egypt-on-9th-century-bc-stone/ar-AAAQLvN?ocid=chromentp

HOLY SHIT Solid gold and yours to use - a throne fit for a palace © Reuters The piece was installed in the Guggenheim Museum for more than a year A palace is a fitting place for a throne, and there will soon be a gold one at Blenheim Palace. An 18-karat gold, fully-functioning toilet is be installed this autumn, and visitors in need of a comfort break will be able to use it. Made by artist Maurizio Cattelan in 2016, it will be opposite the room in which Winston Churchill was born. Donald Trump was offered it after being told he could not borrow a fragile Van Gogh to hang in the White House. Founder of the Blenheim Art Foundation, Edward Spencer-Churchill, said it would be a novelty - even for him. https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/offbeat/solid-gold-and-yours-to-use-a-throne-fit-for-a-palace/ar-AAAQIzd?ocid=chromentp

Nothing is safe nowadays. Mustard gas leaking from vast underwater First World War weapons dump in North Sea Deadly mustard gas is leaking from a vast underwater munitions dump created close to Belgium's North Sea coastline after the First World War. The so-called weapons cemetery – containing 35,000 tons of unexploded bombs, shells and grenades – has long been considered safe. Mainly German weapons were buried there in cement-filled containers under a two-mile sandbank close to the Belgian coastal town of Knokke. But fears have been raised that the historic ammunition may create new problems after traces of both mustard gas and TNT were detected on the sandbank, known as Paardenmarkt. The traces were found at two separate sites, Philippe De Backer, Belgium’s North Sea Minister, told parliament on Wednesday. Carl Decaluwé, the governor of West Flanders, called for the site, which is less than a mile from the coast, to be cleared immediately after the revelation. “Better to do this now than when the leaks have got worse,” he told the Het Laatste Nieuws newspaper. But Leopold Lippens, mayor of Knokke-Heist municipality, said decisions must not be made too hastily. “There are dozens, if not hundreds, of ammunition cemeteries in the North Sea, especially along the French coast,” he said. “Why would there suddenly be a problem in Knokke?” Although it is now more than a century since the Great War ended, it continues to haunt Belgium’s seas. In September, an intact German submarine was found on the seabed there – with the bodies of all 23 crew still inside. https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/mustard-gas-leaking-from-vast-underwater-first-world-war-weapons-dump-in-north-sea/ar-AAAQBAw?ocid=chromentp

Man City overtake Man United as Premier League’s most valuable club Kieran Maguire is a football finance expert in the University of Liverpool Management School‘s Centre for Sports Business The value of Premier League clubs decreased by 1.6% overall to £14.7 billion, with the ‘Big Six’ (Manchester United and City, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea and Spurs) making up £10.9 billion (74%) of this total (2017: £9.9 billion 67%). Manchester City overtook local rivals Manchester United at the most valuable club in the division as higher wages and lower profits had a negative impact at Old Trafford. The gap between the bottom club in the ‘Big Six’ and the next highest valuation is now nearly £1 billion. The only major deal in the Premier League during 2017/18 was in relation to Stan Kroenke acquiring the remaining 30% of the shares in Arsenal that he didn’t already possess for £550 million, which valued the club as £1.83 billion. In our 2017 club valuation report we estimated Arsenal to be worth £1.82 billion. Within the table there have been some significant changes compared to the previous season, with Liverpool, Chelsea and Spurs showing major increases, and Arsenal and Leicester showing large falls due to non-participation in the Champions League. There were also smaller falls in the value of some mid-tier clubs due to weaker cost control in a season where revenue in the Premier League increased by £253 million wages rose by £356 million. Valuation Table https://news.liverpool.ac.uk/2019/05/03/man-city-overtake-man-united-as-premier-leagues-most-valuable-club/

Bizarre Three-eyed Snake Discovered in Australia Rangers working near Darwin in northern Australia have found an unusual snake at the side of a road. The malformed reptile had three eyes instead of two. X-rays revealed the juvenile snake, which measured about 15 inches, had an extra eye socket on its head. According to a post from the official Northern Territories Parks and Wildlife Facebook account, the snake’s third eye was functional. Rangers said the snake probably grew its extra eye as an embryo. It’s “extremely unlikely” to be the result of environmental factors, they wrote, as naturally-occurring malformations are quite common in reptiles. Referencing hit HBO show Game of Thrones the Parks and Wildlife post added: “The three-eyed snake warns The Dry is coming!” Game of Thrones features a mystical three-eyed raven, personified by a character called Bran Stark, whose house motto is “Winter Is Coming.” Unlike southern Australia, which freezes over Winter, Australia’s Northern Territories experience a dry season from May to October, as the local government’s website notes. Northern Territory Parks and Wildlife did not immediately respond to Newsweek’s request for comment. In October 2018, an unsuspecting couple living in Leslie County, Kentucky, found a two-headed baby copperhead snake in their yard. Conservation officials confirmed both heads and sets of eyes could move, and that the creature’s two tongues were functional. Authorities were so impressed by the rare animal they decided to temporarily put it on display at the Salato Wildlife Education Center. “I have never seen a two-headed copperhead before,” herpetologist John MacGregor said in a video about the snake. “I’ve seen thousands of copperheads.” Just one month earlier, a woman in Woodbridge, Virginia, also came across a two-headed baby copperhead outside her home. Herpetologists with the Wildlife Center of Virginia took in the creature and discovered its left head was generally more active than the right. The creature had two windpipes and two oesophagi—all at different levels of development—but only one heart and one set of lungs. “Based on the anatomy, it would be better for the right head to eat, but it may be a challenge since the left head appears more dominant,” the Wildlife Center explained at the time. Two-headed snakes are relatively vulnerable in the wild and are more likely to experience serious health problems than their one-headed relatives. https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/australia/bizarre-three-eyed-snake-discovered-in-australia/ar-AAANfqK

Science & Environment Gravitational waves hunt now in overdrive VIDEO >> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-48137011 Scientists working to detect gravitational waves switched on their instruments for a third time at the beginning of April and immediately began to register events that could be interpreted as cosmic collisions. All five trigger events still need confirmation. The BBC's Roland Pease examines how telescopes worldwide are helping. The alert on Mansi Kasliwal's phone went off at two in the morning. Shrugging off the sleep, she squinted at the message. It was from LIGO, the Nobel Prize-winning scientific collaboration that operates gravitational wave detectors. A far-off violent event had sent ripples in space-time through the Universe, to be picked up by LIGO's sensor in Louisiana, and it looked from the data like there should be visible "fireworks", too. Thanks to the smartphone revolution, she could react without leaving her bed. A few taps on the screen, and the Zwicky Transient Facility, a robotic telescope on Mount Palomar, was reprogrammed to start the hunt. LIGO, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, and its European counterpart, VIRGO, have just completed upgrades that mean they should be spotting space-distorting events several times each week - collisions of black holes, of neutron stars, and even more exotic phenomena. And since they started running again at the start of April, expectations are holding up: two in the second week; three last week. The first three, still to be formally confirmed, were probably collisions between black holes, like the first, Nobel-anointed event detected in 2015. It was the next, on 25 April, that woke Mansi Kasliwal up. The gravitational ripples hinted at the involvement of neutron stars, which would be engulfed in a scorching nuclear flame as they devoured each other and became one. The radio, optical, X-ray and gamma-ray colours would reveal new details about these normally secretive objects. But before the specialist telescopes could zoom in on the action, astronomers needed to know exactly where to look. That is where the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) comes in, a new instrument able to scan large swathes of the sky swiftly for anything new and unusual. The 25 April "candidate" event was going to test that capacity. With LIGO's second detector temporarily out of action (the one in Hanford, Washington State), LIGO and VIRGO could only narrow the search to a quarter of the entire sky: somewhere in that vast darkness, a new spark could be brightly shining, but beginning to fade. Gravitational waves - Ripples in the fabric of space-time ZTF has the ability to photograph an area about 14 Moons by 14 Moons in just 30 seconds and see anything down to 150,000 times dimmer than the faintest star visible to the human eye. In a little over two hours, it has scoured this whole target area, before moving on to a new sector. Meanwhile, astronomers across the planet were dialling into teleconferences. Which are the best telescopes to make the detailed observations? Where is it daylight, and where were the skies dark? ZTF was so effective, it detected several hundred thousand bright points in the sky that had not been there the night before. "The Universe is an extremely dynamic place; it's not the same every time you look at it," Mansi Kasliwal told the BBC's Science in Action programme on the World Service. "In fact, every second a supernova goes off somewhere in the Universe." On top of that, there are stellar flares, galactic flashes, and comets or asteroids hoving into view, plus stars that had shifted position almost imperceptibly since the last viewing. Machine learning algorithms whittled that fog of activity down to just two candidates whose coordinates were shared with 2,000 other astronomers to scrutinise more closely. It was while Mansi awaited their reports that the system kicked into action for the second time in 30 hours. Another alert from LIGO, again involving neutron stars, though in this case possibly a single neutron star being swallowed by a black hole. "My team just froze; we were stunned by this - we hadn't slept, but also we didn't know if such a thing could exist," she recalls. This time, all three gravitational wave detectors were operational, tightening the location, but the signal was weaker and more ambiguous, perhaps not even genuine. Nevertheless, a second search had to be started. It was morning in California, so the Zwicky telescope was no use. But Mansi Kasliwal could call on the services of telescopes in the international network she directs - GROWTH (for Global Relay of Observatories Watching Transients Happen). The hunt was on again, from Hawaii, Chile and India. "This would be the discovery we have all been waiting for in the new phase of the LIGO-VIRGO collaboration," says astrophysicist Samaya Nissanke of Amsterdam University in the Netherlands. The initial analysis gave just a 13% chance the waves were stirred up by a neutron star diving into a black hole, but also a 14% chance it was just a glitch down here on Earth. And even if it was real, a really massive black hole would swallow the dead star so thoroughly it would leave no visible trace. "There is this sweet spot, though, where we expect there will be some matter disrupted just as it gets swallowed by the black hole," Samaya Nissanke told the BBC. "And it is this matter that would generate the electromagnetic signals we might see." April was an amazing month for black hole science, with the first image of a black hole also being released __________________________________________________________________ Time is of the essence. Gamma-rays and X-rays seen from satellites would fade in hours as the nuclear flame cools; the optical signal might last days, and the radio glow could go on for weeks. But while astronomers on other projects are happy, to an extent, to surrender their valuable telescope time to others observing these "targets of opportunity", they want to know it will be used well. Hence, the need for rapid follow-up scans to pinpoint plausible targets. When LIGO and VIRGO found their first "kilonova" due to a pair of neutron stars in 2017, all the cards fell in place: the location was precise, the signal strong, and dozens of telescopes captured events across the spectrum and over weeks to give an unprecedented view of the violent Universe. This past fortnight, astronomers have had a cold dose of reality. The two targets they found on the sky that might have been associated with the 25 April event turned out to be ordinary supernovae, dying stars, which could have been thrilling two decades ago but are routine in modern observations. And that leaves astronomers in the dark as to what happened to set the gravity detectors off. As for the second event - bad weather has hampered follow-up observations. According to Mansi Kasliwal, there is one tantalising candidate that remains to be examined. But time is running out. The astronomers are not disheartened, however. "It was a let-down in terms of the final result," says Mansi Kasliwal of the first search. "But it is really a celebration in terms of the technological feat that we scanned a quarter of the sky and could pick out some candidates in just a few hours." Samaya Nissanke agrees - it was a dress rehearsal that shows how quickly star-gazers can respond when gravitational waves pass by. "It's just the reality that we really are seeing around a candidate trigger per week, which could include a few neutron star mergers this year," she says. "We've stepped into an entirely new realm thanks to the hard work of observers like Mansi." https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-48137011

Jan Vertonghen: Tottenham defender did not suffer a concussion, neurologist rules Tottenham defender Jan Vertonghen "did not suffer a concussion" during Tuesday's Champions League semi-final first leg defeat by Ajax. The Belgium international, 32, collided with team-mate Toby Alderweireld and, despite being cleared to continue, soon had to be substituted. Vertonghen was seen by a neurologist specialising in sport-related concussion on Thursday. It was recommended he undertakes a "brief period of rehabilitation". In a statement, Tottenham said Vertonghen "suffered an injury to his nose" which resulted in "heavy bleeding". After being cleared by Spurs' medical staff - who followed Football Association concussion guidelines - to continue playing, he was later shown struggling to stand up. Spurs said they had been advised this was "the result of a presyncopal episode, a near faint". https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/48140239

Hamza Choudhury charged with misconduct for social media comments Leicester midfielder Hamza Choudhury has been charged with misconduct by the Football Association in relation to comments made on social media. The 21-year-old wrote the messages in 2013 and 2014 and apologised for them earlier this week. The FA said the comments constituted an "aggravated breach" as they included reference to ethnic origin and/or race and/or sexual orientation. Choudhury, a graduate of Leicester's academy, has until 13 May to respond. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/48140058

Never give in buddy, always keep the faith, United have not been the same since Fergie left but I won't give up the faith, there will be another Fergie around the corner and maybe Ole is, like there is another Shanks/Paisley around the corner and maybe Klopp is, you are miles ahead (and City) in talent and flair from the likes of United, Spurs, Chelsea and Arsenal and it's catch up time for the latter to match Liverpool & City this year and hopefully the gulf between the two can be reached in the next year or two.

Science & Environment Denisovans: Primitive humans lived at high altitudes Scientists have found evidence that an ancient species of human called Denisovans lived at high altitudes in Tibet. The ability to survive in such extreme environments had previously been associated only with our species - Homo sapiens. The ancient ancestor seems to have passed on a gene that helps modern people cope at high elevations. Details of the study are published in the journal Nature. The Denisovans were a mysterious human species living in Asia before modern humans like us expanded across the world tens of thousands of years ago. Until recently, the only fossils came from a few fragments of bone and teeth from a single site in Siberia - Denisova Cave. But DNA had shown that they were a distinct branch of the human family. Now, scientists have identified the first Denisovan fossil from another site. It's a mandible (lower jawbone) discovered in 1980 at Baishiya Karst Cave, 3,280m up on the Tibetan Plateau. A technique called uranium-series dating was used on carbonate deposits on the bone. This yielded a date of 160,000 years ago for the mandible. Co-author Jean Jacques Hublin, from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, said finding evidence of an ancient - or archaic - species of human living at such high elevations was a surprise. "When we deal with 'archaic hominins' - Neanderthals, Denisovans, early forms of Homo sapiens - it's clear that these hominins were limited in their capabilities to dwell in extreme environments. "If you look at the situation in Europe, we have a lot of Neanderthal sites and people have been studying these sites for a century-and-a-half now. "The highest sites we have are at 2,000m altitude. There are not many, and they are clearly sites where these Neanderthals used to go in summer, probably for special hunts. But otherwise, we don't have these types of sites." Of the Denisovans on the Tibetan Plateau, he said: "It's a plateau... and there are obviously enough resources for people to live there and not just come occasionally." While the researchers could not find any traces of DNA preserved in this fossil, they managed to extract proteins from one of the molars, which they then analysed applying something called ancient protein analysis. "Our protein analysis shows that the Xiahe mandible belonged to a hominin population that was closely related to the Denisovans from Denisova Cave," said co-author Frido Welker, from the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. The discovery may explain why individuals studied at Denisova Cave had a gene variant known to protect against hypoxia (oxygen deficiency) at high altitudes. This had been a puzzle because the Siberian cave is located just 700m above sea level. Present-day Sherpas, Tibetans and neighbouring populations have the same gene variant, which was probably acquired when Homo sapiens mixed with the Denisovans thousands of years ago. In fact, the gene variant appears to have undergone positive natural selection (which can result in mutations reaching high frequencies in populations because they confer an advantage). "We can only speculate that living in this kind of environment, any mutation that was favourable to breathing an atmosphere impoverished in oxygen would be retained by natural selection," said Prof Hublin. "And it's a rather likely scenario to explain how this mutation made its way to present-day Tibetans." https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-48107498

That's my £10 in as promised, only £25 needed now for this years total.

Anyone watch Wanted? an Australian production and me and the wife sat down the other night and watched the whole series and quite enjoyed it.

Fossil of an 85-foot blue whale is largest ever discovered Tim Vernimmen © Photograph by Flip Nicklin, Minden Pictures An aerial view of the Sea of Cortez reveals an 80-foot blue whale gliding through the waves. A fossil found in Italy shows that blue whales reached these behemoth sizes as far back as 1.5 million years ago. The blue whale is not only the largest animal alive today, it is the largest one that has ever lived. Now, analysis of a fossil found on the shore of an Italian lake hints at when, and perhaps how, the blue whale became such a behemoth. The beast’s very large skull, described today in the journal Biology Letters, confirms that this ancient blue whale is the largest known in the fossil record, reaching a whopping 85 feet long. That’s just shy of the largest modern blue whales on record, which reach up to a hundred feet. Perhaps even more surprising to scientists, though, is the fact that a whale of this size swam the seas around 1.5 million years ago, during the early Pleistocene—far earlier than previously thought. © Illustration by Alberto Gennari An illustration shows how a modern human diver would have measured up to the ancient whale. “The fact that such a large whale existed that long ago suggests that large whales had been around for quite a while,” says study coauthor Felix Marx, a paleontologist at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences in Brussels. “I don’t think species can evolve to such a size overnight.” A whale of a find Figuring out how blue whales came to be so big has been a challenge, as large whale fossils from the past 2.5 million years are rare. This is likely because the planet went through a number of ice ages during this period when plenty of water froze into ice and sea levels dropped dramatically. The remains of whales that died in those days, even if they stranded on land, may now be many dozens of feet below sea level. (A 27.5-million-year-old fossil recently found in New Zealand belongs to one of the oldest known ancestors of baleen whales.) In 2006, a farmer near the southern Italian town of Matera saw some very large vertebrae sticking out of the clay on the shore of a lake he uses to irrigate his fields. Over the course of three fall seasons, when it was possible to lower the water level without ruining the harvest, Italian paleontologist Giovanni Bianucci of the University of Pisa and his team dug out the remains. The team at the time thought the fossils might belong to a blue whale, and the new anatomical studies have now confirmed it. The new fossil might also help reveal that the rise of giant whales has been more gradual than previously believed, argues Marx. In 2017, a study analyzing the body size of all known baleen whale species, many of them only known from fossils, suggested an increase in body size may have happened rather suddenly, likely some 300,000 years ago but possibly as far as back as 4.5 million years. When Marx included the new fossil in this analysis, however, “the most probable date was pushed back to 3.6 million years, and likely even further, possibly as far back as six million years.” Surplus of small fossils Graham Slater of the University of Chicago, who did the original analysis, points out that 3.6 million years still fits in the rather large time window he had found. And even if the most probable date for the size jump is pushed back that far, he says, the revised date of 3.6 million years ago makes sense. Around that time, a global decrease in ocean temperature likely changed the availability of food to whales, creating patches of very high prey density where there was upwelling of cold water from the deep, which he believes was “important for supporting really large whales.” Slater does not agree with Marx that the new analysis favours an even older origin for blue whale bigness. (See a prehistoric “sea monster” that lived about 200 million years ago and was about the same size as this fossil whale.) It is true that the analysis as such does not directly confirm that scenario, Marx admits. But his point of view is informed by what he believes is yet to come. Because large whale fossils are difficult to collect, study, and describe, our view of body-size evolution in whales may be distorted. Marx is involved in a project in Peru that has found multiple whale fossils that have not been recovered yet. Although the data is preliminary, including them in the analysis further weakens the impression of a sudden shift, he says. “I’m aware of multiple large whales of at least the same age that haven’t been described yet” in the scientific literature, he says. Every additional large whale fossil we find and document, he thinks, will make the idea of a gradual change more likely. Paleontologist Cheng-Hsiu Tsai of the National Taiwan University described the sparse remains of what was likely the second-largest fossil whale found so far, a fin whale from California. He has been arguing for a while that baleen whales became big much earlier than was generally believed, and he largely agrees with Marx’s conclusions. “To be honest, this fossil does not surprise me at all,” Tsai says. “I expect that we should find something bigger and geologically even older soon.” https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/offbeat/fossil-of-85-foot-blue-whale-is-largest-ever-discovered/ar-AAALiDH

He/she must be seeing a reflection of itself in the glass lens and he/she thinks they are trying to communicate with another gull. A seagull that keeps landing on top of a traffic camera in London has become an internet hit. https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/offbeat/seagull-that-keeps-landing-on-tfl-traffic-camera-becomes-internet-hit/ar-AAAKWzr

Indian Army says it has spotted Yeti’s giant footprints in the Himalayas, tweets proof Niharika Sharma The Indian Army has said that its mountaineers have sighted giant footprints of the “mythical beast Yeti.” Late yesterday (April 29) night, the army’s additional directorate general of public information (ADGPI) said its mountain expedition team had made the sighting near the Makalu base camp in eastern Nepal. The official Twitter handle of the ADGPI also posted photographs of the footprints. The sightings were made on April on April 09, the army said. The “Yeti’s” footsteps measured 2.6 feet, the ADGPI tweet said. A footstep is the distance between one footprint and the next during a normal walk. The average length of the footstep of an adult male human being is said to be around 2.5 feet. The tweet claimed that “Yeti” had been sighted at the Makalu-Barun National Park in the past, too. For decades, the mysterious giant snowman has fired the imagination of adventurers and mountaineers venturing into the Himalayan slopes. In Nepali folklore, particularly, this mythical creature has loomed large. Many have in the past claimed to have seen one, often depicting it as half human-half ape. In 2014, a controversial study created quite a flutter by claiming to have collected two Yeti fur samples from Bhutan and northern India. It said that a creature—a hybrid between a polar and a brown bear—could be very much alive still. The scientific community has, however, not bought into these claims. An associate professor at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore gathered a total of 24 samples from Asian bears and purported Yetis to only discover that the samples largely belong to Himalayan and Tibetan bears. Another DNA sample study conducted by Proceeding of the Royal Society B in 2017, too, showed that stories on Yeti so far have been based on the Himalayan black and brown bears. The Indian Army’s claims could potentially fire another round of debate over the mystical Himalayan giant. https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/offbeat/indian-army-says-it-has-spotted-yetis-giant-footprints-in-the-himalayas-tweets-proof/ar-AAAIRf5

Science & Environment Climate change being fuelled by soil damage - report VIDEO >> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-48043134 Climate change can't be halted if we carry on degrading the soil, a report will say. There's three times more carbon in the soil than in the atmosphere – but that carbon's being released by deforestation and poor farming. This is fuelling climate change – and compromising our attempts to feed a growing world population, the authors will say. Problems include soils being eroded, compacted by machinery, built over, or harmed by over-watering. Hurting the soil affects the climate in two ways: it compromises the growth of plants taking in carbon from the atmosphere, and it releases soil carbon previously stored by worms taking leaf matter underground. The warning will come from the awkwardly-named IPBES – the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services - a panel studying the benefits of nature to humans. The body, which is meeting this week, aims to get all the world’s governments singing from the same sheet about the need to protect natural systems. IPBES will formally release its report on Monday 6 May. Climate change: Where we are in seven charts Is soil the secret to slowing climate change? Environment in multiple crises - report About 3.2 billion people worldwide are suffering from degraded soils, said IPBES chairman Prof Sir Bob Watson. "That's almost half of the world population. There’s no question we are degrading soils all over the world. We are losing from the soil the organic carbon and this undermines agricultural productivity and contributes to climate change. We absolutely have to restore the degraded soil we’ve got." Prof Watson previously led the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). "Governments have focused on climate change far more than they have focused on loss of biodiversity or land degradation. All three are equally important to human wellbeing." Soil expert Prof Jane Rickson from Cranfield University, UK, added: "The thin layer of soil covering the Earth's surface represents the difference between survival and extinction for most terrestrial life. "Only 3% of the planet's surface is suitable for arable production and 75 billion tonnes of fertile soil is lost to land degradation every year." She said soils form at a rate of 1cm in 300 years. There's uncertainty about the exact level of global soil degradation. But the major hotspots are reported to be in South America, where forests are being felled; sub-Saharan Africa; India and China. Soil scientists in both the biggest Asian nations are worried that their ability to grow their own food may be compromised. In the US, some soils are being restored as forests take over poor quality land previously worked by small farmers, but others are still being degraded. The UK is not immune either. Some maize fields in south-west England suffer major soil loss with heavy rainfall because growing maize leaves bare soil exposed. Heavy rain is more likely under climate change. Erosion is also a long-standing issue in the fertile Fens, where, on dry windy days, peaty soil particles sometimes form a kind of smog called the "Fen Blow". Peat has a high carbon content – and a recent paper suggests there’s far more carbon being lost from peatlands than previously thought. And on the chalky hills of southern England, chemical-intensive crop farming is said to have caused the loss of over a foot of soil in some places. Soils are "incredibly important" for our well-being, said Dr Joanna Clark from Reading University. "We all know that crops are grown in soil, but soils are important for climate change as well. There's three times more carbon stored in soil than there is in the atmosphere. So imagine if all that carbon was released, we’d get runaway climate change. So we need to keep the carbon in the soil." The simplest way to protect soils while combating climate change is to let forests grow back. This option is favoured by fans of re-wilding. But some farmers believe they can continue to produce food by changing the way they farm to enhance the soil. Brexit could give the UK greater flexibility on how to spend public money on farming - enabling much more leeway to reward farmers for capturing carbon in the earth. But there are more than 700 soil types in the UK alone, so it won’t be simple. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-48043134

Bloody hell, only 28 years old, R.I.P. Josef. Edit: Not sure if I should have posted this in the Super Lig - Turkey? Sural joined Alanyaspor in January Czech international striker Josef Sural has been killed after a bus carrying several of Turkish club Aytemiz Alanyaspor's players crashed. Sural, 28, died at the hospital where he and six of his team-mates were taken after a bus carrying them back from a game at Kayserispor crashed on Sunday. Seven of the Super Lig's club's players had rented the private minibus. Club chairman Hasan Cavusoglu claimed the driver of the minibus had fallen asleep at the wheel. A second on-board driver was also reportedly asleep when the accident happened around three miles from the club's home city of Alanya. On Twitter, the club posted: "We have learned with deep sorrow that Josef Sural lost his life as a result of an accident carrying seven football players from Alanyaspor." Cavusoglu said the six other players on board were not in a critical condition. Former Spurs, Cardiff and QPR defender Steven Caulker and ex-Newcastle striker Papiss Cisse play for Alanyaspor. Caulker scored in the 1-1 draw at Kayserispor but it is not yet known whether he and Cisse were among the group of players who chose to use the minibus, while the rest of the club's players and staff travelled on a team bus or on their own. Sural joined Alanyaspor from Sparta Prague in January. He made 20 appearances for his country, last featuring in their Nations League defeat by Ukraine in October. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/48090099