CaaC (John)

404-year-old 'priceless' Bible stolen from Carnegie Library found in the Netherlands N'dea Yancey-Bragg © Keith Srakocic FBI supervisory special agent Shawn Brokos, right, shows the theft recovered 1615 Breeches Edition Bible during a news conference, Thursday, April 25, 2019, in Pittsburgh. The Bible was stolen from the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh in the 1990s. It was traced to the American Pilgrim Museum in Leiden, Netherlands. A 404-year-old Bible stolen decades ago from the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh is finally being returned, the FBI announced. The Geneva Bible, published in 1615, was one of more than 300 items including rare books, atlases and maps worth an estimated $8 million that were discovered missing in 2017, according to Robert Jones, special agent in charge of the Pittsburgh FBI office. “This Bible is more than a piece of evidence in a case,” Jones said at a press conference Thursday. “It is a priceless artefact of religious significance to people of many faiths." The stolen book is commonly referred to as a “Breeches Bible” because its Genesis chapter describes Adam and Eve sewing fig leaves together to create breaches, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Historians believe Pilgrims who arrived in Massachusetts on the Mayflower in 1620 carried Geneva Bibles, the newspaper reported. © Provided by USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Satellite Information Network, Inc. Gregory M. Priore, a former Carnegie Library archivist, and John Schulman, a rare book dealer, are accused of stealing and selling the items over the course of about 20 years, the Post-Gazette reported. The Bible was found in the Netherlands, and the FBI worked with officials at the Leiden American Pilgrim Museum, the District Attorney’s office and the FBI’s art crime team to secure its return, Jones said. “From a dollar-figure sense, it is not priceless,” Jones told the Associated Press. “From a history perspective, it is priceless.” The Dutch museum had paid $1,200 for the Bible, according to District Attorney Stephen Zappala Jr. Jeremy Dupertuis Bangs, the director of the Leiden museum, told CNN that he bought the Bible from what he thought was a "reputable dealer in antiquarian books” and was planning to display it in an exhibition celebrating the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower landing. Suzanne M. Thinnes, a spokeswoman for Carnegie Library, issued a statement thanking authorities for ensuring the book was returned, according to the Post-Gazette. “The news that two people who were close to the library broke the public’s trust by not treating our collections with the respect and care they deserve has been absolutely devastating for all of us,” her statement read. “We look forward to invigorating community interest in our unique collections over the next year as we move toward restoring public access to the rare book collection.” https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/offbeat/404-year-old-priceless-bible-stolen-from-carnegie-library-found-in-the-netherlands/ar-BBWo94k

Nah, this is his day, let him enjoy it

Video of chimpanzee 'scrolling through Instagram' goes viral https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/offbeat/video-of-chimpanzee-scrolling-through-instagram-goes-viral/ar-BBWjSb3

https://www.thewrap.com/google-thanos-right-now-click-the-gauntlet-and-watch-what-happens/

They weren't dressed up as Thanos were they?

Just watched AGAIN Wyatt Earp with Kevin Costner, not bad but have seen better Wyatt Earp movies and I would give this a 7/10.

Oldest human footprint found in the Americas confirmed in Chile: researcher © Reuters/Handout . Ancient footprint pictured in Osorno SANTIAGO (Reuters) - A 15,600-year old footprint discovered in southern Chile is believed to be the oldest ever found in the Americas, according to researchers. The footprint was first discovered in 2010 by a student at the Universidad Austral of Chile. Scientists then worked for years to rule out the possibility that the print may have belonged to some other species of animal, and to determine the fossil's estimated age. © Reuters/HANDOUT Ancient footprint is pictured in Osorno Karen Moreno, a paleontologist with the Universidad Austral who has overseen the studies, said researchers had also found bones of animals near the site, including those of primitive elephants, but determined that the footprint was evidence of human presence. Moreno said this was the first evidence of humans in the Americas older than 12,000 years. "Little by little in South America, we're starting to find sites with evidence of human presence, but this is this oldest in the Americas," she said. https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/offbeat/oldest-human-footprint-found-in-the-americas-confirmed-in-chile-researcher/ar-BBWl6BS

A Tremor on Mars Confirms a Lasting Suspicion Marina Koren Because we’ve been sitting on the same rock for thousands of years, sometimes our language can tend to be a little Earth-centric. The word earthquake, for example, feels universal, as if it can be applied to any shaking ground. But zoom out beyond our tectonic plates, and the vocabulary shifts. Mars, for instance, has marsquakes. They sound too silly to be real as if a Netflix show about future Mars settlements made up a scary natural disaster. But tremors on Mars are a thing, and right now scientists believe they have detected a quake on Mars for the first time. © NASA /JPL-Caltech / University of Arizona / Texas A&M Scientists know this because they sent a seismometer to our planetary neighbour. The instrument arrived last year, on board a NASA lander called InSight. The seismometer, small and dome-shaped, has sat on the brick-coloured surface since, waiting for hints of movement below the surface. On April 6, it caught something, a “quiet but distinct” signal, scientists said. A rumble from the depths. “We’ve been waiting months for our first marsquake,” Philippe Lognonné, a geophysicist at the Institute of Earth Physics of Paris who leads the seismometer team, said in a statement this week. Scientists have suspected for decades that they’d find this phenomenon if they had the right tools to look. Unlike Earth, Mars lacks tectonic plates that glide over its mantle, jostling the ground when they touch. But like Earth, Mars has three distinct layers—a rocky crust, a mantle, and a metal core—and it’s still cooling from its fiery formation out of a primordial cloud of cosmic dust. Even now, billions of years later, heat radiates from its centre and can be strong enough to crack the surface and escape. The fracturing sends seismic waves streaming in all directions. © Thomson Reuters An electric 4WD vehicle designed to represent a vehicle used for an imagined Mars exploration drives near the C-Space Project Mars simulation base in the Gobi Desert outside Jinchang, Gansu Province, China, April 18, 2019. REUTERS/Thomas Peter Marsquakes can help scientists study the interior of the planet. Seismic waves move like beams of light in a hall of mirrors; as they propagate throughout the planet, they bounce around. Different materials redirect the waves in different ways. Data from seismometers allow scientists to track the zigzagging of the waves and determine the composition of the stuff they strike. While scientists are thrilled about the detection, they wish the rumble were stronger. The quake measured about 2.5 on the Richter scale, too weak to draw a path within the depths. If a tremor like that happened on Earth, you wouldn’t feel it. If you were standing next to the InSight lander at the moment of detection, you wouldn’t know either. “We are waiting for the big, big one,” says David Mimoun, a scientist at France’s Higher Institute of Aeronautics and Space and a member of the seismometer team. Researchers expect to detect dozens more, some as powerful as 5.5 magnitude. The marsquake provided some information about the lander’s surroundings, though. It lasted 15 minutes, a relatively long time for such a weak rumble. This suggests that the ground beneath the InSight lander doesn’t have much water, which is known to exist on Mars mostly as ice. “When there is water, it dampens the quake,” Mimoun says. © Thomson Reuters An electric 4WD vehicle designed to represent a vehicle used for an imagined Mars exploration drives near the C-Space Project Mars simulation base in the Gobi Desert outside Jinchang, Gansu Province, China, April 18, 2019. REUTERS/Thomas Peter Some of the earliest missions to Mars sought to find evidence of marsquakes. A pair of Viking landers touched down on the surface in the 1970s with seismometers in tow. But the instruments were mounted on the spacecraft rather than set on the ground, and only one actually worked. Under these circumstances, it was difficult to tell whether rumblings originated from the depths or from the hardware shuddering against a strong wind. In 1976, a seismometer on one of the landers felt some shaking on a not-too-windy day. But the spacecraft recorded measurements of the wind speed only 20 minutes before the mysterious rumbling and 45 minutes after. Scientists couldn’t rule out a wind gust in that missing window. This time, they’re more certain. With the seismometer firmly on the ground, it’s easier to pick out the gusts from the tremors. “We’ve seen a lot of wind previously, and we know that this is something different,” says Ingrid Daubar, a scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and a member of the InSight team. © Thomson Reuters An installation representing a cave on Mars is seen at the C-Space Project Mars simulation base in the Gobi Desert outside Jinchang, Gansu Province, China, April 17, 2019. REUTERS/Thomas Peter While scientists have ruled out the wind as a potential cause, they haven’t fully investigated the possibility of a meteor impact, which can cause the surface to rumble. Daubar says the team will compare images of the InSight lander’s surroundings from before and after the detection and look for evidence of any fresh craters. Earth and Mars share their shaky properties with another celestial body: the moon. During the 1970s, seismometers placed on the lunar surface by Apollo astronauts detected hundreds of moonquakes. Some reached a magnitude of 5.5. Scientists suspect several sources, including churning in the moon’s interior caused by Earth’s gravitational tug. First, there’s a low, steady hum, the voice of the wind sweeping across the surface. Then, something higher pitched and urgent—the quake. At the end, the whirring of the lander’s robotic arm, manoeuvring to take pictures of the scene. The sound of the quake is the big draw here. But it’s the noise of the robotic arm, a hollow cooing, that is my favourite. To hear the vibrations of a quake on another planet is a beguiling experience. But the sound of the delicate movements of the machine that captured them, that humankind somehow managed to dream up and deliver to Mars in one piece, is somehow a little sweeter. https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/techandscience/a-tremor-on-mars-confirms-a-lasting-suspicion/ar-BBWlb3A?li=AAnZ9Ug

Hayabusa-2: Spacecraft's 'bomb' crater found The Hayabusa-2 spacecraft has sent back images of the crater made when it detonated an explosive charge next to the asteroid it is investigating. On 5 April, the Japanese probe released a 14kg device packed with plastic explosive towards the asteroid Ryugu. The blast drove a copper projectile into the surface, hoping to create a 10m-wide depression. Scientists want to get a "fresh" sample of rock to help them better understand how Earth and the other planets formed. Hayabusa-2 has now taken pictures of the area below where the "small carry-on impactor" (SCI) device was to have detonated and identified a dark disturbance in which fresh material has been excavated from beneath the surface. Scientists working on the Japanese Aerospace Agency (Jaxa) mission said the blast area on the surface measures about 20m in diameter - twice the size of the crater they expected to see. The mission's official account tweeted: "We did not expect such a big alteration, so a lively debate has been initiated in the project!" Because of the debris that would have been thrown up in this event, Hayabusa-2 manoeuvred itself before the detonation to the far side of 800m-wide Ryugu - out of harm's way and out of sight. But the probe left a small camera behind called DCAM3 to observe the explosion. Hayabusa-2 later returned to its "home position" about 20km above the asteroid's surface. From here, it conducted a search for the crater produced in the explosion. In coming weeks, scientists will command the probe to descend into the crater to collect its fresh samples. Because they will come from within the asteroid, they will be less altered by the harsh environment of space. Bombardment with cosmic radiation over the aeons is thought to change the surfaces of these planetary building blocks. Ryugu belongs to a particularly primitive type of space rock known as a C-type asteroid. It's a relic left over from the early days of our Solar System, and therefore records the conditions and chemistry of that time - some 4.5 billion years ago. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-48065282

The universe is mysteriously expanding faster than scientists thought New data gathered by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has reportedly widened the “mystery of the universe’s expansion rate.”

Scientists discover the 'strangest crab that has ever lived' Dan Satherley A newly discovered crab-like creature is so strange, the scientists who discovered it have literally named it "perplexing". "Callichimaera perplexa is so unique and strange that it can be considered the platypus of the crab world," said Javier Luque, who first found a fossil of the "beautiful nightmare" in 2005 and led the study into just what on Earth it was. Its name also references the chimera, a hybrid creature from Chinese mythology made up of a lion, goat and snake. © Oksana Vernygora/University of Alberta Callichimaera perplexa - a 'beautiful nightmare' of a creature. Callichimaera, which lived in the Americas and western Africa about 90 million years ago, had a shrimp-like mouth, lobster-type shell and socket-less eyes so big they'd be the equivalent of soccer balls on a human face. "It looked like a crab, but I thought it was more like a spider," Luque told Live Science, calling it the "strangest crab that has ever lived". After collecting more than 70 specimens from across the Atlantic, Luque said he realised he'd uncovered an entirely new branch of the crab family tree. "Usually we think of crabs as big animals with broad carapaces [shells], strong claws, small eyes in long eyestalks, and a small tail tucked under the body. Well, Callichimaera defies all of these 'crabby' features and forces a re-think of our definition of what makes a crab a crab." Callichimaera perplexa - which literally translates as 'perplexing beautiful chimera' - was unveiled in journal Science Advances this week, alongside a number of other ancient sea creatures new to science, mostly shrimp. https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/offbeat/scientists-discover-the-strangest-crab-that-has-ever-lived/ar-BBWhnPU

Batten down the hatches, storm Hannah is going to hit us. Storm Hannah to batter the UK as temperatures plunge https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/weather/storm-hannah-to-batter-uk-as-temperatures-plunge/ar-BBWiz7l?ocid=chromentp

Happy Birthday, @Dr. Gonzo, hope your day is filled with bliss and booze, you won't stand alone in here with all your Liverpool buddies.

John Grisham 'The Last Juror' (2004), read it a few years back but giving it another bash.

Players asked to send evidence of racist online abuse to PFA A number of players boycotted social media for 24 hours in protest at racist abuse Players have been asked to send evidence of racist online abuse to the Professional Footballers' Association to demonstrate to governing bodies the severity of the issue. The players' union will show the posts to the sports minister and a number of football bodies at a meeting in May. Meetings with Twitter and Facebook have also been requested after a number of recent high-profile incidents. Players were previously encouraged to boycott social media for 24 hours. A PFA statement said on Thursday it was asking members to send any abuse they had received to an email address that has been set up. The messages will be presented to leading figures in football, including the Football Association, anti-discrimination charity Kick It Out and Sports Minister Mims Davies, at the meeting at Wembley. It follows the #Enough campaign, where players were encouraged to post a graphic containing the word 'Enough' on their social media platforms before boycotting it for 24 hours. Tottenham and England midfielder Dele Alli, Manchester United forward Marcus Rashford and Arsenal striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang were among a number of players who took part. Head of equalities Simone Pound said it was important to follow the boycott with "empowered action". https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/48055203

Is this the cheekiest penalty ever? 25 Apr 2019 Brisbane Roar midfielder Eric Bautheac scores a cheeky penalty during their A-League game with Adelaide United. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/av/football/48057563

Royal Vase Gives Clues to the Collapse of Maya Civilization Hannah Osborne Scientists have discovered a vase at an ancient royal palace in Belize with hieroglyphic text that gives an insight into the mysterious collapse of the Maya civilization. The stories on the vase relate to its owner—a King of Komkom—and a series of martial actions relating to him, including a “frog-like turtle dance” he performed after a military victory. The vase, which dates to around 800 AD, was found in the Maya archaeological complex of Baking Pot by researchers led by Julie Hoggarth, assistant professor of anthropology at Texas’ Baylor University. She noticed one of the pieces had a hieroglyph referring to Yaxha, a Maya ceremonial center in Guatemala. The vessel had been smashed into bits, so the team had to piece the 82 fragments they found together—eventually assembling what they believe to be about 60 per cent of the original. It measured about nine inches in length and, in its entirety, would have been made up of 202 hieroglyphic blocks—unusually long for Pre-Columbian texts found in Belize. After deciphering the text, Hoggarth and colleagues realized it provided an unusual insight into a period where there is little remaining written information. Hoggarth has now published details of the vase in a book, A Reading of the Komkom Vase Discovered at Baking Pot, Belize. At the time the vase was created, the Maya civilization had started to collapse. Cities were abandoned and by around 900 AD, they had stopped building monuments. Reasons for this are unclear, although experts believe multiple factors likely combined, resulting in a breakdown of the political system. “Population growth at the end of the Classic period also meant that the Maya were clearing more of the landscape to grow food, which may have contributed—in some cases—to environmental degradation,” Hoggarth told Newsweek. “On top of all of this was a series of severe droughts that date to the mid-to-late ninth century (around AD 820-900) that likely impacted agricultural production. Since Maya divine kings were considered intermediaries with the gods, you can imagine how if they did not bring the rains that their legitimacy could have been diminished and the populace likely voted with their feet and left those cities.” The story on the Komkom vase focuses on the warfare that was taking place during the period—providing a peek into the propaganda that was being sold to society at the time. “We know that the Classic Maya did not typically write about mundane topics,” Hoggarth said, adding that they normally focused on political histories, including births, deaths, ascensions, alliances and rituals. Few mention droughts or trade problems. “The unique aspect of the Komkom Vase is that it was written during this period of instability, and gives a perspective by the Maya themselves of the escalation of warfare during this time.” © Baylor University The Komkom vase, pieced together. The text on the vase provides information on the royal owner. While he is not named directly, it says his father is Sak Witzil Baah, the King of Komkom, and his mother is a royal from the kingdom of Naranjo. This suggests the owner was a later king of Komkom. The story provides information about a series of martial actions led by the king. It says that in July, 799 AD, he “axed the middle of the Yaxa’ cave.” The cave, Hoggarth said, probably refers to the polity or settlement of Yaxha. “The text goes on to describe how the king of Yaxha, K’inich Lakamtuun, now powerless, fled from the city to a place ‘where mosquitos/flies abound.’ The text later describes how the owner of the vase performed a ‘frog-like turtle dance’ to celebrate the victory over Yaxha.” She said it is hard to distinguish between political propaganda and fact—as, with all written sources, history is recorded by the victors. “One interesting aspect of the Komkom Vase is that many of the events that are described on the vase are also detailed in written texts on carved monuments from the site of Naranjo,” Hoggarth said. “In those accounts, it is the rulers of Naranjo who led the martial attacks on Yaxha. Naranjo was a larger and a more powerful kingdom than Komkom, but the parentage statement describes the mother of the owner of the Komkom Vase with a royal title from that site, so there were clearly political and marriage alliances between the two kingdoms. “The accounts in the Komkom Vase make it appear that the owner of the vase, assumed to be the King of Komkom, led the attacks against Yaxha. So, you can see here how easily historical accounts can be slightly changed as a form of political propaganda to enhance the reputation of the protagonist of the story.” © Baylor University A fragment of the Komkom Vase. Elizabeth Graham, Professor of Mesoamerican Archaeology at the UCL Institute of Archaeology, U.K, who was not involved in the research, said the length of the text and the dating—at the time of the Maya collapse—means it provides an interesting insight into the period: “One ‘minute’ they are painting beautiful texts in the Classic tradition, and the next, collapse,” she told Newsweek. “Much more can be learned from the vase,” Graham continued. “Translation of clauses in the text are aided by the fact that the same events or titles are recorded at other sites—in the case of the Komkom vase these sites are Naranjo, Tikal, and Yaxha.” Hoggarth is now looking to develop a precise chronology in order to reconstruct the breakdown of political systems and the abandonment of Maya centers. At the moment, she is using radiocarbon dating to find out when royal palaces were abandoned and when ceremonial centers stopped being used. Her team is also looking at how the collapse corresponds to the severe droughts recorded at this time. “In the past, archaeologists have noted how the timing of political and demographic changes broadly correlate with these climatic changes,” she said. “However, until recently we have been limited by imprecise chronologies based on ceramic phases that typically span several hundred years. This poor temporal resolution has made it difficult to identify clear relationships between drought and societal impacts. High-precision radiocarbon chronologies are now allowing us to identify the timing of political and demographic changes at finer time scales.” https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/offbeat/royal-vase-gives-clues-to-collapse-of-maya-civilization/ar-BBWfCu4

Antarctica: Thousands of emperor penguin chicks wiped out By Jonathan Amos BBC Science Correspondent Thousands of emperor penguin chicks drowned when the sea-ice on which they were being raised was destroyed in severe weather. The catastrophe occurred in 2016 in Antarctica's Weddell Sea. Scientists say the colony at the edge of the Brunt Ice Shelf has collapsed with adult birds showing no sign of trying to re-establish the population. And it would probably be pointless for them to try as a giant iceberg is about to disrupt the site. The dramatic loss of the young emperor birds is reported by a team from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS). Drs Peter Fretwell and Phil Trathan noticed the disappearance of the so-called Halley Bay colony in satellite pictures. It is possible even from 800km up to spot the animals' excrement or guano, on the white ice and then to estimate the likely size of any gathering. But the Brunt population, which had sustained an average of 14,000 to 25,000 breeding pairs for several decades (5-9% of the global population), essentially disappeared overnight. Emperors are the tallest and heaviest of the penguin species and need reliable patches of sea-ice on which to breed, and this icy platform must persist from April, when the birds arrive, until December, when their chicks fledge. If the sea-ice breaks up too early, the young birds will not have the right feathers to start swimming. This appears to have been what happened in 2016. Strong winds hollowed out the sea-ice that had stuck hard to the side of the thicker Brunt shelf in its creeks, and never properly reformed. Not in 2017, nor in 2018. Dr Fretwell told BBC News: "The sea-ice that's formed since 2016 hasn't been as strong. Storm events that occur in October and November will now blow it out early. So there's been some sort of regime change. Sea-ice that was previously stable and reliable is now just untenable." The BAS team believes many adults have either avoided breeding in these later years or moved to new breeding sites across the Weddell Sea. A colony some 50km away, close to the Dawson-Lambton Glacier, has seen a big rise in its numbers. Quite why the sea-ice platform on the edge of the Brunt shelf has failed to regenerate is unclear. There is no obvious climate signal to point to in this case; atmospheric and ocean observations in the vicinity of the Brunt reveal little in the way of change. But the sensitivity of this colony to shifting sea-ice trends does illustrate, says the team, the impact that future warming in Antarctica could have on emperor penguins in particular. Research suggests the species might lose anywhere between 50% and 70% of its global population by the end of this century if sea-ice is reduced to the extent that computer models envisage. Dr Trathan said: "What's interesting for me is not that colonies move or that we can have major breeding failures - we know that. It's that we are talking here about the deep embayment of the Weddell Sea, which is potentially one of the climate change refugia for those cold-adapted species like emperor penguins. "And so if we see major disturbances in these refugia - where we haven't previously seen changes in 60 years - that's an important signal." Whether the Halley Bay colony specifically really had a future is a moot point. The Brunt Ice Shelf is being split apart by a developing crack. This chasm will eventually calve an iceberg the size of Greater London into the Weddell Sea, and any sea-ice stuck to the berg's edge may break up in the process. The colony could have been doomed regardless of what happened in 2016. Drs Peter Fretwell and Phil Trathan report their investigation in the journal Antarctic Science. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-48041487

Anybody wanna buy a bird, the feathered type I mean? A Florida Man Was Killed by a Giant Bird. Now It’s for Sale. There will be colourful macaws, lithe lemurs and cackling Kookaburras for sale at an event billed by organizers as “the dispersal of the animal estate of Marvin Hajos.” But the animal that is likely to get the most attention is the giant bird that killed Mr Hajos this month. That bird — a hulking, flightless cassowary with a daggerlike claw on each foot — will go up for auction on Saturday alongside about one hundred other exotic animals that Mr. Hajos, 75, kept on his property near Gainesville, Fla. (Several other cassowaries are also slated to go on the auction block.) https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/a-florida-man-was-killed-by-a-giant-bird-now-its-for-sale/ar-BBWfpJ2?ocid=chromentp

@nudge @Bluewolf Just listening to the Martian Winds and the noise of the Robotic Arm sent shivers down my spine. The vibrations picked up by InSight's sensors are made audible in this video, and record three different types of signal. (1) The wind on Mars; (2) the reported 6 April event; and (3) the movement of the probe's robot arm as it takes photos.

Engineers found an owl napping inside the engine of a Virgin Australia plane https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/offbeat/engineers-found-an-owl-napping-inside-the-engine-of-a-virgin-australia-plane/ar-BBWe1h2

Nasa's InSight lander 'detects first Marsquake' The American space agency's InSight lander appears to have detected its first seismic event on Mars. The faint rumble was picked up by the probe's sensors on 6 April - the 128th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. It is the first seismic signal detected on the surface of a planetary body other than the Earth and its Moon. Scientists say the source for this "Marsquake" could either be movement in a crack inside the planet or the shaking from a meteorite impact. Nasa's InSight probe touched down on the Red Planet in November last year. It aims to identify multiple quakes, to help build a clearer picture of Mars' interior structure. Researchers can then compare this with Earth's internal rock layering, to learn something new about the different ways in which these two worlds have evolved through the aeons. Interestingly, InSight's scientists say the character of the rumble reminds them very much of the type of data the Apollo sensors gathered on the lunar surface. The vibrations picked up by InSight's sensors are made audible in this video, and record three different types of signal. (1) The wind on Mars; (2) the reported 6 April event; and (3) the movement of the probe's robot arm as it takes photos. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Astronauts installed five seismometers that measured thousands of quakes while operating on the Moon between 1969 and 1977. InSight's seismometer system incorporates French (low-frequency) and British (high-frequency) sensors. Known as the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS), the instrument was lifted on to the Martian surface by the probe's robotic arm on 19 December. Both parts of the system observed the 6 April signal, although it wasn't possible to extract any information to make a more definitive statement about the likely source or the distance from the probe to the event. "It's probably only a Magnitude 1 to 2 event, perhaps within 100km or so. There are a lot of uncertainties on that, but that's what it's looking like," said Prof Tom Pike, who leads the British side of the seismometer package. Dr Bruce Banerdt is Nasa's chief scientist on the InSight mission. He added: "This particular Marsquake - the first one we've seen - is a very, very small one. In fact, if you live in Southern California like I do, you wouldn't even notice this one in your day-to-life. But since Mars is so quiet, this is something that we're able to pick up with our instrument." The team is investigating three other signals picked up only by the low-frequency sensors - on 14 March (Sol 105), 10 April (Sol 132) and 11 April (Sol 133). However, these were even smaller than the Sol 128 event, and the InSight scientists do not have the confidence yet to claim them as real seismic events. The probe's prime mission is set to run for two Earth years - a little more than one Martian year. Given the time taken to make this first detection, it might suggest InSight should record another dozen or so seismic signals in the initial operating period, explained Prof Pike. "When you've got one, you don't know whether you were just lucky, but when we see two or three we will have a better idea," the Imperial College London researcher told BBC News. "Of course, if the other three are confirmed then we could be looking at quite a large number of detections over the next two years." SEIS was developed and provided for InSight by the French space agency (CNES). The UK Space Agency funded the £5m British involvement. Sue Horne, the UKSA's head of space exploration, commented: "Thanks to the Apollo missions of the 1960s we know that Moonquakes exist. So, it's exciting to see the Mars results coming in, now indicating the existence of Marsquakes which will lead to a better understanding of what's below the surface of the Red Planet." https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-48031975

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/offbeat/thousands-year-old-egypt-sarcophagus-to-be-opened-on-live-tv/ar-BBVDyhr Ancient Egyptian Tomb Found With Dozens of Mummies Katherine Hignett Archaeologists have discovered an ancient tomb containing dozens of mummies at a site in the south-east of Egypt. Cut into rock and hidden behind a stone wall, the tomb contained the bodies of both adults and children stored across multiple burial chambers. As well as human remains, Egyptian and Italian researchers found artifacts including vases, coffin fragments, intricately decorated masks, cartonnages and a statuette, Egypt’s Ministry of Antiquities reported Tuesday. © Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities The main room of the tomb contained about 30 mummies, including the remains of several young children tucked into a recess on one side of the chamber. Archaeologists also found tools of the funerary trade in the room, including a mummy-transporting stretcher made from palm wood and pieces of linen, several jars of bitumen, a lamp and a painted statuette of the “Ba-bird”: a part-bird, part-human figurine depicting the “soul of the deceased,” the Egyptian ministry explained. The room was also home to several painted and unpainted cartonnages and partial funerary masks. Similar to papier-mâché, ancient Egyptians made funerary masks and cartonnages from layers of papyrus and plaster. They painted these decorative items with bold, colorful designs. © Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities A painted fragment of cartonnage discovered at the Aswan West Bank, Egypt. The researchers found more mummies elsewhere in the tomb, two of whom were concealed in a painted cartonnage. Archaeologists think these could be the bodies of a mother and a child. The team also found four other mummies in a structure containing several jars still holding food. © Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities Two ancient Egyptian mummies discovered in a tomb near the Mausoleum of Aga Khan, Aswan West Bank, Egypt. Fragments of painted wood from coffins indicated the tomb belonged to someone called Tjit, who lived around the end of the time of the Pharaohs and the start of the Graeco-Roman period (332 B.C.E-395 C.E.). Painted wooden coffin fragments revealed the name of the owner and honoured certain gods, the Ministry reported. The tomb is located near the Mausoleum of Aga Khan on the Aswan West Bank, an area home to dozens of gravesites. The Egyptian-Italian mission has mapped about 300 tombs, 25 of which have been excavated over the last four years, lead archaeologist Patrizia Piacentini said in a statement. © Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities An ancient statuette found in a tomb near the Mausoleum of Aga Khan, Aswan West Bank, Egypt. Egypt has been keen to share news of recent archaeological discoveries in an effort to entice visitors back to the country in the wake of the Egyptian Revolution of 2011 and subsequent political unrest. Recent announcements have included the discovery of a palace dedicated to Ramesses the Great, several intricately-decorated sarcophagi and a massive haul of about 800 tombs at a large grave site to the south of Cairo. https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/ancient-egyptian-tomb-found-with-dozens-of-mummies/ar-BBWe3nn?ocid=chromentp