Science & Technology

30-pound meteorite that recently crashed in Sweden recovered in local village

Stephanie Pappas
Live Science
Tue, 23 Feb 2021 12:00 UTC

A half-melted hunk of iron-rich rock found in Uppsala, Sweden, is part of a meteorite that fell there in November 2020.

The lumpy meteorite is about the size of a loaf of bread and weighs around 31 pounds (14 kilograms), according to the Swedish Museum of Natural History. It was once part of a larger space rock, probably weighing more than 9 tons (8.1 metric tons), that created a dramatic fireball over Uppsala on Nov. 7.

After that impact, scientists at the Swedish Museum of Natural History calculated the likely landing site and found some small fragments of iron meteorite near the village of Ådalen, according to a museum statement. The fragments were only about 0.1 inches (3 millimeters) long, but the investigation also turned up a boulder and a tree root that had clearly been hit by something heavy.

Comment: Activity in our skies certainly appears to be increasing:

Magnetic pole shift + low solar activity: 'A global environmental crisis' has begun

Cap Allon
Electroverse
Mon, 22 Feb 2021 18:27 UTC

Even the mainstream has awoken to the "cataclysmic" threat that is the combo of low solar activity and a weakening magnetic field...

...even the Guardian:

The flipping of the Earth's magnetic poles together with a drop in solar activity 42,000 years ago could have generated an apocalyptic environment that lead to the extinction of megafauna and to the end of the Neanderthals, reports the Guardian, citing a new paper published in the journal Science, co-authored by Prof Chris Turney of the University of New South Wales.

The new paper entitled "a global environmental crisis" discusses the temporary flip of the poles 42,000-or-so years ago, known as the Laschamp excursion, which lasted for about 1,000 years.

The Guardian article continues:

Previous work found little evidence that the event had a profound impact on the planet, possibly because the focus had not been on the period during which the poles were actually shifting. Now scientists say the flip, together with a period of low solar activity, could have been behind a vast array of climatic and environmental phenomena with dramatic ramifications.

"It probably would have seemed like the end of days," said Turney.

Comment: It's notable that all this is occurring during a significant solar minimum, Earth's magnetic field is weakening, all in tandem with a number of other previously rare or unknown phenomena:

Also check out SOTT radio's: Behind the Headlines: Earth changes in an electric universe: Is climate change really man-made?

Study in newborn mice suggests sounds influence the developing brain earlier than previously thought

Johns Hopkins University
Fri, 12 Feb 2021 07:38 UTC

Scientists have yet to answer the age-old question of whether or how sound shapes the minds of fetuses in the womb, and expectant mothers often wonder about the benefits of such activities as playing music during pregnancy. Now, in experiments in newborn mice, scientists at Johns Hopkins report that sounds appear to change "wiring" patterns in areas of the brain that process sound earlier than scientists assumed and even before the ear canal opens.

Scientists have yet to answer the age-old question of whether or how sound shapes the minds of fetuses in the womb, and expectant mothers often wonder about the benefits of such activities as playing music during pregnancy. Now, in experiments in newborn mice, scientists at Johns Hopkins report that sounds appear to change "wiring" patterns in areas of the brain that process sound earlier than scientists assumed and even before the ear canal opens.

The current experiments involve newborn mice, which have ear canals that open 11 days after birth. In human fetuses, the ear canal opens prenatally, at about 20 weeks gestation.

The findings, published online Feb. 12 in Science Advances, may eventually help scientists identify ways to detect and intervene in abnormal wiring in the brain that may cause hearing or other sensory problems.

Comment: See also:

'Dance of roots' reveal by time-lapse footage

Robin A.Smith, Veronique Koch
Duke University
Fri, 19 Feb 2021 16:29 UTC

Durham, N.C. -- Duke researchers have been studying something that happens too slowly for our eyes to see. A team in biologist Philip Benfey's lab wanted to see how plant roots burrow into the soil. So they set up a camera on rice seeds sprouting in clear gel, taking a new picture every 15 minutes for several days after germination.

When they played their footage back at 15 frames per second, compressing 100 hours of growth into less than a minute, they saw that rice roots use a trick to gain their first foothold in the soil: their growing tips make corkscrew-like motions, waggling and winding in a helical path.

By using their time-lapse footage, along with a root-like robot to test ideas, the researchers gained new insights into how and why plant root tips twirl as they grow.

The first clue came from something else the team noticed: some roots can't do the corkscrew dance. The culprit, they found, is a mutation in a gene called HK1 that makes them grow straight down, instead of circling and meandering like other roots do.

The team also noted that the mutant roots grew twice as deep as normal ones. Which raised a question: "What does the more typical spiraling tip growth do for the plant?" said Isaiah Taylor, a postdoctoral associate in Benfey's lab at Duke.

Wildlife photographer captures 'never before seen' yellow penguin

Michael Zhang
PetaPixel
Thu, 18 Feb 2021 00:00 UTC

A wildlife photographer has shared a once-in-a-lifetime photo of what he believes is a "never before seen" yellow penguin.

Belgian landscape and wildlife photographer Yves Adams was leading a two-month photo exhibition in the South Atlantic in December 2019 when the group made a stop on an island in South Georgia to photograph a colony of over 120,000 king penguins. While unloading some safety equipment and food onto Salisbury Plain, Adams noticed an unusual sight he had never seen before: a penguin with bright yellow plumage.

"I'd never seen or heard of a yellow penguin before," the photographer tells Kennedy News. "There were 120,000 birds on that beach and this was the only yellow one there."

NASA warns of stadium-sized asteroid headed towards Earth

RT
Sun, 21 Feb 2021 17:25 UTC

The US space agency is warning of a salvo of space rocks headed for Earth, ranging in size from a paltry 10 meters in diameter all the way up to a positively petrifying 213.

When not keeping a close eye on its Perseverance rover, which touched down on Mars this week, NASA is busy monitoring the sky for potential threats to life on Earth - namely asteroids. And this week is no exception, as five such space rocks are due to buzz the planet we call home.

On Sunday, the 10-meter asteroid 2021 DD1 and the 61-meter asteroid 2021 DK1 will shoot past Earth at a safe distance of 1.6 million kilometers and six million kilometers, respectively.

However, they are just the warm-up act for what NASA describes as the "stadium-sized" asteroid 2020 XU6, which measures some 213 meters in diameter. To put that into perspective, it's twice as tall as London's Big Ben and two and a half times as tall as the Statue of Liberty.

First black hole ever detected is 50% more massive than we thought

International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research
Phys.org
Thu, 18 Feb 2021 12:00 UTC

© International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research.
An artist's impression of the Cygnus X-1 system. A stellar-mass black hole orbits with a companion star located 7,200 light years from Earth.

New observations of the first black hole ever detected have led astronomers to question what they know about the Universe's most mysterious objects.

Published today in the journal Science, the research shows the system known as Cygnus X-1 contains the most massive stellar-mass black hole ever detected without the use of gravitational waves.

Cygnus X-1 is one of the closest black holes to Earth. It was discovered in 1964 when a pair of Geiger counters were carried on board a sub-orbital rocket launched from New Mexico.

Comment: Notably, it was also recently discovered that Betelgeuse, the tenth-brightest star in the night sky, is neither as far nor as large as was once thought.

See also:

End of Neanderthals linked to flip of Earth's magnetic poles, study suggests

Nicola Davis
The Guardian
Thu, 18 Feb 2021 14:00 UTC

The flipping of the Earth's magnetic poles together with a drop in solar activity 42,000 years ago could have generated an apocalyptic environment that may have played a role in a major events ranging from the extinction of megafauna to the end of the Neanderthals, researchers say.

The Earth's magnetic field acts as a protective shield against damaging cosmic radiation, but when the poles switch, as has occurred many times in the past, the protective shield weakens dramatically and leaves the planet exposed to high energy particles.

One temporary flip of the poles, known as the Laschamps excursion, happened 42,000 years ago and lasted for about 1,000 years. Previous work found little evidence that the event had a profound impact on the planet, possibly because the focus had not been on the period during which the poles were actually shifting, researchers say.

Now scientists say the flip, together with a period of low solar activity, could have been behind a vast array of climatic and environmental phenomena with dramatic ramifications. "It probably would have seemed like the end of days," said Prof Chris Turney of the University of New South Wales and co-author of the study.

Comment: See also:

First Australian evidence of a major shift in Earth's magnetic poles discovered

Adapt 2030: Questions they don't want you to ask about the global power outages

Adapt 2030
Thu, 18 Feb 2021 22:15 UTC

The conversation rages on about renewables vs fossil fuels during power outages in both the E.U and the USA. That's the distraction, that's where powers that be want the conversation to stay, not magnetic motors and decentralized electrical production with no power provider to pay monthly. Tesla Towers, Tesla Oscillators and Magnetic Motors are never discussed as solutions for indoor agriculture, until now. Lets talk.

Comment: See also:

Implications of an unusual Ocean anomaly being detected in the Gulf Stream, and weakening of Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation

Andrej Flis
Severe Weather Europe
Sun, 14 Feb 2021 00:01 UTC

Areas of the global oceans warm and cool constantly. But recently, an unusually strong anomaly developed in the Gulf Stream. Weather in the United States and Europe depends a lot on this ocean current, so it's important we understand the full story and meaning of this strong anomaly.

Oceans have a crucial role in the weather and climate of the world, so every unusual anomaly is taken seriously. As you will soon learn, the Gulf Stream is a part of something much bigger and more powerful, so an anomaly in the Gulf Stream can be (and likely is) a sign of something much larger in the works.

WHAT IS THE GULF STREAM?

But first, we of course need to quickly recap what exactly is the Gulf Stream and where can we find it?

The Gulf Stream is a strong ocean current that brings warmer water up from the Gulf of Mexico into the Atlantic Ocean. It extends all the way up the eastern coast of the United States, where it starts to turn towards northwest Europe.

The image below shows a rough outline of the Gulf stream and where it flows across the North Atlantic. In reality, it does not flow in a straight line, but as you will see, it is very complex and full of swirls.

Comment: We've been observing and publishing analysis of changes in the Gulf Stream for years - precisely because of some its possible dramatactic knock-on effects, as described in the article above. Is a 'tipping point' of sorts imminent?

See also:

Quote of the Day

State power has its own limits defined by the fact that it is authority that reaches people from outside. State power cannot oversee and dictate the creative states of the soul and mind, the inner states of love, freedom and goodwill. The state cannot demand from its citizens faith, prayer, love, goodness and conviction. It cannot regulate scientific, religious and artistic creation. It should not intervene in moral, family and daily private life, and only when extremely necessary should it impinge on people's economic initiative and creativity.

- Ivan Ilyin

Whats a Lizzo? Is that like a Lesbo? Asking for a friend....

Bezel Bub

New York hospitals prepare for staffing crisis as vaccination mandate forces mass firings [Link]

Serig

I think we need to start a GoFundMe so we can air drop AK-47's into Australia....

Bezel Bub

slime biden exacts no consequences for murdering 10 afghans, but punishes cowboys for riding horses

smertzasmert

Oh btw, random sort of tangential comment related to much of the "food" in this particularly fallow season. Uhm, wtf...I forgot what I wanted to...

sir_isO

Science & Technology

30-pound meteorite that recently crashed in Sweden recovered in local village

Magnetic pole shift + low solar activity: 'A global environmental crisis' has begun

Study in newborn mice suggests sounds influence the developing brain earlier than previously thought

'Dance of roots' reveal by time-lapse footage

Wildlife photographer captures 'never before seen' yellow penguin

NASA warns of stadium-sized asteroid headed towards Earth

First black hole ever detected is 50% more massive than we thought

End of Neanderthals linked to flip of Earth's magnetic poles, study suggests

Adapt 2030: Questions they don't want you to ask about the global power outages

Implications of an unusual Ocean anomaly being detected in the Gulf Stream, and weakening of Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation

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