Sat 31 Oct 2020
In The News
Welcome to our "In the News" page, featuring summaries of Internet news, relevant to Catastrophism and Ancient History.
Show Titles only | Show summaries
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17 Sep 2020 Aliens on Venus This was also sent in by Venus. William may also have sent in a link. At https://news.sky.com/story/signs-of-alien-life-detected-on-venus-12071625 ... signs of alien life detected on Venus. In spite of the headline, this is not true. Alien life has not been detected. What they have found, after actually setting out to search for it, is phosphine molecules - which consist of hydrogen and phosphorous atoms. You might ask why did they set out to look for phosphine. The obvious answer is to read the full article - rather than the offerings of a Sky pundit. |
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13 Sep 2020 Yukon in the Younger Dryas At https://phys.org/news/2020-09-reveal-richer-picture-dna-recovery.html ... a new technique has led to the extraction of DNA from soil for analysis, pulling the genomes of hundreds of animals and thousands of plants from less than a gram of sediment. A remarkable claim. As such, scientists now say they can reconstruct ancient environments that existed thousands of years ago. They analysed samples from four sites in the Yukon, each representing a different point in the transition from the Pleistocene to the Holocene, roughly 11,000 years ago. |
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13 Sep 2020 Literacy in Judah This story has surface once again as a result of further studies - see https://phys.org/news/2020-09-widespread-literacy-biblical-period-kingdo... ... a new study concerns widespread literacy in the Biblical period, in the 7th century BC kingdom of Judah. This follows the discovery of handwriting by 12 different individuals based at a fort at Arad, guarding the caravan route to Arabia, at the borders of the kingdom of Judah. People could read and write, Probably not the peasant class, the rural farming communities, but certainly, the more refined classes. |
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12 Sep 2020 Frankie goes to Cantre'r Gwaelod Robert sent in this link - www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-8718291/ ... Storm Francis, or Frankie, has exposed parts of a petrified Welsh forest that has been submerged for around 4500 years, it is alleged. The petrified trees, possibly not entirely turned to stone, or even marginally stone like in composition, were uncovered by the storm and high tides on the west coast of Wales, at Llanrhystud on Cardigan Bay to be exact ... |
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12 Sep 2020 Roman Lincolnshire Link sent in by Kevin - www.lincolnshirelive.co.uk/news/local-news/remains-grantham-road-archaeo... ... the remains of humans and ancient buildings have been unearthed during the construction of a by pass at Grantham in Lincolnshire. The remains date to the the Roman period, from 100AD to perhaps as late as 400AD. They came across thousands of artifacts beneath what will be the Southern Relief Road. |
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12 Sep 2020 Resonating Cavities and the Sponge The sponge is the interior of a comet and the cavities are on the sun. At https://phys.org/news/2020-09-presence-resonating-cavities-sunspots.html ... sun spots are darker regions that appear periodically on the face of the sun. They are caused by strong concentrations of a magnetic field, it is thought. Oscillations in the sun's atmosphere has been interpreted as magnetic waves. Sun spots appear to transfer energy from interior layers to the outer regions of the sun's atmosphere. |
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12 Sep 2020 A Particle Accelerator in the Sky At https://phys.org/news/2020-09-giant-particle-sky.html ... the earth's magnetic field traps high energy particles in order to thwart their entry into the atmosphere. When the first satellites were launched into space, scientists like James Van Allen, discovered high energy regions, now known as the Van Allen belts. They look like two giant doughnut shaped formations encompassing the planet in a sort of sheaf. A new study from Germany shows that electrons in these radiation belts can be accelerated to very high speeds, locally. |
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9 Sep 2020 Votadini on Arthur's Seat At www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-8705719/ ... a hillfort on Arthur's Seat, soaring above Edinburgh but commanding a view of the Firth of Forth. The ramparts are in the process of being excavated. It is thought it was occupied 2000 years ago by the Votadini tribe, an ally of the Romans. Stone walls 18 feet thick and 4 feet in height have been uncovered, on what is an extinct volcano. Some of the land inside the hill fort was used to grow food or keep animals. Sheer cliffs drop down on one side and the wall is on the landward side of the hill fort.
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9 Sep 2020 Blast a Black Hole At https://phys.org/news/2020-09-blast-black-hole.html ... more properly, how to have a blast like a black hole. Researchers at Osaka University have successfully used short but powerful laser blasts to generate magnetic field re-connections inside a plasma. It has to be recognised the magnetic re-connection used is artificial as well as the plasma. The idea is to imitate them in order to learn more about them. The experiment is said to lead towards a more complete theory of X-ray emissions from the universe - and these include black holes. |
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9 Sep 2020 Stone Forests At first I thought from the headline they were talking about petrified forests, but no. The stone forests (a sea of trees) are the pointy bits on mountains - in China and Madagascar for example. How they were created is the subject of another experiment, of a sort. They have puzzled geologists for some time. The research showed that flowing water carves ultra sharp spikes in land forms. Simulation is involved of course, so we may assume not every possibility was included in the experiment, such as the sort of landscape carving featured on Electric Universe videos. |