An Israeli spacecraft called Beresheet almost made it to the moon in April. It took a selfie with the lunar surface in the background, but then lost contact with Earth and presumably crashed onto the lunar surface. Now it's been revealed that the mission was carrying a cargo of dehydrated microscopic lifeforms known as tardigrades.
[. . .]
Tardigrades are odd little creatures. Measuring up to about half a millimetre long, they have four pairs of stubby legs and a front-end that even the fondest parent couldn't describe as beautiful. Striking, or distinctive, are my adjectives of choice. Moon-faced would be appropriate, given the context of the story—with a rounded, sucker-like structure in the centre that can project outwards, revealing a set of dangerous-looking sharp teeth.
They're often called "water bears" but the images of tardigrades that I have seen remind me of a slightly over-inflated blimp, one of those large balloons that float overhead at carnivals. The legs stick out at a slight angle, as if they are too swollen to stand upright. And that is probably the clue as to why it is extremely unlikely that the creatures will survive indefinitely on the moon.
In other science news, some believe that evidence of the first mountain living by humans has been found. GIZMODO reports:
Archaeologists working in the Bale Mountains of Ethiopia have uncovered the earliest evidence to date of human habitation in a high-altitude environment. Living over 11,000 feet above sea level, these early mountaineers ate rodents to survive the harsh ice age conditions.
New research published this week in Science describes the oldest known human occupancy of a high-altitude environment. Between 47,000 and 31,000 years ago, Stone Age foragers occupied a rock shelter in the Bale Mountains of Ethiopia, which is 11,381 feet (3,469 meters) above sea level. The authors of the new study, led by researchers from Martin Luther University, aren’t sure if the shelter was used intermittently or if the occupation was permanent.
SMITHOSIAN adds:
The new findings are not, however, the
first clue that our ancestors ventured to high altitudes earlier than
experts once thought. Earlier this year, for instance, scientists
reported the jawbone of a Denisovan—an extinct hominin species—that was discovered in a cave some 10,700 feet above sea level in China. The specimen was dated to around 160,000 years ago. Also significant was the discovery of stone tools high on the Tibetan Plateau,
with the relics dating between 30 and 40 thousand years ago. But the
Fincha Habera finds offer unusually robust evidence of humans actually
living at high altitudes.
The settlement was probably not a permanent one. “Prehistoric humans at that time were mobile hunter-gatherers, so they never stayed sedentary at a single site,” Ossendorf tells Charles Q. Choi of Live Science. But, Ossendorf notes, the evidence suggests that prehistoric people “spent considerable amounts of time” at the site. In fact, Fincha Havera was repeatedly populated by humans; the team’s analysis shows that around 10,000 years ago, a second group moved into the site, increasingly using it as a hearth.
In spite of the challenges of high-altitude living, Fincha Havera’s ancient occupants may have seen it as prime real estate. They inhabited the site during the Last Glacial Maximum, when much of the Bale Mountains were covered with ice—but Fincha Havera was located beyond the icy region. Melting glaciers would have offered an ample supply of water, perhaps more than could have been found in lower—and drier—valleys. Food seems to have been plentiful at Fincha Havera, as the researchers found “abundant burnt bones, mostly of giant mole-rats,” the study authors write, suggesting the site’s inhabitants were roasting rodents for meals. They also seemed to have been using nearby obsidian outcrops to make their tools.
The settlement was probably not a permanent one. “Prehistoric humans at that time were mobile hunter-gatherers, so they never stayed sedentary at a single site,” Ossendorf tells Charles Q. Choi of Live Science. But, Ossendorf notes, the evidence suggests that prehistoric people “spent considerable amounts of time” at the site. In fact, Fincha Havera was repeatedly populated by humans; the team’s analysis shows that around 10,000 years ago, a second group moved into the site, increasingly using it as a hearth.
In spite of the challenges of high-altitude living, Fincha Havera’s ancient occupants may have seen it as prime real estate. They inhabited the site during the Last Glacial Maximum, when much of the Bale Mountains were covered with ice—but Fincha Havera was located beyond the icy region. Melting glaciers would have offered an ample supply of water, perhaps more than could have been found in lower—and drier—valleys. Food seems to have been plentiful at Fincha Havera, as the researchers found “abundant burnt bones, mostly of giant mole-rats,” the study authors write, suggesting the site’s inhabitants were roasting rodents for meals. They also seemed to have been using nearby obsidian outcrops to make their tools.
That's very interesting. Let's move over to climate change. BBC NEWS reports:
Increasingly frequent marine
heatwaves can lead to the almost instant death of corals, scientists
working on the Great Barrier Reef have found.
These episodes of unusually high water temperatures are - like heatwaves on land - associated with climate change. Scientists studying coral after a heat event discovered that extreme temperature rises decayed reefs much more rapidly than previously thought.
They published their findings in the journal Current Biology.
And ECOWATCH notes:
The researchers knew that oceanic heat waves contributed to coral degradation, or bleaching, where the coral sheds the colorful algae covering and nourishing it and the coral slowly starves. What surprised the scientists was just how rapidly they died off when they experience a heat wave, according to Agence France Presse.
Yet, while corals can often regenerate after a bleaching event once ocean temperatures are more hospitable to the corals' symbiotic algae, heat waves that come on rapidly and linger are separate existential event that cause immediate death. Reefs will also have to weather extreme marine heat waves, which is "a distinct biological phenomenon from bleaching events," according to the study's authors, led by William Leggat, a coral reef expert at the University of Newcastle in Australia, as Vice's Motherboard reported.
"Now, we see there is also a temperature at which the coral animal itself suffers from heat-induced mortality," explained co-author Tracy Ainsworth, a marine biologist at the University of New South Wales, in an email, as reported by Vice. "This isn't starvation, this is the animal itself undergoing mortality directly from the heat of the water."
"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS)::
The Trump administration deported 41-year-old Detroit man Jimmy Aldaoud to Iraq — he'd never been to Iraq, spoke no Arabic, and couldn't access his insulin. He died on Tuesday.
No, the Trump administration didn't deport him. The US deported him. Use it as a reason to vote Donald Trump out, fine. But don't kid yourself that this rests only on Donald Trump. Don't be a liar, like Shaun King.
Trump murdered Jimmy Aldaoud when he deported him to Iraq.
He was born in Greece.
Is a Christian.
Doesn’t speak Arabic.
Lived in the USA since he was 6 months old.
Died on the streets of Iraq because he was diabetic and couldn’t find insulin.
Shaun King is a liar. He knows better but he pretends the whole thing is Donald Trump.
The courts failed Jimmy and the Congress failed Jimmy. We the American people failed Jimmy. We all allowed a system in place to continue to exist. Donald didn't invent deportations. They existed as part of the system. He's not gamed the system, he's done what is allowed.
It's outrageous what we allow.
Shame on anyone who needs to lie or whore to pretend that the problem is Donald Trump. That lie may let you sleep safe at night but it's not the truth and it doesn't help immigrants.
Barack Obama deported more immigrants than any other US president. And some of those died after being deported as well. The press existed to oooh and aaaah over every move of Barack's. He was their preening baby boy. And they ignored all that he did wrong.
There are no perfect human beings who become presidents in our modern age. They all have huge egos and they all lie a lot. That includes Barack. And these people who are trying to once again deify him are mental midgets who are incapable of any thought or any action. They lie to themselves because they're cowardly jerks who won't do the work required.
If you are truly offended about what happened to Jimmy, you should take your part of the blame -- a blame all of us -- me included -- in the United States share -- and demand changes to the system.
You should also grasp that there are worse places Jimmy could have gone than Iraq. Unlike the US, Iraq has universal health care. After the US government destroyed Iraq, when it was time to redraw rights, they were happy -- the US government -- to strip the rights of women and any other attacks they could get away with. They would have liked to have turned Iraq over to private insurance but they knew they couldn't get away with that.
So at some point, when you're done shrieking at Donald Trump, you also need to find out how, in Iraq, Jimmy fell through the cracks. He was a diabetic before he left the US. He was on insulin before he made it to Iraq. Was this not properly conveyed during the deportation? If so, another failure of the United States. If it was conveyed, did the Iraqi government not do what they needed to do to ensure that the newly arrived Jimmy received insulin.
I'm not shocked that so many refuse to admit our guilt in what happened to Jimmy. I am stunned that Shaun King -- who always plays more-woke-than-thou -- wants to pretend this is all Donald Trump's fault.
That lie does nothing to help immigrants and does nothing to change the system. All that lie does is provide motivation to vote Donald Trump out -- the system remains the same and that means the press goes into darkness on this issue when someone they like is next in the White House.
If Jimmy's life and his death mattered, we all owe it to him to be honest about what happened, how it happened and how we can change it from ever happening again.
It's also amazing how there is no concern for Iraqi refugees who suffer throughout the world, scattered as a result of the US-initiated and US-led Iraq War.
Though the US doesn't discuss it and the US outright ignores it, #SaveIraqiRefugees has been a trending hashtag on Twitter for some time now.
For those how had the luxury of looking away in the past, here are some older Tweets.
we are a family of Iraqi refugees in Turkey. We have young children
We ask you in the name of humanity and all heavenly covenants and international charters to look and find a quick solution to save us. Thank you so much.#StandWithIraqiRefugees #ForMigration #SaveIraqiRefugees
#world #hearUs #HearMeToo
#HumanRights @Refugees
We are Iraqi refugees in Turkey, we face unknown fate becuse of the delay of processing our cases since 2013/2014 till now, We Ask you for an urgent solution
#StandWithIraqiRefugees
#SaveiraqiRefugees
#SaveIraqiRefugeesInTurkey
Can you imagine what does running from death mean?leaving everything behind?living with unknwon fate?losing you children's future?
Waiting for years with no hope?
No one knows but IRAQI REFUGEES IN TURKEY
#SaveIraqiRefugees twitter.com/UNarabic/statu…
We(Iraqi refugees-Turkey)are complaining from delaying the processing of our files since2013/14/15/16till.the unfair is we choosed the legal way but we faced long waiting,by contrast,who went illegally have got resettled even got IDs while we are waiting
#SaveIraqiRefugees
Please,please,will you rescue Iraqi children from losing more years with no education in Turkey because of long waiting for resettlment that lasted 6 years with no hope #StandWithIraqiRefugees #Iraqi_refugees_in_Turkey #ForMigration #SaveIraqiRefugees
And here are some more recent Tweets.
Please,please,will you rescue Iraqi children from losing more years with no education in Turkey because of long waiting for resettlment that lasted 6 years with no hope #StandWithIraqiRefugees #Iraqi_refugees_in_Turkey #ForMigration #SaveIraqiRefugees
- I prayed now. Every day I pray. Please @Refugees find a way to help their desperate plight.#SaveIraqiRefugeesInTurkey #SaveIraqiRefugees
Here are some more recent Tweets.
What about the rights of Iraqi refugees in Turkey?They have been waiting resettlment since2013/14/15till now.They lost their gains,homes,children's future and even their families.we want justice,other nationalities came after us and settled before us
#SaveIraqiRefugees InTurkey
We are,the old people,the weak women,the teenagers,the children,and the disabililties people in Turkey,whome the world humanity let them down,because of leaving them wait for resettlment for a long time
#SaveIraqiRefugees
@SponsorRefugee Please,please,will you rescue Iraqi children from losing more years with no education in Turkey because of long waiting for resettlment that lasted 6 years with no hope #StandWithIraqiRefugees #Iraqi_refugees_in_Turkey #ForMigration #SaveIraqiRefugees
Jimmy is dead. That's awful. In life we did nothing as a people to rescue him. If we want to honor him in death, the answer is to address the system and change it. Pretending it's all Donald Trump's fault will not help refugees, will not bring a human response to the immigration issue.
The United States loves to lie to itself which is how they pretended nothing at all was wrong when Barack Obama (and Joe Biden) deported more immigrants than had ever been deported before.
At last week's debates, some activists made their voices heard. Jake Tapper gave a disgusting look to the cameras and ignored them.
Now that might fly with Don Lemon who is nothing but a huckster and has no news background. But Jake came from ABC NEWS and when someone's protesting in a debate that is actual news. If they are not on the microphone and you are part of the news industry, it is your job to tell the audience what they were saying. There's no excuse for ignoring it the way Jake did.
That the issue was immigration makes it all the more appalling because Jake Tapper and others spent eight years of Barack Obama's two terms as president ignoring the reality of what was happening.
I'm sure your fam wasn't harmed by the Obama deportation machine. Mine was. Some of the fams of the ppl who were protesting Biden were. Stupid is running on a pro-immigrant platform, having an entire Democratic gov, not passing any legislation & instead deporting millions of us.
- For those saying we have to focus on defeating Trump, all I gotta say is that we can walk & chew gum at the same time. I think we have to. Defeating that racist and replacing him with the RIGHT person is the goal. For that, we have to recognize our mistakes and do better.
Neera Tanden is the ugly girl no guy wanted to f**k in high school or college who had no achievements -- scholastic or otherwise -- to boast of so she sold whatever was left of her soul to defend the system.
Barack is not in the White House. That he managed to go eight years without being held accountable while president goes to how he rigged and gamed the system.
He is raking in millions each year that no one else is. It's not like he knows a damn thing about creating entertainment content but NETFLIX is paying him millions to do so -- unless they go under first, please let them go under. He's sailing around on Richard Branson's yacht.
He's not doing a damn thing to help anyone. And he never will. He came from a whore mother -- yeah, let's stop being nice, she spread her legs all over Indonesia to spy for the US government, that is why she was there and it's why Barack, immediately after receiving his B.S., went to work for a CIA cut-out. Why is John Pilger the only one who will tell the truth?
The same reason that Amy Goodman put on a CIA whore to cover for Barack's mother. She did. Did Amy know? Amy's basically functionally illiterate so who knows what that piece of trash knows. What I know, what Elaine knows, is that bitch of the 'left' was a CIA agent. We knows that because she was a whore -- an ugly whore, the men she slept with must have been desperate -- and a loud person that we never cared for and when Elaine was dating a member of the British Parliament and we were at a party that creature crashed the party, and Elaine's date slipped and let out that she was working for the CIA. So we know for a fact that she's an old whore for the CIA. All she could do was suck off strangers to get information. She's a dirty whore. That's also what Barack's mother was. Only Stanley wasn't ugly and didn't look like a man. But she did trick people and spy on them and pretend she was there to help while all she was doing was finding out ways to undermine them. She was a whore. Gloria Steinem is as well. She's so mad that she can't escape her CIA past. In the 70s, she would tell friends like me that it was a lie. And we believed her because she was convincing and she was our friend. But as women like Marilyn French, who we respected, refused to let it go, the charge wasn't just something between Gloria and Betty Friedan. Thanks to YOUTUBE, we can now all see Gloria in the sixties bragging about her work for the CIA. She's an ends justifies the means piece of trash. Her dishonesty or the way her spying impacted others (people were killed, Gloria, because of your spying) is not to be dismissed and, fortunately, it's not going to be. She does not get the last word and that reality is tearing her up in side. May it destroy her completely, that's the only justice for her victims.
There are serious questions to ask about the attempt to overthrow the 2016 election and John Brennan and others role in that. It appears to have been a CIA operation. At one point, when the press was a tiny bit more independent, there was concern in 1980 that Poppy Bush was CIA and running for the vice presidency.
There was no such concern over Barack and his ties to the CIA. It appears that Barack and the CIA got a little over confident about what they could get away with it and thought they could get away with running Donald Trump out of office on lies.
This was an assault on our democracy. It had nothing to do with Russia. It is so strange that while the assault was going on, none of our brave press stopped to note how many CIA officials were coming out publicly against Donald Trump. That's not their role. They should have no role, the CIA needs to be shut down. But they went way beyond what had been accepted before and instead of making that point, the press looked the other way.
Yes, some looked the other way because they're on the CIA payroll. Some looked the other way because they thought they were 'helping' the US government. Some looked the other way out of fear. Some looked the other way because they're just too damn stupid to grasp what they see with their own eyes.
But this was a clear assault on the presidency and on democracy.
I can't stand Donald Trump. That goes back years and years.
That has nothing to do with what was done to our presidency and our democracy by the illegal actions of the CIA and members of the Obama administration.
If Donald Trump wants a shot at history in any way, he better be working to expose the liars. They need to be exposed, they need to be put in prison.
If you're a little cry baby who can't grasp how dangerous this was, then you're hurting democracy.
We will always have people elected to be president that we don't like. That's the system we have.
But to allow an administration to weaponize intel against a presidential candidate as was done with Donald Trump is outrageous. And if Donald Trump doesn't have the guts to get to the bottom of this, our democracy doesn't exist. If the people responsible are not punished, this will happen again and, at some point, it's going to happen to a president that you care about.
If you have any ethics at all, you grasp that the situation matters regardless of who is president.
Trump-era "Resistance" media & political culture should be studied for its craven self-interest & political stupidity. Instead of focusing on his actual policies, top Democratic & media figures embraced a moronic conspiracy theory. The result? This:
Donald's now more popular. Great job BUZZFLASH and others. Keep pimping nostalgia for Barack Obama and trying to sell Michelle's bad book. That'll help us get Medicare For All -- no, it won't. I'm so tired of these whores and idiots who appoint themselves as the saviors of the American people and then waste everyone's time ignoring real needs and issues while they attempt to manipulate the electorate.
Want to deal with real issues? Talk about what's being done by the US government to Venezuela.
The Trump admin is trying to overthrow Venezuela's government w/ crippling, murderous sanctions that a leading opposition economist warns could lead to famine. Yet a lot of top progressives have ignored it & even key Democratic leaders support it:
Disgraceful that US coup effort in Venezuela has either been ignored or cheered on by top Dems/pundits. US has just imposed a blockade on top of the murderous sanctions that a leading opposition economist warns could cause famine. (thegrayzone.com/2019/07/23/us-…) Where's the Resistance?
The following sites updated:
