The asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous Period annihilated much of life on Earth. And while we know how that story goes, a team of scientists is now adding a new chapter. One defined by flowers. In fact, the scientists say the seminal space rock that bathed Earth in Dino death is precisely what allowed our home planet to first host the lush, blooming rainforests we know today.
The team of scientists, working at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) in Panama, set out to decipher how tropical rainforests change after drastic ecological perturbations. The Chicxulub Impactor, which wiped out 45% of plants in what is now Colombia, and shrouded the world in darkness, was a perfect opportunity for insight.
To study the changes, the scientists looked at tropical plant fossils from sites in Central and South America; including more than 50,000 pollen fossils, and 6,000 leaf fossils, from both before and after the impact. Upon comparison? The team found that the dino-killer transformed sparse, conifer-rich tropical rainforests into the denser, taller rainforests of today; the same ones that teem with vibrant, technicolor bromeliads and dangling orchids.
Very interesting. Thank you, Philip, because I missed that. Now for Mars where NASA has rovers Curiosity and Perseverance as well as the drone helicopter Ingenuity. Rob Waugh (YAHOO NEWS) reports on Ingenuity:
A battery-powered Nasa helicopter which hopes to become the first vehicle to make a powered flight on another planet has survived its first test - a freezing night on Mars.
The four-pound Ingenuity helicopter was deployed on the surface by Nasa’s Perseverance rover, having previously been attached to the rover’s belly.
Evening temperatures at Jezero Crater can plunge to minus 90C.
This can freeze and crack unprotected electrical components and damage the onboard batteries required for flight.
Ingenuity will be the first aircraft to attempt powered, controlled flight on another planet.
Why is it on its own and this first test? Amanda Kooser (CNET) explains:
NASA's Perseverance rover and the little Ingenuity helicopter have something of a parent-child relationship. The rotorcraft spent its first weeks on Mars tucked into the rover's belly, getting power and being kept warm. Now the ambitious chopper has survived all on its own through a brutal Martian night.
Essentially, Ingenuity has moved out and gone off to college.
Perseverance dropped Ingenuity to the ground over the weekend and backed away to allow the helicopter's solar array to gather sunlight. The first night was a big worry for the Ingenuity team, but NASA announced on Monday the little flying machine had passed the first great hurdle of its era of independence.
Now this is from NASA:
Perseverance's Selfie with Ingenuity: NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover took a selfie with the Ingenuity helicopter, seen here about 13 feet (3.9 meters) from the rover. This image was taken by the WASTON camera on the rover’s robotic arm on April 6, 2021, the 46th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS. Full image and caption ›
NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover took a selfie with the Ingenuity helicopter, seen here about 13 feet (4 meters) away in this image from April 6, 2021, the 46th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. Perseverance captured the image using a camera called WATSON (Wide Angle Topographic Sensor for Operations and eNgineering), part of the SHERLOC (Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals) instrument, located at the end of the rover’s robotic arm.
Perseverance’s selfie with Ingenuity was stitched together from 62 individual images taken while the rover was looking at the helicopter, then again while it was looking at the WATSON camera. Videos explaining how NASA’s Perseverance and Curiosity rovers take their selfies can be found here.
Once the team is ready to attempt the first flight, Perseverance will receive and relay to Ingenuity the final flight instructions from JPL mission controllers. Several factors will determine the precise time for the flight, including modeling of local wind patterns informed by measurements taken by the MEDA (Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer) instrument aboard Perseverance. Ingenuity will run its rotors to 2,537 rpm and, if all final self-checks look good, lift off. After climbing at a rate of about 3 feet per second (1 meter per second), the helicopter will hover at 10 feet (3 meters) above the surface for up to 30 seconds. Then, Ingenuity will descend and touch back down on the Martian surface.
Several hours after the first flight has occurred, Perseverance will downlink Ingenuity’s first set of engineering data and, possibly, images and video from the rover’s Navigation Cameras and Mastcam-Z, a pair of zoomable cameras. From the data downlinked that first evening after the flight, the Ingenuity team expects to be able to determine if its first attempt to fly at Mars was a success. Flight test results will be discussed by the Ingenuity team in a media conference that same day.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory built and manages operations of Perseverance and Ingenuity for the agency. Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages JPL for NASA. WATSON was built by Malin Space Science Systems (MSSS) in San Diego, and is operated jointly by MSSS and JPL.
The Mars helicopter technology demonstration activity is supported by NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate, and Space Technology Mission Directorate.
A key objective for Perseverance’s mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet's geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust).
Subsequent NASA missions, in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.
The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASA’s Moon to Mars exploration approach, which includes Artemis missions to the Moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.
For more about Perseverance:
For more about Ingenuity:
News Media Contacts
Andrew Good
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-2433
andrew.c.good@jpl.nasa.gov
Karen Fox / Alana Johnson
NASA Headquarters, Washington
301-286-6284 / 202-358-1501
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / alana.r.johnson@nasa.gov
So much exciting news.
"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):
Wednesday, April 7, 2021. Oh look, another idiot who never can be bothered with what's going on in Iraq is treating the Iraq War like a football to play another round of xenophobic partisan superbowl.
In yesterday's snapshot, we noted CNN's nonsense regarding Senator Josh Hawley and his college stance on the Iraq War. ALTERNET is and always will be garbage. They don't just steal the writing of others and post it, they also condoned staff harassing a young teenage boy. It was the latter issue that led me to insist to them that they delink from us (we had been on a list of blogs that their site linked to, a blogroll or something). So it's no surprise that they would worm their way into this discussion. One of their bad 'articles' is reposted by SALON. Meaghan Ellis types:
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., may be critical of the Biden administration nominees' support of the Iraq War, but a newly-uncovered blog post shows that at one point he too supported the same war he is now opposing.
According to CNN,
She has nothing to offer on her own. She's just retpying what CNN already offered -- and that was bad on their bad part.
If sweet, stupid Meaghan can jump down from her high horse, could she note for a moment the crackdown on LGBTQs in Iraq? Oh wait, that would require actual work. She can't note anything because she doesn't care enough about the ongoing Iraq War -- or the Iraqi people who continue to suffer -- in order to ever write about the topic.
But she wants to bash Hawley over the head for supporting the Iraq War. In 2005. When he was in college.
When Hunted Biden's many problems started breaking in the news in 2019, the media tried to cover for him repeatedly with them forever insisting it was youthful indiscretions. He was 49 years old at the time -- and his daddy still called him "baby." Now it's time to have a fit over a college kid's opinion from 16 years ago?
As we noted in yesterday's snapshot:
Again, Hawley's view was not my view. I was opposed to the Iraq War. But his view of support in 2005 is in keeping with the majority of Americans at that time.
Joe supported the Iraq War as did the bulk of his Cabinet -- many of them did so, like Joe, from positions of power. Meaghan's yet to write about that and, no doubt, never will. She's not a reporter. Check her past articles, she only writes to attack Republicans. She has no ethical stance, she has no interest or expertise in any topic. But when something's been posted elsewhere online at a US site that paints a Republican in a bad light, she grabs on to the work of others to play attack poodle. Someone please get her spayed. We can't afford her reproducing a littler of attack poodles.
Again, she has nothing to add to anything. No expertise, no "at a hearing a year ago . . .," no context, no analysis. But, hey, she typed it up, she can sleep easy that if her life wasn't wasted -- if her entire goal in life was to be a propaganda engine.
I don't have time for this garbage. Stop pretending you give a damn about how someone felt about Iraq in 2005 when you don't care enough to cover Iraq today -- and that goes for SALON which reposted the story.
Why are you being silent, Meaghan? Oh, that's right, you can't use the attacks on LGBTQ for partisan purposes. But keep pretending you give a damn about the Iraq War or the Iraqi people. Maybe you'll fool some people.
Dana Nawzar is a noted homophobe and is whining that Twitter restricted his account for several hours. He did nothing wrong, he insists, but tell the truth. No, he called the LGBTQ community pedophiles. More to the point, he's so stupid that he called them pedophiles and prostitutes. Prostitutes, please note Stupid Idiot Dana, are paid money to have sex with people. How many seven-year-olds does Stupid Idiot Dana think have enough moeny to pay for the services of a prostitute. Seems like someone's mistaken Melanie Griffith's MILK MONEY for a gritty documentary.
According to Al-Alam Al-Maqawim Network, the American convoys were targeted in the cities of Hillah and Jableh and the Al-Nile region on Wednesday.
The Qasim Al-Jabarin group has claimed responsibility for all three attacks.
But that's okay with Meaghan. She's not going to cover that. She's just going to pretend like she cares from atop her horsie named Hypocrite.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein will tackle security and economic co-operation on Wednesday in the first strategic dialogue between Baghdad and Washington since President Joe Biden entered office.
Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al Kadhimi was the first Arab leader to receive a call from Mr Biden in February.
The dialogue, which will happen online because of Covid-19, was prompted by a request from Iraq to clarify critical issues in the relationship.
The White House said that trade, culture and climate are on the agenda, as well as security and the role of US forces in Iraq.
Perhaps more urgent for Iraq is discussing the US military role amid increasing attacks by pro-Iran militias on joint bases and in the Green Zone, home to the American embassy.
“The meetings will further clarify that coalition forces are in Iraq solely for the purpose of training and advising Iraqi forces to ensure that ISIS cannot reconstitute,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said.
James Jeffrey, a former US ambassador to Iraq, told The National that Baghdad and Washington disagree on how to counter these militias, which are calling for US troops to be withdrawn.
The discussion will be about the continued presence of US troops on Iraqi soil. Despite the continued attacks targeting US troops. Despite the Iraqi people wanting the US -- and all foreign troops -- out of their country.
Meaghan Ellis, you going to tackle that issue any time soon? No?
Journalist Renwar Najm Tweets:
How about that topic, Meaghan? Going to cover that anytime soon?
Probably not. You haven't covered the continued persecution of Julian Assange, have you?
Monday April 5, 2010, WIKILEAKS released US military video of a July 12, 2007 assault in Iraq. 12 people were killed in the assault including two REUTERS journalists Namie Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh.
Meaghan going to cover that? Nope. Okay, keep pretending you do anything of value and keep using Iraq as your partisan football any weekend you decide you want to play. May you get the sports injury you deserve.
It's more important to Meaghan that she attacks someone over their opinion from years and years ago when they were in college. Why is that again? Oh, right -- Joe Biden.
Attack poodles have to work really hard to protect War Hawks. Maybe Meaghan will be out in your drive next, digging through your trash? Probably not. She'll just wait until CNN does and then rewrite CNN's work. She's not just a hypocrite, after all, she's also lazy.
Lt Col Daniel L. Davis writes at THE INSIDER:
The United States will engage in a "strategic dialogue" with Iraq this month, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said last week. The key agenda item, she explained, was the US combat deployment there.
How or whether to extend the operation should not be part of the discussion. Nailing down details of the withdrawal should.
The 3,500 US troops currently in Iraq serve no purpose related to American national security. They don't have a militarily attainable mission which could be recognized and signal the end of the deployment. The only benefactor is the government in Baghdad and even they are ready to show America the exit.
[. . .]
Whatever incremental security benefit may exist with US troops being deployed in Iraq and Syria, they are dwarfed by the strategic risk we incur every minute we remain on the ground there.
We are in a sea of civil conflict in Syria and in danger of semi-regular rocket attacks in Iraq. Our military presence cannot influence the political outcome in either country.
The best thing Biden can do for the security of the United States and to preserve the lives of our service members from unnecessary risk at the security dialogue with Baghdad is to withdraw our troops, in full, from both Iraq and Syria as soon as possible.
I'm known to do a favor or two for a friend. A friend at a music label asked me if I could please note the following video.
I don't know Chase Rice -- not an insult, I'm not an expert on country music. I do know Florida Georgia Line. The song is entitled "Drinkin' Beer. Talking God. Amen." It's a well written song -- melody and lyrics and Chase Rice wrote it with Hunter Phelps, Cale Dodds and Corey Crowder.
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