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Geology

The Wave, Arizona: a painting by the wind

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The wave is located in the United States of America, at the Arizona and Utah border, in the Paria Canyon-Vermillion Cliffs Wilderness. The site became very famous due to its rare rock formation, ancient history, and beautiful views. Want to give waves a new significance in your life? This gorgeous site will blow your mind, surfing rock waves can make a better and more impressive picture this spring or fall, comparing to surfing water waves, which everyone is doing. If you are tired of the ordinary, this place is for you!

The Wave dates back to the Jurassic Period, why not experience the dinosaurs’ age first hand and become part of history at the same time? At first sight, people believe that the rock formation was created due to water, but that is not the case. Researchers explain that the troughs are actually eroded by wind. The direction of the wind designed the fascinating wave-like shapes. Therefore, this illustrates the development of the eolian sandstone, rock formations deposited by the wind, creating the sequence of layers called laminae. From the images and the analysis of The Wave, the direction of the wind changed over time, which is demonstrated by the different laminations formed. I know you would love to see if you can change the direction of the waves yourself, touching the layers, forming shapes, but be careful, they might break and you might ruin the long process of their formation. It is best to respect the course of nature and dedicate your time to viewing and not destroying the site. People have been distorting nature and customizing it for themselves enough; here at The Wave the wonders of the earthly forces are best represented.

Tourists who want to visit The Wave, must have a hiking permit, and schedule their tour in advance with some months. The best times to visit are spring and fall, since in the summer the temperatures are too high and it might be very dangerous. Winter could also be a possibility, yet the nights are very cold. There were instances in which people ventured out into The Wave without permission or without a guide and they sadly met an untimely demise. It can be a deadly place if the people are not properly prepared for emergencies. Even though it can take some planning into visiting The Wave, it will be a unique experience. Being able to witness a site, which survived for millions of years, is a chance of a lifetime. Become part of history, get in touch with nature, and explore your inner peace!

Who doesn’t enjoy listening to a good story. Personally I love reading about the people who inspire me and what it took for them to achieve their success. As I am a bit of a self confessed tech geek I think there is no better way to discover these stories than by reading every day some articles or the newspaper . My bookcases are filled with good tech biographies, they remind me that anyone can be a success. So even if you come from an underprivileged part of society or you aren’t the smartest person in the room we all have a chance to reach the top. The same message shines in my beliefs. All it takes to succeed is a good idea, a little risk and a lot of hard work and any geek can become a success. VENI VIDI VICI .

Geology

Mexican Congress hears UFOs with ‘alien’ bodies

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(Reuters). Mexico’s first congressional UFO hearing featured “we are not alone” and alleged non-human remains.

Politicians were shown two artifacts that Mexican journalist and longtime UFO enthusiast Jaime Maussan claimed were extraterrestrial corpses at the Tuesday hearing on FANI.

Maussan said The specimens were unrelated to Earthly life.

Two tiny “bodies,” displayed in cases, have elongated heads and three fingers each. Maussan said they were found in Peru near Nazca Lines in 2017. He estimated their age at 1,000 years using Mexico’s National Autonomous University’s carbon dating.

Mummified children were once found.

Maussan presented such evidence first.

“I think there is a clear demonstration that we are dealing with non-human specimens that are NOT related to any other species in our world and that any scientific institution can investigate it,” Maussan said.

“We are not alone,” he said.

“I can affirm that these bodies have no relation to human beings.”

Thursday, UNAM republished a 2017 statement saying its National Laboratory of Mass Spectrometry with Accelerators (LEMA) only wanted sample ages.

“In no case do we make conclusions about said samples’ origin,” it said.

Congress heard from former Navy pilot Ryan Graves about UAP sightings and the stigma of reporting them.

Sergio Gutierrez, a Morena congressman for President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, hoped the hearing would be the first of many in Mexico.

“We are left with reflections, concerns, and how to continue discussing this,” Gutierrez said.

Recent years have seen the U.S. government release UAP data after decades of denial. In recent years, NASA’s first independent UFO panel and the Pentagon have investigated military aviator sightings.

NASA will discuss study results Thursday.

Skeptics slammed Maussan’s Wednesday presentation.

“This could really hurt efforts to take the issue seriously,” tweeted. “Why didn’t they publish it after a scientific paper?”

X-rays, 3-D reconstruction, and DNA analysis were done on the remains, according to Mexican navy Scientific Institute for Health Director Jose de Jesus Zalce Benitez.

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Biology

New Evidence Modifies Homo sapiens Chronology and Behavior

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Homo sapien skulls from Jebed Irhoud
Two reconstructed Homo sapiens skulls recovered from the excavations at Jebel Irhoud, Morocco.

Earlier this month, researchers published an article outlining new evidence from an excavation in Jebel Irhoud (Morocco) that provides the earliest date yet for the presence of Homo sapiens. A variety of dating methods provide an age of about 315,000 years ago (kya). Prior to this, the earliest securely dated evidence for Homo sapiens were the bones from the Omo Kibish site in Ethiopia dating to about 195 kya.

The decades-long excavation at Jebel Irhoud has uncovered various types of palaeo archaeological data. The skeletal material (e.g. skull, mandible, teeth, humerus, hip bone) shows that there were at least five individuals. The assemblage of stone tools includes examples of the Mousterian industry and the Levallois napping technique. Both of these are closely associated with Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis), though are not exclusive to the species. Also, the majority of the tools were made from stone not native to the Jebed Irhoud area. Other recovered evidence includes examples of fire use and animal bones (primarily gazelle) showing signs of hunting and butchering.

Dating Methods

A variety of dating techniques helped establish the age of the new assemblage at 315 kya. The research team measured sediment from the different stratigraphic levels for the quantity of radiation present. They used electron spin resonance on bone samples. Finally, the researchers applied thermoluminescence to the stone tools that were in direct association with the bones. Unfortunately, the research team was unable to extract DNA from the bones.

Homo sapiens stone tools from Jebel Irhoud, Morocco

Samples of stone tools recovered from Jebel Irhoud (Morocco).

Importance of Evidence

The importance of the evidence is twofold. First, it secures a mature development of Homo sapiens over 100,000 years earlier than previous evidence indicated. The date does not remove the firm placement of Homo sapiens within the Middle Pleistocene and during the Middle Palaeolithic. However, a date of 315 kya does provide overlap with the existence of Homo heidelbergensis. Previous evidence indicated that Homo sapiens developed from Homo heidelbergensis between 300 – 200 kya. The Jebel Irhoud data do not exclude this hypothesis but it means that Homo sapiens must have developed much earlier, probably closer to the nadir of Homo antecessor. It also means that Homo sapiens had much longer contemporaneity with Homo erectus than previously known.

The second important aspect is the location of the finds. Morocco is around 3,400 miles from Ethiopia. The prevailing models of human evolution place the development of Homo sapiens in Ethiopia. This makes sense based on the quantity and age of data recovered from sites in Ethiopia and in East Africa. The location of the new finds, and the fact that the fossils represent developed Homo sapiens, indicate that our ancestors had already moved across the continent in viable population sizes so the broad evolutionary changes that resulted in our species had already occurred.

The Jebel Irhoud evidence does not lessen the importance of East Africa in understanding the development of our species. Rather, it contributes data to provide a richer, more robust picture of hominid development and migrations across Africa and the world. It is quite exciting to imagine what else the excavation will recover to further elucidate the history of hominids and Homo sapiens. What are your thoughts?

Nature

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Astronomy

Volcanic rocks’ primordial water suggests life might be more common

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Life on other planets is considered to be a certainty, and with new evidence of the infinitely intricate details of the universe and their influence on Earth come to light more often as ever, it is undoubtable. However, in a new study involving volcanic rocks and the types of isotopes they contain revealed that life could be more common in the universe than we might have expected.

Volcanic rocks examined by Lydia Hallis and her planetary scientist colleagues revealed that the Earth might have been “born with water”. In the theory they put forward in the latest issue of Science magazine, they argue that the isotopes discovered within volcanic rocks found in Iceland and Baffin Island suggest water had been part of Earth since it first started forming within the protosolar nebula.

Based on the light hydrogen isotope ratio discovered in the volcanic rocks we mentioned earlier, the primordial water within trapped within the rocks came from the protosolar nebula. The researchers demonstrated in their paper last week that the hydrogen isotope ratio in the volcanic rocks was much lighter than ocean water, making it much older. The discovery could hold against the theory that the water on our planet came from numerous water-contaminated asteroid collisions.

The breakthrough came after scientists evaporated volcanic rocks and examined the trapped water in their insides, revealing that Earth has not in fact gathered its water isotopes over the years due to debris from outer space impacting its surface, as previous theories believed. In fact, the primordial water from within the volcanic rocks of Iceland might be straight out of the Protosolar Nebula – or the gas and hydrogen molecular clouds that eventually became the Solar System.

The theory suggests that if the Solar System’s nebular history of formation is considered, then we should be able to find many different solar systems with planets like Earth orbiting around. These planets could have actually harbored the same primordial water at one point in time in the past few billion years, and if their geology was as fortunate as Earth’s, they might have evolved in the same way our own planet has. Water may signify the presence of biological life, thus the chances of finding planets similar to Earth might be slightly higher.  The theory cannot be considered definite proof, of course, but it does propose an interesting idea.

If planets within solar systems are formed from the same materials as the primordial protosolar nebula, and are capable of retaining water in a similar manner to Earth, the possibility of finding life closer to home is greatly increased. However, that doesn’t mean that we might be closer to intelligence. You might have heard theories about inferior forms of life being closer to us than we had ever thought – on Mars, for instance. In the future, we might discover primordial water on the Red Planet.

The volcanic rocks that the scientists base their theory on can now be considered as the first evidence of primordial water on Earth. If you want to get in on the science behind analyzing these unique volcanic rocks, you can read the full study in Science magazine. The discovery is significant and brings us one step closer to identifying the first planet, aside from Earth, harboring biological life.

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