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Comet Leonard Acting Strange

Comet Leonard is not brightening like scientists thought it would.

Comet Leonard shines bright in this image from the European Space Agency's Near-Earth Object Coordination Centre using the Calar Alto Schmidt telescope in Spain. It was created by stacking 90 5-second exposure images of the comet taken on Dec. 7, 2021 on top of each other. (Image credit: ESA/NEOCC)


Something strange is happening to skywatchers' most anticipated comet of the year.


Astronomers first spotted what's been dubbed Comet Leonard in January 2021, and soon skywatchers were eagerly anticipating December and January, when the comet was due to pass by first Earth, then the sun. 

But by late November, observers noticed something strange. The comet should be getting brighter as it approaches the sun — and it is, but apparently only because it's getting closer to Earth, not because it's becoming inherently brighter.


Instead, it seems to be fading.  READ MORE...

Owl Fluffing

 

Sleeping like Salvador Dali

Salvador Dalí used various napping techniques, including waking up in the N1 stage of sleep, in order to spark creativity. (Image credit: Bettmann / Contributor via Getty Images)

A sleep technique described by surrealist artist Salvador Dalí and famous inventor Thomas Edison might actually work to inspire creativity, researchers have found.

To get the creativity boost, you essentially need to wake up just as a certain sleep stage sets in, where reality seems to blend into fantasy.

To use the technique, visionaries such as Dalí and Edison would hold an object, such as a spoon or a ball, while falling asleep in a chair. As they drifted off, the object would fall, make a noise and wake them up. Having spent a few moments on the brink of unconsciousness, they would be ready to start their work.

This early sleep stage, known as the hypnagogia state or N1, lasts only a few minutes before you drift off to deeper sleep, but it may be the "ideal cocktail for creativity," the researchers wrote in the study, published Dec. 8 in the journal Science Advances. Humans spend about 5% of a night's sleep in N1, but it's an extremely understudied sleep stage, said senior author Delphine Oudiette, a sleep researcher at the Paris Brain Institute.  READ MORE...

Beach Wheel

 

Mummies with Golden Tongues

It’s no secret that untold treasure lies beneath the city of El-Bahnasa, Egypt. An archaeological mission from Spain has now excavated the site for 30 years and found many tombs from different dynasties and papyrus texts that still puzzle experts. And last week, they unearthed two 2,500-year-old mummies with golden tongues.

According to The Times of Israel, the two mummies, a man and a woman, were each laid to rest in a limestone sarcophagus in what was then called Oxyrhynchus. They died around 525 B.C. at the tail-end of the Saite dynasty, which was the last time native Egyptians reigned over their kingdom before the Persian conquest in the 6th century B.C.

The Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities said golden tongues allowed the dead to speak to Osiris, the god of the underworld who judged travelers to the afterlife. While the 402 funerary figurines, amulets, and scarabs found within the tombs were also stunning, the state of the male sarcophagus captivated experts the most.

“This is very important because it’s rare to find a tomb that is totally sealed,” said excavation director Esther Pons Melado on Sunday.  READ MORE...

The Glass Slipper

 

Sunday in the Valley

Even when I was working, on Sundays, I typically did very little physical activity unless there was something that I did not finish on Saturday...  otherwise, Sundays were spent, not sleeping late, but on just sitting around relaxing either writing, reading, or watching some movie on the television...  sometimes, we would visit friends or they would visit us, and sometimes, we might go shopping and out to eat at a local restaurant...  maybe a brunch somewhere...  not necessarily a buffet as one always tends to eat more than one should.

After being retired and finding almost everyday is like a Sunday, I have no longer seen Sundays as being something special...  however, I am sure I have just pissed off those who go to Church each Sunday...  my experience with institutionalized religions (ie:  Churches) is that most of the congregation is being hypocritical or is attending just to be seen by their neighbors, and those that are preaching from the pulpit only talk about things that are comfortable and have no controversy attached to them like was Jesus married...

I also find it unsettling how we selected certain books to be in The Bible while leaving others out that did not fit the narrative that they wanted to create and then try to convince us that The Bible was divinely inspired and was written by God through the hands of man...

Those who win the wars write the History Books and slant history as they see it...  the same thing holds true of The Bible and the books in The Bible and how they were written...  BUT, the main issue that I have with the divinely inspired Bible and the tales contained therein, is that the timeline is ABSOLUTELY WRONG...   in that, The Bible says that the universe is only 6,000 years old...  6th grade science proves that to be incorrect.

So...  what else is incorrect???

HOWEVER, I do believe that there is a creator or some sort and disregard the scientific concept of spontaneous creation...  something cannot just come for nothing...  something can only come from something...  but again, where did the first something come from and how in the hell did it get here?

So...  Sundays are not spent reflecting on religious ideologies...  not anymore...  but, I am grateful for the life that I have been given and after experiencing that life for 74 years still wonder why I was not given a choice in deciding if I wanted to be born or not...  I had no control over that decision...  nor did I have any control on being born white or to the parents I was given or to my physical location of birth...  the USA rather than Russia or China...

I am glad that I am white.

I am glad that I am an American.

I am glad that I am middle class.

I am glad that I was given a strong body and mind.

BUT WHY ME?

The Woman

 

Plankton Creates Mountains

A world without the great mountain ranges – the Himalayas, the Alps, the Rockies, the Andes – is unimaginable, but they were not always a part of the Earth’s geography. Mountains didn’t start forming widely until 2 billion years ago, half way through the planet’s history. Now our research has revealed how primitive life played a key role in their introduction to the planet.

While the formation of mountains is usually associated with the collision of tectonic plates causing huge slabs of rock to be thrust skywards, our study has shown that this was triggered by an abundance of nutrients in the oceans 2 billion years ago which caused an explosion of planktonic life.

Timeline for the formation of mountains on Earth. J Johnston/University of Aberdeen, Author provided

Making mountains
Mountains are not just a beautiful backdrop for recreation, they are essential to the way the world works, through their influence on weather, climate, the distribution of fresh water and the erosion of rock to make cultivable soil.

Before there were mountains, the plate movements that reshape the distribution of oceans and continents only occurred on a limited scale. But the movement of these plates are essential to making mountains. The pressure of one plate pushing against another – typically an ocean plate hitting a continental plate – causes slabs of ocean rock to break off and stack up on top of each other as they are pushed from behind.  READ MORE...

Classic Sunday Morning Newspaper Cartoons

 

Nutrient Poor Soil

If you're up to speed on nutrition news, you've probably heard talk that large-scale, industrial agriculture can deplete crops of essential vitamins and minerals that our bodies need to thrive. 

But why, exactly, does that happen, and what can be done about it?  For such a massive problem, the solution is actually microscopic. How soil microbes contribute to healthy, nutrient-dense food.

In its natural state, soil is full of invisible but indispensable microbes. Like, really full of them. There are more microorganisms in a handful of healthy soil than humans who have ever lived, and the microbes on our planet outnumber the stars in our universe more than a million times over.

In healthy, symbiotic systems, plant roots feed these soil microbes sugars and give them a place to latch onto. In return, the microbes help the plants absorb nutrients in the surrounding soil. 

All life on Earth depends on this mutually beneficial relationship—but some agricultural practices can mess with it.  READ MORE...

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