Saturday 17 August 2019

A massive star completely destroyed by a supernova is puzzling scientists

A massive star completely destroyed by a supernova is puzzling scientists
astronomy.com ^ | August 16, 2019 | Korey Haynes
Posted on 8/17/2019, 9:20:34 AM
In November of 2016, the sharp-eyed Gaia spacecraft spied a supernova that exploded some billion light-years from Earth. Astronomers followed up with more telescopes, and quickly realized that this supernova – dubbed SN2016iet – was an odd one in many ways.
For one, the star that caused the supernova seemed to orbit far in the hinterlands of its tiny, previously unknown dwarf galaxy, some 54,000 light-years from its center. Most massive stars are born in denser clusters of stars, and it’s a puzzle how this one came to form so far out.
And this star was extremely massive, starting life as some 200 times the mass of the Sun, near the upper limit of what scientists think is possible for a single star to weigh.
The supernova itself also left what appeared to be the signature of two explosions, separated by about 100 days. Astronomers think this isn’t actually due to multiple explosions, but from the explosion hitting different layers of material the star lost in the years leading up to its death and left scattered around it in a diffuse cloud.
The star meets many of the criteria for something called a pair-instability supernova, a kind of explosion that some extremely massive stars should theoretically undergo. Such an event leaves the star completely destroyed, leaving nothing behind. But finding examples of these rare stellar explosions has been difficult, and this is still one of the first scientists have discovered. And even in that rare company, SN2016iet remains an oddball find.

(Excerpt) Read more at astronomy.com ...

A massive star completely destroyed by a supernova is puzzling scientists

https://astronomy.com/news/2019/08/a-massive-star-completely-destroyed-by-a-supernova-is-puzzling-scientists

The death blast of a star some 200 times the mass of the Sun, challenges theories about how such massive stars die.

By Korey Haynes | Published: Friday, August 16, 2019

Super Supernova

SN2016iet gave off a tremendous amount of energy when it exploded, and has been taking a long time to fade away. That and other details led astronomers to think this is a rare example of a pair-instability supernova. Usually when massive stars explode, they leave something behind – either a dense core called a neutron star or a black hole.

But sometimes, scientists’ theories predict that massive and low-metallicity stars (those with few elements other than hydrogen and helium) can begin making pairs of matter and antimatter in their last days. This causes a runaway effect where the pressure drops in the star’s core, causing a collapse, leading to an enormous explosion that completely destroys the star, leaving nothing behind, not even a black hole.

A star must be 130-260 times the mass of the Sun to die in such a manner. And such a massive star will burn through its fuel quickly, living for only a few million years.

Its enormous size is part of what makes SN2016iet’s isolated location so puzzling. Usually massive stars are born in dense clusters, not far off on their own. And since SN2016iet’s star would have lived such a short life, it should have nearby sibling stars that outlived it. It’s possible the star was kicked out of its original home, but again its short life span limits how far it could have traveled. To actually get so far from its apparent host galaxy, it would have to have been kicked out at a speed far surpassing anything scientists have yet measured.

The most plausible explanation is that the star formed just where astronomers see it, and that in fact it’s part of a satellite galaxy or cluster that’s simply too dim to see.

Oddities Remain

A star headed for such a cataclysm is also expected to shed mass over the thousands of years before its death, throwing off material through dense solar winds. But longer-term observations of the star resulted in a double peak of brightness that Gomez says is from the supernova’s light producing shocks as it hit different layers of material. And that material is still quite thick and close to the star, implying that it instead shed all that mass in less than 20 years, instead of thousands. Gomez says that’s another part of the puzzle.

SN2016iet is one of the best examples of a real-life pair instability supernova, and it also challenges many of the details about how these stars actually look when they explode. Gomez and his team have already been approved for a slot on the Hubble Space Telescope. They’ll use their time to perform more follow-up observations, and also look for the satellite galaxy or cluster they suspect housed the supernova’s progenitor star. Gomez says the observations should be taken within the next six months or so, hopefully answering more questions about this strange star.

August 17, 1920 ~ Happy Birthday Maureen O'Hara!!!

August 17, 1920 ~ Happy Birthday Maureen O'Hara!!!

Early Life
Born Maureen FitzSimons, on August 17, 1920, in Ranelagh, Ireland. The second oldest of six children, Maureen was raised in a close-knit Irish Catholic family. Her father, Charles, was a businessman, and her mother, Marguerite, was an accomplished stage actress and opera singer. Maureen displayed a penchant for dramatics at an early age when she staged presentations for her family; in school she was active in singing and dancing.

While still in her early teens, Maureen enrolled at Dublin's prestigious Abbey Theatre School, where she studied drama and music. Upon her graduation in 1937, she was offered a lead role with the Abbey Players, but instead she decided to try her hand at film acting. She then moved to London, where she screen tested for an English feature. Although the film was never produced, her impressive audition caught the attention of Oscar-winning movie star and producer Charles Laughton. After convincing Maureen to change her surname to O'Hara, Laughton helped launch Maureen's career by recommending her for the role of the orphaned Mary Yelland in Alfred Hitchcock's British-made film Jamaica Inn (1939). Although the film met with lackluster reviews, O'Hara was noted for her convincing performance.

Film Debut
Under the tutelage of Laughton, O'Hara signed a contract with RKO Studios in 1939. She moved to Hollywood in the summer of that year, making her American film debut as the alluring gypsy Esmeralda (opposite Laughton's Quasimodo) in RKO's lavish production The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

In 1941, O'Hara gave a haunting performance as the Welsh daughter of a mining family in the drama How Green Was My Valley, which marked her first collaboration with legendary director John Ford. The film triumphed at the Oscars, winning top honors in five categories, including Best Picture and Best Director.

While fulfilling contract commitments with both RKO Studios and 20th Century-Fox, O'Hara was billed alongside Hollywood's leading men in a slew of swashbuckling features. Among the most notable were 1942's The Black Swan (with Tyrone Power), 1947's Sinbad the Sailor (with Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.), and 1949's Bagdad (with Vincent Price). In between action films, O'Hara was assigned a role in the 1947 holiday classic Miracle on 34th Street, in which she played a single working mother whose strong rational beliefs are challenged by Santa Claus.

During the 1940s and 1950s, O'Hara was repeatedly cast as the heroine in elaborate Technicolor features. Her strong-willed characters, which were complimented by her fiery red hair, green eyes, and peaches and cream complexion, earned her the nickname "Queen of Technicolor." O'Hara gave saucy performances in adventures like Buffalo Bill (1944), The Spanish Main (1945), The Flame of Araby (1951), and The Redhead From Wyoming (1952).

In 1950, O'Hara entered a new phase of her career when she was cast as John Wayne's estranged wife in John Ford's romantic Western Rio Grande. O'Hara shared great screen chemistry with Wayne and served as his leading lady in a succession of films over the next few years. Also under Ford's direction, Wayne and O'Hara starred in the lyrical drama The Quiet Man (1952) and in the critically panned The Wings of Eagles (1957).

Singing and Comedy Roles

In the early 1960s, O'Hara shifted her career focus. She showcased her attractive singing voice in a series of television appearances, record albums, and the Broadway musical Christine (1960). Later that year, she was featured opposite Alec Guinness in the offbeat film adaptation of Graham Greene's novel Our Man In Havana. A number of lighter roles in family comedies followed, including the 1961 Hayley Mills vehicle The Parent Trap, 1962's Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation (with James Stewart), and 1970's How Do I Love Thee? (with Jackie Gleason).

O'Hara reunited with long-time friend and costar John Wayne in the comedies McLintock! (1963) and Big Jake (1971). Shortly after, O'Hara retired to St. Croix, Virgin Islands with her third husband, aviator Charles F. Blair, whom she married in 1968. Upon Blair's death in 1978, O'Hara briefly assumed her late husband's position as president of Antilles Airboats (a Caribbean commuter airline). She also wrote a general interest column for the tourist magazine The Virgin Insider.

Following a 20-year hiatus, O'Hara returned to film acting with a role in the bittersweet comedy Only the Lonely (1991). For the remainder of the 1990s, she landed parts in a string of television movies, including The Christmas Box (1995) and Cab to Canada (1998). Most recently, she starred as a retired high school teacher in the TV movie The Last Dance (2000).

In 2014 O'Hara received an honorary Academy Award for her seven-decade career of onscreen roles that “glowed with passion, warmth and strength.”

Personal Life

O'Hara was briefly married to George Hanley Brown in 1938 (their marriage was annulled in 1941). Later that year, she wed director William Price. The couple had a daughter, Bronwyn Price, before they divorced in 1953. O'Hara's third marriage to aviator Charles F. Blair ended tragically when Blair died in a plane crash on September 2, 1978. Blair held the notable distinction of being the first pilot to make a solo flight over the Arctic Ocean and the North Pole.

Death

On October 24, 2015, O'Hara died in her sleep in her Boise, Idaho home at the age of 95.

"Her characters were feisty and fearless, just as she was in real life," her family said in a statement. "She was also proudly Irish and spent her entire lifetime sharing her heritage and the wonderful culture of the Emerald Isle with the world."

Link: https://www.biography.com/actor/maureen-ohara

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Obama worries Biden’s 2020 bid could ‘damage his legacy’: report

New York Post https://nypost.com/2019/08/17/obama-worries-bidens-2020-bid-could-damage-his-legacy-report/

By Mary Kay Linge August 17, 2019

Joe Biden (left) and Barack Obama,

NurPhoto via Getty Images

Former President Barack Obama tried to talk Joe Biden out of jumping into the race for the Democratic presidential nomination — and fears his veep could “damage his legacy” with his White House bid, according to a report.

“You don’t have to do this, Joe, you really don’t,” the former president told Biden before the front-runner entered the race, insiders told the New York Times.

Biden has repeatedly cited his relationship with his old boss as he touts his credentials on the campaign trail — but Obama has asked Biden staffers to make sure the gaffe-prone veep does not “damage his legacy” or “embarrass himself” during his run.

They have been unable to prevent him from making verbal blunders, like his claim last week that “poor kids are just as bright … as white kids” and his insistence that there are “at least three” genders.

The former president has told insiders of his worries that Biden’s top aides are “too old and out of touch with the current political climate.”

Obama has not endorsed any of the two dozen Democrats vying for the nomination.

Baked sweet potatoes with chilli

(vegetarian recipe)

PUBLISHED: 01:52 BST, 22 January 2019
https://www.dailymail.co.uk..

Serves four

Ingredients
4 x 150g sweet potatoes
Calorie-controlled cooking spray
1 red pepper, deseeded and cut into chunks
1 small onion, thinly sliced
2 garlic cloves, crushed
2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp chilli flakes
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp dried oregano
2 x 400g tins chopped tomatoes
2 x 400g tins kidney beans, drained and rinsed
60g grated vegan Cheddar, to serve
3 spring onions, trimmed and finely sliced, to serve
Handful fresh coriander leaves, to serve

Directions
Preheat the oven to 200c/180c fan/ gas 6. Mist the sweet potatoes with cooking spray, then prick with a fork.

Bake directly on the middle rack of the oven for 1 hour (put a baking tray on the rack below to catch any juices). Mist a non-stick frying pan with cooking spray and set over a medium heat.

Cook the pepper and onion for 6-8 minutes. Add the garlic, spices and oregano and cook for a minute more. Stir in the tomatoes and beans, season and simmer for 20 minutes until the chilli is thick.

Remove the potatoes from the oven, split and top with chilli, cheese, spring onions and coriander.

CITES conference to strengthen wildlife trade rules for fisheries, timber, exotic pets, elephants and more

Geneva, 7 August 2019 – The 183 Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) will adopt decisions and resolutions to expand and further strengthen the global wildlife trade regime at CITES’ triennial World Wildlife Conference at Palexpo in Geneva from 17 to 28 August.

https://www.cites.org/eng/news/pr/cites-conference-to-strengthen-wildlife-trade-rules-for-fisheries-timber-exotic-pets-elephants-and-more_07082019

Governments have submitted 56 new proposals to change the levels of protection that CITES provides for species of wild animals and plants that are in international trade. Many of these proposals seek to ensure that trade in at-risk species remains sustainable by requiring trade permits through a CITES Appendix II listing. Others recommend banning all commercial trade in specimens of species threatened by extinction by listing them on Appendix I. Still others aim to provide evidence that a population has stabilized or expanded and can be safely transferred from Appendix I to Appendix II.

Species-specific issues and proposals for amending Appendices I and II

... (see article for list)

Africa and Asia’s large charismatic mammals

... (see article for list)

The trade in exotic pets

Fisheries

Tree species

About CITES
With 183 Parties, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) remains one of the world's most powerful tools for wildlife conservation through the regulation of trade. Thousands of species are internationally traded and used by people in their daily lives for food, health care, housing, tourist souvenirs, cosmetics or fashion. CITES regulates international trade in over 35,000 species of plants and animals, including their products and derivatives, to ensure their survival in the wild with benefits for the livelihoods of local people and the global environment. The CITES permit system seeks to ensure that international trade in listed species is sustainable, legal and traceable. CITES was signed in Washington D.C. on 3 March 1973 and entered into force on 1 July 1975.

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Moon Glows Brighter Than Sun in Images From NASA's Fermi

Aug. 15, 2019, By Francis Reddy
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2019/moon-glows-brighter-than-sun-in-images-from-nasas-fermi

If our eyes could see high-energy radiation called gamma rays, the Moon would appear brighter than the Sun! That’s how NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has seen our neighbor in space for the past decade.

Gamma-ray observations are not sensitive enough to clearly see the shape of the Moon’s disk or any surface features. Instead, Fermi’s Large Area Telescope (LAT) detects a prominent glow centered on the Moon’s position in the sky.

Mario Nicola Mazziotta and Francesco Loparco, both at Italy’s National Institute of Nuclear Physics in Bari, have been analyzing the Moon’s gamma-ray glow as a way of better understanding another type of radiation from space: fast-moving particles called cosmic rays.

“Cosmic rays are mostly protons accelerated by some of the most energetic phenomena in the universe, like the blast waves of exploding stars and jets produced when matter falls into black holes,” explained Mazziotta.

Because the particles are electrically charged, they’re strongly affected by magnetic fields, which the Moon lacks. As a result, even low-energy cosmic rays can reach the surface, turning the Moon into a handy space-based particle detector. When cosmic rays strike, they interact with the powdery surface of the Moon, called the regolith, to produce gamma-ray emission. The Moon absorbs most of these gamma rays, but some of them escape.

Mazziotta and Loparco analyzed Fermi LAT lunar observations to show how the view has improved during the mission. They rounded up data for gamma rays with energies above 31 million electron volts — more than 10 million times greater than the energy of visible light — and organized them over time, showing how longer exposures improve the view.

“Seen at these energies, the Moon would never go through its monthly cycle of phases and would always look full,” said Loparco.

These images show the steadily improving view of the Moon’s gamma-ray glow from NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. Each 5-by-5-degree image is centered on the Moon and shows gamma rays with energies above 31 million electron volts, or tens of millions of times that of visible light. At these energies, the Moon is actually brighter than the Sun. Brighter colors indicate greater numbers of gamma rays. This image sequence shows how longer exposure, ranging from two to 128 months (10.7 years), improved the view.

Credits: NASA/DOE/Fermi LAT Collaboration

As NASA sets its sights on sending humans to the Moon by 2024 through the Artemis program, with the eventual goal of sending astronauts to Mars, understanding various aspects of the lunar environment take on new importance. These gamma-ray observations are a reminder that astronauts on the Moon will require protection from the same cosmic rays that produce this high-energy gamma radiation.

While the Moon’s gamma-ray glow is surprising and impressive, the Sun does shine brighter in gamma rays with energies higher than 1 billion electron volts. Cosmic rays with lower energies do not reach the Sun because its powerful magnetic field screens them out. But much more energetic cosmic rays can penetrate this magnetic shield and strike the Sun’s denser atmosphere, producing gamma rays that can reach Fermi.

Although the gamma-ray Moon doesn’t show a monthly cycle of phases, its brightness does change over time. Fermi LAT data show that the Moon’s brightness varies by about 20% over the Sun’s 11-year activity cycle. Variations in the intensity of the Sun’s magnetic field during the cycle change the rate of cosmic rays reaching the Moon, altering the production of gamma rays.

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Student reveals the face of Iron Age female druid

August 16, 2019, by Dominic Glasgow, University of Dundee

https://phys.org/news/2019-08-student-reveals-iron-age-female.html

A digital reconstruction of 'Hilda' by MSc Forensic Art student Karen Fleming. Credit: University of Dundee

A University of Dundee student has revealed the face of one of Scotland's oldest druids, believed to have been more than 60 years old when she died during the Iron Age.

Karen Fleming, an MSc Forensic Art & Facial Identification student, has recreated the head of a woman believed to have been from Stornoway, on the Isle of Lewis.

The 3-D wax reconstruction depicts a toothless female, nicknamed "Hilda," believed to have been well into her 60s, an impressive feat itself. Karen says Hilda, although thousands of years old, displays many physical attributes that remain recognizable today.

Karen, from Edinburgh, said, "Hilda was a fascinating character to recreate. It's clear from the skull she was toothless before she died, which isn't too surprising considering the diet of folk back then but it was impressive how long she lived. A female's life expectancy at this time was roughly 31 years but it is now thought that living longer during the Iron Age is indicative of a privileged background.

"It's impossible to know for sure when she died as we were unable to carbon date the skull, but assuming the information in the journal from 1833 is correct, Hilda passed away anytime between 55BC to 400AD and was of Celtic origin. I think she looks like many older women I've met in my life and I'm proud of that."

Credit: University of Dundee

Painstakingly reproducing features in wax, Karen said this year's heatwave almost melted Hilda before she had been brought back to life.

"It's funny to say it now but I had to keep parts of Hilda, like her wax modeled ears, in the fridge for most of the summer. As a mature student who commutes from Edinburgh, I often had to keep her cool in the car, strapped up in the passenger seat. I'm sure that's a sight passers-by won't forget seeing."

Hilda will go on display at this year's Masters Show, one of Scotland's most exciting displays of artistic talent. More than 80 students will showcase their work during the week, which runs from Friday 16 to Sunday 25 August.

Hilda was recreated from an ancient skull held at The University of Edinburgh's Anatomical Museum and is described as one of six "Druids of the Hebrides' skulls presented to the Phrenological Society of Edinburgh in 1833.

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Anti-sex toilets will soak users with water jets and sound alarm

The new loos in the Welsh town of Porthcawl are also designed to prevent anti-social behaviour such as vandalism and drug taking.

By Emily Mee, Sky News reporter https://news.sky.com/story/anti-sex-toilets-will-soak-users-with-water-jets-and-sound-alarm-11786941

Friday 16 August 2019 20:35, UK

The toilets will sound an alarm, spray water and open doors if they detect violent movement

A seaside town is planning to install public toilets that will stop sexual activity by spraying amorous occupants with water and sounding an alarm.

The new loos in the Welsh town of Porthcawl are also designed to prevent anti-social behaviour such as vandalism and drug taking.

The toilets will have weight-sensitive floors to make sure only one person is using each cubicle at a time.

Any violent movement will set off a water jet to soak users, sound an alarm and automatically open the doors.

The water jets will also be used to prevent smoking and drug-taking, and the walls and floors will be resistant to graffiti.

Planning documents for the facilities say rough sleepers will be deterred by a time limit on how long a person can use the cubicles for.

A time lock would also open and shut the toilets every morning and evening.

Some questions are being raised as to how the facilities' weight sensor would work.

Twitter user Leah said: "Weight sensitive floors to detect more than 1 user? What baseline weight are they using?

"I'm easily the weight of 2 teenagers! And what about people who need assistance? I have to go in with my kids."

Another Twitter user said: "If some poor old person falls over in the loo they will probably get a free jet wash at the same time."

Meanwhile Jarrod Smith tweeted that "as an ample lad I am worried my weight might set off the 'two in a cubicle' alarms!".

A total of £170,000 is being spent on the futuristic toilets, with £135,000 paid by the town council and £35,000 paid by Bridgend Council.

They will replace the site's current facilities, which the town council says have outlived their lifespan.
People will have to pay to use the toilets but it has not been decided how much.

Town councillor Mike Clarke told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: "Rebuilding the public toilets is an important element of Porthcawl Town Council's ambition to ensure that Porthcawl is a great place to live, work and to visit."

Friday 16 August 2019

Wealth Tames ‘Extreme’ Weather

Wealth Tames ‘Extreme’ Weather
Townhall.com ^ | August 16, 2019 | H, Sterling Burnette
Posted on 8/16/2019, 4:18:48 AM

Hard data, collected over decades, show no increase in the frequency or severity of hurricanes over the past century. Additionally, droughts are not more common, severe, or of greater length. In fact, as climate researcher Roger Pielke, Jr. recently reported, May 15, 2019, marked “the first time in the record that [more than] 90 percent of the US has experienced conditions of NO drought.”
In recent decades, flooding has become more common in some places, while it has declined in other regions. Yet evidence indicates manmade land alterations, such as channelizing streams and rivers and filling areas with impervious surfaces (concrete, buildings, and parking lots) are mostly responsible for the flooding, not modestly warmer temperatures or increased rainfall.
Although severe weather events have not become more extreme, the mainstream media and environmental zealots have resorted to endless fearmongering campaigns to make the public believe this is happening because of climate change. Of course, their goal is to convince the public that the only solution (to this non-existent problem) is government intervention to halt people’s use of fossil fuels. As usual, the fake news media is wrong.
In actuality, the world’s inhabitants have always suffered through extreme weather events. Like death and taxes, this trend will likely never cease. The real question is, can anything be done to reduce the harm from extreme weather or other natural disasters when they occur? To answer that, we should ask if there are nations where people are better able to cope with extreme events than others? Unsurprisingly, the answer is a resolute “yes.”
For example, it is not uncommon for tens of thousands of people in modern-day Afghanistan, Indonesia, Nepal, and other developing countries to die when earthquakes strike. However, when earthquakes of similar or even greater magnitudes strike Japan, New Zealand, or the United States, nation’s regularly beset by tremblors and earthquakes, they often result in very few, if any, deaths. At most, dozens to hundreds are killed when earthquakes strike in many developed countries. The 9.1 magnitude Tohoku earthquake that hit Japan in 2011, the fourth most powerful earthquake ever recorded, was a unique exception to this general rule.
When cyclones strike India or islands in the Indian Ocean, it is not uncommon for hundreds or even thousands of people to die during the storms or in their aftermath. However, when similarly powerful hurricanes strike Japan or the U.S. mainland, the death toll is commonly fewer than 10 people. Rarely do more than a couple of dozen people die; Katrina, a particularly powerful storm in 2000, being a rare exception.
And when a drought strikes sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, or the Middle East, hundreds of thousands of people might die from starvation or malnutrition. When droughts strike Europe or the United States, food supplies remain plentiful.
One factor we can rule out for differences in outcomes from natural disasters is climate. There are no significant temperature differences; differences in non-seasonal occurrences or severity of drought, flood, or storm events; or significant geologic differences in the earthquake or volcano zones affecting the disparate regions.
A country’s level of wealth and development is almost entirely responsible for the depth of suffering its peoples experience during and after natural disasters.
Wealthier countries are simply better able to cope with natural disasters when they occur.
One critical reason is wealthy countries have access to cheap, reliable energy, which in most cases means they have access to fossil fuels. Countries with ample access to fossil fuels suffer less, and recover faster, when natural disasters strike than do poorer countries that lack access to affordable fossil fuels.
Fossil fuels—the foundation of modern agriculture, communications, infrastructure, medicine, and transportation—are largely responsible for the declining impact of extreme weather events. Fossil-fuel use has contributed to more than a doubling of the average human lifespan, a steep decrease in poverty, and a huge increase in global food supplies over the past century.
Climate alarmists’ answer to the problem of extreme weather events is to kill the goose that laid the golden egg by rapidly ending the use of fossil fuels. Yet, even under the most optimistic (and unrealistic) scenarios, rapid decarbonization will, at best, have a minimal impact on the severity of future extreme weather events. In other words, decarbonization won’t reduce the destruction and deaths wrought by natural disasters.
Today’s poor deserve the chance to live like people in the developing world do, not as their ancestors have done for millennia, toiling in poverty, just one storm or drought away from death. Only increasing wealth and development can deliver them from this fate. And, with present knowledge and technologies, only by using abundant fossil fuels can they generate such wealth for the foreseeable future. The evidence is clear. To significantly decrease the impact of extreme weather events on the most vulnerable populations around the globe, they need to use more coal, natural gas, and oil—not less.

The One With Jail Time: Friends actor lookalike sentenced for theft

A CCTV image of the thief went viral after it was shared by Blackpool police in an effort to track him down.

By Emily Mee, Sky News reporter, Thursday 15 August 2019 20:20, UK https://news.sky.com/story/the-one-with-jail-time-friends-actor-lookalike-sentenced-for-theft-11786194

David Schwimmer copied the actions of the suspected thief in his video

The "lookalike" of Friends actor David Schwimmer has been jailed for nine months for theft and fraud offences.

An image of Abdulah Husseini buying cans of beers went viral when social media users pointed out his likeness to the sitcom actor.

The 36-year-old had used a stolen bank card to make the purchase after swiping a wallet from a man's jacket at an all-you-can-eat buffet. The thief used the card to make or attempt to make fraudulent purchases at four shops in Blackpool, Lancashire, last September

When police in Blackpool posted a CCTV image of Husseini buying beer at an Iceland store in an attempt to track him down, the post quickly amassed more than 11 million shares - even attracting the attention of Schwimmer himself

The actor shared a video of himself scurrying through a convenience store carrying a carton of beer and looking suspicious.

He captioned the video: "Officers, I swear it wasn't me. As you can see, I was in New York.

"To the hardworking Blackpool Police, good luck with the investigation."

Husseini was described in court as a "travelling, wandering, nomadic thief" with an "appalling criminal history".

The Iranian national has 32 previous convictions for 60 offences since 2008 - with 27 of those for theft and dishonesty.

He has committed crimes through England, Wales and Scotland.

Husseini was convicted of one count of theft and four counts of fraud by false representation.

Beef Rendang and the Case of the Invisible Sauce

Chef Johns video recipe https://foodwishes.blogspot...

Don’t think of this amazing Indonesian beef curry as not having a sauce, think of it as not needing a sauce. By the way, it has a sauce – you just can’t see it. Flavorless water evaporates when you reduce a pan sauce, like we’re doing here, but fat doesn’t, nor does flavor, which is what makes this such a unique, and deliciously addictive dish.

Originally the recipe was developed as a way to preserve meat in hot and humid Indonesia, which is why it was cooked until dry. The lack of moisture, along with all these naturally antimicrobial ingredients meant you could keep this around for weeks without it spoiling, and apparently people enjoyed the taste and texture so much, they continued making it this way long after refrigeration was available.

Having said that, if you do want some sauce to serve with it, simply add more water during the cooking, or cover for part of the time, and you’ll be all set. Which reminds me, if you do cook this the day before, as recommended, you’ll want to add a big splash the water to the pan when you reheat it. Add some water, cover it, and when you think it’s heated through, uncover, crank the heat, and cook until it reaches your desired degree of dryness.

The ingredient list below does contain a few semi-exotic items, so I’ve added what to substitute with in parentheses, but all in all most of these things should not be that hard to find, especially online. But whether you make a few substitutions or not, I really do hope you give this intensely flavorful, and invisibly-sauced beef rendang a try soon. Enjoy!

Ingredients for 4 large portions Beef Rendang:
4 shallots, sliced (or red onion)
6 garlic cloves
1.5 inch piece fresh ginger, peeled, sliced
1.5 inch piece galangal (or ginger)
1 Fresno red chili pepper
2 Serrano chili pepper
1 tablespoon kosher salt, plus more to taste
1 or 2 tablespoons red chili flakes, depending on desired heat
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
1/8 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 1/2 pounds beef chuck, cut in 2-inch pieces
1/2 stalk lemongrass, lighter part, bruised with back of knife
1 can coconut milk
1 generous tablespoon brown sugar
2 teaspoons tamarind paste (or zest from a lime and lemon, plus juice from 1 lime)
steamed rice for service, garnished with cilantro and lime if desired

Watch Chef Johns video recipe for directions on how to make Beef Rendang

New ORGAN found just beneath the skin may be responsible for certain types of pain

Published time: 16 Aug, 2019
https://www.rt.com/news/466609-glioneural-complex-organ-discovered-pain/

Pixabay / LeoNeoBoy

A previously unknown sensory organ that detects dangerous environmental stimuli may be responsible for certain types of pain, according to scientists who discovered the organ lurking beneath the skin’s top layer.

The meshlike organ senses pressure, pricking, and other mechanical discomfort caused by environmental factors, scientists at Sweden’s Karolinska Institutet have found. Made up of a network of specialized glial cells called Schwann cells, which are found near nerves and were not previously known to be involved in pain sensation, the structure lurks just beneath the skin’s surface, extending filament-like protrusions into its outermost layer.
The researchers published their discovery in Science on Thursday, giving the structure the less-than-glamorous name of nociceptive glio-neural complex (NGNC).

The NGNC forms a unique, intricately-connected network with nearby nerve cells all over the body, leading the researchers to argue that it should be officially designated an organ. Certainly it upends prior models of pain sensation which pinpointed its origins in nociceptive fibers – individual “naked” nerve endings which terminate in the skin. While both systems transmit pain in the form of electrical impulses back to the brain, the similarities end there.

“Our study shows that sensitivity to pain does not occur only in the skin’s nerve [fibers], but also in this recently discovered pain-sensitive organ,” study author Patrik Ernfors said in a press release accompanying the study.

Researchers used gene editing to deactivate the specialized Schwann cells in mice, observing that they became much less sensitive to mechanical pain, while their reaction to extreme heat and cold remained the same. And while they acknowledge that the organ’s presence in humans hasn’t been confirmed through experimentation yet, mice and humans have all other sensory systems in common, so it’s a relatively safe bet we have the same glial networks lurking beneath our skin, causing us to cry out in pain when we stub our toes.

The researchers next hope to study the exact mechanism by which the cells are activated by pain, down to the activation of proteins in response to mechanical stimulation. They see their discovery as bringing hope for the treatment of chronic pain, a debilitating condition that remains poorly understood.

The NGNC wouldn’t be the first new organ to turn up in the human body in recent years. Another previously-unknown structure called the interstitium was discovered last year after long going unnoticed because in dead tissue – the kind usually examined under a microscope – it collapses to near-invisibility.

We don’t know our bodies as well as we think.

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Milky Way's black hole just flared, growing 75 times as bright for a few hours

August 14, 2019, by Evan Gough, Universe Today

https://phys.org/news/2019-08-milky-black-hole-flared-bright.html

Four images from the paper. Over about a 2 hour period, Sgr A* flared to 75 times normal, and twice as bright as any other observed peak. At first, astronomers thought they were looking at the S star SO-2. Credit: Do et al; 2019.

Even though the black hole at the center of the Milky Way is a monster, it's still rather quiet. Called Sagittarius A*, it's about 4.6 million times more massive than the sun. Usually, it's a brooding behemoth. But scientists observing Sgr. A* with the Keck Telescope just observed its brightness blooming to over 75 times normal for a few hours.

The flaring is not visible in optical light. It's all happening in the near-infrared, the portion of the infrared spectrum closest to optical light. Astronomers have been watching Sgr. A* for 20 years, and though the black hole does have some variability in its output, this flaring event is like nothing astronomers have observed before. This peak was over twice as bright as the previous peak flux level.
These results are being reported in the Astrophysical Journal Letters in a paper titled "Unprecedented variability of Sgr A* in NIR," and is available at the prepress site arXiv.org. The lead author is Tuan Do, an astronomer at UCLA.
The team saw Sgr. A* flaring at 75 times normal for a two-hour period on May 13th. At first, astronomer Tuan Do thought that they were seeing a star called SO-2 rather than Sgr. A*. SO-2 is one of a group of stars called S-stars that orbits the black hole closely. Astronomers have been keeping an eye on it as it orbits the black hole.

Here's a timelapse of images over 2.5 hr from May from @keckobservatory of the supermassive black hole Sgr A*. The black hole is always variable, but this was the brightest we've seen in the infrared so far. It was probably even brighter before we started observing that night! pic.twitter.com/MwXioZ7twV
— Tuan Do (@quantumpenguin) August 11, 2019

In an interview with ScienceAlert, Do said, "The black hole was so bright I at first mistook it for the star S0-2, because I had never seen Sgr A* that bright. Over the next few frames, though, it was clear the source was variable and had to be the black hole. I knew almost right away there was probably something interesting going on with the black hole."

This is our best-yet image of an actual black hole. It’s the super-massive black hole at the center of galaxy M87, and it was captured by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT). The black hole itself can’t actually be seen so this image is actually of its event horizon. The EHT’s next target is Sgr. A*. Credit: Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration

The question is, what made Sgr. A* flare like this? At this point, astronomers aren't certain what caused the flaring. Sgr. A* has exhibited flaring before, just not as brightly. So flaring itself isn't unprecedented.

It's likely that something disrupted the black hole's usually quiet neighborhood, and there are at least a couple of possibilities. The first is not actually a disruption, but an inaccuracy in the statistical models used to understand the black hole. If that's the case, then the model needs to be updated to include these variations as "normal" for Sgr. A*.

The group of stars that orbit close to Sgr. A* are called S stars. SO-2 made it’s closest approach about a year before the flaring observed in May 2019. Credit: Cmglee – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0

The second possibility is where things get interesting: Something has changed in the black hole's neighborhood.
The previously mentioned star SO-2 is a prime candidate. It's one of two stars that approach very closely to Sgr. A* in an elliptical orbit. Every 16 years, it's at its closest. In the middle of 2018 was its last closest approach, when it was only 17 light-hours away from the black hole.
It's possible that SO-2's close approach disrupted the way that material flows into Sgr. A*. That would generate the kind of variability and bright flaring that astronomers saw in May, about one year after the star's close approach.

continued at: https://phys.org/news/2019-08-milky-black-hole-flared-bright.html

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RAPE AND SLAVERY: ISLAM’S TRUE 'CULTURAL EXCHANGE' WITH THE WEST

The British Museum tries to counter an ugly truth long captured in Western art.

August 16, 2019

Raymond Ibrahim

Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center.

The British Museum recently announced a “special exhibition,” opening in October 2019, and titled “Inspired by the East: How the Islamic World Influenced Western Art.” According to the museum, it is meant to counter “stereotypes” of Muslims and will “highlight just how extensive and enduring the cultural exchange between the west and Islamic world has been.”

There is of course a less admirable “cultural exchange between the west and the Islamic world” that “influenced” generations of European painters—one which recently made the news, “triggering” many on both sides of the Atlantic, and possibly prompting this new exhibition in response: the sexual enslavement of European women by Muslims.

Around May, 2019—and to highlight the apparent threat male Muslim migrants pose to German women—Alternative for Germany (AfD), a political party founded in 2013, began using a painting created in France in 1866 titled “Slave Market.” The painting “shows a black, apparently Muslim slave trader displaying a naked young woman with much lighter skin to a group of men for examination,” probably in North Africa. AfD placed images of this painting on posters with the slogan, “So that Europe won’t become Eurabia.”

The director of the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts, which houses the original painting, responded by strongly protesting and calling on the German political party to “cease and desist in using this painting” (even though it is in the public domain). Other elements in Germany responded with action, so that “party workers have had to repeatedly put up new copies, only to see them destroyed again the following night.”

What to make of all this? Objectively speaking, the “Slave Market” painting in question portrays a reality that has played out countless times over the centuries: African and Middle Eastern Muslims have long targeted European women—so much so as to have enslaved millions of them over the centuries.

The Muslim demand for, in the words of one historian, “white-complexioned blondes, with straight hair and blue eyes,” traces back to the prophet of Islam, Muhammad, who enticed his followers to wage jihad against neighboring Byzantium by citing its blonde (“yellow”) women awaiting them as potential concubines.

For over a millennium afterwards, Islamic caliphates, emirates, and sultanates—of the Arab, Berber, Turkic, and Tatar variety—also coaxed their men to jihad on Europe by citing (and later sexually enslaving) its women. Accordingly, because the “Umayyads particularly valued blond or red-haired Franc or Galician women as sexual slaves,” Dario Fernandez-Morera writes, “al-Andalus [Islamic Spain] became a center for the trade and distribution of slaves.”

Indeed, the insatiable demand for fair women was such that, according to M.A. Khan, an Indian author and former Muslim, it is “impossible to disconnect Islam from the Viking slave-trade, because the supply was absolutely meant for meeting [the] Islamic world’s unceasing demand for the prized white slaves” and “white sex-slaves.” Emmet Scott goes further, arguing that “it was the caliphate’s demand for European slaves that called forth the Viking phenomenon in the first place.”

As for numbers, according to the conservative estimate of American professor Robert Davis, “between 1530 and 1780 [alone] there were almost certainly a million and quite possibly as many as a million and a quarter white, European Christians enslaved by the Muslims of the Barbary Coast,” that is, of North Africa, the telling setting of the painting. By 1541, “Algiers teemed with Christian captives [from Europe], and it became a common saying that a Christian slave was scarce a fair barter for an onion.”

With countless sexually enslaved European women—some seized from as far as Denmark, Iceland, and even Iceland—selling for the price of vegetables, little wonder that European observers by the late 1700s noted how “the inhabitants of Algiers have a rather white complexion.”

Further underscoring the rapacious and relentless drive of the Muslim slave industry, consider this: The United States of America’s first war—which it fought before it could even elect its first president—was against these same Islamic slavers. When Thomas Jefferson and John Adams asked Barbary’s ambassador why his countrymen were enslaving American sailors, the “ambassador answered us that it was founded on the laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that … it was their right and duty to make war upon them [non-Muslims] wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners.”

The situation was arguably worse for Eastern Europeans; the slave markets of the Ottoman sultanate were for centuries so inundated with Slavic flesh that children sold for pennies, “a very beautiful slave woman was exchanged for a pair of boots, and four Serbian slaves were traded for a horse.” In Crimea, some three million Slavs were enslaved by the Ottomans’ Muslim allies, the Tatars. “The youngest women are kept for wanton pleasures,” observed a seventeenth century Lithuanian.

Paintings similar to the one in question — such as Jaroslav Čermák’s “The Abduction of a Herzegovinian Woman (1861) —portray these Eastern European realities: “Disturbing and extremely evocative, it depicts a white, nude Christian woman being abducted from her village by the Ottoman mercenaries who have killed her husband and baby.”

Even the details of the “Slave Market” painting/poster, which depicts a nude and fair-skinned female slave being pawed at by potential buyers, echoes reality. Based on a twelfth-century document dealing with slave auctions in Cordoba, Muslim merchants “would put ointments on slave girls of a darker complexion to whiten their faces… ointments were placed on the face and body of black slaves to make them ‘prettier.’” Then, the Muslim merchant “dresses them all in transparent clothes” and “tells the slave girls to act in a coquettish manner with the old men and with the timid men among the potential buyers to make them crazy with desire.”

In short, outrage at the Alternative for Germany’s use of the “Slave Market” painting—which may have partially initiated the British Museum’s new exhibit to “counter stereotypes”—is just another attempt to suppress and sugarcoat the truths of Muslim/Western history, especially in its glaring continuity with the present. For the essence of that painting—Muslim men pawing at and sexually preying on fair women—has reached alarming levels all throughout Western Europe, especially in the two nations in question, Germany and Great Britain.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274629/rape-and-slavery-islams-true-cultural-exchange-raymond-ibrahim