News 3 November 2023 Today I would like to talk about a few different things. Some days I just feel like covering different events rather than sticking with only one. There was a photo which hit the internet a while back of what purported to be an extraterrestrial walking by a beach. Anyone with a computer knows pictures of space aliens come out from time to time like photos of Bigfoot, and at a lot more times photos of UFOs. This photo was a little different since you could see through the alien. I think this is what is drawing so much interest. I can’t help but feel someone made up this photo and wanted to make it unique to draw more viewers. Now the validity of the photo is being questioned because there is no reflection of the alien in the nearby water. I am not saying the photo is genuine, but the water seems rough and I don’t see the weather as bright. Still, we all know how easy it is to forge photos today. Sometimes I have to wonder about some of the articles I read. We all know Japan is one of the leaders in trying to build social robots. They have created robots to aid the elderly, work in hospitals bringing meds and I believe changing sheets and more. They even have robot waiters in restaurants. This time they may have gone too far. The article claims school absenteeism has increased in that country. It claims it might be caused by the stress students are under to overperform. It talks about Hikikomori, which is when teenagers withdraw from social life. In the city of Kumamoto they want to do something about this. They want to put robots in classrooms. This is to help home-based students feel less anxious. Will this work? The world is waiting to see if the attraction of dealing with a robot will get more students interested in school. Speaking about robots, new miniature robots have been developed which can change shape. They were developed by the University of Washington. What is so amazing about them is they can change shape without batteries. In other words, they need no electricity to do it. How can this be? The idea is based on the Japanese art of Origami which allows paper or similar materials to be made in complex shapes just by knowing how to fold that paper. The robots move through the air and can change into a folded position as they fly. A knowledge of Origami is proving helpful in many fields of endeavor we never would have imagined years ago. Archaeologists from the University of Vienna have discovered a tomb in Egypt of Queen Meret-Neith. They now have proof she was one of the most important women in Egyptian history. In the tomb were hundreds of sealed wine jars. It is said the archaeologists were surprised what condition the wine was still in. I am not saying it could be drank. Hieroglyphics indicate the Queen was in charge of the treasury. One would have assumed that as the leader of an ancient country. At the site 41 burials were found which belong to those who either worked for the queen in some capacity or held various offices. The article goes further in stating these burials took place over years meaning the idea of burying all those who were with the ruler when they died could either be a myth, or perhaps the queen was more charitable. Usually, archaeology has to do with discovering very old things, but sometimes archaeologists can find something which was relatively new. This time they have uncovered the remains of a British catapult. Wait a second isn’t that an ancient weapon? Yes usually, but this one was from World War 2. You may wonder why anyone would even think about using one at that time, but this one was to have a unique use. It was created to see if it could launch planes which were on runways which were too short. The project was abandoned when it didn’t work properly. It had been worked on for three years from 1938 to 1940 and was at Harwell Royal Airforce Base. Sometimes older photographs get reexamined and some photos taken by astronauts who were on the moon are no exception. There are also photos taken by satellites which garner interest. There is one photo in particular which seems to gain interest every once in a while. It is said to have been taken by the Lunar Orbiter 3 in 1967. It seems to Show something in a crater which shouldn’t be there. It looks like a UFO. I think this might have gained more interest lately is because strange blobs are being found under the moon’s surface, which in turn has some people reexamining moon photos. An article appeared claiming human cannibalism was not that unusual about 15,000 years ago in Europe. This got me to thinking about why the Neanderthals all disappeared without evidence of why. What I am about to say sounds creepy, even to me, but we could have hunted and ate them? I sure hope not. This was a funerary practice from that time where some tribes thought eating the dead was a good idea. Evidence of this was found to be quite common among the Magdalenian people. Even the bones that were left were sometimes made into objects. This sounds like something out of a horror movie. While no one can be sure why they did this, it seems it was some sort of religious practice. It just goes to show you science is really changing things. Last year a baby boy was born. I know, that is nothing unusual there are millions born every year, but not like this. This baby boy was born from sperm deposited and frozen in 1996. This has tremendous implications. It means we might be able to keep sperm frozen for hundreds of years and then use it. It could be the savior of the human race someday. We could even bring it to other planets. We could take sperm from geniuses and maybe use it to breed more. We have to keep our eye on this type of news. I would like to finish this article by listing a pet peeve of mine and it is using human neurons in animal brains. Scientists have been putting them into places like rat brains for quite a while. This might have some very strange consequences, but most of all it might lead to mixing parts of human and animal brains which I am totally against, but believe scientists could even be doing this today.
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