News November 11, 2023 There are a lot of dangers all around us. One which we have been hearing about for a couple of years now are lithium-ion batteries catching on fire. These batteries have to be carefully constructed with circuits to protect from fire and unfortunately some cheap batteries don’t seem to be made that way. In New York City there has been a rash of electric bike batteries going on fire. It seems to be worse there because many of these bikes are stored in apartments and when they go up in flames, they put not only those in the apartment in danger, but those people in the rest of the building. This problem may soon be a thing of the past. Scientists announced they have developed a nonflammable gel polymer electrolyte for the batteries which could end this problem forever and make it safe for all other devices that use these batteries including automobiles, which when go on fire are notoriously hard to put out and can burn for many hours and longer. A rock is a rock, but sometimes it is a map. There is a 4,000 year old rock which has scientists very excited. They believe the marks on it indicate it is a map. The belief is these markings indicate where ancient sites in France are located. If they are right, they have the oldest map known. Actually, the rock is a stone slab. It is believed it will take a minimum of 15 years to match the marks with the area it depicts. This is the second time I have read something which states someone knew North America existed way before Columbus made his trip. The first time was when an archaeologist stated English fishermen knew about the great fishing at the Grand Banks but kept it secret because they didn’t want others to find out. This was said to be a couple of hundred years before Columbus. Another article has stated a Milanese friar wrote about North America 150 years before Columbus made his voyage. I believe most of us already know there were many different races of people who probably came here before Columbus. We have found evidence of Viking settlements, and ancient stones with holes cut in them the ancient Chinese used to use as anchors. Then there are the stories which state the ancient Egyptians may have come here. On top of all that, there were people here already for many thousands of years. Talk about a complete 180, scientists are now reporting they found evidence which proves Neanderthals were as smart as Homo sapiens. One of the pieces of evidence they said they found was an indication that Neanderthals controlled fire and could make it when they wanted. The scientists went on to say they have found they were capable of creative thought. They ate cooked food and wore jewelry. Scientists were surprised to find the remains of so many Neanderthal camp fires. It looks like we have been underestimating these people for a long time. Is there a lesson to be learned here? As I have said many times, scientists can be wrong just like us. Last year we were told New York City is sinking. A big deal was made about the weight of the tall buildings there putting too much strain on the bedrock. Some articles even went into estimating the weight of all those Manhattan buildings. Now we seem to have an update on the situation and it is said satellite data shows it is not just the weight of the buildings causing this. It also turns out different sections of the city are sinking at different rates. NASA is now blaming the sinking on long lost glaciers and bad land use practices. The rate of sinking is said to be an average of 1.6 millimeters per year. There are those who think the James Webb space telescope may have found life on Europa. Europa is a large moon orbiting the planet Jupiter. One of the reasons some people think this might be true is the fact the telescope has discovered carbon dioxide there. Living creatures exhale carbon dioxide, but it also comes from other sources such as deposits on the ocean floor from the remains of marine creatures, volcanoes and plant decay. When carbon dioxide was found on Mars it was thought at first there could be animal life there. Another one of our space telescopes, the Hubble, just saw a massive intergalactic explosion. What makes this even more unusual is astronomers are yet to find the cause. There are never any lack of theories such as black holes ripping apart stars and eating them. The explosion was one of the brightest things in the universe and put out a blue light. It was of a short duration however, lasting only a couple of days. It is beginning to look like artificial intelligence will be very helpful in translating ancient languages. It is being used to translate cuneiform tablets dating more than 5,400 years old into English. As other ancient languages are added to the list which A.I. can understand it might also help in trying to translate languages we have had no luck in deciphering. NASA is looking for a company or individuals to design a freezer that would be used to store materials taken from the moon. NASA put out a post which said it will be used to transport scientific and geological samples from the moon to earth. They added a caveat, and said it could also be used to store and transport human biological/physiological samples collected during missions. This has an ominous ring to it, doesn’t it? Are they expecting problems on future missions? I had to laugh while watching a program telling us how careful NASA is with samples it recovers from space. The sample of the asteroid that was returned to earth was opened, and when strange black powdery material was seen it was quickly closed, according to one article. I think NASA is not as careful as they should be. Remember when the astronauts came back from the moon and were put into quarantine? They were taken from the capsule, put onto a raft with sailors, taken to the carrier, walked among the people there toward the quarantine quarters and then entered. This was one of the most ridiculous things I ever saw. If they would have been contaminated, they would have spread it to everyone else doing this. Scared of spiders? Many people are and they wouldn’t like to see a fossil which was discovered in Australia of a really giant spider. It lived between 11 million years ago and 16 million years. It is the largest fossilized spider ever found.
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