More News 10/20/17

Recently scientists think they have found the perfect place on the moon to create a base out of. I find this fact interesting, because there have been people who swear they have seen photos of moon bases which already exist, secret bases. Anyway, scientists are saying the place they have found for a base is underground. They had been looking at openings on the moon’s surface and trying to decide if these openings would lead to giant caverns. Apparently, they recently got their answer. The Geophysical Research Letters published research showing large lava tubes potential are perfect for such a base. Since the base would be underground the occupants would be protected from the sun’s rays and other hazards. The lava tubes are no longer associated with active volcanos and are hollow and it is believed some are extremely large. NASA used echo technology to determine one tube was at least several kilometers in length and at least one in height and width.

I may have mentioned this before, I no longer remember if I did or not, this is the price we pay for old age. We know in order to send people out into space things have to be done to protect humans, because we are very fragile. We need to be protected from radiation and other space hazards. Until now the focus has been on building ships which would have the proper equipment to do this, but the thought process of some scientists is changing. Instead of trying to protect astronauts by using specially equipped ships, they want to alter the DNA of the astronauts so their bodies would protect themselves better. It is a novel idea. The idea of drugs which would furnish at least temporary protection against these hazards is also being thought about.

Remember the Panama Papers? In case you don’t know what the Panama Papers are, here is how the New York Times describes them. “The Panama Papers have exposed how some of the world’s most powerful people may have used offshore bank accounts and shell companies to conceal their wealth or avoid taxes.” The names of those incriminated were the biggest of the big, such as Vladimir Putin President of Russia, David Cameron Prime Minister of Great Britain and Xi Jinping President of China. You can imagine how angry some of these people were with the reporter who broke the story. Daphne Caruana Galizia was an investigative reporter involved with the story. Unfortunately, she was assassinated when a car bomb killed her. She had been on the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists team, which won the Pulitzer Prize for their work on the Panama Papers story. God rest her soul. Over 3,000 people came out into the street for a memorial vigil for her.

The Etruscans are back in the news. Who are they you are asking? They were a civilization which existed in Tuscany and other nearby areas in what today is Italy. It is believed they existed around 800 BC and were very powerful, but gradually lost power by 500 BC. The last of their cities was absorbed by Rome around 100 BC. We know hardly anything about them today, because not much of their writing has survived. Now this could change, because a 500-pound slab of stone has been found which contains 70 letters and punctuation marks from their language. The stone is over 2,500 years old and is known as a stele. It was used to mark a temple, but had been repurposed as a foundation stone for a larger temple. Archaeologists are happy to find more letters in the Etruscan language and also happy to find out about their belief system. It is said the Etruscans were very religious and scientists are anxious to find out more about their gods.

This story didn’t get much attention. The story stated a few days ago Federal Agents prevented the next 9/11 attack. The article went on to say three terrorists with ties to ISIS were drawing up plans to attack concerts, Times Square in New York City and other crowded public locations. They had wanted to create the maximum fear they could. This comes right on the heels of the shooting in Los Vegas. Terrorists like to kill people in crowds and New York City has a lot of events which attract these crowds, so the police have their hands full.

There are two large companies which manufacture commercial aircraft, one is Boeing and the other is Airbus. Airbus has announced it will employ an electric flying taxi cab and they will do this as early as 2018. This should be very interesting. It is being called the CityAirbus concept. The shape is very similar to a drone. It will have four electric engines, one in each corned. When first employed it will have a certified pilot transporting people, but eventually it will be autonomous or self-flying.

Scientists at the University of Texas have found hints of an earlier groups of anthropoids in the DNA of the Melanesians. The Melanesians lived in an area which surrounds Papua New Guinea. The scientists don’t know much about this DNA, but they do know it isn’t from Neanderthals or Denisovans which were human ancestors.

It is believed humans entered the Stone Age about 3.4 million years ago, but like all ancient dates it could turn out we did it much earlier. Anyway, scientists are saying Macaques are entering their Stone Age. Macaques, simply put, are monkeys which have a complex social order. Matriarchal females are the head of all Macaque tribes or groups. For at least the last hundred years Macaques have been using rocks as tools. They were seen opening nuts using rocks. They would place a nut on an anvil rock and use a hammer rock to open it. They had opened seashells this way to get to the tasty insides and transferred this knowledge to the opening of nuts inland.