News 13 August 2021 Sometimes strange things happen in nature and I have a true story which I thought was very strange and illustrates just how dangerous chimpanzees can be. I have always said anyone that has a chimp for a pet is taking a chance with his or her life. If I were to ask you which is more dangerous a chimp or a gorilla? I think you might say the gorilla. After all it is much bigger and stronger. A park in Africa has both gorillas and chimps. Near the edge of the chimp area was two families of gorillas. A large group of chimps decided to attack the gorillas. They figured out a way to isolate the infant gorillas while still fighting with the gorillas. They then killed the infants. The battle lasted for well over an hour. Some are saying this is the first time a chimp was ever seen killing a gorilla. Usually, chimps and gorillas get along and sometimes even share food. There was more than one battle and the chimps seem to be going after the gorilla babies. In the second battle they managed to capture a baby gorilla and ate him. There have been quite a few times where ancient underwater cities have been found. One find of an underwater city is more unusual than most. The reason is there is an ancient ship still moored beside a temple. The city is so old it predates Alexandria. The name of the city is Thonis-Heracleion. The submerged city was found in the bay of Abu Qir and the ship is a military vessel from the second century B.C. When the city began to sink, the temple collapsed on the boat sinking it along with the city. The ship was about 80 feet long and was found beneath 16 feet of hard clay. The construction techniques of both Egyptian and Greek construction are found in the ship. Before Alexandria was founded, Thonis-Heracleion was Egypt’s greatest port. For those who say nothing can escape the gravity of a black hole, for the second time in about a couple of years something has. Astronomers have captured photos of a jet of plasma being shot out of a black hole. The Event Horizon Telescope, which is a combination of eight radio telescopes, was directed towards Centaurus A. The black hole is about 12 million light years away and is in the southern constellation of Centaurus. Astronomers have been looking at Centaurus A since the 1940s with radio telescopes and the scopes have been getting more powerful all the time. Scientists now believe all black holes no matter their size have the same attributes and act the same way. The Curiosity rover is still exploring Mars and recently it detected what was called an Alien Burp by one newspaper. What it actually was, was a burst of menthane. Has most of us know by now, methane can be produced from several sources and one is biological life. The reason scientists are a little excited about this is the fact about 95 percent of methane on earth is from a biological source. This is the sixth time this has been detected and scientists are not yet able to find a source for it. With the equipment we have, methane can be detected for up to 330 years after if was released. We tend to think without a brain decisions can not be made which seem to be intelligent. This is why scientists are so amazed by slime mold. There is a problem with this theory and one of them is why slime mold seems able to make the decisions it does. It can perform what we might call thinking decisions. The mold is known as P. polycephalum and has no cells. It decomposes organic matter. Experiments by scientists have shown the mold can select the shortest path in a problem. They grew the mold in a maze with oatmeal at two ends of the maze. It retracted until it found the shortest route to the food. The mold has no brain and yet it can learn and navigate incredibly well. One incredible experiment which was conducted had the mold in the center of a petri dish and three food sources on one side grouped together and a single food source on the other side. The mold grew toward the three sources showing it somehow figured it would get more food this way. It figured out the difference between more and less. For those computer geeks who complain about never having enough speed on the internet I have news for you which might be the precursor of things to come. Japan has shattered the internet speed record and was able to send 319 terabits per second down the line. I don’t know about the rest of you but I am running at a little over 68 Megabytes per second on downloads. I am supposed to have 100 per second. Can you imagine a 319 terabit download? You would have an instant download, but that is only if we suppose the sizes of what we download remain the same in the future, but it seems the files get bigger as the speed to download increases. An unexpected coin find was made recently when over 300 coins from the Iron Age were found. They were minted in the 1st century B.C. They were found in West London in the Hillingdon area. One side of the coins has the Greek god Apollo on it while the other side has a charging bull. It is believed the coins were struck in Marseille France. I personally never knew Marseille was that old. It dates back to 600 B.C. Finding coins like this in Britain makes them subject to the law since they are considered treasure and a museum could acquire them. The price is set by the Treasure Valuation Committee after an inquest rules them treasure. They must then be sold to a museum if the museum wants them. Well Death Valley has done it again for the second year. It has reached the highest temperature on earth. It reached 130 degrees Fahrenheit or a little more than 54.4 degrees Celsius. For those who don’t know it there are hotels in Death Valley. One place you can stay is at Furnace Creek. While this may sound inviting to some, I decline the offer. Oppressive heat is just not my thing. I know the hotels have to be air conditioned, but I admit I can’t understand the attraction except for the fact being able to say you stayed in Death Valley, the hottest place on earth.
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