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According to a statement released by the Nature Publishing Group, Anopheles leucosphyrus mosquitoes may have evolved to feed on humans in Southeast Asia. Upasana Shyamsunder Singh of Vanderbilt University, Catherine Walton of the University of Manchester, and their colleagues sequenced DNA from 38 modern-day mosquitoes from 11 species in the leucosphyrus group. Then the researchers employed computer models and estimates of DNA mutation rates to reconstruct the evolution of these mosquitoes. The study suggests that the bugs switched from feeding on non-human primates to early humans in the region of Sundaland, an area including the Malay Peninsula, Borneo, Sumatra, and...

Tradition holds that the eldest son of Genghis Khan, ruler of the Mongol Empire, founded the Golden Horde and was buried in Kazakhstan with his descendants. According to a statement released by the University of Wisconsin–Madison (UW–Madison), an international team of researchers led by Ayken Askapuli of UW–Madison analyzed genomes taken from remains found in four Golden Horde tombs in Kazakhstan, and determined that their ancestors could be traced to the Mongolian plateau through their Y-chromosomes. “We saw evidence that their Y-chromosomes are part of a branch of the C3* cluster,” Askapuli said. Some 20 years ago, fragments of DNA...

The FBI has warned California’s governor and law enforcement agencies about the possibility of an Iranian drone attack targeting the state due to information acquired last month. The bureau authorities issued the alert at the end of February, which noted that they had information that, as of earlier that month, before the current Middle East war, Iran sought to “conduct a surprise attack using unmanned aerial vehicles from an unidentified vessel off the coast of the United States Homeland,” according to ABC News.

The “Melania” documentary about first lady Melania Trump debuted at the top of Amazon Prime’s streaming charts after premiering earlier this week. The documentary, which follows 20 days in the first lady’s life before President Donald Trump’s second term in office, hit the streaming service Monday. Just one day after its premiere, “Melania” became the most-streamed film on the platform and the most-streamed content overall in the United States, according to Flix Patrol. The first lady celebrated the feat in a post on X Tuesday. As of Thursday, the film is the third most-streamed overall behind the Amazon Prime series...

A flying taxi took a spin over San Francisco Thursday — and the Bay Area’s tech crowd was there to watch. The small electric aircraft from Joby Aviation flew across San Francisco Bay near the Golden Gate Bridge during a demonstration flight that drew reporters and industry guests to the St. Francis Yacht Club. The flight is part of the company’s push to launch electric air taxis — small vertical takeoff planes designed to carry passengers on short trips of roughly 10 to 50 miles. Joby’s aircraft seats four passengers and uses six propellers. The company says rides could cost...

A California pedophile imprisoned for a horrific string of sex crimes could soon walk free after being granted parole under a controversial law signed by California Gov. Gavin Newsom. Gregory Lee Vogelsang, 57, has been granted early release thanks to a 2020 law that offers parole to “elderly” convicts 50 and older who have served 20 or more years in prison. Vogelsang molested several children in the ’90s in the Sacramento area before being convicted on dozens of felony counts, including a lewd act on a child, kidnapping a child to commit a lewd act, and lewd act on a...

The Pentagon and National Security Council significantly underestimated Iran’s willingness to close the Strait of Hormuz in response to US military strikes while planning the ongoing operation, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter. President Donald Trump’s national security team failed to fully account for the potential consequences of what some officials have described as a worst-case scenario now facing the administration, the sources said. And now it may be weeks before the administration’s efforts to alleviate the intensifying economic fallout take hold, officials said Thursday, including high-risk naval escorts of oil tankers through the strait that the Pentagon...

My latest song. Yeah, it's a silly name.

Iran’s new Supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei released his first statement Thursday vowing to use the “lever” of closing the Strait of Hormuz to international energy shipping — after reports circulated that he was in a coma and had his leg amputated after being severely injured in the US-Israeli strikes that killed his father and other family members. The lengthy message was read out on Iranian state TV by an anchor as an image of Khamenei was displayed on screen, a break from tradition. No explanation was given for why the 56-year-old did not appear in the flesh, with experts suggesting...

"Our Father who art in heaven" (Matt. 6:9). Prayer begins with the recognition that God is your Father and has the resources to meet your needs. The term Father is one of the most commonly used terms in our prayers, and rightly so because that's how Jesus taught us to pray. But as common as that term is to us, it was very uncommon to the people of Christ's day. Then, most of the people who worshiped false gods thought of them as distant, capricious, and immoral beings that were to be feared. Even the Jewish people, who should have...

Daily Readings from the USCCBAnd when Jesus saw that he answered with understanding, he said to him, “You are not far from the Kingdom of God.” And no one dared to ask him any more questions. Mark 12:34Among the scribes and Pharisees, the scribe in today’s Gospel stands out. He got it right, and Jesus praised him for his openness and understanding. The scribe began by asking Jesus a question: “Which is the first of all the commandments?” At that time, the scribes and Pharisees often debated the question of which commandments were most important. From the Torah, the first...

Rep. Eric Swalwell’s claims about living in a rented California home have raised “red flags” among members of the state Democratic Party after multiple neighbors at his supposed home of nine years have never seen or met him. The Democrat frontrunner for Governor claims he’s lived since 2017 with another family in a 1,350-square-foot Livermore home owned by the sister-in-law of his political mentor, Tim Sbranti. But five neighbors failed to identify Swalwell on Wednesday when The Post showed them a picture of the congressman and identified him by name. “I’ve never seen him,” said Gita Prusty, who noted she’s...

Last week, Netflix made one of its biggest acquisition moves yet, buying InterPositive, an AI company co-founded by Ben Affleck. While the financial details were not initially disclosed, sources told Bloomberg the deal could be worth as much as $600 million.

For around 700 years, Native people of the American Great Plains hunted bison at a site in central Montana that archaeologists call Bergstrom. Then, around 1,100 years ago, humans abandoned the site even though bison remained abundant in the area, according to a statement released by Frontiers. "The Bergstrom site presented a puzzle," paleoecologist John Wendt of New Mexico State University said. "Why would hunters stop using a site that had worked for so long?" In 2019, Wendt's team began digging and investigating three-foot-by-three-foot excavation pits to try to better understand the Bergstrom site's use and eventual disuse. Researchers collected...

As fascinating as drone warfare can be — particularly the seemingly sci-fi drone-vs-drone variety — keeping up with all the developments is a fool's errand. Yesterday's hot new thing is practically outdated today, and today's hot new thing may look obsolete tomorrow. That's an exaggeration, of course, but some days it doesn't seem like much of one. That's why today's news about Ukraine's Sting counter-drone caught my eye, and what it might mean for U.S. and other Western forces going forward. I vaguely remembered reading something about the Sting a year or more ago, but I just learned today that...

Join with fellow FREEPERS across the world to pray for AMERICA: For those in Authority in Government, Family, Military, Business, Agri-Business, Healthcare, Education, Churches, Technology, Religious Freedom and the Media. "I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone: for kings and all those in authority that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness". (1 Timothy 2:1-2) Religion Forum threads labeled [Prayer] are closed to debate of any kind.

What if I told you that a woman who has pleaded guilty to filing a false police report told a tall tale about the Department of Homeland Security kidnapping her and holding her in two different states incommunicado? Would you automatically assume it is true and broadcast it as news to the world, creating a viral story that dominated discussion about ICE abuses for days? Or would you check it out first? Sundas “Sunny” Naqvi, a U.S. citizen from Skokie, spent nearly 30 hours in custody by federal immigration officials after she was detained at O’Hare Airport last week. Naqvi's...

Let me begin by putting all my cards face-up on the table. No one wishes the SAVE Act, requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote and a photo-ID in order to cast a ballot, to become law more than I. Currently, in my home state of California, it's actually illegal here to both ask for ID at polling places and to show ID. Elections are held open for weeks until enough stray mail-in ballots, which for some reason break for Democrats every single time, flow in to swing a total that at one point showed promise of sanity in...

Sunday morning a man shoved two people onto the subway tracks in New York City. Both of the people he shoved were complete strangers.A maniac randomly shoved two straphangers – including an 83-year-old man – onto Upper East Side subway tracks just before noon Sunday, cops and law-enforcement sources said.The elderly victim and a 31-year-old man were separately waiting for a train at the Lexington Avenue–63rd Street station in Manhattan around 11:40 a.m. when the fiend came up from behind and thrust the two onto the rails below, police said.Luckily, there was no train coming at the time this happened....

During the first hour of Operation Epic Fury, Iran's Islamic government was obliterated. An Israeli airstrike struck a leadership meeting at Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's compound in Tehran around 8 a.m. (Tehran time) on February 28. Not only was Khameini killed, but the casualty list included about 40 other senior officials who could reasonably be in the line of succession. In fact, it seems as though the mullahs have elected one of the victims of the airstrike, Mojtaba Khamenei, as their Grand Poohbah. He hasn't been seen (White House Trolls Iran As Regime Tries to Hide ‘Supreme Leader’ Condition – RedState)...