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Science (General/Chat)

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  • Researchers identify 31 letters in ancient Sidetic language

    06/24/2026 9:59:53 AM PDT · by SunkenCiv · 15 replies
    Hürriyet Daily News ^ | June 06 2026 | editors / unattributed
    The language is being studied through bilingual inscriptions unearthed during excavations. Research led by Feriştah Alanyalı, together with linguists Michaela Zinko and Alfredo Rizza, has expanded the known Sidetic alphabet from 26 to 31 letters...According to Alanyalı, the discovery of both bilingual inscriptions and longer texts containing between 30 and 40 lines has provided fresh opportunities for linguistic analysis.Researchers increasingly agree that the words "Siruawn" and "Siruawan," which appear in Sidetic inscriptions, refer to Side itself...Alanyalı said Sidetic belonged to the Luwian branch of Anatolian languages, alongside languages such as Lycian and Carian...Alanyalı also pointed to archaeological evidence indicating close...
  • Pristine medieval gold ring discovered in Tønsberg

    06/24/2026 9:32:29 AM PDT · by SunkenCiv · 16 replies
    Heritage Daily ^ | January 3, 2026 | Mark Milligan
    The oval-set stone, deep blue in colour, was framed by exquisite filigree: thin gold wires twisted and soldered into spirals, accented with tiny granulated beads.Although the blue "stone" is likely coloured glass rather than sapphire, such materials were prized for their symbolic power -- believed to cool inner heat, preserve chastity, and confer divine protection.With its rich decoration and small size, experts believe the ring once belonged to a woman of high status.The discovery was made during extensive excavations in the Norwegian city of Tønsberg, specifically in Prestegaten and its surrounding streets, where archaeologists from the Norwegian Institute for Cultural...
  • EXCLUSIVE: Pentagon Demonstrates Laser Weapons for Hegseth

    06/23/2026 8:25:17 PM PDT · by Red Badger · 34 replies
    LaserWars.Net ^ | June 23, 2026 | Jared Keller
    The US military fired several high-energy laser and high-power microwave weapons for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Tuesday. The US Defense Department demonstrated several high-energy laser and high-power microwave weapons for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Tuesday, Laser Wars has learned, the first publicly known instance of a sitting US defense secretary personally observing a live directed energy weapon firing. The demonstration, which occurred at the US Army’s White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, was attended by Hegseth and Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Emil Michael. “We have dramatically increased investment in scaling directed energy technologies, signaling...
  • 1st-of-its-kind mission will attempt to save aging space telescope using robot spacecraft...NASA's Swift telescope could be destroyed in months if nothing is done.

    06/23/2026 7:51:46 PM PDT · by Red Badger · 19 replies
    ABC News ^ | June 23, 2026 | Matthew Glasser and Briana Alvarado
    Satellites don't always stay in orbit. As they get closer to Earth, atmospheric drag can pull them lower and lower until they burn up, with solar activity speeding up the process. NASA's Swift Space Observatory is facing that fate -- its orbit is decaying, and if left alone, it will be destroyed in a matter of months. But in a first-of-its-kind mission, Katalyst Space, a startup, is teaming up with NASA to try and rescue Swift using the company's newly developed robotic spacecraft, LINK. "This is a historic mission, you know, some would call it the first of its kind,...
  • 5,500 Years Ago, Something Was Killing Humans in Prehistoric Siberia -- New Research Has Finally Revealed This Ancient Assassin

    06/23/2026 6:46:19 PM PDT · by SunkenCiv · 26 replies
    The Debrief ^ | June 21, 2026 | Micah Hanks
    A longstanding archaeological mystery has loomed over discoveries at ancient burial sites in eastern Siberia: why were so many children and adolescents among the dead?Now, according to a recent study in the journal Nature, DNA recovered from human remains found in burial sites at four cemeteries near Lake Baikal in eastern Siberia may finally reveal the answer.Thousands of years ago, prior to the rise of ancient medieval cities -- and their often-rat-infested streets -- a disease famously associated with these rodents had already ravaged communities of prehistoric hunter-gatherers.The research, based on reconstructions of ancient bacterial genomes preserved in the teeth...
  • Astronomy Picture of the Day - Flying Past Neptune's Moon Triton

    06/23/2026 12:23:56 PM PDT · by MtnClimber · 19 replies
    NASA ^ | 23 Jun, 2026 | Image Credit: NASA; JPL, Voyager 2, Digital composition: Paul Schenk (LPI, USRA)
    Explanation: What would it look like to fly past Triton, the largest moon of planet Neptune? Only one spacecraft has ever done this -- and the images of this dramatic encounter have been gathered into a video. In 1989, the Voyager 2 robotic spacecraft shot through the Neptune system with cameras blazing. Triton is slightly smaller than Earth's Moon but has ice volcanoes and a surface rich in frozen nitrogen. The first sequence in the video shows Voyager's approach to Triton, which, with the exception of an overall false green tint, appears in approximately true color. The mysterious cantaloupe terrain...
  • Not a good day for Tesla-haters

    06/23/2026 9:39:17 AM PDT · by eastexsteve · 25 replies
    Teslarati ^ | Juine 22, 2026 | Joey Klender
    Tesla has finally clarified the situation regarding the viral crash in Texas where a Model 3 slammed into a home. CEO Elon Musk replied to reports on Monday that stated the crash was due to the company’s Full Self-Driving or Autopilot suite, which seemed unlikely to those who are familiar with it. Video showed the car slamming into a house at an excessive rate of speed, making it highly unlikely the crash was due to the suite’s operation, as it does not travel at those speeds in residential areas. Musk said: “This makes no sense. FSD drives slowly through neighborhood...
  • Chicago resident living in shadows of Obama Presidential Center reveal chaos caused by years-long construction

    06/23/2026 6:58:41 AM PDT · by Libloather · 26 replies
    Fox News ^ | 6/22/26 | Peter D'Abrosca
    CHICAGO – A man who has lived on Chicago’s South Side for 18 years and now lives in the shadow of the newly opened Barack Obama Presidential Center described to Fox News Digital the havoc he says the years-long construction project wreaked on his housing complex. Akoma Amanze is a local cab driver who lives in Jackson Park Terrace, a low-income housing community directly across the street from the 19.3 acre campus dedicated to the 44th president. Over the weekend, while thousands of people from across the country — celebrities and ordinary folks alike — swarmed the area to visit...
  • Astronomy Picture of the Day - M27: The Dumbbell Nebula

    06/22/2026 1:34:31 PM PDT · by MtnClimber · 14 replies
    NASA ^ | 22 Jun, 2026 | Image Credit & Copyright: Francesco Antonucci
    Explanation: Is this what will become of our Sun? Quite possibly. The first hint of our Sun's future was discovered inadvertently in 1764. At that time, Charles Messier was compiling a list of diffuse objects not to be confused with comets. The 27th object on Messier's list, now known as M27 or the Dumbbell Nebula, is a planetary nebula, one of the brightest planetary nebulas on the sky and visible with binoculars toward the constellation of the Fox (Vulpecula). It takes light about 1000 years to reach us from M27, featured here in colors enhanced by red for hydrogen and...
  • GM letting some EV owners sell electricity back to the US power grid (only 4.61 years left)

    06/22/2026 10:50:55 AM PDT · by Libloather · 13 replies
    Fox Business ^ | 6/11/26 | Eric Revell
    General Motors on Tuesday announced it's releasing a software update that allows some electric vehicle (EV) owners to send power back to the electric grid. The update allows owners of GM's vehicle-to-home energy system, which allows the EV to power the home during a blackout, the expanded capability of sending electricity to the power grid. Owners of the system would be able to sell power from their vehicle back to utility providers at times when demand is high, with GM getting a portion of the proceeds. EVs are viewed as an untapped resource for balancing the electric grid to meet...
  • If aliens had to survive on Earth, what exactly would they eat?

    06/21/2026 6:13:54 PM PDT · by BenLurkin · 133 replies
    .unexplained-mysteries.com/ ^ | June 21, 2026 | T.K. Randall
    ET: The Extraterrestrial, the titular alien is seen eating and drinking all manner of human foods and beverages from chocolates to tins of beer. In reality, however, it is unlikely that an entity that lived and evolved on another world would be capable of consuming and digesting the same types of foods as we are. Professor Jose Miguel Soriano del Castillo of the University of Valencia ,,,argues that dining on the same foods that humans eat would be highly risky for a visitor from another world and that their best bet would be to instead seek out the individual nutrients...
  • Book Review: ‘Inevitable Differences’ by John Staddon; Author challenges prevailing views on race and inequality, arguing that science, economics, and history—not ideology—should guide the debate.

    06/21/2026 9:24:41 PM PDT · by SeekAndFind · 21 replies
    American Greatness ^ | 06/21/2026 | Lipton Matthews
    John Staddon, professor emeritus of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University, brings unusual precision to a subject that has long been governed more by social convention than by rigorous inquiry in his work, Inevitable Differences: An Inquiry into Human Variation (Academica Press, 2026). His background in experimental psychology and quantitative methods equips him to examine the empirical literature on group differences with a dispassion rarely found in this field. The result is a book that challenges, on both philosophical and empirical grounds, the dominant egalitarian framework shaping contemporary debates on race and inequality.That framework rests substantially on John Rawls, whose...
  • The Use of AI in Proclamation Evangelism

    06/21/2026 3:25:58 PM PDT · by RoosterRedux · 11 replies
    lausanne.org ^ | Oct 2025 | Gretchen Huizinga
    Proclamation evangelism, a core missional strategy in Christian theology, invites people into a relationship with Jesus Christ via the public declaration of the gospel. Advocates of this strategy cite the Great Commission of Jesus as the scriptural mandate for Christian witness on a global scale: ‘Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.’1 Proclamation evangelists prioritize ‘kerygma’, or the verbal proclamation of the gospel, over other methods as the primary means of fulfilling...
  • Astronomy Picture of the Day - Keogram: The Sky in 2025

    06/21/2026 11:21:29 AM PDT · by MtnClimber · 7 replies
    NASA ^ | 21 Jun, 2026 | Image Credit & License: Cees Bassa (Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy)
    Explanation: What if you could see the entire sky -- all at once -- for an entire year? That, very nearly, is what is pictured here. Every 15 seconds during 2025, an all-sky camera took an image of the sky over the Netherlands. Central columns from these images were then aligned and combined to create the featured keogram, with January at the top, December at the bottom, and the middle of the night running vertically just left of center. What do we see? Most obviously, the daytime sky is mostly blue, while the nighttime sky is mostly black. The twelve...
  • Ministry of Health: Another suspected case of Ebola in Israel

    06/21/2026 10:42:21 AM PDT · by Eleutheria5 · 15 replies
    Arutz Sheva ^ | 21/6/26
    The Health Ministry announced on Sunday that it has received a report of another person suspected of having Ebola after returning from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The man, who returned to Israel two days ago, sought medical treatment after developing a fever, headache, and diarrhea. The ministry stressed that the case remains only a suspected one at this stage. Officials said the required series of laboratory tests is already underway, with results expected in the coming days. The patient is being treated in isolation in accordance with protocols for highly contagious infectious diseases. He has been transferred to...
  • James Webb Space Telescope Made a Salty Discovery in This Unusual Exoplanet’s Skies

    06/20/2026 11:57:11 AM PDT · by Red Badger · 18 replies
    The Debrief ^ | June 20, 2026 | Ryan Whalen
    Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) observations have revealed the colorful secret of the Pink Planet, the coldest object of its type ever directly observed. A team of astronomers led by Northwestern University has revealed their findings in a recent paper published in The Astronomical Journal, finally describing the rose-colored haze covering the planetary-mass companion GJ504b, thanks to JWST data. For over a decade, researchers have speculated that atmospheric salt clouds may create the pink planet’s strange hue, but this is the first concrete evidence for the hypothesis. The Pink Planet Since its discovery in 2013,...
  • stronomy Picture of the Day - Daytime Moon Meets Evening Star

    06/20/2026 11:55:50 AM PDT · by MtnClimber · 12 replies
    NASA ^ | 20 Jun, 2026 | Image Credit & Copyright: Debra Ceravolo
    Explanation: Venus is now appearing on the celestial stage as Earth's brilliant evening star, performing with the Moon, other wandering planets, and bright stars in western skies. For evening sky gazers on June 17, the celestial beacon rose after sunset close by a young, slender, crescent Moon. But from some locations the Moon could be seen to occult or pass in front of Venus. And from a backyard observatory in southern British Columbia, Canada, the lunar occultation was played out in daylight. This stunning telescopic snapshot captured a scene in dramatically cloudy skies, following Venus' hour long disappearance, as the...
  • Private Citizen Returns Ancient Vessel to Cyprus

    06/20/2026 11:04:23 AM PDT · by SunkenCiv · 7 replies
    Archaeology Magazine ^ | June 11, 2026 | editors / unattributed
    The Cyprus Mail reports that an ancient ceramic vessel has been reclaimed from an online auction and returned to Cyprus after a year-long investigation. Cypriot officials who monitor online activity determined that the vase was in the hands of a collector in Canada, who eventually agreed to repatriate it. Researchers from Cyprus' Department of Antiquities determined that the engraved, black-polished hemispherical bowl dates to about 1900 B.C. For more on the archaeology of Cyprus, go to "In the Time of the Copper Kings."
  • Check out NASA's latest space telescope that will help discover planets beyond our Solar System

    06/20/2026 11:01:58 AM PDT · by Red Badger · 17 replies
    Not The Bee ^ | June 20, 2026 | Harambe Harambe
    Via NBC, we're about to see a whole lot more of outer space than we've ever witnessed before: After nearly two decades of development, $4.3 billion and the labor of hundreds of scientists and engineers, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is less than three months from launch. From a point roughly 1 million miles from Earth, the telescope is expected to survey the cosmos, capturing panoramas of hundreds of millions of stars and billions of galaxies. With this observatory, NASA hopes to unravel the secrets of dark matter and dark energy and discover thousands of planets beyond our solar...
  • Intact Roman Sculptures Unearthed in Israel

    06/20/2026 10:56:42 AM PDT · by SunkenCiv · 14 replies
    Archaeology Magazine ^ | June 16, 2026 | editors / unattributed
    Haaretz reports that two 1,700-year-old marble busts have been discovered in a wine-collection pit at a winepress dated to the Roman and Byzantine periods in northern Israel. One of the busts is inscribed in Greek with the name "Lycurgus," perhaps referring to the legendary founder of Sparta, or a statesman and orator who lived in Athens in the fourth century B.C. Archaeologists Eliran Oren and Michael Solotskin of the Israel Antiquities Authority said that sculptures may have been buried in the pit to hide them during an invasion. "In the Roman period, statues of this kind were displayed both in...