General
“Mermaid” mummy in Japan could be a terrifying monkey-fish hoax, researchers say
Mermaids have fascinated people through various forms of media like books, movies and TV shows since the mythical creatures first became popular. They are usually portrayed as beautiful women with fish-like tails.
But in Japan, one mermaid mummy looks nothing like the mermaids in pictures.
According to Japanese researchers, the 300-year-old mermaid could have been made using the remains of two different animals.
Researchers in Japan are looking into the origins of a 300-year-old mummified mermaid that people have worshipped for centuries because it allegedly possessed medicinal properties. The mummy is around 12 inches (30.5 centimeters) long.
However, scientists believe the remains are made up of a monkey’s torso sewn onto a fish’s tail. To complete the “mermaid” look, whoever made the creature might have also added hair and nails from a human.
Hiroshi Kinoshita, a board member of the Okayama Folklore Society, discovered the mermaid mummy inside a box at a temple in Okayama Prefecture. Kinoshita first found out about the mummy after he discovered a picture of the unusual specimen in an encyclopedia of mythical creatures.
A fisherman allegedly caught the mermaid sometime between 1736 and 1741. According to a note left inside the mummy’s box, the fisherman then sold the mummy to the Kojima family, a rich family in Bingo-Fukuyama province.
The mummy had other owners after the turn of the Meiji Era (1868-1912). Experts have yet to confirm how the mermaid ended up inside the temple.
Mermaid with medicinal properties
Takafumi Kato, a paleontologist at the Kurashiki University of Science and the Arts, and his colleagues started looking into the mummy’s origins after Kinoshita convinced the temple to allow the research team to investigate the unusual remains.
The scientists imaged the mummy using a CT scan. Results of the CT and electron microscope analyses revealed that:
The mummy weighs 365 grams.The mummy’s eye orbits are fixed forward and there are eyebrows on the face.The mummy has two types of hair: thick straight hair and finer curly hair that grow from the head.The mummy has cuticles like those of humans and other primates on the surface of the hair.
Additionally, the mummy has a dorsal fin and caudal fin on its lower body, which is covered in scales.
The mermaid mummy somewhat resembles two mythical creatures from Japanese folklore: Amabies or mermaids with beaks instead of mouths and three distinct tail-fins and ningyos or fish-like creatures with human heads.
Both of these mythical creatures were linked to stories of miraculous health cures and increased longevity. In one famous tale, a woman named Yao Bikuni is said to have lived for 800 years after accidentally eating an entire ningyo.
The temple’s priests think of the mummy as an omen of good health. Kozen Kuida, the head priest at the temple, explained that they worshipped it in hopes of helping “alleviate the coronavirus pandemic even if only slightly.”
Previously, the mummy was put on display in a glass case at the temple for visitors to pray to. But for the last 40 years, the mummy was stored in a fireproof safe within the temple to prevent deterioration.
Two other temples in Japan have also housed similar mermaid mummies that have been worshipped like the Okayama mermaid.
Fake mermaids were often created to lure tourists
Experts think fake creatures like the Okayama mermaid were created by local people to sell to curious Western tourists.
A similar hoax called the Feejee Mermaid was sold to Dutch travelers in Japan in the 1810s and later resold to English merchants. The Feejee mermaid was eventually shipped to America where it became part of the famous collection of P.T. Barnum.
The Feejee mermaid was a three-foot-long (91 cm) mermaid believed to have been made from two different animals: an orangutan and the tail of a salmon.
The priests at the temple in Okayama Prefecture hope that the study will add to the mummified mermaid’s legacy and help it live on through future folklore.
“I hope the research project can leave scientific records for future generations,” concluded Kuida.
(Article by Zoey Sky republished from Citizens.news)
General
Experts Declare Experimental Cancer Vaccine Based On mRNA Technology Is ‘Safe and Effective’
A new cancer vaccine based on Covid mRNA vaccine technology
which has yet to be clinically tested has already been declared “safe
and effective” by the British government.
Known as ‘LungVax’,
the new vaccine is being developed by the University of Oxford, the
Francis Crick Institute and University College London, and is expected
to be the first of a huge range of new cancer vaccinations available in
the near future.
Research scientists developing the ‘groundbreaking’ lung cancer
vaccine claim it will be effective in preventing up to 90 per cent of
cases by training the immune system to locate and attack early signs of
disease.
Lung cancer cells look different from normal cells due to having ‘red
flag’ proteins called neoantigens. The LungVax vaccine will carry a strand of DNA which trains the immune system to recognize these neoantigens on abnormal lung cells.
It will then instruct the immune system to destroy these cells and stop lung cancer.
Professor Tim Elliot, lead researcher at the University of Oxford, said: ‘Cancer
is a disease of our own bodies and it’s hard for the immune system to
distinguish between what’s normal and what’s cancer.
‘Getting the immune system to recognize and attack cancer is one of the biggest challenges in cancer research today.”
Elliot admitted the new vaccine is based on technology used to create the Covid vaccine.
‘This research could deliver an off-the-shelf vaccine based on
Oxford’s vaccine technology, which proved itself in the Covid pandemic.
Remarkably, given the disastrous health consequences for those
vaccinated with the experimental Covid vaccines, Eilliot praised the
mRNA roll out as a success.
‘If we can replicate the kind of success seen in trials during
the pandemic, we could save the lives of tens of thousands of people
every year in the UK alone.’
Researchers have been granted up to £1.7 million from Cancer Research UK and the CRIS Cancer Foundation.
The team will receive funding for the study over the next 2 years to
support lab research and initial manufacturing of 3,000 doses of the
vaccine at the Oxford Clinical BioManufacturing Facility.
If successful, the vaccine will move straight into a clinical trials,
involving those at biggest risk of disease, such as current and former
smokers who currently qualify for targeted lung health checks in some
parts of the UK.
Elon Musk’s X must be “shut down” by government because dangerous “conspiracy theories” are spreading on the social media platform, according to British TV host Jeremy Vine.
“If there any argument to say, and this will sound crazy, but
China does it, we’ve got to now take control of Twitter and shut it down
for the time being,” said Vine.
Vine made the comments earlier this week during a heated debate
regarding speculation surrounding the health and whereabouts of Kate
Middleton, the Princess of Wales.
Boomers have become obsessed with speculating that Middleton has died or is severely unwell and that the Royal Family is hiding it because she hasn’t been seen in months after an operation.
The manipulation of a series of photo of Middleton and her children also only served to fuel the rumors, as some sources close to the princess claimed she had been murdered by the royal family.
However, instead of dismissing the whole issue for what it is, a pointless distraction that will disappear once Middleton makes a public appearance around Easter, Vine called for draconian measures.
Modernity report:
Ah yes, the Communist dictatorship of China, which shuts down the Internet to clamp down on dissent and enhance its repression of undesirables.
That’s definitely who we should be mimicking, Jeremy.
Throughout the COVID pandemic, Vine’s show was a platform for some of the most vulgar, authoritarian drivel imaginable.
One show asked if children who are unvaccinated should be banned from schools or made to wear special badges.
Another asked, “Is it time to ban the unvaccinated from traveling?”
Vine has made a name for himself as being a dutiful amplifier of regime messaging, while his annoying side hobby of biking around London looking to film confrontations with motorists has also angered many.
-
Ghosts2 years agoZozo: The Ouija Board Demon
-
Space2 years agoScientists claim to have found the answer what existed before the Universe
-
Ghosts2 years agoOld Coot of Mount Greylock
-
Archaeology1 year ago
New discoveries at Ekʼ Balam during conservation works
-
General3 years agoUC San Francisco engaging in horrifying experiments, organ harvesting of live babies in the name of “science”