General
Antarctica’s mysterious Blood Falls aren’t made by minerals after all
A bright red waterfall isn’t something you’d expect to see on the icy
landscape of Antarctica, but that’s exactly what’s pouring out from the
foot of Taylor Glacier.
A team of scientists now claims to have solved the long-standing mystery behind the crimson waters of Antarctica’s Blood Falls.
The
bizarre and apparently grisly sight was first discovered in 1911 by
geologist Thomas Griffith Taylor, who attributed it to red algae.
It was only half a century later that the crimson color was identified
as being caused by iron salts. Most intriguingly, the water starts off
clear but turns red soon after it emerges from the ice, as the iron
oxidizes on exposure to the air for the first time in millennia.
Now a new study
has examined samples of the water and found that the iron appears in an
unexpected form. It’s not technically a mineral – instead it takes the
form of nanospheres, 100 times smaller than human red blood cells.
“As
soon as I looked at the microscope images, I noticed that there were
these little nanospheres and they were iron-rich, and they have lots of
different elements in them besides iron – silicon, calcium, aluminum,
sodium – and they all varied,” said Ken Livi, an author of the study.
“In order to be a mineral, atoms must be arranged in a very specific,
crystalline, structure. These nanospheres aren’t crystalline, so the
methods previously used to examine the solids did not detect them.”
This
find has implications beyond Antarctica and even beyond Earth. Just a
few years ago, scientists managed to trace the water back to its source –
an extremely salty subglacial lake under high pressure, with no light
or oxygen, and a microbial ecosystem that’s remained isolated for
millions of years.
Life
could exist on other planets under similarly inhospitable conditions,
but we might not be sending the right kind of equipment up to spot it.
“Our work has revealed that the analysis conducted by rover vehicles
is incomplete in determining the true nature of environmental materials
on planet surfaces,” said Livi.
“This is especially true for
colder planets like Mars, where the materials formed may be nanosized
and non-crystalline. Consequently, our methods for identifying these
materials are inadequate. To truly understand the nature of rocky
planets’ surfaces, a transmission electron microscope would be
necessary, but it is currently not feasible to place one on Mars.”
Source: newatlas.com
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.
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