Saturday, October 31, 2020

3 More New Studies Show Modern Arctic Sea Ice Extent Is Greater Than Nearly Any Time In The Last 10,000 Years



There is merit to this.  The Sahara and the whole middle East was all forest covered.  This absorbed a vast amount of heat which radiated back into the atmosphere rather than been reflected back out into space.  The Earth had to be much warmer and the Arctic in particular.

We have then had a four thousand year slow cool off to our present regime.  Reversing all vthat will taske thousands of years asd well.

This is good science and this was not an obvious one to resolve.


 3 More New Studies Show Modern Arctic Sea Ice Extent Is Greater Than Nearly Any Time In The Last 10,000 Years


By: Admin - Climate DepotOctober 30, 2020 11:58 AM

https://www.climatedepot.com/2020/10/30/3-more-new-studies-show-modern-arctic-sea-ice-extent-is-greater-than-nearly-any-time-in-the-last-10000-years/?

https://notrickszone.com/2020/10/29/3-more-new-studies-show-modern-arctic-sea-ice-extent-is-greater-than-nearly-any-time-in-the-last-10000-years/?

utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=3-more-new-studies-show-modern-arctic-sea-ice-extent-is-greater-than-nearly-any-time-in-the-last-10000-years


3 More New Studies Show Modern Arctic Sea Ice Extent Is Greater Than Nearly Any Time In The Last 10,000 YearsNoTricksZone: Not here to worship what i… / by Kenneth Richard / 1d


For years scientists have been using biomarker evidence (IP25, PIP25) to reconstruct the Arctic’s sea ice history. The evidence shows modern (20th-21st century) Arctic sea ice is at its greatest extent since the Holocene began.

Scientists (Wu et al., 2020) have determined that from about 14,000 to 8,000 years ago, when CO2 lingered near 250 ppm, the Beaufort Sea (Arctic) was “nearly ice free throughout the year” (<0.2 PIP25) and ~4°C warmer than today in winter.


With CO2 at ~400 ppm, this region is 70-100% ice-covered (>0.8 PIP25) for all but 1-2 summer months in the modern (1988-2007) era.



Image Source: Wu et al., 2020

Interestingly, another study of this same Beaufort Sea region (Durantou et al., 2012) revealed the late 1800s to 1930s were up to 3°C warmer than the late 20th and early 21st century averages and sea ice was present for 1.1 fewer months per year during these earlier periods.


Image Source: Durantou et al., 2012

Another new study (Allaart et al., 2020) concludes that from around 10,000 to 5,000 years ago, Arctic Svalbard (Wijdefjorden) glaciers had retreated many km further back than their modern positions. And the smaller ice caps had “disappeared” from the region.


In contrast, during the last 500 to 700 years Svalbard sea ice has expanded to its highest extent of the Holocene (11,700 years ago to present).


The Holocene’s sea ice maximum just developed during modern times, as the authors note there has been an “increase in IP25 concentrations after c. 0.7±0.2 cal. ka BP, with a maximum in the modern sediments.”


Image Source: Allaart et al., 2020

A study site northeast of Svalbard (Brice et al., 2020) reveals today’s sea surface temperatures of “<0°C” are at least 4°C colder than they were just a few thousand years ago, when the Arctic was sea ice free for all but “a couple of months” every year.


Notice the graphics that show today’s sea ice monthly duration (~11 months per year) and summer sea surface temperatures (zero degrees Celsius) are among the highest and lowest (respectively) of the Holocene.

The True Story Behind The Legendary Mothman Said To Terrorize West Virginia




This was the burst of sighting that produced the narritive in the first place a long time ago..  There were many sightings, lilely of the same creature or of its band perhaps.  This means they set up locally and hung around.

It had zero to do with bridges falling down.

The same thing has happened in illinois this past year and a half.  It may aslso have died down.  So it certainly was not unique.

I do think that we are dealing wityh a clutch of Gargoyles and these may also explain best tyhe Chupacabra outbreaks as well.  When you get a good close look, you can idetify a gargoyle.

Otgherwise they obviously stay well away from us.  Understand they can have unlimited deer and jack rabbits.  Cover consists of any large stand alone tree with a ground hugging skirt.  With that you are good for a lifetime.

The bands we do see may be young bands setting up.





The True Story Behind The Legendary Mothman Said To Terrorize West Virginia

By All That's Interesting



Published May 17, 2017
Updated October 26, 2020




https://allthatsinteresting.com/mothman?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=hunewsletter



As legend has it, the flying Mothman of Point Pleasant scared countless locals in the late 1960s. And when a bridge collapsed, the creature was blamed for the deaths of 46 people.


On November 12, 1966, in Clendenin, West Virginia, a group of gravediggers working in a cemetery spotted something strange.



They glanced up from their work as something huge soared over their heads. It was a massive figure that was moving rapidly from tree to tree. The gravediggers would later describe this figure as a “brown human being.”

This was the first reported sighting of what would come to be known as the Mothman, an elusive creature that remains as mysterious as it was on the night that a few frightened witnesses first laid eyes on it.

The Legend Of The Mothman Of Point Pleasant


Charles Johnson, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers/Wikimedia CommonsThe small town of Point Pleasant, West Virginia, along the bank of the Ohio River.

 

Just three days after the gravediggers’ initial report, in nearby Point Pleasant, West Virginia, two couples noticed a white-winged creature about six or seven feet tall standing in front of the car that they were all sitting in.

Eyewitnesses Roger Scarberry and Steve Mallett told the local paper, The Point Pleasant Register, that the beast had bright red eyes about six inches apart, a wingspan of 10 feet, and the apparent urge to avoid the bright headlights of the car.

According to the witnesses, this creature was able to fly at incredible speeds — perhaps as fast as 100 miles per hour. All of them agreed that the beast was a clumsy runner on the ground.

They knew this only because it allegedly chased their vehicle to the outskirts of town in the air, then scuttled into a nearby field and disappeared.

 

Knowing how absurd this must have sounded to a local paper in a small, Appalachian community in the 1960s, Scarberry insisted that the apparition couldn’t have been a figment of his imagination.

He assured the paper, “If I had seen it while by myself, I wouldn’t have said anything, but there were four of us who saw it.”

More Spooky Mothman Sightings


marada/FlickrA statue of the infamous Mothman in Point Pleasant, West Virginia.



At first, reporters were skeptical. In the papers, they called the Mothman a bird and a mysterious creature. However, they did print Mallett’s description: “It was like a man with wings.”

But more and more sightings were reported in the Point Pleasant area over the next year as the legend of the Mothman took shape.

The Gettysburg Times reported eight additional sightings in the short span of three days after the first claims. This included two volunteer firefighters, who said they saw “a very large bird with large red eyes.”

Newell Partridge, a resident of Salem, West Virginia, claimed that he saw strange patterns appearing on his television screen one night, followed by a mysterious sound just outside of his home.



Shining a flashlight toward the direction of the noise, Partridge supposedly witnessed two red eyes resembling bicycle reflectors looking back at him.

This anecdote remains a popular one in the Mothman mythos, especially since it allegedly led to the disappearance of Partridge’s dog. To this day, some still believe that the fearsome beast took his beloved pet.

A Simple Explanation For The Mothman Myth?

Dr. Robert L. Smith, an associate professor of wildlife biology at West Virginia University, dismissed the notion that a flying monster was staking out the town. Instead, he attributed the sightings to a sandhill crane, which stands almost as tall as the average man and has bright red flesh around its eyes.

This explanation was compelling, especially given the number of early reports that had described the creature as “bird-like.”

Some people hypothesized that this crane was deformed, especially if it resided in the “TNT area” — a name that locals gave to a series of nearby bunkers that were once used for manufacturing munitions during World War II. It has been suggested that these bunkers have leaked toxic materials into the neighboring wildlife preserve, possibly affecting nearby animals.

Another theory suggests that the creation of the Mothman was the work of one very committed prankster who went so far as to hide in the abandoned World War II munitions plant, where some of the sightings occurred.




USACE/Wikimedia CommonsThe Laboratory and Supervisors Office Acid Area, part of what locals now refer to as the “TNT area,” in 1942.

This theory posits that when the national press ran with the Mothman story, people who lived in Point Pleasant began to panic. Locals became convinced they were seeing the Mothman in birds and other large animals — even long after the prankster had given up on the joke.

It’s worth noting that the Mothman legend bears a resemblance to several demon archetypes found among those who have experienced sleep paralysis, which may suggest that the visions are nothing more than the embodiment of typical human fears, pulled from the depths of the unconscious and grafted onto real-life animal sightings when people panic.

And then there are the paranormal explanations, a morass of complicated theories that weave together aliens, UFOs, and precognition. These theories paint the Mothman as either a harbinger of doom or, more sinisterly, its cause — a legend that has its roots in the tragedy that befell Point Pleasant shortly after the Mothman arrived.


The Silver Bridge Collapse


On December 15, 1967, just over a year after the first Mothman sighting, traffic was bad on the Silver Bridge. Originally built in 1928 to connect Point Pleasant, West Virginia, to Gallipolis, Ohio, the bridge was packed with cars.

This placed a strain on the bridge, which had been built in a time when cars were lighter. The Model T had weighed just 1,500 pounds — a modest sum compared to the 1967 average for a car: 4,000 pounds.


The bridge’s engineers hadn’t been particularly imaginative, nor had they been especially cautious, while creating this structure. The bridge’s design featured very little redundancy, meaning that if one part failed, there was almost nothing in place to prevent other parts from failing as well.

And on that cold December day, that was exactly what happened.

Without warning, a single eyebar near the top of the bridge on the Ohio side cracked. The chain snapped, and the bridge, its careful equilibrium disturbed, fell to pieces, plunging cars and pedestrians into the icy water of the Ohio River below.

Forty-six people died, either by drowning or being crushed by the wreckage.


Footage of the wreckage of the Silver Bridge and interviews with witnesses and survivors.

Following the Mothman sightings, the bridge collapse was the second terrible and bizarre thing to put Point Pleasant on the map in a year’s time. So it didn’t take long for some to connect the two.

In 1975, author John Keel conflated the Mothman sightings and the bridge disaster while creating his book The Mothman Prophecies. He also incorporated UFO activity. His story took hold, and the town soon became iconic among conspiracy theorists, ufologists, and fans of the paranormal.


The Legacy Of The Mothman


FlickrLocals and visitors celebrate the annual Mothman festival in Point Pleasant.

Point Pleasant’s fame as the home of the Mothman legend hasn’t waned in recent decades. In 2002, a movie based on Keel’s book rekindled interest in the Mothman.

In the Mothman Prophecies film, Richard Gere plays a reporter whose wife seems to have witnessed the Mothman shortly before her death. He finds himself inexplicably in Point Pleasant several years later with no clue how he got there — and he’s not the only one having trouble explaining himself.

As several locals experience premonitions of distant disasters, there’s talk of visitations from a mysterious figure called the Mothman.


The film, a supernatural horror and mystery, offers no conclusions, communicating instead an eerie feeling of disjointedness that was both panned and praised by critics. Most notably, the film popularized the image of the Mothman as a harbinger of doom.

Richard Gere plays journalist John Klein in The Mothman Prophecies (2002).

The idea that visitations from the Mothman predicted disaster led some believers to make ties to the Chernobyl disaster of 1986, the Mexican swine flu outbreak of 2009, and the 2011 nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan.

As for sightings of the actual Mothman, they’ve mostly declined since the late 1960s. But every so often, a sighting emerges. In 2016, a man who’d just moved to Point Pleasant spotted a mysterious creature jumping from tree to tree. He claimed to local reporters that he was unaware of the local legend of the Mothman — until he allegedly spotted the beast himself.


Whether these sightings are real or not, the Mothman can still be seen in Point Pleasant today in the form of a historical museum, and also in the form of a 12-foot-tall chrome-polished statue, complete with massive steel wings and ruby-red eyes.

Furthermore, a festival commemorating the Mothman’s visits has taken place annually for years — a fun celebration that attracts locals and tourists alike. Every September, the festivities celebrate one of America’s strangest local legends that still has people scratching their heads to this day.

For God and Country || James O'Brien





This is a recap of what we have all been understanding.  It is real folks. what i find noteworthy is that public arrests have been held off until after the election.  We all know they are guilty.  

Obvious placeholders are staying the course as well.  Yet all today are tightly controlled.  It must be awful knowing your life is over and then going through the motions.

It is now end game.  It is ironic they were able to mirror the fake dossier with the confirmed laptop from HELL.

180,000 sealed indictments.   Today we saw Jack Dorsey sporting a years growth of beard.  New Style at GITMO?


For God and Country || James O'Brien


https://operationdisclosure1.blogspot.com/2020/10/for-god-and-country-james-obrien.html



Operation Disclosure | By James O'Brien, Contributing Writer

October 29, 2020

Sometimes, it seems so obvious even a grade-schooler could figure it out, and I'm sure that many of them have to date. But apparently, some small part of the population hasn't yet, and that's okay. This is a process.

The Russian Delusion investigations failed. The Impeachment scam failed. Every other attack they could level on him failed. Trump was riding a wave of historic economic prosperity right into his second term...

Enter C19. Where did it come from? China. Who is in bed with the CCP as now extensively revealed via open source in the laptop from hell? Why yes, of course, the [B]idens. They have been paid off and compromised to the tenth power. It is treason in the clearest of all possible terms. I think some zoo primates could solve this one, as long as they weren't pumping MSNBC and CNN into their cages. But I digress...

Their aim was to crash the economy, put us all on lockdown and blame the deaths on Trump. Then throw a bad vaccine in the mix as a chaser. They have been non-stop promoting their inaccurate mortality figures, wherein individuals with other major morbidity issues are all falsely attributed as C0vid deaths. And the hospitals cash in on it, too. They are not all angels in that environment, because money can corrupt even those that have promised to heal us. Then Democrat Governors like Cuomo sent people with C0vid back into nursing homes, knowing full well that locale was the most vulnerable.

These people have no conscience. They will sacrifice anything and any number of people to get back power. They will use any tool at their disposal, no matter how evil. But it didn't work, did it? C0vid has the same numbers as the flu, which it conveniently replaced worldwide. The flu is now down 98%, so it is quite clear that they piggybacked that virus all the way to a world shutdown, with the complicity of the corrupt media and compromised governors and other leaders.

However, the Trump Alliance responded perfectly, because we have their playbook. [B]iden is this very day (and those to come) being annihilated by revelations that have been open sourced onto the internet, exactly like [H]illary [C]linton was in 2016 with the Wikileaks information.

It wasn't Russia that hacked the DNC in 2016, it was Bernie Sanders-supporting DNC staffer Seth Rich, who got the files to [J]ulian [A]ssange and was subsequently murdered. So, in an interesting way, we have the Democrat party that rigged the primaries against Sanders to thank in great part for the Trump victory in 2016.

Fast forward to 2020 and history is repeating itself with China Joe this time, but to much greater effect. If you think this is all just a conspiracy, you are likely only getting your news from the compromised mainstream media, the very last stop on the truth train. The files from the [H]unter [B]iden drive are being channeled directly to the internet, and being poured over by citizens all across the world. We are doing the press's job now for them and they cannot stop us.

[J]oe [B]iden is a national security threat at the highest level. Thankfully, he's been systematically destroyed before this election even gets to the finish line. The timing is perfect. We don't want him to drop out and it's far too late now to replace him. Big Tech and most of the media has censored the story, but that doesn't matter. An end zone run was done around them.

In 2016, another political criminal [H]illary [C]linton tried to project her treasonous uranium dealings with Russia on Trump with the Russian collusion smear. It didn't get her into office. She got shut down in that election by the voters, and not by Russia.


And just like [C]linton, [B]iden has major, major problems with the 'crime against children' that came out in the Weiner 'insurance files.' Are you seeing a pattern here? Few know that [B]iden owns an island just a hop, skip and a jump from Epstein's notorious former pedo island.

Whither Epstein now? He was a primary founder of the [C]linton Foundation. If [H]illary would have won in 2016 his power would have increased exponentially, along with those who funded him and his honeypot operation. Yet, under the Trump Admin, he was wiped off the map, quite literally. He joins that ignominious roll call with a record number of human [traffic]kers and ped[o]philes arrested under Trump. I still don't get why they call it ped[o]philia. The love of children? You have to hate children to do that to them.

This is far bigger than just politics. These sick people are finished in terms of worldly power. What you are now seeing is the gradual stage play revelations of their activity. If the average person had this information delivered to them all at once they might have a heart attack from shock. All efforts have been exhausted to protect the children first. The rest follows in a progression that will minimize public chaos. There will be some street chaos, of course, but this has been planned for well in advance.

So, it has been drip, drip, drip with the public dissemination of information. Much of the battle has been fought behind the scenes, though there have been obvious and noted victories, like the recent Supreme Court appointment. This has been a worldwide operation of almost unimaginable magnitude, draining the Swamp at every level, including the places like the Vatican, which had far more power than many might recognize. There were blackmailed agents at every strata of the political, legal, and intelligence systems. Our own FBI has had the [B]iden laptop for almost a year now. There are a great many compromised individuals in the system that stand to lose everything if their crimes come to light. This includes some Hollywood celebrities, entertainers and even sporting figures. There's a reason they scream all the time like lunatics about Trump. Their gooses are cooked if he stays in office and the laws are enforced to the letter. Check out the flight logs to Epstein's pedo island. A lot of very well known figures are on that list. Bad things happened on that island. Death penalty bad for some of them.

These people, particularly the politicos, will make any alliance required to stay out of prison. Communist China is a notable ally. China owns a great deal of Hollywood and other entities like the NBA. I imagine whoever cuts your check owns you in a sense, so it's no surprise to see players like Lebron James speak out so vehemently against Trump. And it has nothing to do with 'black lives mattering' because Trump has been a great champion of that community ever since he was sworn in. The 2020 election will strongly reflect that reality.

This election is more like a referendum, a litmus test of sorts for both the country and everyone as individuals. The outcome has already been secured. We have the numbers and no amount of voter fraud can change that. In a close election, fraud can steer it one way or another, but not in a landslide.

So, the question is really up to you. Where do you stand at this juncture in history? Have you done your research beyond the mainstream outlets you favor? Have you well and truly looked into the absurdly obvious Biden corruption that is being slipstreamed into the actual mainstream at a steady and ever-growing current? Or have you rested comfortably with your old delusions, seeking to maintain your cherished ego pride that you were right all along about Orange Man Bad?


The Trump Alliance cares deeply about the people of China. They deserve their freedom as much as any American does. But it's like in the airplane oxygen mask scenario. You put your own oxygen mask on first before you try to save anyone else. The Chinese citizens despise their CCP, just like US patriots despise our [D]eep [S]tate, which has led us down too many dark paths and into too many crooked foreign wars, from Vietnam to the Middle East. Chinese patriots are also involved in the [B]iden revelations coming to light today. They want to free their own people from the chains of tyranny and communism, and they know the Trump Alliance is the only avenue to that freedom. And they are right about that.

This is not simply another four year election, as 2016 wasn't just another election between two puppets controlled by the same hand, like it used to be before Trump. It is very important that everyone who can vote, does vote, because you should be on this tally for your own personal development. The mind control of the media of this era is something that will be studied for many generations to come. This control is very effective, no one can dispute that, because if it wasn't, then advertising would not be a thing. And if companies will drop millions of dollars on a 30 second super bowl ad, what do you think the effect of a 4 year around-the- clock anti-Trump propaganda campaign would have on the perceptions of the general public? Many have believed these lies, though you might note, my friends, that not one of these lies has worked yet to date.

The story remains that the People woke up, or at least enough of them did to make this great change happen. That is the tale of this election and the one that preceded it. And we had a lot of help, from citizen journalists, to truth-seeking patriots, and people from all walks of life around the globe who sincerely sought the true meaning behind what is unfolding. And many of them actually prayed for that meaning. And when you do that sincerely, you are always steered in the right direction. It never fails.

We are witnessing the hand of God in world events, however you might interpret the meaning of that statement, beyond all worldly religions, but also unifying them. We are not talking about a bearded guy in the sky, we are referring to cycles whose shifts are subsequently reflected in world events. A major era is both closing and also opening. And as I have written many times before, the plans of mice and men cannot alter it beyond the course it is meant to travel. It can alter some of the colors and shades of individual events, but the overall picture is going to be what it is meant to be. It is the dawn of a renewed planetary freedom and the cleaning out of a very old, very corrupt, and I will say it, very evil old order whose time is up. Trump is an important figure in this, but he obviously doesn't act alone. The best comparison might be that he's George Washington during the American Revolution. Rather different personalities, obviously, but it's a rather different time, wouldn't you say? Washington did not have to run the insane media circus gauntlet that Trump has, along with all the battles in the DC bloodsport arena. It's a good thing he had experience in pro wrestling and fight promotions, because those are among the many skills that have come in handy. He has a very specific skill set. Like no one else on earth. And they went after his daughter, Lady Liberty. A very bad mistake. And a fatal mistake, for them.

Trump also has another quality that Washington had. He prays for the soul of our Nation, and knows that in this battle he is guided, like Washington, by Divine Providence. I can think of no other battle, than this one fought in the name of human freedom, that is more worth fighting. I myself would gladly sacrifice my own life for it, were it required, because let's face it, we are all going to die anyway, it is only a matter of time. This is the noble legacy of all patriots, both known and unknown, who fought on battlefields the world over to preserve and protect our sacred freedoms.

Trump will not lose this battle on November 3rd, and neither will the Alliance that supports him. With the coming victory we will enter a new and accelerated part of this glorious story. First, we secure our own sacred freedoms-- from all enemies foreign and domestic (right, Joe?)-- and then we expand our operations to the world at large. The Truth is marching on.



Peace treaties are already being signed in the Middle East. China is a big part of this story, as they have a billion human beings under their care. This great triumph we have undertaken involves freedom fighters, both in the US military under Trump and in the white hats from our intelligence networks, who put this plan together many years ago. We also have all patriotic US citizens and our army of digital soldiers, both here and abroad. And those numbers are growing with each passing minute.

Nothing can stop what is coming. Where we go one, we go all. And the best is truly yet to come. In God We Trust.

_________________________

Van Full Of Explosives Discovered In Philly On Third Night Of Rioting



Well this would make a burning mess.  Someone had a vehicle and money to buy propane tanks.  It may also have been a complete fake job.  By the way, dynamite is obvious even to those who have never seen it before.


Again too much planning been exhibited here and that is called an insurection and certainly no protest movement.


Understand that they are taking names and payback will be a bitch.



Van Full Of Explosives Discovered In Philly On Third Night Of Rioting



https://www.zerohedge.com/political/van-full-explosives-discovered-philly-third-night-rioting


Police in Philadelphia discovered a van packed with explosives and other “suspicious equipment” as a third night of rioting and looting gripped the city on Wednesday.

ABC 6 reported that “police recovered propane tanks, torches and possible dynamite sticks from the van.”

The development comes after President Trump claimed police were told to “stand back” and not stop looting and rioting.

“People are breaking into stores and walking out with washing machines and walking out with all sorts of things and it shouldn’t be allowed,” Trump noted, adding “The police were told to stand back, and maybe that’s not so but that’s what I was told upon very good authority.”

Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney blasted the crime wave Wednesday, noting that “The looting that has taken place is distressing.”

“It is clear that many of these folks are taking advantage of the situation, harming our businesses and communities, and doing a great disservice to those who want to protest the death of Walter Wallace, Jr.,” Kenney added.

“We cannot allow others to destroy property. I have requested the assistance of the PA National Guard. Their role will be to safeguard property, prevent looting, and provide operational and logistical assistance to @PhillyPolice and other departments,” Kenny also announced.

The mayor has also put a city-wide curfew in place:

Friday, October 30, 2020

SEE A STUNNINGLY SURREAL BOOKSTORE IN CHINA

 

I was thinking just today that hte book selling business has survived a horrendus shock and is now showing signs of real recovery.  That is welcome.  It went through a long two decades of intense mis placed investment and this was followed by consloidation.

I walked through Indigos in Vancouver today and half the footage was  dedicated to future junk.  I had to look for the working book shelves.  Oh well.

The book selling model needs to be rethought and built around the informed book seller who serves the customer.  Imagine a 10,000 foot facility in which publishers stock their own space along with a dedicated expert..  It certainly worked for cosmetics.  It also supports catelog sales as well.  The industry has depended on self service forever.  Maybe it is time to change and perhaps used items can also be stocked alongside as well.

A specialist book seller can stock several small publishers as well here.

Understand that the available categories are actually small in number..  so why should you compete that way?

SEE A STUNNINGLY SURREAL BOOKSTORE IN CHINA

Dujiangyan Zhongshu features gravity-defying staircases and infinite bookshelves

BY ISIS DAVIS-MARKSA view of the Dujiangyan Zhongshu bookstore (Feng Shao / X+Living)


SMITHSONIANMAG.COM | Oct. 29, 2020, 10:08 a.m.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/gorgeous-bookstore-china-creates-other-worldly-space-180976143/?


Arecently opened bookstore in southwest China looks like it came straight out of one of Dutch artist M.C. Escher’s fever dreams.


Located west of Chengdu in the Sichuan province, Dujiangyan Zhongshuge boasts spiraling staircases, curved archways and strategically placed mirrors; these architectural features work in tandem to create the illusion of an impossible space similar to the one depicted in Escher’s gravity-defying Relativity (1953).


Architect Li Xiang, founder of Shanghai-based firm X+Living, designed the roughly 10,500-square-foot bookshop, which draws inspiration from the Unesco World Heritage–listed Dujiangyan irrigation system. Certain architectural elements resemble water, nodding to the many rivers that flow through the city.

“We moved the local landscape into the indoor space,” Li tells Architectural Digest’s Elizabeth Stamp. “The project is located in Dujiangyan, which is a city with a long history of water conservancy development, so in the main area, you [can] see the construction of the dam integrated into the bookshelves.”View of spiral staircases (X+Living)




View of mirrored ceiling (X+Living)

According to a statement, the Dujiangyan store—much like Zhongshuge’s other locations—uses a mirrored ceiling to simulate a sense of limitless openness. Book-laden, ceiling-high shelves echo the curves of nature, while glossy, black-tile flooring makes reading tables scattered across the space resemble boats moored on a lake.

Visitors walking through the labyrinth-like store will find areas designed to fulfill different purposes. The children’s reading room, for instance, is replete with panda posters, bamboo bookshelves and colorful cushions.


As Li notes on Instagram, the tomes placed on the bookshelves’ highest levels are purely decorative. But all books within readers’ reach—some 80,000 volumes spanning more than 20,000 categories—are “readable,” she adds.

This isn’t X+Living’s first foray into the book world: The firm has previously created Zhongshuge branches in Guangzhou, Yangzhou, Minhang and Chongqing, among other locations across China.




View of the Dujiangyan Zhongshu bookstore (X+Living)

At the Yangzhou store, designers relied on mirrored floors and arched shelves to “create the illusion of an infinite tunnel of books,” per Atlas Obscura’s Kerry Wolfe. And in Chongqing, wrote Nick Mafi for Architectural Digest in June 2019, architectural features lent the space “an almost delirious, vertiginous” vibe.

Perhaps even more so than the new location in Dujiangyan, the Chongqing store deftly channels Escher’s surreal creations, featuring a “ladder hall” in which “mountain-shaped stairs” double as bookshelves, according to a statement.


“The clients asked me and my team to create a bookstore that was also a landmark," Li told Architectural Digest’s Mafi in 2019. “The glass ceiling enlarges the space, while creating something 
that appears more magical than it does real.”


View of Dujiangyan Zhongshu bookstore (X+Living)


View of Dujiangyan Zhongshu bookstore (X+Living)


View of Dujiangyan Zhongshu bookstore (X+Living)

NASA finds rare metal asteroid worth more than global economy


I would really like someone to convince me of those apparent grades.. Folks have been waxing enthusiastic since forever on no ground truth whatsoever.  THe arguments are good, but are just that.

The market for rare earths and secondary metals associated with nickel iron deposits are small but lucretive.  That is because they are scant enough.  Change that and no one really cares.

We can globally absorb a lot of copper, iron, zinc and we love precious metals.  Yet no one weants to store a mile of rails in his back yard.

We may mine this stuff some day and ship it to our space station with its own smelter for space based fabrication.  Just not so soon.


NASA finds rare metal asteroid worth more than global economy








<iframe width="700" height="480" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2osqJB1pfbI" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>




https://www.mining.com/nasa-finds-rare-metal-asteroid-worth-more-than-global-economy/

NASA’s Hubble Telescope has obtained images of an asteroid so rich in rare metals that its worth puts our global economy to shame. Think $10,000 quadrillion ($10,000,000,000,000,000,000), compared to the world’s economy, which was worth about $142 trillion in 2019.


The rare heavy-metal object, called “16 Psyche,” is one of the largest celestial bodies in the Solar System’s main asteroid belt, orbiting between Mars and Jupiter. It’s located at roughly 370 million km (230 million miles) from Earth and measures 226 km (140 miles) across.



16 Psyche was actually discovered in 1852, but this is the first time scientists can get a closer look. What makes it special is that, unlike most asteroids that are either rocky or icy, 16 Psyche is made almost entirely of iron and nickel, a study published this week in The Planetary Science Journal shows.

Tracy Becker, a planetary scientist and author of the paper, says the asteroid is likely the leftover core of a planet that never properly formed because it was hit by objects in our solar system and effectively lost its mantle and crust.

Closer look

While Hubble has been able to get clear images of 16 Psyche, only a visit to its surface will reveal what it’s really like. NASA already has plans to do just that as part of its Discovery Program, with an orbiter set to launch from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center in August 2022.

The mission would arrive at 16 Psyche in January 2026 and spend at least 21 months mapping and studying the asteroid’s unique properties.

“To understand what really makes up a planet and to potentially see the inside of a planet is fascinating,” says Becker, who works at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas. “Once we get to Psyche, we’re really going to understand if that’s the case, even if it doesn’t turn out as we expect.” 

If the mission could kindly bring the asteroid back to Earth, every person on the planet — all 7.8 billion of us — would get roughly $1.2 billion, based on current metal prices.

Research team discovers breakthrough with potential to prevent, reverse Alzheimer's


Right now we have an indication study.  We  do  not know if the pathology is affected yet  It is still a positive and safe application may now be attempted on known human cases.  It is even works for a portion of hte disease progression, then that is useful.

All good news.

Alzheimers remains uncured and horrible.  Let us hope this happens to be at least a partial assist.

.

Research team discovers breakthrough with potential to prevent, reverse Alzheimer's


Wayne Chen's lab at UCalgary identifies a way to interrupt and prevent progression of devastating condition


AUTHOR

Dawn Smith, Libin Cardiovascular Institute



https://libin.ucalgary.ca/news/research-team-discovers-breakthrough-potential-prevent-reverse-alzheimers

Aresearch team at the University of Calgary’s Cumming School of Medicine (CSM) led by Dr. S.R. Wayne Chen, PhD, has made an exciting breakthrough with the potential to prevent and reverse the effects of Alzheimer’s disease.

The team discovered that limiting the open time of a channel called the ryanodine receptor, which acts like a gateway to cells located in the heart and brain, reverses and prevents progression of Alzheimer’s disease in animal models. They also identified a drug that interrupts the disease process.

The effect of giving the drug to animal models was remarkable: After one month of treatment, the memory loss and cognitive impairments in these models disappeared.

“The significance of identifying a clinically used drug that acts on a defined target to provide anti-Alzheimer’s disease benefits can’t be overstated,” says Chen, a member of the Libin Cardiovascular Institute and the Hotchkiss Brain Institute at the CSM. Dr. Jinjing Yao, PhD, a student of Chen, is the first author of the study.

The results of this groundbreaking study were recently published in the peer-reviewed journal, Cell Reports

This work is potentially highly impactful as more than half a million Canadians live with Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias, suffering memory loss and other cognitive impairments with a negative impact on quality of life.

The science behind the findings

Previous research has shown that the progression of Alzheimer’s disease is driven by a vicious cycle of the protein amyloid β (Aβ) inducing hyperactivity at the neuron level. However, the mechanism behind this wasn’t fully understood nor were there effective treatments to stop the cycle. 

Chen’s team used a portion of an existing drug used for heart patients, carvedilol, to treat mice models with Alzheimer’s symptoms. After a month of treatment, researchers tested animal models with very promising results.

“We treated them for a month and the effect was quite amazing,” says Chen, explaining the drug was successful in reversing major symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. “We couldn’t tell the drug-treated disease models and the healthy models apart.”

Chen, a Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher, is optimistic about the future of this research, noting the next step will be clinical trials in people.

Wayne Chen is a professor in the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the CSM. Led by the Hotchkiss Brain Institute, Brain and Mental Health is one of six research strategies guiding the University of Calgary toward its Eyes High goals. The strategy provides a unifying direction for brain and mental health research at the university.



Dr. Wayne Chen, PhD

Britton Ledingham for the Libin Cardiovascular Institute


Tags



Sea Ice Conditions






What has got me truly excited is the second image here.  Observe just how all that multi year ice, once covering the majority of the central ice mass has been reduced to a skirt likely held in place against the norther coast of the arctic islands.  The rest is moving and has been reduced as a body to eliminate multi year ice.

This is huge.  All of this is likely now open to ice breaker penetration during the summer.  More stunningly the North East passage is now the open North East trade GAP likely a thousand mi8les wide or some serious fraction thereoff.  No longer a gamble at all.

The  North West passage is still dicey so long as old ice hangs on along the coast.  winds can blow ice in any time.  Yet even that mass is showing signs of reduction.  Warming Arctic sea water can truly open that all up as well.

There is no longer enough ice to shut the eastern route easily.  This also means warmer waters are likely to now reach the  Bering sea as well which will expand hte season there as vwell.



Sea Ice  Conditions

http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/



Read scientific analysis on Arctic sea ice conditions. We provide an update during the first week of each month, or more frequently as conditions warrant.








Following the sea ice extent minimum on September 15, 2020, expansion of the ice edge has been most notable in the northern Chukchi and Beaufort Seas. The ice edge along the Laptev Sea continued to retreat farther. Antarctic sea ice has climbed to its highest extent since 2014; it may have reached its maximum on September 28, but it is too soon to say for sure.

Overview of conditions


Figure 1. Arctic sea ice extent for September 2020 was 3.92 million square kilometers (1.51 million square miles). The magenta line shows the 1981 to 2010 average extent for that month. Sea Ice Index data. About the data

Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center

Arctic sea ice extent averaged for September 2020 was 3.92 million square kilometers (1.51 million square miles), the second lowest in the 42-year satellite record, behind only September 2012. This is 350,000 square kilometers (135,000 square miles) above that record low, and 2.49 million square kilometers (961,000 square miles) below the 1981 to 2010 average. Following the minimum seasonal extent, which occurred on September 15, ice growth quickly began along in the northern Beaufort, Chukchi, and East Siberian Seas (Figure 1). Expansion of the ice edge was also notable within the East Greenland Sea and within Canadian Arctic Archipelago. By contrast, the ice edge in the Kara and Barents Seas remained relatively stable until the end of the month when it started to expand, and within the Laptev Sea the ice edge retreated slightly. The Northern Sea Route remained open at the end of September whereas the Northwest Passage southerly route (Amundsen’s route) is now blocked by ice. Ten days after the minimum extent was reached, the total extent climbed above 4 million square kilometers (1.54 million square miles) and by the end of the month the ice extent was tracking at 4.25 million square kilometers (1.64 million square miles), still second lowest in terms of daily extent.
Conditions in context

Figure 2a. The graph above shows Arctic sea ice extent as of October 4, 2020, along with daily ice extent data for four previous years and the record low year. 2020 is shown in blue, 2019 in green, 2018 in orange, 2017 in brown, 2016 in purple, and 2012 in dashed brown. The 1981 to 2010 median is in dark gray. The gray areas around the median line show the interquartile and interdecile ranges of the data. Sea Ice Index data.

Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center



Figure 2b. The plot on the left shows the departure from average air temperature in the Arctic at the 925 hPa level, in degrees Celsius, for September 2020. Yellows and reds indicate higher than average temperatures; blues and purples indicate lower than average temperatures. The plot on the right shows average sea level pressure in the Arctic in millibars (hPa) for September 2020. Yellows and reds indicate high air pressure; blues and purples indicate low pressure. The apparent high pressure over Greenland is an artifact of the high elevation there; errors are incurred in extrapolating from the surface of the ice to sea level.

Credit: NSIDC courtesy NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory Physical Sciences Division

Arctic air temperatures at the 925 hPa level (about 2,500 feet above the surface) remained overall above the 1981 to 2010 average during September. This warmth was primarily observed on the Eurasian side of the Arctic, where air temperatures along the coastal regions of the Laptev Sea reached up to 8 degrees Celsius (14 degrees Fahrenheit) above average. Below average temperatures prevailed over Greenland. Warm conditions over the Siberian side of the Arctic were driven by a strong high pressure ridge over Siberia coupled with a strong low-pressure trough centered over Svalbard. This is also manifested as a positive phase of the Arctic Oscillation (AO). A cyclonic (counterclockwise) circulation pattern set up over the Laptev Sea, bringing in warmer air from the south. At the same time, this circulation pattern enhanced ice drift out through Fram Strait and out of the Arctic Ocean. Winds from the south in the Kara and Barents Seas also kept the ice edge from expanding in that region, and led to retreat of the ice edge within the Laptev Sea.
September 2020 compared to previous years

Figure 3. Monthly September ice extent for 1979 to 2020 shows a decline of 13.1 percent per decade.

Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center

The overall rate of sea ice decline in September is now at 83,700 square kilometers (32,300 square miles) per year, or a rate of ice loss of 13.1 percent per decade relative to the 1981 to 2010 average.
A look back at summer 2020


Figure 4a. This graphic ranks months based on their Arctic air temperature from 1979 to 2020 at 925 hPa from the National Centers for Environmental Prediction/National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCEP/NCAR) Reanalysis for all areas north of 70 degrees N. Dark reds indicate warmest months; dark blues indicate coldest months.

Credit: Z. Labe, Colorado State University, Colorado



Figure 4b. This plot shows the departure from average air temperature in the Arctic at the 925 hPa level, in degrees Celsius, for May, June, July, and August 2020. Yellows and reds indicate higher than average temperatures; blues and purples indicate lower than average temperatures.

Credit: NSIDC courtesy NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory Physical Sciences Division




Figure 4c. These four plots show average sea level pressure in the Arctic in millibars (hPa) for May, June, July, and August 2020. Yellows and reds indicate high air pressure; blues and purples indicate low pressure.

Credit: NSIDC courtesy NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory Physical Sciences Division


Figure 4d. These maps show sea surface temperature (SST) in degrees Celsius and sea ice concentration for August 23, 2020 on the left and September 13, 2020 on the right. SST data are from the University of Washington Polar Science Center Upper layer Temperature of the Polar Oceans (UptempO) buoys and satellite-derived values from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and ice concentration is from the NSIDC Sea Ice Index.

Credit: University of Washington

While average and below average air temperature characterized the Arctic Ocean in the winter of 2019 to 2020, exceptionally warm conditions prevailed this past summer. Indeed, the summer of 2020 appears to be the warmest since at least 1979. According to the NCEP/NCAR reanalyses, monthly averaged air temperatures (at the 925 hPa level) over the Arctic Ocean, north of 70 degrees N, were at record highs in May, July, and August. June ranked as the second warmest behind 2005 (Figure 4a). Exceptionally high temperatures in May led to early development of melt ponds along the Russian coast (Figure 4b). This, combined with exceptional warmth over Siberia in June and thin ice in the region, fostered by the strongly positive phase of the Arctic Oscillation (AO) in winter (see discussion below), resulted in early development of open water within the Laptev Sea. This led to record low ice extent in the region starting in mid-June. By mid-July, Arctic sea ice extent was tracking at record lows over the period of satellite observations, fueled by the early ice retreat along the Russian coast.

Sea level pressure patterns this melt season shifted from month to month (Figure 4c). For example, high air temperatures in May were linked to a high pressure ridge over Alaska that extended into the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas. Meanwhile, unusually low pressure was focused over the central Arctic Ocean and Scandinavia, driving winds from the south over to the Kara Sea. In June, the high pressure moved over to the western Arctic Ocean. High pressure also developed throughout the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, Greenland, and Scandinavia. This, combined with low sea level pressure near the pole and over the Kara Sea and Eurasia, spilled cold Arctic air into Eurasia and warm air over Siberia. In July, the high pressure ridge moved further east to the Kara and Laptev Seas. Coupled with low pressure over Siberia and Scandinavia, this circulation pattern funneled warm air from Scandinavia and Eurasia towards the pole, while pushing cold Arctic air from the Kara Sea over to Russia and from the central Arctic over to Alaska.

As August started, the pace of ice loss slowed and by the end of the month, total Arctic sea ice extent went from the lowest to the second lowest in the satellite record. This was despite August being the warmest August recorded since at least 1979.

By late August, sea surface temperatures showed large variations across the Arctic, with generally warm water to the south and colder, near-freezing water near the ice edge in most locations (Figure 4d). According to our colleague Mike Steele at the University of Washington, this cold water persists near the ice edge as the ocean gives up its heat to melt ice; this signals the last stage of summer ice retreat. The resulting new open water hardly warms up because there is little atmospheric heating late in the season from lack of solar energy. An exception is the eastern Beaufort Sea, where ice was swept southward this year into warm water along the northern coast of northwest Canada and Alaska. By mid-September, the cold northern band of sea surface temperatures expanded in response to continued ice retreat and weak atmospheric heating of the ocean. Many areas, such as the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas, Canada Basin, and Baffin Bay, had lower sea surface temperatures at this time relative to August. This surface cooling happens as the calm winds of summer are replaced by windier conditions in the fall, which mixes the ocean heat downward. The date of maximum sea surface temperature is often earlier than the date of minimum sea ice extent. This is not so evident in the eastern Arctic Ocean, possibly because of the influence of warm ocean currents that continue to pump heat into the area through late summer.

Comment on the northernmost ice edge position in the Kara and Barents Seas



Figure 5. These graphs show the 3-month average Arctic Oscillation (AO) index from 1950 through August 2020.

Credit: National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

The near record minimum Arctic sea ice extent in September 2020, and particularly the loss of ice along the Russian margin of the Arctic Ocean, is consistent with wind patterns associated with the persistently strong positive phase of the Arctic Oscillation (AO) this past winter. During the positive phase of the winter AO, there tends to be a pattern of offshore winds along the Russian side of the Arctic, drawing ice out of the Siberian shelf seas (Kara, Laptev, East Siberian, and Chukchi Seas) and causing new ice formation in the openings left behind. The result is that the spring ice cover along the Siberian coast is thinner than usual and more likely to melt out in summer. The 2019 to 2020 winter AO was at a record or near record positive phase (Figure 5). According to our colleague Jamie Morrison at the University of Washington, this summer’s pronounced retreat of ice north of the Laptev-Kara-Barents-Seas region is consistent with the effects of the positive winter AO. Morison notes that the winter AO has been generally positive over the past 30 years, particularly so over the last 10 years. He speculates that the atmospheric circulation pattern associated with the AO may also favor a greater influence of Atlantic water heat on the sea ice cover through weakening the cold halocline layer—the cold, but low density water at the ocean surface.

Arctic sea ice age


Figure 6. The upper left map shows sea ice age distribution toward the end of the melt season for 1985 and the upper left map shows the end of the 2020 melt season. The bottom time series of different age categories shows the minimum extent for 1985 to 2020. Note that the ice age product does not include ice in the Canadian Archipelago. Data from Tschudi et al., EASE-Grid Sea Ice Age, Version 3

Credit: W. Meier, National Snow and Ice Data Center and M. Tschudi et al.

With the minimum reached, the remaining sea ice has had its “birthday,” aging one year. Assessing the ice age just before this birthday gives an indication of the health of the ice at the end of the melt season. The extent of the oldest ice (4+ years old) at that time in 2020 was 230,000 square kilometers (89,000 square miles). This is considerably higher compared to last year, when the 4+ year old ice extent stood at 55,000 square kilometers (21,000 square miles) at the 2019 minimum. The increase in 4+ year old ice in 2020 was compensated by a slight decrease in 2- to 3-year old ice and 3- to 4-year old ice (Figure 6). Overall, since the 1980s, when older ice covered over 2 million square miles (772,000 square miles) of the Arctic Ocean, sea ice has become much thinner and younger. The linear downward trend in 4+ year old ice extent at the sea ice minimum is 70,000 square kilometers (27,000 square miles) per year, equivalent to a decline of 6.1 percent per year relative to the 1984 to 2020 average.
Antarctica maximum may have been reached


Figure 7. Arctic sea ice extent for September 2020 was 18.77 million square kilometers (7.25 million square miles). The magenta line shows the 1981 to 2010 average extent for that month. Sea Ice Index data. About the data

Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center

Antarctic sea ice extent may have reached its maximum of 18.95 million square kilometers (7.32 million square miles) on September 28, but the extent could still expand in the coming days. As is typical this time of year, there are wide swings caused by winds and storms along the extensive ice edge. Ice extent is now well above the 1981 to 2020 median extent. This follows a remarkable transition from generally below median extent beginning in August 2016 to well above median extent just in the seven weeks preceding October 1, 2020. Ice extent is above the median extent along a broad area off the Wilkes Land coast and western Ross Sea, near the median extent from the Amundsen Sea clockwise to the Weddell Sea and above the median north of Dronning Maud Land, Enderby Land, and the Cosmonaut Sea. The only major area of below the median extent is in the Indian Ocean sector near the Amery Ice Shelf and eastward.
References

Morison, J. 2020. Workshop on observing, modeling, and understanding the circulation of the Arctic Ocean and Sub-Arctic Seas. Retrieved here.