In Century 2, Quatrain 19, Nostradamus wrote of plague and famine. The passage reads: “Newcomers, place built without defence, “Place occupied then uninhabitable: Meadows, houses, fields, towns to take at pleasure, “Famine, plague, war, extensive land arable.” Although the coronavirus has infected more than 135,000 people and killed nearly 5,000, the disease can be hardly
To date, we humans have positively identified over 4,000 exoplanets in the Milky Way galaxy. And, to date, all of those exoplanets have something in common: they’re located in the relatively flat disc of the galactic plane, the thin disc. Now, a little over a year and a half after it started scanning the
You’ve probably heard that our oceans have become a plastic soup. But in fact, of all the plastic that enters Earth’s oceans each year, just 1 percent has been observed floating on the surface. So where is the rest of it? This “missing” plastic has been a longstanding scientific question. To date, the search
Uranus is quite the individual. Most of the planets in our Solar System have their poles more or less oriented in the same direction. And most of them are spinning anticlockwise, when viewed from above. But Uranus? Its rotation axis is oriented 98 degrees relative to its orbit, and it’s whirling around in a clockwise direction.
Stand on the wind-swept crags lining Scotland’s western coast today, and you’d be lucky to spot a puffin or two. But the closer we look, the more evidence we find it was once home to an incredibly diverse array of ancient beasts. The discovery of new sets of fossilised tracks has expanded the list
A joint Russian-European mission to Mars has been postponed for two years, the Russian and European space agencies said Thursday, citing the novel coronavirus and technical issues. “We have made a difficult but well-weighed decision to postpone the launch to 2022,” said Dmitry Rogozin, head of Russia’s Roscosmos agency. The unmanned ExoMars mission aims to
Scientists have returned to a group of underwater kelp forests off the tip of South America for the first time since 1973 – and they’ve found the ecosystem virtually unchanged despite the passage of nearly half a century. These seaweed forests, close to Tierra del Fuego, are something of a marine marvel; experts say
The Horsemen are said to represent War, Famine, Death and Pestilence or Plague. According to evangelist Gerald Flurry, coronavirus can be interpreted as one of the four harbingers of doom. In an article for The Trumpet, he said: “These horsemen symbolise the endtime culmination of the most devastating woes endured by mankind because of his
Many Christian hardliners, however, believe the coronavirus is a prophetic sign described in the Bible. Evangelists have claimed the virus is a precursor to the Apocalypse, as revealed in the Book of Revelation. There are also suggestions prophecies of plague can be found in the Old Testament – passages and scripture penned before the birth
There’s a problem with the accelerating rate of the expansion of the Universe. More specifically, there’s a problem with how we measure the accelerating rate of the expansion of the Universe, called the Hubble Constant. We have two major methods for measuring the Hubble Constant, and no matter how many times we apply them, they
Life can often seem rare and fragile, but we living things have well and truly infiltrated Earth. Microorganisms just keep cropping up in unexpected times and extreme places, the latest of those being deep below the seafloor, in Earth’s lower crust. “The lower ocean crust is one of the last frontiers of the exploration
THE CORONAVIRUS pandemic is being stoked by the world’s collective fears of COVID-19, a self-titled psychic believer has bizarrely claimed on the internet. Source link
Darkness is not something to fear. In a world increasingly plagued by the menace of unnatural light, darkness is an ideal to strive for – a threatened state we need to restore and protect wherever we can. This core belief lies at the heart of the International Dark-Sky Association (IDA), a conservation non-profit charged
A project to map dark energy in the southern sky has brilliantly exceeded its parameters. It turns out, the Dark Energy Survey has also been adept at identifying really small objects all the way out past Neptune. In its first four years of data, astronomers have successfully identified 316 minor planets, 139 of which
How big is a neutron star? These extreme, ultra-dense collapsed stars are fairly small, as far as stellar objects are concerned. Even though they pack the mass of a full-sized star, their size is often compared to the width of a medium-to-large-sized city. For years, astronomers have pegged neutron stars at somewhere between 19
Our noses appear to be home to thriving ‘neuron nurseries’, according to new research. It’s a curious finding, given recent investigations on whether our brains keep making new neurons as we become adults; some evidence points to us growing these nerve cells well into old age. But we don’t really know whether such neurogenesis
The deadly virus has now infected more than 120,000 people worldwide, claiming the lives of more than 4,300 in the process, as numbers in Europe spike, while Asia appears to be curbing the effects. This morning, Iran’s former President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, declared COVID-19 is a bioweapon from a military laboratory, stating: “It is clear to the
Astronomers have discovered the existence of a supermassive black hole that looks to be the oldest and most distant of its kind we’ve ever encountered – and it just happens to be aiming its bright particle beam directly at Earth. The newly found supermassive black hole – called PSO J030947.49+271757.31 – is the most
“Remember, on March 17 the pandemic will start to weaken, it will start to subside. “Anyway, maybe it is that way because every seasonal flu virus stops functioning sooner or later. “It gives up, strains die out. I don’t know, I don’t know much about this but on March 17 this balloon will start to
The coronavirus has infected more than 119,000 people since December, fuelling conspiracy theories about its origin. Many people believe the SARS-CoV-2 virus was created in a Chinese laboratory and either accidentally or purposely released into the public. Others have claimed online the coronavirus is a warning sign of the biblical end times. Hardline Christians point
Many people will associate autism with traits including atypical social interactions, repetitive behaviours, and difficulties with speech and communication. But perhaps lesser known is the fact people with autism are more likely to experience gastrointestinal disorders than the general population. One review found children with autism were four times more likely to report gastrointestinal
Astronomers have used an algorithm based on the growth patterns of slime mould to map something that’s basically impossible to see: the cosmic web of gas and dark matter underpinning the very structure of the Universe. Slime mould (Physarum polycephalum) is one of the weirdest life forms on the planet, but we shouldn’t underestimate
In the constellation of Pisces, 391 light-years from Earth, sits a hell-planet. The gas giant WASP-76b whips around its star at a breakneck orbit of just 1.8 days, and those days are brutal, with temperatures in excess of 2,400 degrees Celsius (4,350 Fahrenheit) – hot enough to vaporise iron. But where day turns to
The building blocks of life can, and did, spontaneously assemble under the right conditions. That’s called spontaneous generation, or abiogenesis. Of course, many of the details remain hidden to us, and we just don’t know exactly how it all happened. Or how frequently it could happen. The world’s religions have different ideas of how
The Amazon rainforest is nearing a threshold which, once crossed, would see one of the world’s largest and richest ecosystems morph into arid savannah within half-a-century, scientists said Tuesday. Another major ecosystem, Caribbean coral reefs, could die off in only 15 years were it to pass its own point-of-no-return, the scientists reported in the
The World Meteorological Organisation today published a definitive climate report card showing concentrations of greenhouse gases continue to rise, and the last five years were the warmest on record. The Statement on the State of the Global Climate also confirmed that the ongoing drought and recent bushfires in Australia were a globally significant climate
A hundred million years ago, in the middle of the Mesozoic era, Earth was home to all sorts of dinosaurs – those both great, like the long-necked sauropod, and small, like the hummingbird. As out-of-place as that sounds, palaeontologists now think the tiniest dinosaur in the Mesozoic was even more miniature than the smallest
Working through an exercise in gratitude or counting your blessings can often have positive health benefits and lift our mood – but it isn’t actually much help when it comes to properly dealing with symptoms of depression and anxiety, new research has found. Weighing up the evidence from 27 previous studies, covering 3,675 individuals
For hundreds of years humans have looked at the Red Planet and pondered whether alien life could survive in outer space. Now a controversial report titled Mars: Algae, lichens, fossils, minerals, microbial mats, and stromatolites in Gale Crater claims to have beaten revered space agency NASA in the confirmation of green algae on Earth’s nearest
There is also mention of plague in Century II, Quatrain 19: “Newcomers, place built without defence, “Place occupied then uninhabitable: “Meadows, houses, fields, towns to take at pleasure, “Famine, plague, war, extensive land arable.” But is there any reason to believe Nostradamus did indeed want the world of a devastating pandemic? Nostradamus cryptic writings can
CORONAVIRUS infections are rapidly spreading across the globe amid growing concerns and bizarre theories the COVID-19 epidemic was foretold by the Bible’s Book of Revelation. Source link
A chunk of rock that had been buried in the ground for millions of years has become a new clock for understanding Earth’s rotation. Analysis of a fossilised Cretaceous-era bivalve shell has revealed that our planet’s days were half an hour shorter 70 million years ago. In turn, knowing this can now help scientists
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx is getting closer, physically and temporally, to its primary goal. The spacecraft arrived at Bennu at the end of 2018, and for just over a year it’s been studying the asteroid, searching for a suitable sampling site. To do that, it’s getting closer and closer. OSIRIS-REx stands for Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource
It’s lonely out there in deep space. Especially when a spacecraft has travelled so far into the vast emptiness, interstellar space is now all it can truly call home. Of course, this was always Voyager 2’s fate. The spacecraft – which launched over 40 years ago and now stands as NASA’s longest-running space mission – was
COVID-19 has now infected nearly 115,000 people, killing more than 4,000 in the process in a devastating outbreak which is days away from being declared a pandemic. Last night, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conteimposed a nation-wide lockdown and the numbers in Spain almost doubled in a single day as the infection spreads through Europe at an
The Universe has yielded another surprise, and this time, it’s practically under our very noses. Just 1,500 light-years away, astronomers have found a star that pulsates – but only on one side. Although such an object was predicted decades ago, this is the first time we’ve actually seen it. “We’ve known theoretically that stars
Coronavirus has disrupted everyday life throughout the world through travel bans, flight restrictions and the cancellation of sporting and cultural events. More than 60 million Italians have been banned from travelling, and all public events cancelled. In China, 30 million people are still under lockdown, allowed to leave their homes only every two days.
The zero-emissions option of hydrogen fuel holds a lot of promise for reducing our reliance on fossil fuels – if only we could find a way to produce it cheaply and without needing insane amounts of energy input. Now, scientists have found a way to efficiently produce hydrogen fuel by using rust and a light
TOTO is surrounded by islands, reefs and shoals. This helps isolate the underwater base from oceanic disturbances, specifically high-ambient noise. The area is consequently considered the ideal location for testing and calibrating underwater vehicles, weapons and technology. Top-secret technology tests at AUTEC are thought to include the next generation of submarines, sonar and targeting systems.
The find was made in Pilbara, northwest Australia, on a stretch of rock that once laid on the bed of the ocean next to a hydrothermal vent. Within its composition are clues to the make-up of the ancient world, through the ratio of oxygen-16 to oxygen-18 – isotopes, which should have remained stable over history, but
The coronavirus outbreak so far has led to more than 3,800 deaths and in excess of 110,000 people infected. Since it was first detected in Wuhan, China, some have made bizarre allegations that it was a “biological weapon”. Highly condemned and disputed claims like this have only been abetted by beliefs that top secret labs are working on
Around 4.5 billion years ago, something the size of Mars collided with a newly formed Earth, to colossal effect. This object is not only thought to have fused with Earth and primed it for life, it also broke off a large chunk that went on to become the Moon. This story is known as
The official verdict is in. As the red supergiant Betelgeuse once again returns to normal brightness levels, astronomers have taken the star’s temperature to identify the cause of its recent dimming. It turns out the star wasn’t fluctuating internally; rather, Betelgeuse sneezed out a huge cloud of dust, which obscured its light for a
A bacterial species that survives by ‘breathing’ rock has intrigued scientists for decades, even though the inner workings of its mysterious cellular respiration technique have remained far from clear. Now, in a new study investigating the strange habits of the bacterium Shewanella oneidensis, researchers have discovered that the microbe’s ability to ‘breathe’ by transporting
According to a study published in the journal Frontiers in Plant Science, lettuce grown in space isn’t just delicious – it’s also just as nutritious and safe to eat as boring old Earth lettuce. “The ability to grow safe, fresh food to supplement packaged foods of astronauts in space has been an important goal
When NASA’s Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (Insight) lander set down on Mars in November of 2018, it began its two-year primary mission of studying Mars’ seismology and interior environment. And now, just over a year and a half later, the results of the lander’s first twelve months on the
Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 went missing six years ago today, on March 8, 2014, en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board. No wreckage of the plane was ever found, nor could the authorities conclusively explain what happened to it. However, the investigation suggested it may have ended up at the
On March 8, 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 vanished en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Now more than half a decade on, the missing jet plane and the 239 passengers onboard have never been recovered. Here are some of the theories behind the MH370 disappearance. {%=o.title%} What happened to the MH370 flight? Passengers from
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