'Paul Ryan you’re a piece of garbage'

'Weiss, I tell you is not done yet'

In India, those of all faiths occasionally visit the places of worship of the Sikhs to get a delicious taste of ‘Seva,’ the Sikh principle of selfless service when they give out free dinners to anyone who visits. In California, Sikh organizers are capturing that culture and using it to help residents of Santa Ana—a […] The post Drive-Thru Food Pantry Serves Thousands in a California Food Desert with Nutritious Groceries appeared first on Good News Network.

Hot Dog…The Movie Harkin Banks heads to skiing championships in California. A teen runaway tags along as he parties and competes with friends and foes. Cast: 1984 viewing This one was a staple on HBO CONTINUE READING... The post 84 From ’84: Hot Dog…The Movie appeared first on The Retro Network.

A dog who is obviously too small for a cat door wins big at the 2024 Comedy Pet Photo Awards.

Another Gain of Function Scandal?

While stood on planet Earth, it's easy to forget that we are sat on a rock hurtling through the Solar System on a path which could feasibly collide with other (smaller) space rocks, largely because we can't feel that motion.If you ever have the urge to feel completely at the mercy of random space rocks, we highly recommend heading to NASA's Eyes on Asteroids website and selecting their closest approach. NASA and other observatories track the orbits of objects discovered in the Solar System, keeping a particular eye on "near Earth objects" (NEOs) 140 meters (460 feet) and larger in size that could cause devastation if they were to hit Earth. By observing their orbits, astrophysicists are able to estimate the future orbits of the objects, and predict whether they potentially put them in our part of the Solar System.These objects are given a score on the Palmero scale."The scale compares the likelihood of the detected potential impact with the average risk posed by objects of the same size or larger over the years until the date of the potential impact," NASA's Center for Near Earth Object studies explains. "This average risk from random impacts is known as the background risk. For convenience the scale is logarithmic, so, for examples, a Palermo Scale value of -2 indicates that the detected potential impact event is only 1 percent as likely as a random background event occurring in the intervening years, a value of zero indicates that the single event is just as threatening as the background hazard, and a value of +2 indicates an event that is 100 times more likely than a background impact by an object at least as large before the date of the potential impact in question."The objects are also given a friendlier "Torino" score of 0-10, with a score of 0 meaning the likelihood of impact is zero or thereabouts, and 10 meaning "a collision is certain, capable of causing global climatic catastrophe that may threaten the future of civilization as we know it, whether impacting land or ocean." These are helpfully color-coded in green, yellow, and red, to clarify the situation to the public.Over the years of monitoring space objects, astronomers have discovered objects which have strayed from the green zone. However, there have been a couple that made it to level 4; the highest level of the yellow zone."A close encounter, meriting attention by astronomers," NASA explains of the level. "Current calculations give a 1 percent or greater chance of collision capable of regional devastation. Most likely, new telescopic observations will lead to re-assignment to Level 0. Attention by public and by public officials is merited if the encounter is less than a decade away."One of these objects was 99942 Apophis. After it was first discovered in 2004, observations placed it at level 2 on the Torino scale. However, further observations in December of that year placed it up to level 4 due to a 1.6 percent chance that the asteroid would hit us in 2029. Further observations ruled out a collision in 2029, as well as in 2036 and 2068, though they will still be close encounters.             Currently, there are no known objects with a Torino score above 0. However, there are objects that require further observations, scoring -0.93 and -1.59 on the Palmero scale, which have not been given a Torino score as the possible collisions take place further than 100 years in the future.(29075) 1950 DA, an object 1.3 kilometers (0.81 miles) across, scores -0.93 because of a "potentially very close" approach to the Earth on March 16, 2880. This will likely change in the coming years, as more observations are made.101955 Bennu (1999 RQ36) – more simply known as "Bennu" – currently sits at -1.59 on the Palmero scale. As far as we can tell, it will make several close approaches to the Moon and Earth. In September 2135, it is expected to pass within 0.00143 Astronomical Units (AU) of the Earth, with 1 AU being the distance between the Earth and the Sun. That's 213,925 kilometers (132,927 miles), which is pretty close in space terms.As these asteroids orbit, more observations are made, and trajectories refined, meaning that these scores can go up or down. The further in time, the more chance that objects' orbits can be disturbed from close encounters with other objects (like the Earth).So far, astronomers have been able to predict the orbits of known objects up to about 100 years in the future. The good news is that "no known asteroid larger than 140 meters in size has a significant chance to hit Earth for the next 100 years", according to Dr Kelly Fast, manager of NASA’s NEO Observations Program at NASA Headquarters in 2018. In better news, a team led by Oscar Fuentes-Muñoz from the University of Colorado Boulder was able to go further, predicting the paths of larger asteroids 1,000 years into the future."Assessing the impact risk over longer time scales is a challenge since orbital uncertainties grow. To overcome this limitation we analyze the evolution of the Minimum Orbit Intersection Distance (MOID), which bounds the closest possible encounters between the asteroid and the Earth," the team explain in their paper. "The evolution of the MOID highlights NEOs that are in the vicinity of the Earth for longer periods of time, and we propose a method to estimate the probability of a deep Earth encounter during these periods."Using this method, the team were able to rule out the majority of NEOs from hitting our planet within the next thousand years, and could estimate the probability of others hitting us like a bunch of dinosaurs. The probability of being hit before the year 3000 is looking pretty low according to the team, with the most-likely object to hit us – 7482 (1994 PC1) – having only a 0.00151 percent chance of a close encounter, approaching the Earth closer than the orbit of the Moon.

NASA has confirmed a grim, albeit expected, milestone with the release of global average temperatures for last month. The year 2024 has set a new record for the hottest May since global record-keeping began, just like April, March and every month back to June 2023. The last time a month didn’t set a global record was May 2023.The world is getting hotter fast, but that does not mean every month, or even year, exceeds the previous one. Global average temperatures are higher in the northern hemisphere’s summer, because land temperatures fluctuate more than ocean. Cycles like El Niño/La Niña can cause sharp accelerations or lead to brief temporary cooling.In the second half of last year, the upward trend caused by the build-up of heat trapping gases coincided with an El Niño to create the hottest northern hemisphere summer for 2,000 years. October-December wasn’t as hot in absolute terms, but each month broke the record for that specific month.However, the 2023-24 El Niño is fading. Debate continues as to whether it will transition swiftly to La Niña, or if we will have a neutral state for the rest of the year. In the meantime, however, this should bring a halt to the unbroken run of records – but apparently not yet. Since observation records began, the longest unbroken streak of records (not counting the first year when everything was a record of sorts) was in 2015-2016 when seven straight months were each the hottest of that month measured until then.“It’s clear we are facing a climate crisis,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson in a statement. “Communities across America—like Arizona, California, Nevada—and communities across the globe are feeling first-hand extreme heat in unprecedented numbers. NASA and the Biden-Harris Administration recognize the urgency of protecting our home planet. We are providing critical climate data to better lives and livelihoods, and benefit all humanity.” NASA measures monthly temperatures relative to the average from 1951-1980. Over the course of the last 12 months temperatures have averaged 1.3° C (2.34° F) above that baseline. This means marginally exceeding the 1.5° C (2.7° F) gap to estimated 19th century temperatures the Paris Agreement stated the world should stay below.Dr Gavin Schmidt, Director of the Goddard Institute of Space Studies, indicated that the run of records is not expected to continue all year, particularly if La Niña kicks in. Consequently, it remains to be seen whether 2024 will be hotter than 2023, but barring an epic volcanic eruption it will easily exceed every previous year since records began.“We’re experiencing more hot days, more hot months, more hot years,” said Dr Kate Calvin, NASA’s chief scientist and senior climate advisor. “We know that these increases in temperature are driven by our greenhouse gas emissions and are impacting people and ecosystems around the world.”

We at IFLScience love an illusion (as apparently does Mars). So, naturally, we were thrilled to hear about a new twist on the visual rabbit illusion – also called the visual saltation illusion.Typically, the illusion involves two dots flickering in quick succession at one point and a third dot flashing at a different location. Thanks to our dumb brains, we tend to perceive the second dot as midway between the other two in our peripheral vision, which, of course, it isn’t. This gives the effect of the flash jumping, as if it were a rabbit hopping – hence the name.In a recent study, researchers from Kyushu University present a novel take on the illusion, changing the location of the second flash to see if that shook things up. In their versions, the second dot appears either in the same position as the third flash, out of sequential order, or out of linear alignment with the first and last flashes.The researchers altered the position of the second flash to see how it affected the perceived illusion.Image credit: Hector Palomo/Kyushu UniversityIn all three scenarios, when the three flashes were presented in quick succession, participants misperceived the second flash to occur close to the midpoint between the first and last. “It's like a rabbit hopping back to the middle after the brain processes it,” Sheryl Anne Manaligod de Jesus, first author of the study, said in a statement.Essentially, it doesn’t matter where that second dot actually is, our brains are adamant it should be in the center, even when it clearly isn’t.Think you’ll fare better than the test subjects? You can check out the team's version of the illusion below, just focus your eyes on the cross.Technically, the first flash appears to the left, and the second and third flashes are at the same spot to the right, but we’re willing to bet that’s not what you saw.So, what’s going on? When our visual system receives flashes in rapid succession, like this, the brain processes them together, which causes a perceptual reorganization of the flashes into a more logical pattern.“Perceiving the second flash closer to the midpoint is the average position of where the brain believes it should be,” the team write in their study. “Crowding combined with higher speed presentation of the second flash are not typical stimuli our eyes receive on a day-to-day basis. As there is a lack of ‘prior’ knowledge of such stimuli, the flashes are reconstructed into a pattern that makes sense.”Basically, our brains are tricksy things, and attention and memory can disrupt what we “see”.“Our brain sometimes uses future events to interpret the past,” says de Jesus, “This is called postdiction, meaning that how we perceive a past event, like the second flash, is influenced by what happens afterward. This results in the fascinating illusion of the flash appearing in a place, where it never really was.”And if that hasn’t bent your mind sufficiently out of shape, check out some more trippy illusions below:The study is published in the journal i-Perception.

If you pay a visit to the Singapore Stone, displayed at the National Museum of Singapore, you might be disappointed. That’s because the inscription – carrying an unknown writing system transcribing an unknown language – is fading. But if you love puzzles, this won’t put you off. The stone is a fragment of a bigger slab, once welcoming visitors at the mouth of the Singapore River. The British blew it up in 1843, to build a fort. Discovered in 1819, the stone was almost entirely lost. Scottish military officer Lieutenant-Colonel James Low, amid general indifference, was able to save three fragments. He sent them to the Royal Asiatic Society’s Museum in Calcutta to be studied. They arrived in 1848. Meanwhile, other parts of the stone disappeared in the island. In 1918, the Raffles Museum of Singapore asked Calcutta to return the fragments. Only one was sent back. Nothing is known about the others, which are possibly lost forever. Despite its name, this sandstone slab is not a simple “stone”. It was once part of a monument, an ancient epigraph measuring three-by-three metres and carrying about 50 lines of text. The Singapure stone. Credit: CC-BY-2.0 Jon Callas Many epigraphs didn’t survive the insults of time. Archaeological relics are often lost, over centuries. It’s sad, yet unavoidable. But the Singapore Stone was not just another epigraph. The writing system on its surface is unique, never found anywhere else and never used in any other text. And it remains undeciphered. Not being able to understand the text of the epigraph, we cannot postulate a specific time frame for its origin. Hypotheses range from the 10th to the 13th century, but there is no consensus. Was the epigraph connected with the Majapahit empire? Or a gift by a rajah from south-eastern India, celebrating the deeds of the local legendary hero Badang? No one will know until we’re able to read it. The script is one of the major puzzles in language deciphering of our times. It’s a conundrum in crypto and historical linguistics with apparently no solution. The challenge can be compared to the mysteries of better-known undeciphered writing systems, like Linear A and the Rongorongo script. A map of Singapore from 1825. The Singapore Stone stood at the Rocky Point. British Library Despite the almost complete loss of the rest of the slab, the existing fragment and reproductions of missing parts of the full monument provide us with elements to investigate. Before being blown up, the monument was hand drawn in 1837 by the politician William Bland and philologist James Prinsep. Even Sir Stamford Raffles, the British East Indian administrator and founder of Singapore, worked on it, trying to understand its text. After its destruction, the three recovered fragments were graphically reproduced, before being sent to India. A general, unwritten rule of crypto linguistics states that the more text we have – for comparisons, frequency analyses and pattern recognition – the higher our chances of deciphering it. The opposite situation leads to failure. The Singapore Stone is no exception. Its unknown writing system transcribing an unknown language represents every glyph breaker’s nightmare – a seal of indecipherability. However, human ingenuity has overcome such odds before. In 1952, architect Michael Ventris deciphered Linear B working in an analogous scenario – an unknown writing system (Linear B) and an unknown language (Mycenaean Greek, an archaic version of ancient Greek). Ventris had lots of texts available, but the task was almost impossible. And yet he succeeded. For now, the stone is silent and lonely. But with my research team at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, I am trying to find its voice. My colleagues and I are developing Read-y Grammarian, an artificial intelligence program that can “learn” the surviving characters of the epigraph and guess and elaborate on the missing parts of its text. Unlike humans, the program doesn’t have interpretive biases (cognitive bias informed by a researcher’s beliefs). Mitigating these biases is a fundamental requirement for research in language deciphering. If we can recover a reliable text for the slab, more material will be available for comparison, frequency analysis and pattern recognition – the first steps towards decipherment and hearing the voice of the stone for the first time. Francesco Perono Cacciafoco, Associate Professor in Linguistics, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. The post The Singapore Stone’s carvings have been undeciphered for centuries appeared first on Anomalien.com.