A Dangerous Time for America

It’s been an eventful week on the International Space Station (ISS). First, a spacewalk was canceled when coolant water spread everywhere in the airlock. Then astronauts had to take shelter in the spacecraft they used to travel into space because of a report of potentially dangerous space debris approaching.The cause of the debris was a defunct satellite breaking up. Resurs-P1 was a Russian commercial Earth observation satellite that worked until 2021, when it was decommissioned due to a failure of onboard equipment. It had not been designed with deorbiting in mind, so it passively continued to orbit at about 355 kilometers (221 miles) above our head. It would have eventually lost altitude and burned up, but something else happened on Wednesday.The satellite broke apart into what is estimated to be over 100 pieces of traceable debris, according to satellite tracking service LeoLabs. Their orbit is not close to the ISS, which orbits at an altitude between 413 and 422 kilometers (257 and 262 miles). Still, some of the debris might end up crossing the path of the ISS, so it was decided to shelter the astronauts as a precaution.         IFLScience is not responsible for content shared from external sites.“Beginning around 8:45 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, June 26 NASA instructed crews aboard the space station to shelter in their respective spacecraft as a standard precautionary measure after it was informed of a satellite break-up at an altitude near the station’s earlier Wednesday. Mission Control continued to monitor the path of the debris, and after about an hour, the crew was cleared to exit their spacecraft and the station resumed normal operations,” NASA wrote in a blog post.On Thursday afternoon, LeoLabs reported at least 180 pieces of debris being tracked, with the number expected to grow. It is unclear what has caused the sudden breaking apart of the satellite, but LeoLabs hopes to be able to discern a cause.         IFLScience is not responsible for content shared from external sites.It is possible that another piece of space junk hit Resurs-P1, leading to the production of a swarm of debris. Resurs-P1 is not a small object; it is roughly the size of a van. A van moving at 8 kilometers (5 miles) per second. Even a small object hitting it would have a lot of momentum and do a lot of damage.        Space junk collision is a serious concern, as it might lead to the Kessler Syndrome, a cascade of debris that causes other debris, making a specific orbital region inaccessible. There is a strong push for satellites to have a deorbiting plan now to avoid exactly this kind of situation.

The term “missionary position” is an anthropological enigma. The most prominent explanation is that it has something to do with prudish Christian missionaries. However, that seems to be a big misunderstanding tied back to one of the most famous sexologists of the 20th century, Alfred Kinsey.For the uninitiated, the missionary position is a sex position in which the female lies on her back with the male on top, facing one another. Other cultures have a variety of inventive terms for this sexual stance. Some Arabic speakers refer to it as “the manner of serpents” while in Brazilian Portuguese, it's colloquially called posição papai e mamae (literally "daddy and mommy position"). The term missionary position has since been transplanted into other languages, including French (position du missionnaire) and German (Missionarsstellung).Countless anthropological studies suggest the term “missionary position” relates to the coital pose favored by Christian missionaries in the early modern era. So the story goes, the position was seen as more “decent” compared to more "animalistic" positions. When the missionaries made their unwelcome arrival to distant lands in the colonial era, they attempted to teach Indigenous peoples to have sex in this more righteous and Christian way. This retelling of the story appears to stem from the 1948 book Sexual Behavior in the Human Male by Alfred Kinsey, in which he tried to show that the missionary position was not perceived as the default position in most other cultures. He refers to an even older book – Bronisaw Malinowski’s 1929 study The Sexual Life of Savages in North-Western Melanesia – that documented the sexual habitats of people in the southwestern Pacific Ocean.Malinowski wrote: “The natives despise the European position and consider it impractical and unproper. The natives, of course, know it, because white men frequently cohabit with native women, some even being married to them.”“Altogether the natives are certain that white men do not know how to carry out intercourse effectively,” he adds.This led Kinsey to say that locals would mock the Europeans by imitating the position during performances. Kinsey writes: “It will be recalled that Malinowski records the nearly universal use of a totally different position among the Trobrianders… [and] … that caricatures of the English-American position are performed around… campfires, to the great amusement of the natives who refer to the position as the missionary position.”This appears to be a false memory, however. A fascinating paper written by Robert J. Priest in 2001 explains how there are many holes in this conventional story. For one, Trobrianders do gather to play and sing mocking songs, but only under the full moon and never around a campfire. Secondly, it said that the people only associated the position with “white traders, planters, or officials,” providing no mention of Christian missionaries.As such, Priest describes the origin story as an "urban legend" that has spiraled out of control, despite having little grounding in reality. Despite being built on shaky ground, the story spread like wildfire and has comfortably settled in the public imagination. It has since been retold with numerous variations, including that it stemmed from missionaries teaching people in Africa, the Americas, and East Asia. It appears that the story stuck because of the weight given to it by Kinsey, who’s had a lasting influence on our understanding of human sexuality. Like all urban legends, it’s also a great story.

When you think of England, it might conjure a picture of rolling green hills, chocolate-box villages with cobbled streets, and fish and chips by the sea. Something that probably doesn’t feature heavily in that fantasy is a lion. Why, then, do England’s football players, currently carrying the hopes of the nation through Euro 2024, famously have three lions on their shirts? We make it our mission here at IFLScience to answer all your burning questions, be they big or small, so here goes nothing.First off, let’s get one thing clear. Despite the persistent claims of sightings of big cats roaming the countryside, the British Isles are not known for their large wild felines. Don’t get us wrong – there’s plenty of fascinating, cuddly, and even troublesome wildlife to be found here, but the native cats tend to be on the smaller side.Lions prefer the heat of the African savanna to the wet and windy climes of Northern Europe, and there’s certainly no evidence that these big cats ever roamed the “green and pleasant land” of England. Yet we see the image of the lion cropping up all over the place, and not just on the football shirts – there’s even one on the Royal coat of arms.Lions and England first became intertwined back in the 12th century. Henry I took the throne in 1100, and his standard held the image of a lion – he was nicknamed the “lion of justice”, just to push the metaphor as far as it can possibly go. When he married, his wife’s family’s standard also bore a lion, so Henry added it to his own as a mark of respect. Two became three during the reign of Henry II on the occasion of his marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine, whose family also had a lion on their emblem.Richard the Lionheart – presumably you can see where this is going – who reigned from 1189 to 1199, used the symbol of three golden lions on a red background to denote the English throne. Since then, the lion has stuck around, being present in the coat of arms of every subsequent monarch.So that’s why you see lions on coins and emblazoned on the walls of public buildings in England – what about the football?England’s national football team are also representatives of the Football Association (FA), the country’s footballing governing body dating back to 1863. For its emblem, the nascent FA adopted various versions of the Royal coat of arms (featuring the ubiquitous lion) for a while, until in 1949 it was granted its own coat of arms. As David Llewelyn Phillips explained in a 2015 paper, this featured a familiar combo of roses and three lions on a pale blue background.Ever since the first international fixture between England and Scotland in 1872, England’s national side has sported an FA logo – whichever version was in use at the time – on their shirts.And that’s the story of how the Three Lions – and more recently the women’s Lionesses – got their name, and why the dulcet strains of the 1996 anthem Three Lions (Football’s Coming Home) can still be heard far and wide whenever there’s an international tournament on.If nothing else, you’ve got to admire our optimism.

Pro Bowl wide receiver Randall Cobb posted images of his home online showing the aftermath of a fire caused by a Tesla charger in his garage that caught on fire.The blaze happened at the 33-year-old's Nashville, Tennessee, home where he lives with his wife and three children. Wife, Aiyda Cobb, was the first to make comments about the incident online: "We are lucky to be alive. The telsa charger caught on fire in the garage late last night and quickly spread," she reportedly said in an Instagram story."We got out of the house with nothing but the clothes on our back and no shoes on our feet," a screenshot of her post showed.'I can't get the image of the brave firefighter getting into position out of my head.'Cobb himself posted a message the next day thanking firefighters and the community for their actions."Thank you for all the love and positive messages," Cobb said in a joint Instagram post with his wife. "First and foremost, we are all safe and healthy. We got out of the house and I was able to get back in and get our dog, Louie. We can't thank Chief Caruthers, Captain Irvin and the Nashville Fire Department enough for their swift action."Cobb seemed particularly affected by the thought of the firefighters risking their lives to save his possessions. "I can't get the image of the brave firefighter getting into position out of my head; he didn't even have water to shoot yet. I truly thought the cars were going to explode and that we would lose him in this tragedy. He is a true hero," Cobb continued."Unfortunately we don't know how much, if anything, will be salvageable, but this has been a reminder that nothing is more important than the health of our family."The athlete finished by thanking the community of Nashville and the support his family has received from close friends who have provided a "temporary roof" over the family's heads.After that, Cobb showed a video of the ash-covered interior of his garage, which included the Tesla. The walls were black from smoke and fire damage. Another video showed a damaged Mercedes SUV as the football player continued to examine the wreckage with a fire official. The Nashville Fire Department confirmed to CNN that the fire was caused by an electric vehicle in the garage. The department clarified that the fire was contained to the garage, but "heavy smoke damage" happened in different parts of the home."There were no injuries reported to civilians or [fire] personnel," the department reportedly said. "The investigation is ongoing and some details are unavailable, as part of the investigation."The news comes after a recent three-year study revealed that almost half of EV owners in the United States said they are very likely to switch back to gas-powered cars. At 49%, only Australians had a stronger response in terms of switching back to gasoline, with American consumers saying the same at a rate of 46%.Cobb is currently a free agent in the NFL after spending the 2023-24 season with the New York Jets. He's been in the NFL since 2011.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Last night, former President Donald Trump debated President Joe Biden for the first time since 2020 in the first presidential debate. Hosted by CNN and moderated by Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, the debate covered a number of topics, including the illegal immigration crisis, abortion, Ukraine/Russia, Israel/Hamas, and inflation, among others. What may surprise some is that Glenn Beck’s first criticism is directed toward Donald Trump. Glenn Beck's Immediate Reaction to Trump-Biden Debate is MUST-SEE www.youtube.com “Here is a missed opportunity for Donald Trump,” he says. When Biden was stumbling and stuttering through one of his responses, “Donald Trump should have said, ‘You know what, we can sit here and argue about things, but more countries than ever before are developing and pursuing us with threats of nuclear war ... but right now, that man will make the decision. Does anyone feel comfortable with that?”’ That aside, Glenn does think “that’s the best debate [Trump] has done,” at least “up until the last 30 minutes.” “He was the most restrained I have ever seen him,” he says. “The first hour of that debate I thought was absolutely terrifying and also absolutely a win for Donald Trump.” As for Biden, when Glenn saw him “walk out [on stage] like a cadaver,” he knew the next 90 minutes didn’t bode well for him. At the president’s first garbled, incoherent sentence, “I thought if I am the enemy of the United States of America, I am doing everything I can to make sure [Biden] wins. If I am an enemy of the United States, I am thinking, ‘attack now,’” Glenn tells Stu Burguiere. “Look at the decay of him from six months, a year, two years. He's asking for four more years! He won't understand what's going on in a year from now,” he says, adding that it’s “close to criminal that the 25th Amendment hasn’t been invoked.” Stu agrees, calling the prospect of Biden’s re-election “national suicide.” What’s perhaps most shocking, however, is that during the debate, the mainstream media and Democrats were calling for Biden’s replacement in the race. “So, now we know why they scheduled a debate now. It's clear,” says Glenn, insinuating that the timing of the debate was the left’s means of proving the necessity of Biden’s replacement. The question is: Who will replace him? To hear Glenn’s speculations, watch the clip above. This clip is from our CNN Presidential Debate coverage. Help us to continue to bring you programming like this by joining BlazeTV+ today. Get $30 off your first year of BlazeTV+ with code DEBATE. Want more from Glenn Beck?To enjoy more of Glenn’s masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis, and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

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