On June 28, 2009, theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking sat alone in a college at the University of Cambridge and waited patiently for party guests to arrive. Then he sent out invites.Hawking was doing a (presumably, quite tongue-in-cheek) experiment to see if time travel is possible. The idea was that if he sent the invites out after the event took place, only time travelers would know to arrive. Of course, nobody showed up. You could conclude from that that time travel to the past does not get invented by humans, or that they have a better use for it than partying hard with Stephen Hawking. Maybe there are more interesting times to visit, or paradoxes to be avoided.But there have been other attempts to look for signs of time travelers visiting our timeframe, including one team of physicists who searched the Internet for evidence of knowledge nobody could have had unless they had traveled back in time. Of course, time travelers might want us to know they are here, might want to keep themselves hidden, or not really care either way."Even time travelers who want to advertise their presence may do so ineffectively," the team writes in their paper, "those who want to hide their presence might make a revealing mistake, and those indifferent might or might not leave traceable Internet content."The team focused on searching for time travelers from the future rather than the past, figuring that the technology to create a time machine has not existed in the past, and any knowledge they had would relate to events in our past, making it pretty difficult to distinguish from people who have studied history.The team attempted to find unique events that could not be referenced by anyone without a time machine, but would hopefully be recorded for a significant amount of time into the future. They eventually settled on the discovery of Comet ISON (C/2012 S1) in 2012, and Jorge Mario Bergoglio choosing the name "Pope Francis" upon his selection as the head of the Catholic church. "Histories of bright comets like Comet ISON are generally well kept by societies and journals around the world, indicating that Comet ISON might remain memorable well into the future," the team explained. "Conversely, there is little reason for anyone without prescient information to be referring to something as 'Comet ISON' before 2012 September. Therefore, discussions or even mentions of 'Comet ISON' before 2012 September were searched for as potentially prescient evidence of time travelers from the future."The team searched through Facebook posts, tweets, and Google Trends, which shows when people are searching for particular terms (once a particular threshold has been met). Though disappointing – who wouldn't want to know there are time travelers vacationing in the 21st century? – the team found no evidence of these terms being used on the Internet before the events took place, as detailed in their paper, which has not been peer-reviewed.To widen the net and catch any time travelers who wanted to make themselves known, the team also performed a similar test to Stephen Hawking. They asked time travelers on the Internet to email them, and then later revealed the email address. To get the attention of time travelers, they created a hashtag to make it visible on X (then Twitter).            IFLScience is not responsible for content shared from external sites.The team also created a hashtag for time travelers who are worried about changing the past."Alternatively, time travelers who believe that they cannot change the past were requested to tweet '#ICannotChangeThePast2' on or before 2013 August, or include that hashtag at the end of an email sent to "home.nemiroff@yahoo.com" between 2008 November and 2013 August," the team explained. "For this part of the experiment, we were careful NOT to search Twitter or email until after the hashtag was publicly advertised in 2013 September. Therefore, by not pursuing a pre-advertisement search, the past might not have had to be changed in order for this tweet to have been discovered in 2013 September."Unfortunately, no prescient tweets or emails were received from time travelers, sent before knowledge became available to all non-time travelers. While disappointing, and indicating that time travelers are not hanging around in the early days of the Internet, the team suggested a number of other reasons why."First, it may be physically impossible for time travelers to leave any lasting remnants of their stay in the past, including even non-corporeal informational remnants on the Internet," the team explained. "Next, it may be physically impossible for us to find such information as that would violate some yet-unknown law of physics, possibly similar to the Chronology Protection Conjecture. Furthermore, time travelers may not want to be found, and may be good at covering their tracks."The study is posted to preprint server arXiv.

In what sounds more like the beginnings of a low budget creature feature than a real-life event, a team of scientists has discovered traces of cocaine in sharpnose sharks living in the coastal waters of Brazil.While we often think of microplastics and oil when someone mentions water pollution, cocaine has become of growing concern as an environmental contaminant. According to the team behind the discovery, that’s down to a combination of the growing use of cocaine – particularly in Brazil – and inadequate sewage treatment, runoff from cocaine production, and packs of the drug left drifting in the water, leading to it winding up in the ocean, where there’s a worry it’ll affect wildlife.That’s where sharks come in – not only do they play an important role in underwater ecosystems, but they can often be sentinels for environmental pollution, acting as the first warning sign of something being wrong.To determine if cocaine was ending up in sharks, from September 2021 to August 2023, the team analyzed 13 Brazilian sharpnose sharks (Rhizoprionodon lalandii) captured by fishers off the coast of the southeastern state of Rio De Janeiro. This particular species was chosen because they spend their entire lives in coastal habitats and so are likely to have been exposed to pollution coming from humans.Each shark had its weight and length determined, before being dissected and samples of its muscle and liver were taken for testing.The results of those tests revealed that every single sample from the sharks tested positive for cocaine, with 92 percent of muscle samples and 23 percent of liver samples also testing positive for one of the drug’s main metabolites, benzoylecgonine. This marks the first evidence of cocaine being identified in free-ranging sharks.What’s not clear from the study is whether or not cocaine exposure has had any effect on the sharks, although research into its consequences in other fish, such as eels and zebrafish, found differences in important proteins, changes to skin, and disruption of hormone function.To determine the possible effects, the researchers call for more testing. “[W]e recommend the expansion of environmental monitoring studies concerning drugs of abuse on the Brazilian coast, as well as detailed investigation of their effects on environmental health and associated risks,” they write.Cocaine hanging around in a shark’s body may not be great news for humans either.“Although no maximum permissible concentrations for COC or BE have been established in foodstuffs, these findings are indicative of potential human health risks, as sharks are highly consumed in the state of Rio de Janeiro, in fact, throughout the entire Brazilian territory and indeed, worldwide,” the authors state.It’s hoped that further research will provide a greater understanding of the potential impacts of both sharks and humans, although the team concludes that action needs to be taken sooner rather than later:“Ultimately, proactive measures are imperative to mitigate the ecological and public health risks associated with COC contamination in marine environments and ensure the health and balance of coastal ecosystems.”The study is published in Science of the Total Environment.

At a time when our flabbers be gasted daily, it can be hard to keep track of the biggest and breaking stories in the news cycle. One person, however, seems to have been keeping ahead of America’s latest election developments armed with nothing but asparagus.The news that President Joe Biden was taking himself out of the running broke on Sunday, July 21. “I have decided not to accept the nomination and to focus all my energies on my duties as President for the remainder of my term,” he said on X.The announcement sent a shockwave of questions through the Twittersphere (let us know when you have an X alternative to this). What does this mean for the electoral race? Is Kamala Harris the frontrunner to replace him? But one user asked, perhaps, the most pressing of questions…Did the world’s only asparamancer see this all coming? For those of you who have – somehow – never before come across asparamancy, it’s the practice of trying to predict the future using nothing more than a handful of asparagus. Jemima Packington has become famous as the "world’s only asparamancer", and to date has Brexit and the passing of Queen Elizabeth II in her predictions trug.Appearing on BBC Radio Two’s Jeremy Vine show on July 17, Packington tossed her asparagus in response to the question: Biden or Trump in November? The answer: neither of them.“It’s a lady,” she said. “Now I keep on getting this. It’s going to be a lady. The next president of the United States is going to be a woman.”As for whether the asparamancer has struck again, only time will tell, but it adds to a rich history of humans looking to alternative sources for news about the future. I invite you to take a walk through the methods of divination dreamt up in human history, in a list that reads as three parts “haha” to every “eurgh”, checking off such delights as oomancy (reading eggs), tyromancy (fortune telling with cheese), the crawling baby (what it says on the tin), and then *checks notes* rumpology, where one seeks answers in the buttocks.They’re a creative switch up from looking to uncredible sources online, but is it pseudoscience or anti-science, and what’s the difference?

Deep within a cave in southern Italy, a strangely atypical Neanderthal man has been stuck upside down for around 150,000 years. Named Altamura Man, this remarkable skeleton represents one of the most spectacular human fossils ever discovered and could help to clear up some of the mysteries surrounding our evolution as a species – if only we could get the old bloke out.The inverted skull of this peculiar specimen was first spotted poking out of a wall within the Lamalunga karstic system, near Altamura, in 1993. Straight away, researchers were struck by the skeleton’s unusual orientation and gnarly appearance, caused by the accumulation of calcite blobs – otherwise known as "cave popcorn" – upon the surface of the cranium.Unfortunately, however, the bones have completely fused with the surrounding rock, leaving Altamura Man sealed within his natural tomb. Summarizing the ancient hominid’s frustrating predicament, the authors of a new paper explain that the skeleton “still lies deep within a spectacular cave setting, partly embedded within speleothems and extensively covered by coralloid concretions.”“These peculiar location and conditions would entail major difficulties in excavating and preserving ex-situ this skeleton,” they add. Powerless to get their man out of his speleo-prison and into a lab, researchers were unable to study this intriguing individual for several decades, although uranium-thorium dating did reveal that he was between 130,000 and 172,000 years old.By 2015, scientists had finally succeeded in retrieving a few fragments of the skeleton’s shoulder blade for DNA analysis, confirming that Altamura Man was indeed a Neanderthal. To gain more information, the authors of the new study spent the following four years conducting research within the cave itself, using portable X-ray machines, high-resolution endoscopic cameras, and miniature laser scanners that could fit through tiny openings in the rock wall.The combined results of these studies revealed that Altamura Man was a “fully adult Neanderthal who suffered some rather common dental pathologies,” leaving him with several teeth missing. More significantly, however, a digital reconstruction of the skull demonstrated that the skeleton possessed a number of morphological features that had never previously been seen in “classic Neanderthals”.A reconstruction of Altamura Man's face.Image credit: Roberto Montanari/Shutterstock.comFor instance, the skull bore similarities to that of an older hominid that lived in a Spanish cave around 430,000 years ago, and which has been classified as an early type of Neanderthal. In other ways, however, Altamura Man was more akin to other members of his species.Based on this mish-mash of characteristics, researchers believe Altamura Man probably belonged to an isolated population of Italian Neanderthals that evolved separately from those elsewhere in Eurasia, and which preserved some of its more archaic traits for an exceptionally long time.Speaking of exceptionally long times, it’s thought that this particular individual probably died after falling into a sinkhole and getting stuck in a crevice, where he has remained ever since – and is likely to stay forever more.The study is published in the journal Quaternary Science Reviews.

To understand how the brain works scientists have been using two broad categories of experiments: ones that record and ones that manipulate brain activity. Early neuroscience studies used electricity to change the activity of neurons. Then, just two decades ago, scientists developed new technologies that used light. Now, they are using magnets. Does it sound like mind control? Yes, it does. Brain stimulation technologies, magnetogenetics included, have allowed scientists to influence the behavior of animals. But no, you are not at risk of being unwittingly influenced. The technology relies on magnetic nanoparticles in the brain and close-range magnetic fields.How this new technology works is actually really cool. It combines a mechanosensitive protein called Piezo with a magnetic nanoparticle (it’s 200 nanometers in size! That’s 0.0002 millimeters). Piezo (meaning pressure in Greek) is a well-known channel protein that, when mechanically stimulated, can activate a cell. It’s what gives you the sense of light touch. A rotating magnetic field moves the magnetic nanoparticles. This generates torque (rotational force) that can mechanically stimulate the Piezo channels. The nanoparticles only activate the Piezo variant that scientists have delivered to a cell, not native Piezo proteins.Seo-Hyun Choi and colleagues were able to deliver the protein and nanoparticle to specific subgroups of cells in the brains of mice. When the mice were surrounded by a magnetic field, those cells would be activated. Depending on the targeted cells, this could make the mice eat more, or be more attentive parents.How the team's magnetogenetics system works.Image credit: Institute for Basic ScienceIt sounds a bit Frankenstein-y, but this technology will allow scientists to manipulate with high temporal precision the brain activity in animals without the presence of any head-mounted devices. Previous technologies using light or electricity always required a cable or device to be attached to the skull of the animal to deliver the stimulus. With magnetogenetics the animals’ behavior will be completely unimpeded, improving their welfare. This will also facilitate the study of the behavior of multiple animals together in social experiments as they will be freer to interact together. Could this technology be used in humans? Not anytime soon. However, stimulation of brain circuits in humans is already being done. Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is a powerful therapy for Parkinson’s disease that uses electrical stimulation of dopaminergic neurons. In the future, magnetogenetics could provide an alternative method for targeted stimulation of neurons to alleviate the symptoms of such disorders.As senior author Cheon Jinwoo said in a statement, "We expect it to be widely used in research to understand brain functions, sophisticated artificial neural networks, two-way BCI [brain-computer interface] technologies, and new treatments for neurological disorders."This study is published in Nature Nanotechnology.

An armed intruder forced his way into a Kentucky home after midnight Saturday, police said. But the homeowner was armed, too — and shot the suspect dead, cops added.Kentucky state police told WDKY-TV that troopers received a report about a shooting on Linda Lane in Cadiz, Trigg County. Cadiz is near Kentucky's border with Tennessee, and the city is located about an hour and 20 minutes northwest of Nashville.Trigg County Sheriff Aaron Acree added to WKDZ that no arrests have been made. State police told WDKY that it was an “isolated incident" and there was no danger to the public.A preliminary investigation showed that a male — who reportedly was armed with a weapon — entered the home, state police told the Marshall County Daily, after which the male forced his way into a room.The homeowner soon shot the male, authorities told WDKY, and the alleged intruder was pronounced dead at the scene.Police on Sunday released the identity of the alleged intruder: 25-year-old Austin Gardner, WKDZ-FM reported.Trigg County Sheriff Aaron Acree added to WKDZ that no arrests have been made. State police told WDKY that it was an “isolated incident" and there was no danger to the public.Law enforcement officials completely blocked Linda Lane for several hours as they collected evidence and spoke with witnesses, WKDZ noted. Law enforcement added to WDKY that the investigation was ongoing.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

As if the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump last weekend wasn’t insane enough, President Joe Biden has now dropped out of the presidential race. While the news isn’t shocking to anyone who has witnessed the most recent debate and what appears to be Biden’s declining mental state — it is shocking that the president’s team was claiming he would not drop out as recently as the day that he did. “So, that might come as a surprise to even some people who are in the know in D.C.,” Allie Beth Stuckey comments, noting that the debate might be what cinched this decision. “It could go down in history as one of the worst strategy decisions in the history of campaigns for the Biden administration to agree to a debate with Donald Trump on live TV before the DNC, before the convention. It just didn’t work out well for him,” Stuckey says. Even more interesting than the reason behind the end of Biden’s campaign may be the way he decided to drop out of the race: in a statement posted to his X account. “My fellow Americans,” the statement began. “Over the past three and a half years we have made great progress as a nation. Today, America has the strongest economy in the world. We’ve made historic investments in rebuilding our nation and lowering prescription drug costs for seniors and expanding affordable healthcare to a record number of Americans.” “It was a weird-looking letter,” Stuckey says, noting that the content of the letter — especially the part congratulating himself on the “strongest economy in the world” — was “delusional.” “It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President. And while it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term,” the letter continued. While the statement came from Biden’s official X account, many users on the app were confused as to why it didn’t look presidential. “A lot of people said, ‘Why isn’t the presidential letterhead on there? Why doesn’t it look official?’ Some people were joking, ‘Oh my gosh, Biden is going to be so angry when he finds out that he dropped out of the race,’ because it almost seemed unofficial.” While many on the left have endorsed Kamala Harris in the wake of Biden dropping out, there’s one major politician that has yet to do so. “Obama released a statement very quickly after the announcement, of course praising Biden, touting his accomplishments,” Stuckey says. “But then he did not endorse Kamala Harris, which is really interesting.” “If he didn’t do it quickly, then he’s probably not going to. So, it’s about to get really interesting.” Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?To enjoy more of Allie’s upbeat and in-depth coverage of culture, news, and theology from a Christian, conservative perspective, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

A jackrabbit with antelope horns, the jackalope has captivated the American West since it was allegedly discovered in the 1930s — but is this legendary creature actually real? The post The Story Of The Jackalope, The Legendary Rabbit With Antlers Said To Roam Wyoming appeared first on All That's Interesting.

*GAG* Here Are the Most Annoying, OBNOXIOUS Lefties/Democrats Fawning Over Biden for 'Stepping Aside'

"This Is a Crazy Clip': Secret Service Director's House Testimony Is Making Things Look Even WORSE