MRM sent in a group of combat pilots to camp the station that the New Order gankers were using as a base. They hoped to force a battle. In the meantime, the ill-tempered Yanamota Acami let off some steam by spending 10 million isk on bounties instead of permits.
The MRM forces proved incapable of blockading the station; gankers continued to operate at will. The few miners who were still willing to try gathering ore in Gelhan got popped.
There was only one way out of this dire situation: Total obedience to the Code. Agent AGBee 911 tried to teach the miners, but they were too shell-shocked to listen.
Hour after hour, day after day, Yanamota raged in local. This was the only thing she could do to justify paying her subscription to EVE.
Out of nowhere, Yanamota dropped a bombshell: The Saviour of Highsec had been banned from EVE.
Plenty of rebels have claimed that I was permabanned from EVE, but Yanamota went so far as to claim that she knew the GM who implemented the ban.
Our heroes simply ignored the nonsense spewing out of Yanamota's mouth. There were more important things to focus on, such as collecting permit fees from Mission Ready Mining.
MRM fleet commander Megan Shadowkiss arrived in Gelhan. She was prepared to do battle. At last, a fight worthy of our Agents' talents!
Nevertheless, Megan felt the need to engage in a debate prior to deploying her forces. Before the battle commenced, she wanted to establish that MRM had the moral high ground in this conflict.
Megan styled herself a gentlewoman, an intellectual, someone more sophisticated than the rest of the MRM rabble.
However, Megan had never contended with someone like TheInternet before. When she tried to argue with our Agent, she got tied up in knots.
It quickly became apparent that Megan would not be able to talk her opponents into lifting the siege of Gelhan. If the rebels wanted to mine without buying permits, they would need to fight their way through.
To be continued...
This is all most exciting!
ReplyDeleteMakes your little cunny all moist doesn't it code miner.
DeleteHave I made you angry, again? :-)
Delete
DeleteIt's not 632's fault, it's the way he was raised.
No but I see I made you wet.
DeleteYup James raised me to be a good guy who imposes good standards, if you don't like the laws you should have elected a different blog savior. Follow the rules of blog law or continue to get spammed, remember you make the content on this site, you can have good quality content by following the rules or you can have randomness.
Trolls win, ALWAYS!
A high-ranking MRM official compares his miners to children and insects! It seems that MRM's problems stem from leadership failures, specifically lack of faith in the membership and the presumption that miners can't do better.
ReplyDeleteWhat the carebears don't realize is that just because a capsuleer mines today does not mean that he is incapable of self-improvement! --The Lawton School Foundational Statement
Self improvement under your reich Eugene?
DeleteWe should obtain a Latin translation of your Foundational Statement, Lawrence. Actually a Latin version of the Code wouldn't be a bad thing, either.
DeleteI will try out your minerbumping blog script – good work! Although it could lead to a few gems being missed...
I believe Lawrence is referring to himself and the New Order as the fruit flies of hisec.
DeleteWow Lawrence, you just became lord of the flies.
DeleteBy the way you still need to let your savior know he has to moderate this website so it will be in compliance with blog law.
Miners not minors.
DeleteWell well well.
ReplyDeleteWe don't need to look far back in history to find the dehumanising effects of referring to others as "insects". In fact, "cockroaches" is still a racist term in parts of Africa.
Proof positive that carebears are racist nazis.
And parts of Latin America
DeleteThe fact that you bring up racism and the use of those words that denigrate people then it has to be pointed out that the codes use of the word miner as a derogatory word for all people who refuse or do little PVP is then of course being racist, especially with the definitions you place upon it. To be honest the constant calling of miners as greedy, evil, and the very thing that destroys eve is actually like the Nazis in Germany calling the Jewish people exactly the same thing, greedy, evil, and the destroyers of Germany.
DeleteSo if you dislike racism then you may want to try and use a more tactful word for those you demonize in the game.
And you blog still needs to be moderated in accordance with blog law.
Trolls win, ALWAYS!
Looking forward to a bulk purchase of permits from MRM, when they finally get their wits.
ReplyDelete24,000,000,000 should tip us over the 400bn mark! Yay!
And there you go acting just as greedy as regular miners.
DeleteA very interesting thing here, you say so many times that yours is a group that is not greedy yet here you are acting with great joy at the prospect of breaking a monetary mark. Are you sure you are not a miner? That is what you call people who are greedy?
DeleteJames I think one of your agent has become confused.
YAY More code ships go boom. YAY. Concord never fails to kill their ganker.
ReplyDeleteYay
DeleteTrue Concord never fails to kill their guy. 100% success rate.
DeleteI just realized that the English language must be hell to learn, I mean the homophones, but that yanamota character is almost trying to get all of them wrong. Did I miss one he got right?
ReplyDeleteTypical lazy ag carebea miner, hiding and crying instead of fighting for what it wants.
Typical code miner still thinking they win in actual pvp.
DeleteWow antiganking failing hard on the daily.
ReplyDeleteFunny seeing erik failstein around crying about.
Tell me where AG touched you.
DeleteWell wolf was found to be touching his children inappropriately so he would be expert on bad touching.
DeleteIn my 5 years of playing eve off and on again, both in AG and in Code, from one end of Highsec to the otherside of Null, I've learned one very important fact:
DeleteThe Code Always Wins.
That and Wolf is always right. :)
P.S. Shardanni
That and enforcing the Code is the most fun you can have in Eve. Period.
DeleteAnti-ganking on the other hand is the most frustrating thing ever.
Tell me where AG touched you.
DeleteAnon 315 Guess you touch children with wolf, gonna need another subpoena
DeleteLook the mighty code is still bringing up the dead guy, possibly the only way they can feel superior, make sure your enemy is already dead then claim victory.
DeleteFail
The bot aspirant are dead already.
DeleteHence why code picks on them, the dead cant fight.
DeleteCant lose if your opponent is dead.
There is no evidence to support the clams by code or the New Order that hisec is their property. No sov becons, no hubs. Nothing.
ReplyDeleteLook upon the beacon of truth, miner. James 315 is the Saviour of Highsec. It says so in his bio.
Delete\0/
Anon1202 how could you have missed this?
Deletehttps://zkillboard.com/alliance/99002775/kills/
You must be part of the ag "special" forces.
And yet blasters still pop you like zits on the funny face of a pre pubescant virgin. Stay mad and get rekt.
DeleteFunny code keeps getting killed by Concord every time they gank, so it must be concord space.
DeleteTell that to shardani
DeleteTell that to loyal
DeleteALT 00 your Nazi salute should look like this \o
DeleteKeep trying code Nazi
Karma, you and your crew have trying to kill me for years, but have UNSUCCESSFUL in doing so.
DeleteAlt 00 your beacon of truth as you believe, is a lie, for James315 is an artist of lies and deceit
DeleteHope our texas knights are doing ok in the floods and everybody is doin ok.
ReplyDeleteLeave real life out of the gaming environment.
Deletehey anonymous you should have told that to kalynn shardani
DeleteHey wolf stop molesting your kids.
DeleteHey Wolf in case you missed it that character isn't here to be told, we are addressing you the listening audience, you may want to stop living in the past it's unhealthy.
DeleteConcord space.
ReplyDeleteConcord, they always get their ganker.
Praise Concord
DeleteMany legal rules suggest that the dead do not have rights. Often, the
ReplyDeletedead cannot marry,1 divorce, or vote. The executor of an estate cannot
sue for the libel or slander of a deceased person. And the right to
medical privacy substantially erodes at death, giving family members the
ability to obtain sensitive information about a decedent’s medical
conditions. On the other hand, various legal institutions have spent
considerable time trying to protect the rights of the dead. As a result,
most testamentary distributions, burial requests, and organ donation
designations are held to be valid even if they contradict the preferences
of the living. Certain destructions of property requested in wills are
honored even though they may have a negative impact on the living.
Some states even statutorily recognize a posthumous right of publicity,
and recent case law suggests there may be a posthumous right to
reproductive autonomy.
This Article asks why the law gives decedents certain legal rights
but not others. While many legal rules favoring the dead may be
explained simply as an attempt to control the behaviors of living
persons, such an explanation is incomplete because it ignores cultural
norms, including an innate desire among the living to honor the wishes
of the dead even when those wishes negatively impact their own
interests. The fact that courts and legislatures often use “rights” language
when creating legal rules that benefit decedents’ interests suggests that
the desire to honor the wishes of the dead does not spring solely out of a
self-interested desire in having one’s own wishes honored at death. The
use of this language would be unnecessary if the true goal of a proposed
legal rule is to ultimately control the actions of the living. While it is not
ReplyDeleteunreasonable to think that courts sometimes use the wrong language in
opinions, judges consistently use rights talk in cases involving benefits
and harms to decedents. Consistent use of rights language, therefore,
suggests that a series of social and cultural norms guide judges and
legislatures to honor and respect the dead, particularly where the
concomitant harms to the living are minimal.
This Article argues that while legal rules affecting the dead often
have a practical aspect, one of the primary, and yet unrecognized, forces
driving the creation of these legal rules are cultural norms, including
dignity and respect for decedents’ wishes. In reaching this conclusion,
this Article adopts an Interest Theory approach to rights. Interest Theory
recognizes persons currently incapable of making choices, such as the
mentally incapacitated and infants, as potential right-holders.2 Using
Interest Theory, this Article argues that the dead, although unable to
make real-time choices, are capable of being legal right-holders.
Furthermore, certain interests, such as the interest in seeing one’s
offspring survive or the interest in one’s reputation, can survive death.
When these interests are protected by legal rules, the dead are granted de
facto legal rights that can be enforced against the living.
While it is true that only a subset of interests may survive death,
and even a smaller subset receive legal protection, death does not
necessarily cut off all interests, and consequently, it does not end all
legal rights. Recognition of posthumous legal rights gives the dead
significant moral standing within our legal system, as would be expected
if lawmakers are driven by a desire to treat the dead with dignity.
The law also strives to honor a decedent’s wishes and to protect his
interests because society has chosen, within limits, to adhere to the
principle of autonomy. This is why courts often consider a decedent’s
wishes when determining the disposition of his corpse or property.3 Of
course there are legal limits to autonomy, even for the living, and the
law is constantly struggling with the exact boundaries of these limits.
With the dead, autonomy is more limited than with the living, both
because there is no individual who can speak out contemporaneously
about the decedent’s desires and because the ability to make choices and
change preferences dies with the decedent. This Article provides a first
cut at defining the boundaries of both posthumous autonomy and
posthumous legal rights. Using examples from a wide variety of legal
ReplyDeletedisciplines, the Article develops a series of principles that will help
judges, legislators, and legal scholars think about the legal treatment of
decedents’ interests, including the way the law should treat decedents’
legal interests.
Part II begins by defining “right.” It then examines what it means to
have an interest and to be a legal right-holder and spends some time
discussing what sort of rights might accurately be characterized as
posthumous rights. Part III of the Article proposes that while a desire to
control, protect, and punish the living may explain many legal rules,
concerns about dignity and autonomy also play a vital role in the
creation of posthumous legal rights. In addition to making this claim,
this Part also elucidates factors that lawmakers do and should consider
when determining whether a posthumous interest should be recognized
as a posthumous legal right. A review of several cases and statutes
reveals that the following principles limit the creation and strength of
posthumous rights: impossibility, the right’s importance, time limits, and
conflicts of interest between the living and the dead. Additionally, there
may be enforcement problems that further limit the practical value of
posthumous rights. Where a decedent’s wishes are not clearly preserved
in a written document, the legal system relies on proxies to enforce the
decedent’s wishes.4 Where a proxy is unavailable, courts sometimes
employ a best interests test to enforce the legal rights of the dead.5
Finally, the Article concludes that the current legal trend is toward
giving the dead more rights and suggests that this is acceptable given
changing social norms and understandings of death. As more questions
about posthumous legal rights arise, this Article provides judges,
legislators, and legal scholars a starting point in the consideration of
whether a posthumous legal right should be recognized.
II. RIGHTS TALK: SOME DEFINITIONS AND A FRAMEWORK
This Part provides important definitions for the ensuing discussion
and develops a framework for talking about posthumous rights. It begins
by defining a legal right and then argues that the dead can be legal rightholders if one adopts an Interest Theory of rights, which recognizes that
a person’s interests can survive death and that these interests may be
recognized by the law.6 Next, this Part further refines the definition of a
ReplyDeleteposthumous right. In particular, it focuses on the timing of a right’s
accrual and how timing might affect whether a right can properly be
called a posthumous right. It also distinguishes between situations where
a decedent may appear to be a legal right-holder, but instead is merely a
third-party beneficiary. In these instances, the decedent does not have a
posthumous claim-right or power, and hence, cannot be said to have a
posthumous right even if some benefit is flowing to the decedent.
A. Defining a Legal Right and Determining Who Can Be a Legal
Right-Holder
Establishing a succinct and agreed-upon definition of a “right” has
eluded lawyers and philosophers for centuries. Often, courts,
legislatures, and citizens talk of rights in a loose sense without carefully
defining the term. In the early 1900s, Wesley Hohfeld, a leader in legal
rights talk,7 lamented the looseness of rights language in the law.8 In
response to what he saw as indiscriminate use of the term, he
categorized “rights” into rights (now commonly called claim-rights or
claims), privileges, powers, and immunities.9
But using Hohfeld’s analysis as a basic rights framework is not
without difficulties. First, not every legal relation can fit neatly into a
single box. Many legal relations involve a combination of claim-rights,
duties, powers, and immunities, and these distinctions can be difficult to
tease out.10 Therefore, this Article will talk about all Hohfeldian claimrights, privileges, powers, and immunities as “rights” in a very loose
ReplyDeleteway, as many courts, scholars, and citizens seem to have done since his
time.11
Additionally, Hohfeld considers legal relations between two
persons, who are presumably living.12 He does not discuss posthumous
rights13 or the rights of future generations, trees, animals, and all of the
other things to which legal scholars, judges, or legislators might ascribe
rights. While Hohfeld explicitly states that rights must belong to persons
and not things,14 he fails to discuss the necessary and sufficient
characteristics of right-holders.15 For this reason, it is not perfectly clear
whether Hohfeld was concerned about moral rights,16 legal rights, or
both.17 It is also not clear whether a Hohfeldian right-holder is a legal
person, a moral person, or both.18 To fill this void, two different theories
have emerged: the Interest Theory and the Will Theory.19
Will Theorists argue that legal rights exist only where one is
sentient and capable of making choices.20 According to this school of
thought, “the essence of a right consists in opportunities for the rightholder to make normatively significant choices relating to the behavior
of someone else.”21 Because the dead are incapable of making
significant choices and lack the ability to form interests, a Will Theorist
would argue decedents cannot be right-holders.22 Even living persons
who are comatose or senile cannot be legal right-holders under the Will
Theory because they are incapable of forming and expressing their
wishes in a way that allows them to exercise a legal right.23 This is not to
say that the law cannot protect persons or things that are incapable of
being legal right-holders. A Will Theorist may believe that the comatose,
senile, or dead should receive the benefit of legal protections, but he would not call these protections legal rights, or at least not legal rights
held by the comatose, senile, or dead person.24
Instead, a Will Theorist might argue that laws appearing to grant
the dead posthumous rights are really aimed at controlling the behavior
of living persons.25 A law purporting to grant a posthumous right of
publicity, therefore, is not concerned with honoring the decedent’s right
to have a commercial interest in his identity, but rather with
incentivizing the living to create marketable identities and with
protecting the financial interests of the decedent’s heirs.26 While there is
certainly some truth to this characterization of posthumous rights, the
Will Theory ultimately fails to completely explain many legal rulings,
and its underlying theory of rights does not comport with ordinary legal
or social discourse.
In contrast, an Interest Theory of legal rights would permit the
conclusion that a person who is unable to make choices, such as a
comatose person, can be a legal right-holder because he still has interests
even if he is unable to express them.27 For example, while in a persistent
vegetative state, Terry Schiavo was by almost all medical accounts nonsentient.28 Yet, Interest Theorists might argue that Terry Schiavo was a
legal right-holder. The court hearing her case seemed to agree.29
Cute another noob corp they decided will make em look good but instead proves they are still I kiddie playtime hour.
ReplyDeleteKeep tryin code miners.
Yar Har Pirate Club still laughing at code constantly, and they still wont come out and stop us.
ReplyDeleteXD
Trials and Temptations
ReplyDelete2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. 5 If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. 6 But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. 7 That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. 8 Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do. 9 Believers in humble circumstances ought to take pride in their high position. 10 But the rich should take pride in their humiliation—since they will pass away like a wild flower. 11 For the sun rises with scorching heat and withers the plant; its blossom falls and its beauty is destroyed. In the same way, the rich will fade away even while they go about their business. 12 Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him. 13 When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; 14 but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. 15 Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death. 16 Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. 17 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. 18 He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.
Listening and Doing
ReplyDelete19 My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, 20 because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. 21 Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you. 22 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. 23 Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror 24 and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. 25 But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do. 26 Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless. 27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
Favoritism Forbidden
ReplyDelete1 My brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favoritism. 2 Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in filthy old clothes also comes in. 3 If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you,” but say to the poor man, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet,” 4 have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? 5 Listen, my dear brothers and sisters: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? 6 But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who are exploiting you? Are they not the ones who are dragging you into court? 7 Are they not the ones who are blaspheming the noble name of him to whom you belong? 8 If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing right. 9 But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers. 10 For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. 11 For he who said, “You shall not commit adultery,” also said, “You shall not murder.” If you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a lawbreaker. 12 Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, 13 because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment.
Faith and Deeds
14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? 15 Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. 16 If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? 17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. 18 But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.” Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. 19 You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder. 20 You foolish person, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless ? 21 Was not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? 22 You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. 23 And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called God’s friend. 24 You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone. 25 In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction? 26 As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.
Taming the Tongue
ReplyDelete1 Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. 2 We all stumble in many ways. Anyone who is never at fault in what they say is perfect, able to keep their whole body in check. 3 When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. 4 Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. 5 Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. 6 The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell. 7 All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and sea creatures are being tamed and have been tamed by mankind, 8 but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. 9 With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. 10 Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be. 11 Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? 12 My brothers and sisters, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.
Two Kinds of Wisdom
13 Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. 14 But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. 15 Such “wisdom” does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. 16 For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice. 17 But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. 18 Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.
Submit Yourselves to God
ReplyDelete1 What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. 3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. 4 You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. 5 Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us ? 6 But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.” 7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up. 11 Brothers and sisters, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against a brother or sister or judges them speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it. 12 There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you—who are you to judge your neighbor?
Boasting About Tomorrow
13 Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” 14 Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 15 Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. 17 If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.
Warning to Rich Oppressors
ReplyDelete1 Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you. 2 Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. 3 Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. 4 Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. 5 You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. 6 You have condemned and murdered the innocent one, who was not opposing you.
Patience in Suffering
7 Be patient, then, brothers and sisters, until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop, patiently waiting for the autumn and spring rains. 8 You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near. 9 Don’t grumble against one another, brothers and sisters, or you will be judged. The Judge is standing at the door! 10 Brothers and sisters, as an example of patience in the face of suffering, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. 11 As you know, we count as blessed those who have persevered. You have heard of Job’s perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy. 12 Above all, my brothers and sisters, do not swear—not by heaven or by earth or by anything else. All you need to say is a simple “Yes” or “No.” Otherwise you will be condemned.
The Prayer of Faith
13 Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise. 14 Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. 16 Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. 17 Elijah was a human being, even as we are. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. 18 Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops. 19 My brothers and sisters, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring that person back, 20 remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of their way will save them from death and cover over a multitude of sins.
That "troll"anon lashes out like a 12year old girlie. I enjoy seeing him post walls of impotent tears!
ReplyDeleteWhatever CODE. is doing, they should keep doing it. Especially if it makes "adults" like that girlieanon wet their pants in frustration.
Every time he posts childish rants on this site the Code wins!
Test of Valour. Prove you are not afraid to die by Coding a valuable ship, and do so in a manner that demonstrates integrity and honesty.
ReplyDeleteTest of Wisdom. Correctly answer the almighty Lord Rage’s questions three. Each question must be answered within 20 seconds. The Questions Three will be different for each code monkey each day.
Test of Fortitude. Walk a mile in the miners shoes by becoming a miner. You must continue to mine for an indefinite period of time.
Don't kid yourselves. Even the dirtiest pirates from the birth of EVE have been carebears. They use alts to bring them goods at cheap prices and safely, rather than live with consequences of their in game actions on their main, from concord to prices
ReplyDeleteAlas, expecting a "gf" back from an agent is, at best, a lesson in futility and broken expectations. Agents who get caught at gates and killed, get disrupted warping into a site and get killed, get ECM jammed and their victim saved (and themselves subsequently killed) seem to have a visceral inability to reply back to a "gf".
ReplyDeleteAnonymousMay 31, 2017 at 9:27 AM
ReplyDeleteHow do you know your talking to an agent of code?
They tell you to go kill yourself.
How do you make and agent of code happy?
You kill yourself.
AnonymousMay 31, 2017 at 12:16 PM
Damn that's dark. But I can also see it being true.
How CODE acts:
ReplyDeleteGovernment agencies at all levels aimed to exclude Jews from the economic sphere of Germany by preventing them from earning a living. Jews were required to register their domestic and foreign property and assets, a prelude to the gradual expropriation of their material wealth by the state. Likewise, the German authorities intended to "Aryanize" all Jewish businesses, a process involving the dismissal of Jewish workers and managers, as well as the transfer of companies and enterprises to non-Jewish Germans, who bought them at prices officially fixed well below market value. From April 1933 to April 1938, "Aryanization" effectively reduced the number of Jewish-owned businesses in Germany by approximately two-thirds.
What code forces miners to pay for:
During the Nazi era, German authorities reintroduced the Jewish badge as a key element in their plan to persecute and eventually to destroy the Jewish population of Europe. They used the badge not only to stigmatize and humiliate Jews but also to segregate them and to watch and control their movements.
How code fights:
Blitzkrieg means “lightning war”. It was an innovative military technique first used by the Germans in World War two and was a tactic based on speed and surprise. Blitzkrieg relied on a military force be based around Light tank units supported by planes and infantry (foot soldiers). The tactic was based on Alfred von Schlieffen’s ‘Schlieffen Plan’ – this was a doctrine formed during WWI that focused on quick military victory. It was later developed in Germany by an army officer called Heinz Guderian who looked at new technologies, namely dive bombers and light tanks, to improve the German army’s maneuverability.
Minerbumping.com propaganda is just like:
Films released to the public concentrated on certain issues: the greed of Jews; the greatness of Hitler; the way of life for a true Nazi especially the young and as World war 2 approached, how badly Germans who lived in countries in Eastern Europe were treated.
Good evening, New Eden. Allow me first to apologize for this interruption. I do, like many of you, appreciate the comforts of everyday routine, the security of the familiar, the tranquility of repetition, the totality of blogs. I enjoy them as much as any bloke. But in the spirit of commemoration, where upon important events of the past, usually associated with someone's death or the end of some awful bloody struggle, are celebrated with a nice holiday, I thought we could mark this November the 5th, a day that is sadly no longer remembered, by taking some time out of our daily lives to sit down and have a little chat. There are, of course, those who do not want us to speak. I suspect even now, orders are being shouted into telephones, and men with moderator accounts will soon be on their way. Why? Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well, certainly, there are those who are more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable. But again, truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn't be? War, terror, ganking. They were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense. Fear got the best of you, and in your panic you turned to the now high chancellor, James 315. He promised you order, he promised you peace, and all he demanded in return was your silent, obedient consent. This night, I seek to end that silence. This night, I corrupt the MB to remind this community of what it has forgotten. A great citizen wished to embed the fifth of November forever in our memory. His hope was to remind the world that fairness, justice, and freedom are more than words; they are perspectives. So if you've seen nothing, if the crimes of this Code remain unknown to you, then I would suggest that you allow the fifth of November to pass unmarked. But if you see what I see, if you feel as I feel, and if you would seek as I seek, then I ask you to stand beside me, inside the gates of High Sec, and together we shall give them a fifth of November that shall never, ever be forgot.
ReplyDeleteSo the victims of their villainous deeds would descend upon them bringing forth new weapons and new warriors who would fight in new ways. Those who had done them harm would find fate without mercy and they would feign bravery. Alas fear wells up deep from within and a very real shiver ascends the spine of the criminals and murderers as they now look into the very mirror of their animosity. They cannot win a war that reflects themselves.
ReplyDeleteSo it is written in the book of rage.
The future of manned space exporation is bright, according to some space experts.
ReplyDeleteHumans may one day tread across some of the alien worlds that today can be studied only at a distance. Closer to home, private industries like Mars One seek to establish a permanent settlement on the Red Planet. At the Smithsonian Magazine's "The Future is Here Festival" in Washington, D.C. this month, former astronaut Mae Jemison and NASA engineer Adam Steltzner spoke optimistically about the future of manned space exploration.
"Exploration and the curiosity that motivate it are fundamentally human," Steltzner said during the conference.
Steltzner served as the lead engineer for NASA's Mars rover Curiosity. He helped to design and test the rover's one-of-a-kind descent system, but he isn't solely focused on robotic exploration of the solar system.
"I look forward to human footprints on the surface of Mars in my lifetime," he said.
Landing a human on the Red Planet would be far trickier than landing a robot. For instance, Curiosity hit the Martian atmosphere at 15 times the acceleration of gravity (15 gs). Traveling at such extreme speeds would be disastrous for humans, who only experience 1g while standing on Earth's surface. At 15gs, the retinas would detach from human eyes, Steltzner said.
But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try.
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"Humans should be involved in exploration," Steltzner told the audience.
That form of exploration could come in a number of ways. In addition to kicking up dust on a moon or planet in the solar system, Steltzner suggested another way to spread humans throughout the galaxy.
"Imagine hurtling durable terraforming bacteria to another world, conceivably with the idea of shaping that body," Steltzner said.
Although the idea that bacteria — and life — could hitch a ride on traveling rocks to spread life to other planets is not new, Steltzner suggested a deliberate program that sounds more like science fiction than science fact. Such bacteria could carry our genome and the instructions to reassemble it after landing on a planet (and, one assumes, after the planet has been terraformed to support such life).
Steltzner described the process as "printing human beings organically over time."
Whether or not such a program would be accepted by humans as "succeeding" at space exploration and colonization is another question entirely. Steltzner noted that humans define themselves as more than their genes, and that our experiences and connections also shape us. But in terms of spreading humanity through the galaxy, such seeding might be the easiest and most effective.
In addition to curiosity-motivated exploration, Steltzner pointed out that as long as humans remain on a single planet, we are at risk of extinction when disaster strikes.
"Our real estate portfolio suffers from a concentration of risk," he said.
Such disasters could come from the outside, such as impacts like those that destroyed the dinosaurs or, eventually, the death of the sun (though we have more than 4 billion years to wait for that).
They could also come from within, Steltzner said. A growing population, climate and environmental issues, and keeping our biosphere in check are all problems that humans impact as well as struggle with. [How Interstellar Space Travel Could Work.
This leads to what Steltzner termed the "terraforming paradox," in which the skills and abilities necessary to change another planet to suit human needs are the same that are necessary to keep Earth suitable and sustainable.
ReplyDelete"We won't be able to get that job done [on other planets] until we figure out how to get it done here," he said.
Although long-term terraforming projects may be out, visiting planets in the solar system remains a not-to-distant possibility, and one not hindered by the level of technology.
"Technology didn't slow us down getting to the moon," Steltzner said. "Technology won't slow us down getting to Mars."
Mars may be one of the closest planets humans want to colonize, but it certainly isn't the only one. Mae Jemison described the 100-Year Starship project to an interested audience.
Funded by NASA's Ames Research Center and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the 100-Year Starship project aims to develop the tools and technology necessary to build and fly a spaceship to another planetary system within the next 100 years. The program isn't necessarily concerned with building the ship itself as much as it seeks to foster innovation and enthusiasm for interstellar travel.
"The reason we're not on the moon has nothing to do with technology and everything to do with public will and commitment," Jemison said.
As a result, the project, which Jemison heads, seeks to increase public enthusiasm for space as well. The 100-Year Starship program not only includes engineers and astrophysicists, but also artists and science fiction writers.
"It has to be an inclusive journey," she said.
Though many people object to funding the space program when there are humanitarian needs that have to be met on Earth, Jemison points out that such exploration often leads to innovation and unexpected technology that make an impact on Earth-based programs.
"I believe that pursuing an extraordinary tomorrow will create a better world today," she said.
Traveling to another star takes far more time than just developing the necessary technology. Jemison compares the distance to Proxima Centauri, the nearest star, to that between New York City and Los Angeles. If NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft, which launched in 1977, was en route, it would have traveled only 1 mile in the past four decades.
At that rate, it would take 70,000 years to reach Proxima Centauri.
Speaking to the long time frames of space travel, Steltzner said, "I can't rally think of a country that's been stable for 1,000 years."
ReplyDeleteWithout the development of a method to warp or shrink space-time, or a new propulsion system—both ideas that the 100-Year Starship program is exploring—humanity would need to find a way to overcome some of its instability problems.
To get there, Jemison emphasized that everyone must be involved in the process.
"The public did not leave space," she said while discussing the reduced enthusiasm. "The public was left out of space."
Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.
Space has not been this exciting since the 1960s.
ReplyDeleteNasa recently launched Orion, its first new spacecraft to carry astronauts since the Space Shuttle, and is developing a massive new rocket to rival the Saturn V. Europe has landed a space probe on a comet 510 million kilometres (317 million miles) away and China is developing its next space station.
Meanwhile private companies are changing the economics of space by forging ahead with plans for human spaceflight, space tourism and even missions to Mars.
The next few years will also see the final construction of the James Webb Space Telescope – a space observatory the size of a tennis court.
So in the decade from 2020, can we look forward to a glorious new space age of Moon bases, Mars colonies and more remarkable cosmic discoveries? To try to find out, we canvassed the opinions of an expert panel for their predictions beyond 2020.
Our experts are:
SP: Scott Pace, Director of the Space Policy Institute in Washington DC
DB: David Baker, ex-Nasa engineer, author and editor of Spaceflight magazine
MG: Monica Grady, professor of planetary and space sciences at the UK’s Open University
As you would expect, there are plenty of uncertainties in the coming years in space – not least the impact of domestic and international politics. Nor do our panellists always agree. However, here are the six predictions they came up with:
DB: If only because it’s up there, you can see it in the night sky. The Moon’s just three days away and it requires very little extra capability to send astronauts there for relatively short periods of time. China is very much targeting the Moon as a place it wants to put its astronauts.
ReplyDeleteMG: I envisage a semi-permanent habitation of the Moon. This is not colonisation; this is going to the Moon and using it for a launch pad for rockets to Mars – a lunar base for future exploration of the Solar System.
SP: The problem with the current US space policy is that not only did it get rid of the Moon as the next step and substituted this rather vague path to Mars and asteroids, it left out our international partners. We had many potential partners that were interested in the Moon. It belongs on the agenda because it’s driven by the geopolitical, technical and economic interests of the US and our major partners.
MG: Although Mars is a goal for human exploration, once you’ve gone there and planted a flag there, I’m not exactly sure what happens next.There are discussions about whether we should make Mars a protected habitat in the way that we have protected habitats on Earth.
SP: When we said we’re going to Mars, a lot of our fellow space agencies said, ‘well that’s nice but it’s a lot more than we can handle’. Strategically we picked a direction that left out the most crucial thing in today’s world, which is international partnership.
DB: One has to realise there’s never been a time in Nasa’s history when it hasn’t been as controlled by its public relations department hooked into the White House. The view the public is being presented with from Nasa is very different to the capabilities of the agency.
The new Orion spacecraft is capable of three weeks of autonomous operations in space. It’s not capable of providing human habitation on the way to Mars. Going to Mars is drastic, dangerous and premature.
DB: We are starting to see a space race between India and China and I think that is going to play out gradually over the next few years.
ReplyDeleteSP: I don’t really think there’s a race in that sense. For China space is a way of instilling national pride and support for the Communist Party, a way of improving industrial quality and of attracting young people into the science and technology fields.
DB: In the West we get a new space policy with every new president or government. There is a general lack of continuity and a lot of time and money are wasted. China has the advantage in this – it has a non-democratic political system that can lay out plans several years in the future and expect to see those accomplished.
SP: The Americans are committed to be there until 2024, the problem is whether our partners will be there through that time and that depends on the future relationship with Russia. Both the US and Russia are very tied to the ISS, it’s a deeply mutually dependent exercise. Every effort is made to insulate that from other problems in our relationship.
DB: The Russians can’t continue to operate the ISS on their own, as it’s not owned by them. I think the whole thing will be deorbited. By the time we get to 2020 it will be more than 20 years since the initial elements were launched.
SP: The future of the space station depends on the future of international partnership. And if we don’t have a clear path on what we do next after the space station, the real answer is we’re going to be going out of business. Human spaceflight will certainly continue but it won’t be led by the West.
DB: We are seeing a number of quite serious concerns about keeping it running. Over the last year we’ve seen a lift in the number of hours spent on maintenance.
SP: By the mid 2020s we’ll see a Chinese station up there and Europe is in discussions with China over having one of its astronauts on board.
DB: I think we’re going to get XCOR and Virgin Galactic flying people. You’ll have your high-rise joyriders but I think the real promise is sending scientists and experiments on sub-orbital flights.
ReplyDeleteMG: First of all it will be the super-wealthy and the tech geeks (or the super-wealthy tech geeks), in the same way that the super-wealthy took the first aeroplane flights. When the airlines were getting going, we forget that many of them such as British Airways were government-owned. It will be the same with rocket flights to the Moon. At the moment it’s the agencies but eventually it’s going to be companies like SpaceX, Virgin Galactic or their successors.
SP: The lack of future [US] government plans beyond the ISS are quite dangerous for the emerging commercial space sector. Without clear government demand, it’s difficult to see how they can thrive on their own. If you look at the development of SpaceX’s and Orbital’s capabilities there are billions of dollars of Nasa funding to meet Nasa’s needs.
DB: The future lies not with grand visionary mega-concepts of the Von Braun era but the solid consolidation of private corporations wresting it away from government. Then I think you’ll see performance.
SP: Defining what it is to be human involves answering questions like: ‘Where can we go? What can we see? What can we learn and bring back?’ In partnership with robotic systems, we want to go to as many places as we can. And we should.
MG: No doubt the robots will be able to do everything the humans do and they’ll be no need, for scientific or technical purposes, to send people. However, there is curiosity – what people what to do and find, there’s the aspiration and inspiration. People will still go once the robots have shown us how to do it.
DB: I think while there are going to be these mega projects – I would love to see these happen – I don’t think that’s the way space is unfolding. It’s going to be market-led, people-led, we’re seeing the democratisation of the space programme.
MG: We are seeing the tech benefits that come from the space programme. There are jobs in it. The UK space industry, for instance, is one of the biggest providers of income to government. I’m optimistic because I don’t think that the inspiration value of space exploration has changed.
On March 30, 2017, a spring evening, history took a turn at the Kennedy Space Center when a Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Pad 39A to lift a communications satellite into space.
ReplyDeleteHistory was made when the first stage of the Falcon 9 became, to use SpaceX’s Elon Musk’s artful turn of phrase, flight-proven hardware.
The stage had already flown on a previous Falcon 9 flight, landed, and had been refurbished to be flown again. Just to put the cherry on top, the stage landed on a drone ship in the Atlantic and could be used a third time.
Aerospace engineers have been searching for the holy grail of reusable rockets for decades. The idea is that if rockets were not thrown away after one use and could fly again like airplanes, space flight would get a lot cheaper with all that implies. SpaceX has accomplished a crucial step toward realizing that goal.
The space shuttle was reusable but proved to be so time-consuming and expensive to turn around between flights that the projected cost savings were never realized. The Delta Clipper, a prototype of a vertical-takeoff-and-landing rocket that flew during the 1990s, was never taken to the next step of becoming an orbital vehicle.
The X-33 was an attempt to build a vertical-takeoff, horizontal-landing spacecraft that could be reused, but cost overruns and technical challenges led to the project’s cancellation.
Now it looks like the plucky entrepreneurs like Musk and Blue Origin’s Jeff Bezos are on the verge of succeeding where NASA and the military failed for decades. Blue Origin’s suborbital rocket New Shepard has flown five times. The orbital version, New Glenn, will also be reusable.
Even United Launch Alliance, a more traditional aerospace firm, is building a rocket called the Vulcan that will eventually be reusable. It is clear that the era of the expendable rocket that is thrown away after one use is drawing to a close. Reusability is the future of space travel.
ReplyDeleteThe question thus arises, what to do about the heavy-lift Space Launch System, a rocket that is entirely expendable? The SLS will be expensive to use. NASA, in its latest plan for the Journey to Mars, envisions using the heavy-lift rocket just once a year, The estimates for the cost to launch the SLS range from the absurd $2 billion per liftoff to the goal NASA has set of only a super-expensive $500 million a launch, comparable to what it cost to use the space shuttle.
The Space Launch System was born in the acrimony that surrounded President Barack Obama’s cancellation of the Constellation program and, with it, the heavy-lift Ares V rocket. Obama was eventually compelled to announce the Journey to Mars program but, as part of a messy compromise, Congress mandated the building of a new rocket, the Space Launch System.
The legislature wanted to make sure that NASA would have the heavy-lift capability that the SLS would deliver. Its first version will carry 70 tons to low Earth orbit. The final version will be able to send 130 tons of payload into space.
Is the Space Launch System still needed? The case can be made that, with the significantly less expensive Falcon Heavy and New Glenn coming soon, the SLS has been rendered obsolete even before its first flight. Perhaps it is time to end the SLS and rely solely on commercial rockets to take NASA and America back into deep space, to the moon, Mars, and beyond.
However, the ability to loft 130 tons into space, far more than the Falcon Heavy or the New Glenn will be capable of, is not something to be cast lightly aside. If NASA scraps the Space Launch System, it will have to use more launches of commercial rockets to accomplish the same missions.
Besides, Congress will not be jubilant if the second heavy-lift rocket is canceled in less than ten years, throwing away all the money that has been spent developing it. And, to put the matter crassly, the Space Launch System pays for a lot of jobs held by registered voters in individual congressional districts.
Is the money saved by canceling the SLS worth the inevitable brawl that will happen on Capitol Hill? It is by no means certain that such a cancellation effort would succeed.
Like it or not, NASA may be stuck with the Space Launch System as well as commercial rockets. That could be a good outcome. Redundancy is a quality that aerospace engineers value in all things. If one rocket fails, then others will be available to continue the long-awaited return of astronauts beyond low Earth orbit, where they have been stuck for the decades since Apollo.
Mark Whittington, who writes frequently about space and politics, has just published a political study of space exploration entitled Why is It So Hard to Go Back to the Moon? He blogs at Curmudgeons Corner.
Mark is published in a variety of periodicals, including the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, the Hill, USA Today, and Business Insider.
From the dawn of civilization, humans have dreamed of exploring the cosmos. To date, we have launched over 60 successful missions to the Moon (including six that landed on the Moon with humans), 17 successful missions to Mars, 13 missions to the outer solar system, and five that have left the solar system.
ReplyDeleteHowever, many have been concerned lately that the glory days of space exploration are behind us. The Apollo missions ended 44 years ago, and still we have not returned to the Moon. Our current Mars missions are only modestly more sophisticated than earlier missions. And futuristic dreams of humans traveling to the planets and to the cosmos have remained decades if not centuries away.
But within the past year or so, this situation seems to be changing. Perhaps it has been inspired by a string of highly successful Hollywood movies, including Gravity, Interstellar, The Martian and Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Perhaps it stems in part from the surprising success of private firms such as SpaceX and Blue Origin. Or perhaps it is simply the insatiable curiosity and wanderlust that is so deeply ingrained into our species via evolution.
Yuri Milner’s plan to explore Alpha Centauri
Arguably the most daring plan to date is the Breakthrough Starshot project that was announced on 12 April 2016 by Russian billionaire Yuri Milner, with backing from physicist Stephen Hawking and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
Milner proposes to send a fleet of “nanocraft” to explore Alpha Centauri and its planets — thousands of credit-card-sized spacecraft (to increase the chances that at least some will survive the journey), quickly accelerated to 20 percent of the speed of light by giant light sails powered by laser beams from a kilometer-square array of earth-bound lasers.
Upon arrival in the Alpha Centauri system in 20 years or so, the nanocraft will send back photos and other data via laser beams, which will arrive at Earth four years later. Needless to say, this vision presents daunting technical hurdles, including: 1.Fabricating diode lasers, megapixel cameras, computer processors and batteries for the nanocraft, together weighing less than one gram and able to survive 20 years of exposure to interstellar dust and cosmic rays.
2.Maintaining integrity of the light sail while it and its nanocraft are being accelerated by lasers.
3.Producing sufficient laser power and maintaining the focus of the laser array.
4.Detecting the images and data that are sent back to Earth.
For additional details, see the Scientific American report.
An entirely different, but comparably ambitious, proposal to study extraterrestrial civilizations is to use the Sun as a gravitational lens. SETI pioneer Frank Drake, among others, proposes sending spacecraft outside the solar system to the focal point of the Sun’s gravitational field, which, by principles of General Relativity, can then see enormously magnified images and even microwave transmissions coming from a distant star system.
Renewed interest in humans on Mars
ReplyDeleteAn equally significant development is the resurgence in interest for humans not only to visit Mars but also to take up residence and ultimately form an independent colony.
The Mars Society observes that a round-trip journey to Mars is possible by manufacturing fuel for the return trip in situ on Mars (otherwise transporting fuel to Mars for the return trip is 90 percent of the outbound payload). In particular, they note that CO2 extracted from Martian atmosphere and H2 produced from Martian ice by electrolysis can be combined to form fuel by the exothermic reaction 3 CO2 + 6 H2 → CH4 + 2 CO + 4 H2O. A fully fueled and tested lift-off vehicle could be ready and waiting on Mars before the astronauts leave Earth.
Mars One, an organization founded in 2012, proposes to send humans to Mars by 2027 and establish a permanent colony there, to be funded in part by a reality TV show. Over 200,000 persons responded to their 2013 call for interest; this list has now been narrowed down to 100.
Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk has also been formulating plans for a Mars colony, which he has promised to announce soon. His project reportedly will be known as the Mars Colonial Transporter, to be powered by a large version of the Raptor rocket engine, specifically designed for the exploration and colonization of Mars.
Advanced propulsion technology
Looking a bit further to the future, advanced propulsion systems will be required if more than a handful of people are to reach Mars or beyond. NASA has been exploring several concepts in this direction, including: •Ion propulsion: A high-energy electron collides with a xenon atom, releasing electrons, and the charged atom is then discharged at high speed (up to 150,000 kph).
•High-power electric propulsion: This is like ion propulsion, except that the xenon ions are produced by a combination of microwave and magnetic fields, using a process called electron cyclotron resonance.
•Fusion-driven rocket: A fusion energy source releases its energy directly into the propellant, without converting to electricity; the propellant is rapidly heated and accelerated to high exhaust velocity (roughly 100,000 kph) with no physical interaction with the spacecraft, thus avoiding deterioration.
Space travel and Fermi’s paradox
These developments have clear implications for Fermi”s paradox, that decades-old unsolved conundrum of why, given that an extraterrestrial civilization could explore the Milky Way in a million years or so (an eyeblink in cosmic time), do we not see evidence of even a single society?
Numerous scientists have examined Fermi’s paradox in detail and, as we wrote earlier, have proposed various explanations, such as: 1.They exist, but are too far away.
2.They are under strict orders not to disclose their existence.
3.They exist, but have lost interest in communication and exploration.
4.They are calling, but we do not recognize the signal.
5.Civilizations like us invariably self-destruct.
6.We are alone, at least within the Milky Way if not beyond.
All of these explanations have very reasonable rejoinders. Items 2 and 3 (and several other similar proposed explanations) fall prey to a diversity argument — in a vast galactic ensemble it is hardly credible that every individual in every civilization forever lacks interest in communication and exploration, nor is it credible that some galactic society ban is absolutely 100 percent effective (note that once a signal has been sent, it cannot be called back by any known law of physics). Item 4 does not seem credible, since it is very reasonable to assume that at least some communications are being sent to planets such as Earth in a form that we could readily recognize, and, as before, it is not credible that a ban on such targeted communication could be absolutely 100 percent effective. Item No. 6 (we are alone) seems incredible in light of the thousands of recently discovered extrasolar planets, many in the habitable zone.
ReplyDeleteWith regards to Item 1 (they exist, but are too far away), it is clear that the many exciting new developments in space exploration seriously draw into question the presumed technical impossibility of exploring the cosmos. For example, a fleet of “von Neumann probes” could travel to distant stars, make additional copies of themselves (using the latest software beamed from the home planet) and launch to yet more distant stars. Analyses of this scheme show the entire Milky Way could be explored in a one million years or so. And keep in mind that any other society is, almost certainly, many thousands or millions of years more advanced, so cost and distance cannot be insuperable obstacles.
These developments also draw Item 5 into question (civilizations like us invariably self-destruct). After all, we have survived 200 years of technological adolescence and have not yet destroyed ourselves. And if any of the current exploration and colonization plans work out, then the long-term survival of our species will be immune to possible calamities on Earth. Within a decade, we will become a multi-planet species, and within a century we very likely will be a multi-solar-system species.
So what is the answer to Fermi’s paradox? Good question! We humans don’t know.
There’s a saying among space exploration enthusiasts that human missions to Mars have always been 20 years ahead of available technology. We’ve never quite had the significant research investment and development needed for propulsion, life support, and the ability to land large payloads — to name just a few critical elements — in order to establish human settlements on Mars.
ReplyDeleteBut according to several experts who testified before Congress this week, we may be on the cusp of advances that could radically alter how we fly through space, with breakthroughs that could allow faster travel, larger payloads, and greater efficiency in propulsion. Space industry leaders discussed recent advances in in-space propulsion that were brought about, in part, by the all-but-canceled Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM), which may surprise some of the program’s critics.
Participants in the hearing, which was held by the Space Subcommittee of the House Committee on Space, Science, and Technology, were part of the Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships (NextSTEP), a public-private collaborative model that uses commercial development of deep space exploration capabilities to support more extensive human spaceflight missions with NASA.
“The development of our in-space propulsion and power technologies are essential for future exploration,” Rep. Brian Babin (R-Texas), the subcommittee chair, told Seeker following the hearing. “The work that NASA is doing to adapt its current work on solar electric propulsion to a Deep Space Gateway architecture and further pursuit of high-power in-space propulsion for a Deep Space Transport are key to ensuring that human exploration of Mars is affordable and sustainable. Future development of these technologies will be essential to unlocking the secrets of our solar system’s ocean worlds, like Europa.”
ARM was originally designed as a Mars precursor mission to develop deep space exploration capabilities. ARM would find, capture, and redirect an asteroid robotically to orbit the moon, and then astronauts would visit it for exploration and study. But the technology involved in realizing the feat would also help prepare for human missions to the Red Planet and other destinations within the solar system. The astronauts would have also tested Mars-capable spacesuits, sample harvesting techniques, and docking capabilities that would be critical for operating independently of Earth during long-duration missions to Mars.
ReplyDeleteYet the idea of sending humans to an asteroid never really captured the attention of the public — or Congress. The Trump administration’s proposed 2018 budget completely cuts funding for ARM.
There is more to ARM than meets the eye. NASA wanted to use the project to make advancements in solar electric propulsion (SEP) — sometimes called ion propulsion — which works by electrically charging, or ionizing, a gas using power from solar panels and emitting the ionized gas to create thrust to propel the spacecraft. These engines are different than chemical rockets and thrusters that most spacecraft use.
RELATED: Compact Fusion Rockets Could Be the Future of Interplanetary Space Missions
SEP engines are much more efficient than conventional chemical propulsion because they turn electrical energy from solar panels into thrust, meaning they don’t have to carry large amounts of heavy, chemical propellant.
“High power solar electric propulsion capabilities, scalable to handle power and thrust levels needed for deep space human exploration missions, are considered essential to efficiently and affordably perform human exploration missions to distant destinations such as Mars,” Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for the Human Exploration and Operations Directorate at NASA, remarked at the hearing.
ReplyDeleteThe concept of solar electric propulsion has been around for a long time. Robert Goddard discussed it in the early 1900s, but the first spacecraft to use the technology was Deep Space 1 in 1998. A few other robotic solar system missions (ESA’s SMART-1, Japan’s Hayabusa) have used solar electric propulsion, and Boeing recently launched the first commercial Earth orbiting satellites that rely solely on electric propulsion. The Dawn mission to the asteroid belt, which launched in 2007, uses ion propulsion.
The improved SEP design packs three times the power of previous models, is 50 percent more efficient, and uses much less propellant. Although developed for asteroid exploration, the new and improved thruster could one day be used to send large payloads to Mars in support of human settlement.
“SEP systems under development now by NASA and Aerojet Rocketdyne reduce the amount of propellant needed for deep space missions by a factor of 10,” said Joe Cassady, Executive Director for Space, at Aerojet Rocketdyne. “This is important because it costs as much to launch propellant as it does to launch scientific instruments or other mission critical equipment. SEP makes it possible to launch larger, heavier payloads thereby reducing the number of launches needed and the taxpayer cost for the total mission.”
There’s one downside to SEP engines: They lack sufficient powerful over a short amount of time to lift a spacecraft off of Earth’s surface. For that, you need the sudden, swift acceleration to overcome the pull of our planet’s gravity that currently only chemical rockets can provide. To get humans to Mars, the current plan is to use NASA’s large new rocket currently under development, the Space Launch System (SLS).
While a SEP-powered spacecraft provides low acceleration, when it operates in space, it can fire continuously for many years to thrust a large mass to high speed.
“Compared to chemical propulsion, this approach enhances the efficiency of the thruster by more than an order of magnitude and leads to significant mass reductions — a change that allows us to include more payload mass on the same launch vehicle,” said Mitchell Walker, chair of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics’s Electric Propulsion Technical Committee. “Thus, electric propulsion systems enable space missions that could never take place with chemical propulsion alone.”
Franklin Chang-Diaz, CEO of the Ad Astra Rocket Company and a former NASA astronaut, said despite decades of advances in space technology, deep challenges remain.
ReplyDelete“Our transportation workhorse, the chemical rocket, has reached an exquisite level of refinement,” he said. “It has also reached its performance limit. That technology will not provide us with a sustainable path to deep space. It does not mean we need to discard it. On the contrary, chemical rockets will continue to provide foundational launch and landing capabilities for the foreseeable future and reducing their cost is a worthy goal.”
Chang-Diaz added that the path to sustainable transportation lies in high-power electric propulsion.
“By high-power, I mean power levels in the hundreds of kilowatts and up,” he said. “These rockets will first be solar-electric and later, as we move outwards from the sun, they will transition to nuclear-electric power.”
The electric ion engine that currently propels the Dawn mission has a nominal operation power of 2.3 kW, and the new Boeing satellites operate at slightly less than 5 kW. Upgraded engines tested for ARM offer electric propulsion devices that could operate at nearly 15 kW. Aerojet Rocketdyne’s Nested Hall Thruster delivers 50-200 kW and the VASMIR VX-200 engine has performed more than 10,000 test firings at power levels of 200 kW.
But none of these engines have yet flown to space.
Cassady put things in perspective. “Today we can land one metric ton on the surface of Mars; for a human mission we need to land 80 metric tons of supplies and equipment,” he said. “Mars missions will also send humans much farther than ever before. This combination of heavier payloads combined with the need to travel over greater distances drives us to seek a solution that takes advantage of strategic logistics planning.”
He added that the best approach might be similar to the way that military deployments are conducted today, where heavy equipment, supplies, and other logistical items are pre-deployed by large cargo ships. Then, once the equipment and habitats are in place, soldiers follow by faster air transport. SEP systems, in other words, could become the cargo ship of deep-space missions.
Gerstenmaier said that NASA is also investing in technologies that will allow for the in-space storage and transfer of cryogenic fuels to meet the needs for future propulsion stages to move crew from Low Earth Orbit to a variety of destinations. “A key goal is to demonstrate these new capabilities in the next few years and infuse them into human missions in the next decade,” he said.
ReplyDeleteSeveral committee members and invited speakers echoed Chang-Diaz’s opinion that there is strong public sentiment for continued development for space exploration, and in particular a sustainable human mission to Mars.
“I believe space travel beckons humanity even more today than it did 50 years ago,” said Chang Diaz, “but we need to secure a safe, robust, and fast means of transportation.”
Cassady agreed, saying he thought that we are well on our way to having efficient in-space transportation because of SEP, but for the technology to fully reach its potential, we mustn’t get complacent or distracted.
“We must continue to adequately fund these development efforts to ensure we will have the first human footprints on Mars in the 2030s,” he said. “The primary challenge facing high power SEP development is the risk of losing focus as we go through the critical transition period from development to flight demonstration and subsequently, operational use. This requires a stable budget and a constancy of purpose. Everything we do should be with the goal of landing humans on Mars in the 2030s.”
According to even the most optimistic of estimates, only about five percent of the world's ocean floor has been mapped with any degree of detail. Since oceans cover roughly 70 percent of the planet, that means we've only really surveyed a small portion of the Earth's overall surface. We know more about the moon topographically than we do our own planet.
ReplyDeleteThe Xprize Foundation, established in 1995, is a non-profit organization that seeks to encourage technological development by facilitating global competitions aimed at solving specific problems. Past competitions have involved developing new medical technologies, artificial intelligence, new sources of energy, and – most famously – spaceships. The 2004 Ansari Xprize, after all, is credited with helping establish the commercial spaceflight industry.
The Ocean Discovery Xprize is a $7 million dollar global competition to develop new autonomous technologies for exploring and mapping the ocean floor. Organizers hope that the competition will accelerate all aspects of deep sea exploration, leading to new scientific discoveries in dozens of areas including oceanography, geology, marine biology, material science, and medicine.
Announced in 2015, the competition has attracted dozens of registrants from around the world, including teams backed by private technology companies, government agencies, and universities. The contest includes two scheduled test trials in which teams must generate underwater maps and images of a designated offshore area within a limited amount of time.
The top finishers will split the $1 million milestone prize and move on to a second round of testing, slated for September 2018 at 4,000 meter depths. At the end of the competition, a $4 million grand prize and $1 million second place prize will be awarded.
Like any competition, the Ocean Discovery Xprize has some hard-and-fast rules. First and foremost, the exploration technologies must be unmanned and launched from shore. That means robots, and lots of 'em.
ReplyDeleteThe competing teams approach the challenge differently, using various technologies including aerial drones, underwater autonomous vehicles, robot swarms, and artificial intelligence. The decision to limit the competition to automated technology is quite deliberate, said Jyotika Virmani, a senior director with Xprize’s energy and environment group.
“What we've done with this competition is remove the need for ships,” Virmani said. “Ships and crews are always the most expensive component. It can cost $60-120,000 per day to go out on the ocean. And if you're sailing for ten days before you even start mapping, you've lost a lot of money.”
Current estimates suggest it would take around $3 billion to map the entire sea floor using existing techniques and technologies, Virmani said. The expense has long hindered the development of coordinated global ocean exploration.
Each of the teams employ some combination of autonomous aerial, surface, and underwater vehicles. For instance, an aerial drone might fly from shore then drop a surface vehicle, which in turn deploys UAVs to dive to the ocean floor.
Blue Devil Ocean Engineering skips the surface vehicle entirely. Developed by a team of faculty and student engineers from Duke University in North Carolina, the Blue Devil system uses a heavy-lift 18-rotor drone to transport lightweight sonar imaging pods.
Once the pods are deployed, they operate autonomously beneath the ocean’s surface, mapping the underwater environment with sonar technology. The pods are equipped with onboard imaging equipment to capture underwater photos. Once the craft has completed its work, it ascends back to the sea surface where it's scooped up by the aerial drone for the return trip.
ReplyDeleteThe aerial drone’s limited range restricts mapping to areas of the ocean relatively close to shore. The drone is powered by a hybrid gas-electric motor and can stay airborne with a 10-pound sonar pod for a little over an hour.
“Taking off from ships and other moving surfaces adds complexity to the autopilots,” said Martin Brooke, Blue Devil team leader and associate professor of electrical engineering at Duke.
Brooke said that participating in the Xprize competition has educational benefits. Duke has structured an entire sequence of undergraduate, graduate, and Ph.D courses around the project.
“I think our integration of the competition into the classroom is interesting,” Brooke said. “We are providing an opportunity for more folks at a diverse range of academic levels to be involved.”
Once the pods are deployed, they operate autonomously beneath the ocean’s surface, mapping the underwater environment with sonar technology. The pods are equipped with onboard imaging equipment to capture underwater photos. Once the craft has completed its work, it ascends back to the sea surface where it's scooped up by the aerial drone for the return trip.
ReplyDeleteThe aerial drone’s limited range restricts mapping to areas of the ocean relatively close to shore. The drone is powered by a hybrid gas-electric motor and can stay airborne with a 10-pound sonar pod for a little over an hour.
“Taking off from ships and other moving surfaces adds complexity to the autopilots,” said Martin Brooke, Blue Devil team leader and associate professor of electrical engineering at Duke.
Brooke said that participating in the Xprize competition has educational benefits. Duke has structured an entire sequence of undergraduate, graduate, and Ph.D courses around the project.
“I think our integration of the competition into the classroom is interesting,” Brooke said. “We are providing an opportunity for more folks at a diverse range of academic levels to be involved.”
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Other teams in the competition include a variety of public and private organizations from Canada, China, Germany, Ghana, India, Japan, New Zealand, Portugal, South Africa, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Eau'ligo, a private marine technology company based in Nice, France, is among them. The company is proposing to use a swarm of miniaturized submarines that each explore a small portion of the sea floor.
“Our solution is inspired by nature and bees,” said Eau'ligo CEO Christopher Lewis. “So just as bees go out and search in the fields and work together to find flowers, our marine bees do the same. Each one is a small robotic submarine that dives to the bottom, takes images and measures the depth to the ocean floor.”
Details on the Eau'ligo system are being kept largely under wraps until the first competition event, Lewis said. But Eau'ligo is hoping to commercialize its technology sooner rather than later.
“There are commercial applications for creating bathymetric maps, imaging the sea floor, and even single marine bees can be used for inspection of ships or marine work,” he said. “We would also like to make a consumer version so anyone can take it and use it to explore the ocean near them. Similar to the quadcopters and drones that now fill the air, we'd like to do the same for underwater drones.”
Organizers are hoping that the Ocean Discovery Xprize competition spins off many commercial endeavors. There's a reason of course that Shell oil company is a major sponsor of the competition. As a massive oil and gas interest, Shell could make use of detailed bathymetric maps for offshore exploration.
The XPRIZE Foundation is hoping that the competition will gradually bring more money and excitement into the field of deep-sea exploration. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is the other major sponsor of the event. The federal agency is contributing a $1 million bonus prize to the team that can best demonstrate technology to “sniff out” a specified object in the ocean by tracing a biological and chemical signal to its source. The idea is to give scientists an option for tracking objects or marine animals that cannot otherwise be seen with sonar or cameras.
"Between Shell, NOAA, and ourselves, we have a broader mission to map the sea floor,” Virmani said. “We are looking at 2030 as the target to get a high-resolution map of everything.”
ReplyDeleteRelative to the other big XPRIZE categories, the Ocean Discovery initiative has flown under the radar. Part of the challenge, Virmani said, is ocean exploration can get oddly politicized. Many people automatically associate ocean exploration with potential ecological damage, and some of the hard data that comes from ocean studies — the acidification of seawater due to pollution, for instance — can be inconvenient for companies that might otherwise sponsor or fund research.
The irony, Virmani said, is that ocean exploration is far more likely than space exploration to deliver an immediate and practical return on investment.
ReplyDelete“The example I like to use is: We live in a three-story house here on planet Earth, and we only know what's on the top floor,” she said. “What else is there on the other floors? What other kinds of medicines and materials and cures might we find?”
“What the Xprize does,” she added, “is take the next step in pushing that technology along. The ultimate goal is to get a map of our entire planet, which we've never had in human history.”
Ants from the genus Myrmoteras have developed jaws that close at speeds up to 60 mph, and researchers now understand the mechanics of their evolutionary development.
ReplyDeleteWhen your food moves fast, you’ve got to move faster.
For a type of southeast Asian ant, it helps that your jaw is spring-loaded to snap shut on prey in a tiny fraction of the time it takes a human to blink an eye.
The long, thin, spiny mandible of ants from the genus Myrmoteras open up at a 270-degree angle and lock into position, ready to snap shut when it moves on its most common prey — a jumping flea-like bug known as a springtail. When the ant is ready, a bulging spring of bone-like material at the back of the head releases the jaw, which snaps shut in half a millisecond — reaching speeds up to 60 mph in the process and spearing the springtail.
“Trap-jaw ants are likely evolving these really fast jaws for this specialized diet in sort of like an arms race,” said Fred Larabee, an evolutionary biologist at the Smithsonian Institution. “In order to capture their food, they have to have faster predation mechanisms than the prey they’re seeking out.”
Larabee, who works at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington DC, recently used high-powered imagery to capture the mechanism behind Myrmoteras mandibles for the first time.
The ants are native to Southeast Asia. The two Myrmoteras species in Larabee’s study were collected in Malaysia, where they live among leaf litter on the island of Borneo.
ReplyDeleteThey’re one of several types of trap-jaw ants, some of which have more powerful jaws. But the mechanics of the ants in Larabee’s study were less well known. So he and his colleagues put the insects under a micro-CT scan and filmed them with a high-speed camera that captured 50,000 frames a second to reveal their movements.
“Their heads are very strangely shaped and they have this really prominent lobe on the back of the head,” he said. “While the mandibles are locked open, the closer muscle is able to supply tension to that spring in the back of the head.” When the jaw releases, “You can see that structure sort of caving in on the head. There’s a very clear deformation.”
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Larabee and his colleagues published their findings today in the Journal of Experimental Biology. The high-speed camera helped them pinpoint the speed of the jaws, while the CT scanner — which uses X-rays to produce a 3D image — “was really useful to look at the structures.”
“It’s a great tool for studying insect anatomy because you can resolve really small, delicate features of internal anatomy without having to break open the specimen,” Larabee said. “Being able to visualize that in a 3D environment is even more beneficial, because you can digitally dissect different parts and visualize just the pieces you’re really interested in.”
ReplyDeleteAnd it turns out trap-jaw ants have “completely different structures” to slam their mouths shut than other species.
“It’s a really great example of how evolution can come up with multiple solutions to the same problem,” he said.
To remove a tumor, doctors mapped the regions of the teacher's brain that are related to musical ability in order to navigate around them during surgery.
ReplyDeleteScalpel. Forceps. Clamp…
Saxophone.
Surgeons in Rochester, NY, asked a music teacher to play his saxophone while lying on an operating table during brain surgery to determine whether they had successfully avoided damaging his musical abilities while removing a tumor.
When the patient, Dan Fabbio, finished performing a two-minute long Korean folksong, the operating room burst into applause.
“They said I likely wouldn’t remember any of it,” Fabbio later told Seeker. “But I do remember being awake, and I do remember playing my saxophone. It was all kind of surreal.”
That musical moment was the culmination of an effort by the doctors working with a music theory professor to map out exactly which regions of Fabbio’s brain were involved in his musical abilities in order to navigate around them during surgery. They recently published a paper about their work in the journal Current Biology.
“He got out his saxophone, and lying there on his side he was able to play the piece,” Dr. Elizabeth Marvin, a professor of music theory at University of Rochester’s Eastman School of Music who was tapped brain surgeons to lend her expertise to the procedure, told Seeker. “It was one of the most amazing days of my professional life.”
Fabbio, a substitute music teacher at a school in New Hartford, NY, was working on his master’s degree in music education in early 2015 when he began to feel dizzy and nauseous, and started to hallucinate.
“I was working in my office and all of a sudden I started seeing and hearing things that weren’t there,” Fabbio said. “The sounds were musical.”
Tests soon revealed the tumor in his head, which was benign and had likely been growing slowly since childhood. But the lump was located troublingly close to a brain region associated with musical functioning, suggesting that surgery could potentially have a dramatic impact on his professional and artistic life.
“I was very scared,” Fabbio said. “It was really hard to fathom losing my musical ability. I mean, it’s not something your really think about losing.”
Dr. Web Pilcher, a neurosurgeon with the University of Rochester, was tasked with removing the tumor. Pilcher and his colleague Dr. Brad Mahon, are collaborators in the university’s Translational Brain Mapping Program, which is dedicated to performing exactly the kind of operation Fabbio needed: locating the precise regions of the brain associated with specific activities to reduce the harm, and better predict the outcome, of brain surgery.
While cognitive processes typically take place in the same general areas across the population, the exact location of a given function may be differ slightly for each person.
ReplyDelete“There can be a fair amount of variability among individuals,” Mahon said. “Your language region is more or less in the same place as mine, but they might be two centimeters apart.”
Those two centimeters make an enormous difference when it comes to brain surgery.
Before operating on Fabbio, the doctors created an individualized map of the musical areas of his brain by placing him in an fMRI scanning machine while he hummed melodies. They checked those findings during surgery by zapping areas of his brain with an electrical stimulus that inhibited the functioning of the localized region.
The doctors would stimulate a given area and then ask Fabbio to repeat a melody and speak a sentence. Marvin, the music theory expert, was on hand in the operating room to judge whether he had reproduced the melody accurately. If his singing failed, or if he wobbled in his performance, then the doctors identified the region that they had stimulated as necessary for his music.
“We were able to definitively show that when the superior temporal gyrus in his right hemisphere was electrically stimulated, he was not able to perform the melody repetition task, but he was still able to repeat sentences,” Mahon said. “So that meant his inability to repeat the melodies wasn’t just because he was unable to repeat anything, but was really specific to music processing.”
Breaking out the saxophone to prove he could still play effectively after the tumor had been removed was the final test.
“He played flawlessly,” Mahon said. “It was a beautiful moment.”
An ice-free corridor between the Americas and Asia opened up about 12,500 years ago, allowing humans to cross over the Bering land bridge to settle what is now the United States and places beyond to the south. History books have conveyed that information for years to explain how the Americas were supposedly first settled by people, such as those from the Clovis culture.
ReplyDeleteAt least one part of the Americas was already occupied by humans before that time, however, says new research on the skeleton of a male youth found in Chan Hol cave near Tulúm, Mexico. Dubbed the Young Man of Chan Hol, the remains date to 13,000 years ago, according to a paper published in the journal PLOS ONE.
How he arrived at the location remains a great mystery given the timing and the fact that Mexico is well over 4,000 miles away from the Bering land crossing.
“Scenarios of travel by boat along the Pacific shoreline, the ‘Kelp Highway,’ must be taken seriously, but alternative migration routes by boat from Europe along the Greenland ice margin or via Antarctica are also possible, though highly speculative,” lead author Wolfgang Stinnesbeck of the Institute of Geosciences at Heidelberg University said.
“If travel by boat is correct,” he added, “then likely camp sites are now set underwater due to the early Holocene rise of sea level.”
The cave system would have offered cool shelter and even probable water sources during this time. Still, given that there must have been a shortage of fresh water at ground level, the region would seem to have been an unlikely choice for an early human settlement.
ReplyDeleteRecently, Stinnesbeck and his team analyzed isotopes present in the teeth that belonged to some of the individuals found within the caves. They also looked at similar isotopic signatures for fossil animals found in the area. Intriguingly, the isotope composition of the human teeth proved to be a better match for wildlife that lived in the interior of the Yucatán Peninsula.
The results, Stinnesbeck said, suggest “high mobility” on the part of the prehistoric individuals due to long-distance travel between their settlements and the caves at Tulúm.
“Perhaps they did not live in the area, but only used the caves for ritual purposes, or as a burial ground,” he said.
Tools and other items belonging to this early culture have not yet been found in or around the caves. The absence of such artifacts strengthens the theory that the caves were not used on a daily basis as camp sites, cooking areas, and shelters would have been.
ReplyDeleteStone artifacts, however, have been found at a site called Monte Verde in Chile dating to at least 18,500 years ago. Archaeological evidence for other pre-Clovis settlements has also been found at Buttermilk Creek in Texas, the site Page-Ladson in Florida, and at Paisley Cave in Oregon.
A controversial paper published earlier this year reported an archaeological site in southern California dating to 130,000 years ago. The claim is based on a mastodon bone that lead author Steven Holen of the Center for American Paleolithic Research and the San Diego Natural History Museum and his colleagues believe was processed by humans. Although Stinnesbeck has not yet examined the evidence directly, he said that he has “absolutely no objection to a much earlier settlement” of the Americas.
For now, Stinnesbeck and his team continue to study the underwater caves near Tulúm that are proving to be rich, not only in human remains, but also for those for other animals. The researchers, for example, recently discovered a new fossil peccary — a pig-like mammal —as well as a new genus and species of giant ground sloth.
Wow! So many tears and so many trolls! Sign me up! This is going to be good!
ReplyDeleteHave fun with kiddie fun times and Jamey the purple dildo, real pvp is out in null, you aint shit till you out there.
DeleteKeep trying code miners.
Just remember Concord never fails.
Deletewow the miners are so mad they are misspelling every word!
ReplyDeletecalm down miner
DeleteLOL at the miners pretending to be bad ass null PvPers, because nothing says high sec PvP is meaningless like non stop whining on a blog about high sec.
ReplyDelete