If you ever hear our Great Leader talking nonsense about how the aircraft carriers should go back to steam, it is because he 1) believes that magnets don't work when they get wet, and 2) he fears that the electrification of ships will lead to electrocution.
... and holding a phone handle can give a shock too!
« Last post by Rusty Edge on December 17, 2025, 06:42:07 am »
Finally made the beef Burgundy. It turned out really well...great flavor, fat rendered, beef softened. However, my wife was not impressed because we paid $40 bucks for a 3 pound chuck roast and spent much of the day goofing with it. She would prefer that I defrost a beef loin and use that.
Also, I put a lot of smoked Gouda into the mash without getting much flavor from it. Maybe there's a better way, or maybe next time I'll stick with sour cream.
« Last post by Rusty Edge on December 17, 2025, 06:26:10 am »
If you ever hear our Great Leader talking nonsense about how the aircraft carriers should go back to steam, it is because he 1) believes that magnets don't work when they get wet, and 2) he fears that the electrification of ships will lead to electrocution.
« Last post by Buster's Uncle on December 16, 2025, 07:25:11 pm »
United Press International World’s largest dinosaur footprint site identified in Bolivia Mar Puig Tue, December 16, 2025 at 10:53 AM EST 3 min read
Argentinean paleontologist Pablo Gallina is shown in 2008 next to several dinosaur footprints discovered by two countrymen in the Icla municipality, Chuquisaca, Bolivia . Photo by Omar Medina Ramirez/EPA
Dec. 16 (UPI) -- More than 16,600 footprints left by carnivorous dinosaurs of different sizes that walked, ran and even swam about 66 million years ago have been identified at the Carreras Pampa site inside Torotoro National Park in central Bolivia, making the country home to the world's largest known concentration of theropod tracks.
Theropods, a dinosaur subgroup, walked on two legs, and typically had hollow, thin-walled bones, short forelimbs and strong hind legs.
"The study of this gigantic dinosaur track site is highly significant for several reasons. It is the largest known site to date and far exceeds other similar sites in the number of preserved footprints," Spanish paleontologist Raúl Esperante, the study's lead author, told Argentine outlet Infobae.
Researchers documented 1,321 theropod trackways along with hundreds of isolated footprints, tail drag marks and 1,378 swimming traces. All the tracks are concentrated in nine connected sectors on a single fossil surface that cover about 80,730 square feet, an area comparable to a soccer field.
The footprints belong to bipedal carnivorous dinosaurs and display a wide range of sizes. Some were left by animals up to 33 feet long, while others correspond to very small specimens measuring just 12 inches in height, roughly the size of a modern chicken.
According to the researchers, this diversity indicates the area was used by different types of dinosaurs rather than a single species.
The team concluded that Carreras Pampa was not a permanent settlement area, but rather a frequently used passageway. The orientation of the trackways shows a clear pattern in two directions, suggesting repeated movement along the shoreline of an ancient freshwater lake.
That natural route likely functioned as a kind of prehistoric highway linking regions of what is now southern Peru with northwestern Argentina, the researchers said.
Unlike bone fossils, which are scarce in the region, footprints allow scientists to reconstruct everyday behavior. From the tracks, researchers were able to estimate walking speeds, pauses, changes in direction and even swimming attempts.
In several areas, scientists identified footprints left as dinosaurs moved through shallow water, scraping the muddy bottom before rising water levels sealed and preserved the marks.
"The preservation of many of the footprints is excellent and the number recorded is unprecedented," said Richard Butler, a paleontologist at the University of Birmingham in England and a co-author of the study. He said the site offers an exceptional opportunity to understand how dinosaurs moved and behaved shortly before their extinction.
The study also documented primitive bird footprints associated with the dinosaur tracks, as well as other signs of biological activity, reinforcing the idea that the area once supported an active and diverse ecosystem.
Bolivia is already internationally known for the Cal Orck'o site near the city of Sucre, which preserves about 12,000 dinosaur footprints on a near-vertical rock wall. With Carreras Pampa, the country adds another world record and strengthens its position as a key location for the study of fossilized dinosaur tracks.
Researchers said fieldwork will continue and that many more footprints could be uncovered in surrounding areas, potentially expanding even further this unique record of South America's prehistoric past.
« Last post by Buster's Uncle on December 16, 2025, 07:20:34 pm »
Popular Mechanics Scientists Found an Ancient Egyptian Tomb. It Contained the Wrong Body. Elizabeth Rayne Tue, December 16, 2025 at 9:30 AM EST 4 min read
Experts Found an Egyptian Tomb—With the Wrong Body SW Photography - Getty Images
Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story:
*Shabti, the ancient Egyptian funerary figurines that were supposed to work for the deceased in their afterlife, have revealed the identity of a pharaoh in an unnamed sarcophagus.
*Pharaoh Shoshenq III had been buried in this tomb even though he had already built a larger one elsewhere in city of Tanis.
*It is now thought that his successor, Shoshenq IV, may have had him buried in this smaller tomb (which already belonged to someone else) and taken the larger one for himself.
Being a pharaoh in ancient Egypt meant existing as a living god. Everyday tasks were beneath someone who had been transmogrified into a divine being. Once the scepter passed to him, he had command of courtiers and servants who toiled at everything, from cleaning to farming to laboring on building projects and funerary monuments, just to appease him.
When he died, he wanted these servants to join him in the afterlife.
Though the pharaohs of the First Dynasty demanded that some of their servants be sacrificed upon their death, later dynasties found no reason to lose loyal servants if figures made in their image could stand in for them. This was how shabti (also known as ushabti and shawbti) came to be. Spells written directly on the shabti told them what they were tasked with. Sometimes, there was even an overseer shabti who managed the others. Known as “The Answerers” because the Egyptian swb, which translates to “stick,” corresponds to wsb, which means “answer,” they would answer to the pharaoh’s every whim, both in his earthly life and the next.
The city of Tanis, now an archaeological site in the northeastern Nile Delta, was once the capital of the Egypt during the 21st and 22nd Dynasties. Today it might be best recognized as the Lost City of Indiana Jones fame. Among the ruins of its royal necropolis, Egyptologist Frederic Payraudeau and his team discovered a cache of 225 shabti arranged in a star formation, just as they had been when the pharaoh they were supposed to serve was buried. This is somewhat unusual since shabti from around this period were usually placed in a special wood and plaster box that was inscribed with spells and painted with images of the gods.
Shabti were each given specific tasks to free the hands of the deceased in the afterlife. While they started out exclusive to royalty, methods of mass production eventually made them attainable by anyone, and some Egyptians even made their own out of mud or clay. The shabti found at the Tanis site are made of faience, a type of ceramic glazed a bluish-green color that represented death and the god Osiris, ruler of the underworld. Faience shabti first appeared during the 19th Dynasty. While shabti for royals were often handcrafted, faience shabti that were molded and glazed to be sold at temples were accessible to almost everyone.
Because of their flat backs and identical details, the mummiform shabti found at this site appear to have been molded. What was especially surprising to Payraudeau was that more than half of them were women. While their intended purpose is unknown, women in ancient Egypt were allowed to join the workforce, becoming scribes, priestesses, oracles and even dentists or physicians. They could also own their own businesses and do everything from making textiles to brewing beer. It is possible that, in life, the pharaoh who commissioned the shabti was served by many capable women. Now, these shabti women have performed a final task for that pharaoh, revealing his identity to modern Egyptologists.
These shabti were inscribed with a cartouche, the oval symbol in which the names of royals and high-ranking officials were written in hieroglyphs. That cartouche revealed that they served Pharaoh Shoshenq III (also Sheshonq III). This puts an end to the mystery of who was supposed to be buried in the tomb’s unnamed sarcophagus. Shoshenq’s tumultuous forty-year reign was stained with blood from a civil war between upper and lower Egypt during a time when the country was not unified. He was still a prolific builder who raised many monuments within Tanis.
There was, however, something strange about his burial. He was ultimately interred in that small and narrow tomb where the shabti were discovered, even though his name was already on the walls of another, larger tomb which he had built.
Burials sometimes took an unexpected turn when shifts in power were involved. The tomb Shoshenq III is buried in actually belonged to Osorkon II, who died before him. It is thought that Shoshenq’s successor, Shoshenq IV, may have moved the mummified remains of his predecessor to the smaller tomb. It is even suspected that the successor of Tutankhamun, Ay, purposely had him buried in Osorkon’s tomb so he could take the larger royal tomb for himself. Battles for the throne, evidently, did not end after death.
« Last post by Buster's Uncle on December 16, 2025, 07:14:26 pm »
Popular Mechanics Archaeologists Pried Open a Living Room Floor—and Found 40,000 Ancient Roman Coins Elizabeth Rayne Tue, December 16, 2025 at 9:00 AM EST 4 min read
Archaeologists Found 40,000 Ancient Roman Coins scaliger - Getty Images
Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story:
*An excavation in Senon, France, unearthed three amphorae full of ancient Roman coins that had been buried under the floor of what was once a living room.
*This region of France was once populated by a Celtic tribe known as the Mediomatrici, who were eventually conquered by the Romans.
*The way that the amphorae were buried so close to ground level suggests that they were supposed to be accessible for deposits or withdrawals.
There was (obviously) no such thing as online banking 1,700 years ago. While the ancient Romans did adopt early banking systems from ancient Greece, the most convenient way to put aside cash that would have simply been transfered into a savings account over a thousand years later was remained stashing it in a vessel that was later buried.
Wherever the Roman Empire spread, its customs came with it. The empire and all its wealth extended through France, and archaeologists from the National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research (INRAP) have now unearthed three clay amphorae overflowing with coins. Found at a site in Senon, northeastern France, makeshift piggy banks were buried in a pit beneath the lime concrete floor of what was likely someone’s living room. The research team found more than 40,000 coins, weighing about 183 pounds in total. Some had been deposited in the necks of the jugs even after the containers were buried.
“Contrary to what one might think at first glance, it is not certain that these are ‘treasures’ that were hidden during a period of insecurity,” numismatist Vincent Geneviève, who studies ancient currency, said in a statement from INRAP. “Many other explanations are possible, and these deposits should be seen instead as a snapshot of complex monetary management, planned over the medium to long term, within a household or administration, capable of making deposits and withdrawals at various intervals.”
At the time, Senon was populated by the Mediomatrici tribe, whose name translates to “middle mother,” and is probably a reference to the middle goddess of the three mothers worshipped in northwest Europe during the Roman era. These Celtic people, or Gauls, lived in the region during the Gallic Wars, when Julius Caesar’s forces conquered parts of Belgium, France, and Switzerland between 57 and 50 B.C.E. Caesar fought the Gauls when a subgroup known as the Helveti (from what is now Switzerland) began to migrate and clash with Roman allies. According to Caesar’s own account of the Gallic Wars, Celts near the Rhine (probably including the Mediomatrici) clashed with German tribes.
The vessels and coin hoards found by the reasearcher date from much later, around the late 3rd to early 4th century C.E. Geneviève found some 23,000 to 24,000 coins in the first amphora (weighing a total of 83 pounds), and 18,000 to 19,000 in the second amphora (weighing a total of 110 pounds). Only three coins remained in the third vessel.
Researchers who found coins stuck to the outer face of one vessel realized that they had been added to the hoard before the pit was filled with sediment. The Mediomatrici settlement in which the vessels were found had been burned to the ground in the 4th century and rebuilt, only to be reduced to ashes again, and these artifacts were there before the fires. That can only mean that they had been there before the Romans conquered.
Because the reserves of coins were buried between 280 and 310 C.E., it is thought that they may be associated with the Roman military occupation at Senon—whether they belonged to Roman warriors or Mediomatrici, however, is unclear. The artifacts were buried at a time when urban growth began to trigger a shift in building practices and materials, and the living space, as a result, was made of limestone bricks (limestone was a plentiful resource in this part of France at the time). Rooms are separated by brick walls, with multiple pits that may have been latrines or spaces for storage. What they were actually used for will be determined by lab analysis.
It seems that Senon was heavily influenced by its Roman conquerors. Impressions on the coins appear stylistically Roman, and the ruins at the site reflect an affluent city with a public square, courtyards, temples, baths, and even a theater. Its inhabitants may have been artists or merchants. INRAP officials, therefore, do not think that there was a rush to bury these coins because of impending disaster. The fact that the tops of the amphorae were almost at ground level indicates that they were supposed to be easily accessible for deposits or withdrawals.
“Their exceptional nature lies less in the discovery of a large quantity of coins (some thirty coin hoards are known in the Meuse department alone) than in the possibility of documenting their depositional context so precisely,” Geneviève said, “which is rare.”
« Last post by Buster's Uncle on December 16, 2025, 07:07:00 pm »
ScienceAlert Alien Comet 3I/ATLAS Is Just About to Make Its Closest Approach to Earth Michelle Starr Tue, December 16, 2025 at 6:00 AM EST 4 min read
Alien Comet 3I/ATLAS Is Just About to Make Its Closest Approach to Earth
On 19 December 2025, interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS will at long last make its closest approach to Earth.
This event, along with the days before and after, represents the final and best opportunity for ground-based observatories (and human comet-hunters) to capture and study the object as it makes its way back out of the Solar System. Once it is gone, it is gone for good.
At perigee – that's the closest point in its trajectory to Earth – 3I/ATLAS will be around 270 million kilometers (168 million miles) away. That's nearly twice Earth's 150 million-kilometer distance from the Sun, but still close enough for some really juicy observations.
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Since its discovery on 1 July 2025, 3I/ATLAS has proven to be one of the most peculiar comets humanity has ever seen. As it draws closer, first to the Sun and Mars, now to Earth, its strangeness only intensifies.
Measurements of its coma – the 'atmosphere' of gas and dust surrounding an active comet – revealed an unusually early outgassing producing large amounts of carbon dioxide. Continued observations also showed huge amounts of hydrogen cyanide (HCN) and methanol (CH3OH) appear in the coma as the growing warmth of the Sun caused the comet's ices to sublime.
In the first two months following its discovery, researchers also noted strangely high amounts of nickel and iron, noting a "potentially extreme composition" unlike any other comet.
In early October, 3I/ATLAS came within a cosmic whisker of Mars; the encounter was recorded by Martian and solar observatories. Observations of the comet became highly limited when its trajectory took it behind the Sun from Earth's point of view during a crucial part of its travels – perihelion, the closest approach to the Sun, which took place on October 29.
When the comet emerged from behind the Sun's glare, Earth observatories once again turned their gaze its way.
XMM-Newton image of 3I/ATLAS obtained on December 3. The red hue indicates X-radiation. (ESA/XMM-Newton/C. Lisse, S. Cabot & the XMM ISO Team)
XMM-Newton, an ESA X-ray observatory in Earth orbit, spent 20 hours gazing at 3I/ATLAS, recording the glow of X-radiation as the charged solar wind slammed into the ballooning coma. XMM-Newton is sensitive to soft X-ray emission from ions like carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen produced when the solar wind collides with neutral gases in the coma.
In late November, NOIRLab's Gemini North telescope obtained observations of the comet that showed a hint of green. This is interesting because early images of 3I/ATLAS showed a more reddish tint, consistent with organic compounds called tholins dusting the comet's surface.
The greenish hue seen in many comets is generated by diatomic carbon (C2), which releases a green fluorescent glow when excited by solar radiation. However, pre-perihelion observations of 3I/ATLAS suggested that it was unusually low in C2.
C2 isn't usually part of the composition of cometary ice, but forms – and breaks apart – quickly therein from free-floating carbon atoms from other carbon-containing molecules that break apart under solar radiation.
The new images suggest that 3I/ATLAS only started forming C2 late in its journey through the Solar System – another of the comet's odd behaviors.
We don't know what all this means yet. Some scientists think that 3I/ATLAS could be an unusually metal-rich object bristling with cryovolcanoes that are sputtering its gases out into space. Another analysis suggests that the comet could be running out of ice, transitioning into life as a post-cometary asteroid.
In spite of all its oddities, everything it does points to it being a comet. The next critical flurry of observations will hopefully reveal more about the ways 3I/ATLAS differs from our home-grown Solar System comets. Ensuing analysis from scientists may then yield insights into the strange environment of interstellar space.
"This object is a comet," NASA associate administrator Amit Kshatriya said in November. "It looks and behaves like a comet, and all evidence points to it being a comet. But this one came from outside the Solar System, which makes it fascinating, exciting, and scientifically very important."
You ivory tower intellectuals must not lose touch with the world of industrial growth and hard currency. It is all very well and good to pursue these high-minded scientific theories, but research grants are expensive. You must justify your existence by providing not only knowledge but concrete and profitable applications as well.
~CEO Nwabudike Morgan 'The Ethics of Greed'
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