Internal Combustion Advances

There is a lot of attention being paid to electric vehicles.  Yet, the internal combustion engine isn’t dead.  In fact it is being engineered with significant advances that may keep it competitive for quite some time.  Mazda has been working on it.  See this link:

https://spectrum.ieee.org/transportation/efficiency/mazdas-new-skyactivx-engine-gives-new-life-to-internal-combustion

Shaky Management of Pandemics

Here’s a story from Australia about a professionally run simulation of pandemic in America that showed how ineffective management of such a problem is commonplace.  Comments?

https://www.businessinsider.com.au/pandemic-virus-simulation-johns-hopkins-shows-vulnerability-2018-7?r=US&IR=T

Donald Trump Baby Balloon

During an official visit to the United Kingdom by President of the United States Donald Trump, an inflatable caricature of Trump was flown in protest at him, his visit, his perceived racial views and his policies.

                                             Donald Trump Baby Balloon near Parliament

The balloon was flown over Parliament Square, London, on 13 July 2018, where tens of thousands of protestors attended, and over the Meadows, Edinburgh, the following day, where protests were also held. Although Trump was not visiting Edinburgh, he was spending the weekend at his Turnberry golf course, but permission to fly the balloon there was refused by Police Scotland.

Description

The 6-metre (20 ft) tall, helium-filled plastic inflatable, also referred to as a "balloon" or "blimp", was designed by Matt Bonner and constructed by Imagine Inflatables of Leicester. It was made after a crowdfunding campaign on crowdfunder.co.uk raised the £16,000 cost of its creation and deployment. It depicts Trump as "an angry orange baby" with a snarling mouth and tiny hands; wearing a nappy, and holding a smartphone.

Use of the Balloon

Permission from the Greater London Authority (GLA), Metropolitan Police and National Air Traffic Service (NATS) was required for the balloon to be flown over Parliament Square, the space above which is considered restricted airspace. Permission was granted, allowing it to be flown, while tethered, up to 30 metres (100 ft) high, for up to two hours. Both the GLA's 'City Operations' team and NATS stressed that the nature of the protest did not play a part on their decisions.

Following its appearance in London, the balloon was taken to Edinburgh, where it was flown over the Meadows, a public park near to the city centre, as part of the protests against Trump's two day visit to Scotland, permission to fly the balloon near Turnberry golf course having been refused. On 17 July 2018, the balloon was tethered outside the O2 Arena in London, prior to the American rock band Pearl Jam playing at the venue.

Inspired by the UK Baby Trump balloon, activist groups in the US began fundraising for similar inflatables. One group of activists raised nearly $24,000 in a GoFundMe campaign to construct four Trump baby balloons that they plan to fly over Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey. Initially, they sought $4,500 to build one balloon, with permission from the designer, but exceeded their goals more than fivefold.

Motivation Behind the Balloon

One of the organisers, Max Wakefield said, "This is about the rise of far-right politics that dehumanizes people in order to get into power [and] an attempt to introduce some good British humour into the political discourse surrounding Trump's visit." Wakefield cited the Trump administration's family separation policy and Trump's withdrawal of the United States from the Paris climate agreement as examples of the kind of polices which the protest was targeting. Leo Murray, who led the campaign, wrote,

So when Trump visits the UK on Friday the 13th of July this year, we want to make sure he knows that all of Britain is looking down on him and laughing at him. That's why a group of us have chipped in and raised enough money to have a 6 meter high blimp made by a professional inflatables company, to be flown in the skies over Parliament Square during Trump's visit.

Reactions

Opinions on the balloon were divided. When it appeared that GLA permission might not be forthcoming, thousands of people signed an online petition calling for it to be granted.

Opposing the protest, Drew Liquerman, a spokesman for Republicans Overseas, said, "Frankly it's embarrassing. It's embarrassing for the people flying it, for the British residents of London and for people in the UK." Nigel Farage said the demonstrations was a "step too far" and "the biggest insult to a sitting US president ever".

Trump said, "I guess when they put out blimps to make me feel unwelcome, no reason for me to go to London."

Museums including the British Museum and the Museum of London have expressed interest in acquiring or displaying the balloon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_baby_balloon

Atrial Fibrillation Explained

Atrial fibrillation (AF or A-fib) is an abnormal heart rhythm characterized by rapid and irregular beating of the atria. Often it starts as brief periods of abnormal beating which become longer and possibly constant over time. Often episodes have no symptoms. Occasionally there may be heart palpitations, fainting, lightheadedness, shortness of breath, or chest pain. The disease is associated with an increased risk of heart failure, dementia, and stroke. It is a type of supraventricular tachycardia.

High blood pressure and valvular heart disease are the most common alterable risk factors for AF. Other heart-related risk factors include heart failure, coronary artery disease, cardiomyopathy, and congenital heart disease. In the developing world valvular heart disease often occurs as a result of rheumatic fever. Lung-related risk factors include COPD, obesity, and sleep apnea. Other factors include excess alcohol intake, tobacco smoking, diabetes mellitus, and thyrotoxicosi. However, half of cases are not associated with any of these risks. A diagnosis is made by feeling the pulse and may be confirmed using an electrocardiogram (ECG). A typical ECG in AF shows no P waves and an irregular ventricular rate.

AF is often treated with medications to slow the heart rate to a near normal range (known as rate control) or to convert the rhythm to normal sinus rhythm. (known as rhythm control). Electrical cardioversion can also be used to convert AF to a normal sinus rhythm and is often used emergently if the person is unstable. Ablation may prevent recurrence in some people. For those at low risk of stroke, no specific treatment is typically required, though aspirin or an anti-clotting medication may occasionally be considered. For those at more than low risk, an anti-clotting medication is typically recommended. Anti-clotting medications include warfarin and direct oral anticoagulants. Most people are at higher risk of stroke. While these medications reduce stroke risk, they increase rates of major bleeding.

Atrial fibrillation is the most common serious abnormal heart rhythm. In Europe and North America, as of 2014, it affects about 2 to 3% of the population. This is an increase from 0.4 to 1% of the population around 2005. In the developing world, about 0.6% of males and 0.4% of females are affected. The percentage of people with AF increases with age with 0.1% under 50 years old, 4% between 60 and 70 years old, and 14% over 80 years old being affected. A-fib and atrial flutter resulted in 193,300 deaths in 2015, up from 29,000 in 1990. The first known report of an irregular pulse was by Jean-Baptiste de Sénac in 1749. This was first documented by ECG in 1909 by Thomas Lewis.

Water on Mars

Almost all water on Mars today exists as ice, though it also exists in small quantities as vapor in the atmosphere and occasionally as low-volume liquid brines in shallow Martian soil. The only place where water ice is visible at the surface is at the north polar ice cap. Abundant water ice is also present beneath the permanent carbon dioxide ice cap at the Martian south pole and in the shallow subsurface at more temperate conditions. More than five million cubic kilometers of ice have been identified at or near the surface of modern Mars, enough to cover the whole planet to a depth of 35 meters (115 ft). Even more ice is likely to be locked away in the deep subsurface.

Some liquid water may occur transiently on the Martian surface today, but limited to traces of dissolved moisture from the atmosphere and thin films, which are challenging environments for known life. No large standing bodies of liquid water exist on the planet's surface, because the atmospheric pressure there averages just 600 pascals (0.087 psi) – about 0.6% of Earth's mean sea level pressure – leading to either rapid evaporation (sublimation) or rapid freezing. Before about 3.8 billion years ago, Mars may have had a denser atmosphere and higher surface temperatures, allowing vast amounts of liquid water on the surface, possibly including a large ocean that may have covered one-third of the planet. Water has also apparently flowed across the surface for short periods at various intervals more recently in Mars' history. On December 9, 2013, NASA reported that, based on evidence from the Curiosity rover studying Aeolis Palus, Gale Crater contained an ancient freshwater lake that could have been a hospitable environment for microbial life.

Many lines of evidence indicate that water ice is abundant on Mars and it has played a significant role in the planet's geologic history. The present-day inventory of water on Mars can be estimated from spacecraft imagery, remote sensing techniques (spectroscopic measurements, radar, etc.), and surface investigations from landers and rovers. Geologic evidence of past water includes enormous outflow channels carved by floods, ancient river valley networks, deltas, and lakebeds; and the detection of rocks and minerals on the surface that could only have formed in liquid water. Numerous geomorphic features suggest the presence of ground ice (permafrost) and the movement of ice in glaciers, both in the recent past and present. Gullies and slope lineae along cliffs and crater walls suggest that flowing water continues to shape the surface of Mars, although to a far lesser degree than in the ancient past.

Although the surface of Mars was periodically wet and could have been hospitable to microbial life billions of years ago, the current environment at the surface is dry and subfreezing, probably presenting an insurmountable obstacle for living organisms. In addition, Mars lacks a thick atmosphere, ozone layer, and magnetic field, allowing solar and cosmic radiation to strike the surface unimpeded. The damaging effects of ionizing radiation on cellular structure is another one of the prime limiting factors on the survival of life on the surface. Therefore, the best potential locations for discovering life on Mars may be in subsurface environments. On November 22, 2016, NASA reported finding a large amount of underground ice on Mars; the volume of water detected is equivalent to the volume of water in Lake Superior. In July 2018, Italian scientists reported the discovery of a subglacial lake on Mars, 1.5 km (0.93 mi) below the southern polar ice cap, and extending sideways about 20 km (12 mi), the first known stable body of water on the planet.

Understanding the extent and situation of water on Mars is vital to assess the planet’s potential for harboring life and for providing usable resources for future human exploration. For this reason, "Follow the Water" was the science theme of NASA's Mars Exploration Program (MEP) in the first decade of the 21st century. Discoveries by the 2001 Mars Odyssey, Mars Exploration Rovers (MERs), Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), and Mars Phoenix lander have been instrumental in answering key questions about water's abundance and distribution on Mars. The ESA's Mars Express orbiter has also provided essential data in this quest. The Mars Odyssey, Mars Express, MER Opportunity rover, MRO, and Mars Science Lander Curiosity rover are still sending back data from Mars, and discoveries continue to be made.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_on_Mars#Subglacial_liquid_water

The Compassion of Dogs

Empathetic Dogs Lend a Helping Paw
Study shows that dogs that remain calm and show empathy during their owner’s distress help out faster 
Heidelberg | New York, 24 July 2018 

Many dogs show empathy if their owner is in distress and will also try to help rescue them. This is according to Emily M. Sanford, formerly of Macalester College and now at Johns Hopkins University in the US. She is the lead author of a study in Springer’s journal Learning and Behavior that tested whether there is truth in the notion that dogs have a prosocial and empathetic nature. Interesting to note, the study found that dogs specially trained for visitations as therapy dogs are just as likely to help as other dogs.

In one of their experiments, Sanford and her colleagues instructed the owners of 34 dogs to either give distressed cries or to hum while sitting behind a see-through closed door. Sixteen of these dogs were registered therapy dogs. The researchers watched what the dogs did, and also measured their heart rate variability to see how they physically reacted to the situation. In another part of the experiment, the researchers examined how these same dogs gazed at their owners to measure the strength of their relationship. 

Dogs that heard distress calls were no more likely to open a door than dogs that heard someone humming. However, they opened the door much faster if their owner was crying. Based on their physiological and behavioural responses, dogs who opened the door were, in fact, less stressed than they were during baseline measurements, indicating that those who could suppress their own distress were the ones who could jump into action. 

The study therefore provides evidence that dogs not only feel empathy towards people, but in some cases also act on this empathy. This happens especially when they are able to suppress their own feelings of distress and can focus on those of the human involved. According to Sanford, this is similar to what is seen when children need to help others. They are only able to do so when they can suppress their own feelings of personal distress.

“It appears that adopting another’s emotional state through emotional contagion alone is not sufficient to motivate an empathetic helping response; otherwise, the most stressed dogs could have also opened the door,” explains co-author Julia Meyers-Manor of Ripon College in the US. “The extent of this empathetic response and under what conditions it can be elicited deserve further investigation, especially as it can improve our understanding of the shared evolutionary history of humans and dogs.”

Contrary to expectation, the sixteen therapy dogs in the study performed as well as the other dogs when tested on opening the door. According to Meyers-Manor this may be because registered therapy dogs, despite what people may think, do not possess traits that make them more attentive or responsive to human emotional states. She says that therapy dog certification tests involve skills based more on obedience rather than on human-animal bonding. 

“It might be beneficial for therapy organizations to consider more traits important for therapeutic improvement, such as empathy, in their testing protocols,” adds Meyers-Manor. “It would also be interesting to determine whether service dogs show a different pattern of results given their extensive training in attentiveness to their human companions.”

https://www.springer.com/gp/about-springer/media/research-news/all-english-research-news/empathetic-dogs-lend-a-helping-paw/15963158

American Civil War Resolution

The Crittenden–Johnson Resolution (also called the Crittenden Resolution) was a measure passed by the 37th United States Congress on July 25, 1861, after the start of the American Civil War, which began on April 12, 1861. Also known as the War Aims Resolution, it was passed by both houses of Congress in July 1861 in an attempt to define limited conservative goals for the Union effort during the Civil War, especially the restoration of the Union as it was with no mention of slavery. The dual goal was to retain the loyalty of Unionists in the slave-holding border states and also to reassure Northerners who would fight to save the Union but not to free the slaves.

Although the resolution passed almost unanimously in July, sentiment shifted so much in the following months that the same resolution was defeated by a decisive majority in December.

The resolution is sometimes confused with the "Crittenden Compromise," a series of unsuccessful proposals to amend the United States Constitution, debated after slave states began seceding, in an attempt to prevent the South from leaving the Union.

Both measures are sometimes confused with the Corwin Amendment, a proposal to amend the U. S. Constitution adopted by the 36th Congress, which attempted to constitutionalize slavery. It was adopted by the necessary two-thirds in both Houses and submitted to the states for ratification. It was ratified by three states before the war pre-empted further debate.

Historical Background

During the war, President Abraham Lincoln was concerned that the slave states of Missouri, Kentucky, and Maryland in the crucial upper south might leave the Union to join the Confederate States of America. If Maryland were lost, Washington, D.C. would be entirely surrounded by Confederate territory. Both Missouri and Kentucky were slave states of questionable loyalty to the Union that bordered on important Union territory; Lincoln was born in Kentucky and losing his birth state would be seen as a political failure. Also, the Ohio River marks the northern border of Kentucky and this strategically important waterway was the economic lifeline of Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana; each of these states had to ship goods down this river down to the Mississippi River. Delaware (the other slave state that remained in the Union) had so few slaves that its loyalty would not be questioned.

The resolution was introduced on July 19, 1861, two days before the Battle of Bull Run, and was passed with few dissenting votes the day after the battle, when Union forces were routed by the Confederate army, creating intense concern in Washington about southern soldiers “in arms around the capital.”

Components of the Resolution

The resolution was voted upon in the House in two parts, or “branches”. The text of the first branch reads, “Resolved by the House of Representatives of the Congress of the United States, That the present deplorable civil war has been forced upon the country by the dis-unionists of the southern States now in revolt against the constitutional government, and in arms around the capital.”

This branch passed the House 121–2. Two congressmen voted against this branch, Henry C. Burnett (Kentucky) and John W. Reid (Missouri). Both were expelled at the next session of the 37th Congress for taking up arms against the United States.

The text of the second branch reads, “That in this national emergency, Congress, banishing all feelings of mere passion or resentment, will recollect only its duty to the whole country; that this war is not waged on their part in any spirit of oppression, or for any purpose of conquest or subjugation, or purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established institutions of those States, but to defend and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution, and to preserve the Union with all the dignity, equality, and rights of the several States unimpaired; and that as soon as these objects are accomplished the war ought to cease."

This second branch passed the House 119-2. Two congressmen voted against this branch, John F. Potter (Wisconsin) and Albert G. Riddle (Ohio).

The complete measure passed the House on July 22, 1861, and was introduced to the Senate on July 25, 1861. The Senate rejected division of the question into two branches, and voted on the entire resolution, passing it 30-5. The five senators voting against the resolution were: John C. Breckinridge (Kentucky), Waldo P. Johnson (Missouri), Trusten Polk (Missouri), Lazarus W. Powell (Kentucky), and Lyman Trumbull (Illinois). Breckinridge, Johnson, and Polk were expelled from the Senate at the next session of the 37th Congress for support for the Confederate Rebellion. A motion was brought to expel Powell, but was defeated, in part due to a defense given by Trumbull.

Meaning and Context

Introduced as the War Aims Resolution, the resolution became better known for its sponsors, Representative John J. Crittenden of Kentucky and Senator Andrew Johnson of Tennessee. The bill defined limited conservative goals for the Union effort during the Civil War. Although it made no mention of slavery, the resolution intended that the Union Government would take no actions against the peculiar institution of slavery. The war was fought not for "overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established institutions of those States," but to "defend and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution and to preserve the Union."

The implication was that war would end when the seceding states returned to the Union, with slavery being intact. The political goals of the resolution were to retain the loyalty of Unionists in the slave-holding border states and also to reassure Northerners who would fight to save the Union but not to free the slaves.

Thaddeus Stevens, a Pennsylvania Congressman, had opposed the bill when it was introduced on the grounds that, in war, Congress and the President had the right to take “any step which would subdue the enemy,” but abstained from voting on the measure. By December 1861, public opinion had shifted so dramatically that he was able to secure the repeal of the bill.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crittenden%E2%80%93Johnson_Resolution

Goethe's Poem "Erlkonig"

"Erlkönig" is a poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. It depicts the death of a child assailed by a supernatural being, the Erlkönig, often half-translated as "Erlking", though the eponymous character is clearly some kind of demon or 'fairy king'. It was originally composed by Goethe as part of a 1782 Singspiel entitled Die Fischerin.

"Erlkönig" has been called Goethe's "most famous ballad". The poem has been set to music by several composers, most notably by Franz Schubert.

Summary of the Poem

An anxious young boy is being carried at night by his father on horseback. To where is not spelled out; German Hof has a rather broad meaning of "yard", "courtyard", "farm", or (royal) "court". The lack of specificity of the father's social position, beyond owning a horse, allows the reader to imagine the details. The opening line tells that the time is unusually late and the weather unusually inclement for travel. As it becomes apparent that the boy is delirious, a possibility is that the father is rushing him to medical aid.

As the poem unfolds, the son seems to see and hear beings his father does not; the reader cannot know if the father is indeed aware of their presence, but he chooses to comfort his son, asserting reassuringly naturalistic explanations for what the child sees – a wisp of fog, rustling leaves, shimmering willows. Finally, the child shrieks that he has been attacked. The father rides faster to the Hof. There, he recognizes that the boy is dead.

Literal Translation into English

Who rides, so late, through night and wind?
It is the father with his child.
He has the boy well in his arm
He holds him safely, he keeps him warm.

"My son, why do you hide your face in fear?"
"Father, do you not see the Elf-king?
The Elf-king with crown and cape?"
"My son, it's a streak of fog."

"You dear child, come, go with me!
(Very) beautiful games I play with you;
Many colorful flowers are on the beach,
My mother has many a golden robe."

"My father, my father, and do you not hear
What the Elf-king quietly promises me?"
"Be calm, stay calm, my child;
Through dry leaves the wind is sighing."

"Do you, fine boy, want to go with me?
My daughters shall wait on you finely;
My daughters lead the nightly dance,
And rock and dance and sing to bring you in."

"My father, my father, and don't you see there
The Elf-king's daughters in the gloomy place?"
"My son, my son, I see it clearly:
There shimmer the old willows so grey."

"I love you, your beautiful form entices me;
And if you're not willing, then I will use force."
"My father, my father, he's touching me now!
The Elf-king has done me harm!"

It horrifies the father; he swiftly rides on,
He holds the moaning child in his arms,
Reaches the farm with great difficulty;
In his arms, the child was dead.

Further Analysis

The Erlkönig's nature has been the subject of some debate. The name translates literally from the German as "Alder King" rather than its common English translation, "Elf King" (which would be rendered as Elfenkönig in German). It has often been suggested that Erlkönig is a mistranslation from the original Danish elverkonge, which does mean "king of the elves."

In the original Scandinavian version of the tale, the antagonist was the Erlkönig's daughter rather than the Erlkönig himself; the female elves or Danish elvermøer sought to ensnare human beings to satisfy their desire, jealousy and lust for revenge.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erlk%C3%B6nig_(Goethe)

A Typewriter Patent in 1829

The typographer, America's first typewriter, was invented and made by William Austin Burt. It was a mechanical device that was worked by hand to make the letter print on paper. The working model provided by Burt for his 1829 patent was destroyed in the 1836 Patent Office fire. The main purpose of the device was to speed up secretarial work, although that was not accomplished at first.

                                                     Burt demonstrating his typographer

History

The typographer was patented on July 23, 1829, as U.S. patent No. 5581X. United States Patent Office documents describe Burt's American machine as "the actual construction of a type writing machine for the first time in any country". It was the first practical typewriting machine ever made in America, although Pellegrino Turri had made one in Italy in 1808. The patent gave Burt the full exclusive rights to his new typewriter machine for 14 years, including vending or selling to others any or all of these rights as he saw fit, signed by President Andrew Jackson.

All "type writing" machines, those that used letters of typeface, were generally given the name "typographer" from Burt's 1829 patent until 1874 by subsequent inventors who improved on Burt's machine. The concept ultimately came to be called "The Type-Writer" in 1874. The word stayed hyphenated until the 1880s. William Ozmun Wyckoff, president of the New York State Shorthand Reporters' Association in 1886, and founder of the Remington Typewriter Company, publicized the unhyphenated name "typewriter". It became very well known, and the public finally accepted this as one word by 1919. Eventually, Burt's typographer was called a typewriter.

American typewriters have been recognized in all parts of the world as superior right from the beginning of the United States patents. There has been a tendency in history records to give credit to English inventors for the typewriter invention. This could be due to the Patent Office fire in 1830 that destroyed the patents and models, or just due to enthusiastic British historians of inventions. French authors, Henri Dupont and C. Senechal in their book "Les machines a écrire: historique, avantages, descriptions et traité complet de dactylographie ou art d'écrire a la machine" in 1906 described the facts about Burt's typographer machine as has been described above.

In 1714, the British patent office issued a patent to English engineer Henry Mill for a typewriter; however, he never built it. This first record of an initial attempt gave Mills time (14 years) to develop a model or at least a description of his "artificial machine"; however, the secret of how to make such a machine, if there ever was one, died with him. There is no record that it ever existed. There hasn't even been found a trace of any drawings or specifications. Its description is more like that of making embossing tape, which product output would be used for the blind.

Christopher Latham Sholes is given credit for inventing the first "practical" typewriter. He was in fact the fifty-second person or possibly the 112th to reinvent a "type-writing" machine – which he called a type-writer.  Some of the "type-writing" machines invented between Burt's 1829 patented machine and Sholes' 1867 type-writer are "The Projean Machine" (1833), "The Thurber Machine" (1843), "The Foucault Machine" (1843), "O. T. Eddy's machine" (1850), "The Fairbanks machine" (1850), "J. M. Jones' machine" (1850), "William Hughes' machine" (1851), John M. Jones "mechanical Typographer" (1852), "Thomas' typograph" (1854), "The Beach typewriter" (1856), "The Francis Typewriter" (1857), "The Hansen Machine" (1865), "The Livermore Printing Device" (1863), "Peeler Writing Machine" (1866), and "The Sholes and Glidden Typewriter" (1867) invented by three men (C. Latham Sholes, Samuel W. Soule, Carlos Glidden).  Thomas Edison is even given credit for an electrified version in 1872.

The Board of Electors at the National Shorthand Association of Detroit recognized Burt as:

leader among typewriter inventors

            top American inventor in the world-wide field of typewriting machines

Patent

The machine was a rectangular wooden box 12 inches wide, 12 inches high, and 18 inches long. It mechanically worked by depressing a rotating lever so that an inked letter made contact with paper. A gauge that was designed in a circular clock-wise fashion on the front of the box indicated the number of lines typed on the blank piece of paper that was up to 15 inches in length. The paper was attached to a velvet-like material belt. The belt rotated when the impression lever was depressed.

The patent describes Burt's machine as having a set of typeface characters that were arranged on the under side of a set of parts that had a lever pivoted to swing vertically and horizontally. The desired typeface character is brought to the printing point by moving this lever horizontally to a position over the same character in the index, and the impression on the paper is made by then depressing the lever. Different styles of typeface characters could be used. They were arranged in two rows on a lever. The rows of typeface characters could be shifted on the lever to bring either one to the printing point. The paper was carried in an endless band that traveled crosswise of the machine and the band was moved for letter space by the impression lever every time the lever is depressed to print. The line space was made by shifting the frame carrying the printing mechanism toward the front or rear of the machine, with the paper remaining stationary. Ink-pads were located at each side of the impression point, and all the typeface characters, except the one in the printing position, were inked every time the impression lever was depressed. Upper and lower case typeface letters could be used. A dial was provided that indicated the length of paper (inches) which had passed the printing point in printing each line. The operator knew the width of the paper being used each time. There was a stop printing indicator for end of the line.

Four classes of typewriters had been recognized by the U. S. Patent Office. The first was an index-wheel machine, like that patented by Burt on July 23, 1829. The second was the bar-machine first patented by John B. Fairbanks on September 17, 1850. The third was the plate-machine first patented by Oliver T. Eddy on November 12, 1850. The fourth was the key-wheel machine first patented by John Pratt on August 11, 1868.

A complete working model of Burt's "typographer" was in the model room of the Patent Office from the time of the patent until the great Patent Office fire of December 15, 1836. The fire destroyed all the patents and patent models issued from 1790. A competent mechanic can build a working replica of Burt's typographer from his patent description and drawings. In fact Austin Burt, the great grandson of Burt, built a working model in 1892 for the World's Columbian Exposition working from a parchment copy of the original patent (No. 5581X).

The reason Burt built the machine was to speed up his work in official correspondence as a government surveyor. John P. Sheldon of the Detroit Gazette, Burt's newspaper editor friend, furnished the typeface letters from the newspaper company for Burt's first typographer to be able to type the first letter ever written on a typewriter. Sheldon also took Burt's first "moddle" to the Patent Office in Washington, D.C. sometime between March 9 and 12, 1830, as Burt writes about on March 13, 1830, on his second typographer typewriter he built. The typeface letters for this Patent Office model was obtained from a Mr. White of New York, a typeface founder. Even though a neat-looking letter could be typed on Burt's "typographer", the basic goal to speed up correspondence was not accomplished, as his machine was very slow in typing. Because of this, the machine could not get marketed. Burt lost interest in it and sold his rights to one Cyrus Spalding for $75 on March 17, 1830 with suggested improvements. Ultimately he did not have any further luck in marketing the typewriter. The typographer was so far ahead of its time it found no market.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typographer_(typewriter)

Huge, Extinct Shark

Megalodon (Carcharocles megalodon), meaning "big tooth", is an extinct species of shark that lived approximately 23 to 2.6 million years ago (mya), during the Early Miocene to the end of the Pliocene. There had been some debate regarding the taxonomy of megalodon: some researchers argued that it was of the family Lamnidae and closely related to the great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias), while others argued that it belonged to the extinct family Otodontidae; presently, there is near unanimous consensus that the latter view is correct. Its genus placement is still debated, authors placing it in either Carcharocles, Megaselachus, Otodus, or Procarcharodon. The shark has made appearances in several media, such as the Discovery Channel's docufiction Megalodon: The Monster Shark Lives.

Megalodon (gray and red representing the largest and smallest estimates) with the whale shark (violet), great white shark (green), and a human (black) for scale

Scientists suggest that megalodon looked like a stockier version of the great white shark, though it may have looked similar to the basking shark (Cetorhinus maximus) or the sand tiger shark (Carcharias taurus). Regarded as one of the largest and most powerful predators to have ever lived, fossil remains of megalodon suggest that this giant shark reached a length of 18 meters (59 ft). Their large jaws could exert a bite force of up to 109,000 to 182,000 newtons (24,400 to 41,000 lbf). Their teeth were thick and robust, built for grabbing prey and breaking bone.

Megalodon probably had a major impact on the structure of marine communities. The fossil record indicates that it had a cosmopolitan distribution. It probably targeted large prey, such as whales, seals, and giant turtles. Juveniles inhabited warm coastal waters where they would feed on fish and small whales. Unlike the great white, which attacks prey from the soft underside, megalodon probably used its strong jaws to break through the chest cavity and puncture the heart and lungs of its prey.

The animal faced competition from whale-eating cetaceans, such as Livyatan and ancient killer whales (Orcinus citoniensis), which likely contributed to its extinction. As it preferred warmer waters, it is thought that oceanic cooling associated with the onset of the ice ages, coupled with the lowering of sea levels and resulting loss of suitable nursery areas, may have also contributed to its decline. A reduction in the diversity of baleen whales and a shift in their distribution toward polar regions may have reduced megalodon's primary food source. The extinction of the shark appeared to affect other animals; for example, the size of baleen whales increased significantly after the shark had disappeared.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megalodon

A Better Flow Battery

Stanford Scientists Advance New Way to Store Wind and Solar Electricity on a Large Scale, Affordably and at Room Temperature
A new type of flow battery that involves a liquid metal more than doubled the maximum voltage of conventional flow batteries and could lead to affordable storage of renewable power

By Mark Golden, Stanford News Service

July 19, 2018 -- A new combination of materials developed by Stanford researchers may aid in developing a rechargeable battery able to store the large amounts of renewable power created through wind or solar sources. With further development, the new technology could deliver energy to the electric grid quickly, cost effectively and at normal ambient temperatures.

The technology – a type of battery known as a flow battery – has long been considered as a likely candidate for storing intermittent renewable energy. However, until now the kinds of liquids that could produce the electrical current have either been limited by the amount of energy they could deliver or have required extremely high temperatures or used very toxic or expensive chemicals.

Stanford assistant professor of materials science and engineering William Chueh, along with his PhD student Antonio Baclig and Jason Rugolo, now a technology prospector at Alphabet’s research subsidiary X Development, decided to try sodium and potassium, which when mixed form a liquid metal at room temperature, as the fluid for the electron donor – or negative – side of the battery. Theoretically, this liquid metal has at least 10 times the available energy per gram as other candidates for the negative-side fluid of a flow battery.

“We still have a lot of work to do,” said Baclig, “but this is a new type of flow battery that could affordably enable much higher use of solar and wind power using Earth-abundant materials.”

The group published their work in the July 18 issue of Joule.

Separating sides

In order to use the liquid metal negative end of the battery, the group found a suitable ceramic membrane made of potassium and aluminum oxide to keep the negative and positive materials separate while allowing current to flow.

The two advances together more than doubled the maximum voltage of conventional flow batteries, and the prototype remained stable for thousands of hours of operation. This higher voltage means the battery can store more energy for its size, which also brings down the cost of producing the battery.

“A new battery technology has so many different performance metrics to meet: cost, efficiency, size, lifetime, safety, etc.,” said Baclig. “We think this sort of technology has the possibility, with more work, to meet them all, which is why we are excited about it.”

Improvements ahead

The team of Stanford PhD students, which in addition to Baclig includes Geoff McConohy and Andrey Poletayev, found that the ceramic membrane very selectively prevents sodium from migrating to the positive side of the cell – critical if the membrane is going to be successful. However, this type of membrane is most effective at temperatures higher than 200 degrees Celsius (392 F). In pursuit of a room-temperature battery, the group experimented with a thinner membrane. This boosted the device’s power output and showed that refining the membrane’s design is a promising path.

They also experimented with four different liquids for the positive side of the battery. The water-based liquids quickly degraded the membrane, but they think a non-water-based option will improve the battery’s performance.

https://news.stanford.edu/press/view/22184

Early Internal Combustion Engine

The Pyréolophore was one of the world's first internal combustion engines. It was invented in the early 19th century in Chalon-sur-Saône, France, by the Niépce brothers: Nicéphore (who went on to invent photography) and Claude. In 1807 the brothers ran a prototype internal combustion engine, and on 20 July 1807 a patent was granted by Napoleon Bonaparte after it had successfully powered a boat upstream on the river Saône.

The Pyréolophore ran on what were believed to be "controlled dust explosions" of various experimental fuels. The fuels included mixtures of Lycopodium powder (the spores of Lycopodiu, or clubmoss), finely crushed coal dust, and resin.

Operating independently, in 1807 the Swiss engineer François Isaac de Rivaz built the de Rivaz engine, a hydrogen-powered internal combustion engine. These practical engineering projects may have followed the 1680 theoretical design of an internal combustion engine by the Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens. The separate, virtually contemporaneous implementations of this design in different modes of transport means that the de Rivaz engine may be correctly described as the first use of an internal combustion engine in an automobile (1808), whilst the Pyréolophore was the first use of an internal combustion engine in a boat (1807).

Proof of Concept

In 1807 the brothers constructed and ran a prototype internal combustion engine, and received a patent for ten years from the Bureau of Arts and Trades (French: Bureau des Arts et Métiers) in Paris. The patent was signed by Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte and dated 20 July 1807, the same year that Swiss engineer François Isaac de Rivaz constructed and ran a hydrogen-powered internal combustion engine. It is not clear how much these practical engineering projects owe to the theoretical designs of 1680 by the Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens.

The Pyréolophore ran on controlled dust explosions of various experimental fuels, including various mixtures of finely crushed coal dust, Lycopodium powder, and resin. De Rivaz, meanwhile, was using a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen.

To prove the utility of the Pyréolophore to the patent commission, the brothers installed it on a boat, which it powered upstream on the river Saône. The total weight was 2,000 lb (910 kg), fuel consumption was reported as "one hundred and twenty-five grains per minute" (about 8 grams or 0.28 ounces per minute), and the performance was 12–13 explosions per minute. The boat was propelled forward as the Pyréolophore sucked in the river water at the front and then pumped it out towards the rear. Thus, the Commissioners concluded that "the machine proposed under the name Pyreolophore by Mm. Niépce is ingenious, that it may become very interesting by its physical and economical results, and deserves the approbation of the Commission.”

Operation

The operation of the Pyréolophore was first described in a meeting at the Academy of Sciences on 15 December 1806. Lazare Carnot noted that "there was a bright flash of the 'spores of lycopodium' inside their sealed copper machine... The Niépce brothers, by their own device and without using water, have managed to create a commotion (explosion) in a confined space which is so strong that the effects appear to be comparable to a steam engine or fire pump".

The Pyréolophore operated as a series of discrete burns at a frequency of about 12 per minute to power a boat. Power was delivered in pulses, each pulse forcing water from the engine's tail pipe set under the boat and pointing towards its stern. The boat was pushed forward at each pulse by the reactive force of the ejected mass of water.

A Pyréolophore engine consists of two principal interconnected chambers: a firelighting chamber and a combustion chamber. There is also a bellows for injecting air, a fuel dispenser, an ignition device, and a submerged exhaust pipe. There is a means of storing energy at each explosion in order to work the mechanism as it prepares itself for the next cycle.

A mechanically operated bellows injects a jet of air into the first chamber where ignition will take place. Mechanical timing lets fall a measured amount of powder fuel into the jet so that it is blown along and mixed with it. Under the control of the mechanical timing mechanism a smoldering fuse is introduced to this fuel air jet at the precise moment it passes the fuse location. The fuse then withdraws behind a metal plate. The now burning ball of powder and air travels through a wide nozzle into the main combustion chamber where a fast, almost explosive, burn takes place. The whole system now being almost airtight, a build-up of pressure follows. The pressure acts against the column of water in the exhaust pipe and expels it from the system. As the flow of exhaust gas moves into the tail pipe, it moves a loose piston in the combustion chamber which extracts and stores sufficient power to work the machine's timing mechanisms. Energy from this piston is stored by lifting weights attached to a balance wheel. The return of this wheel to its lower position under the pull of the weights governs the timing for the next cycle by operating the bellows, fuel dispenser, the fuse and valves at the correct points in the cycle. The tail pipe, being under the boat, fills with water ready for the next discharge. The fall of the timing piston also expels the exhaust gases via a pipe above the ignition chamber, which is closed off by a valve during the burn part of the cycle.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyr%C3%A9olophore

12 More Jupiter Moons

A Dozen New Moons of Jupiter Discovered
Bringing the Total Number of Jovian Moons to 79

Washington, DC— July 16, 2018 -- Twelve new moons orbiting Jupiter have been found—11 “normal” outer moons, and one that they’re calling an “oddball.”  This brings Jupiter’s total number of known moons to a whopping 79—the most of any planet in our Solar System.

A team led by Carnegie’s Scott S. Sheppard first spotted the moons in the spring of 2017 while they were looking for very distant Solar System objects as part of the hunt for a possible massive planet far beyond Pluto.  

In 2014, this same team found the object with the most-distant known orbit in our Solar System and was the first to realize that an unknown massive planet at the fringes of our Solar System, far beyond Pluto, could explain the similarity of the orbits of several small extremely distant objects. This putative planet is now sometimes popularly called Planet X or Planet Nine.  University of Hawaii’s Dave Tholen and Northern Arizona University’s Chad Trujillo are also part of the planet search team.

“Jupiter just happened to be in the sky near the search fields where we were looking for extremely distant Solar System objects, so we were serendipitously able to look for new moons around Jupiter while at the same time looking for planets at the fringes of our Solar System,” said Sheppard.

Gareth Williams at the International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center used the team’s observations to calculate orbits for the newly found moons. 

“It takes several observations to confirm an object actually orbits around Jupiter,” Williams said. “So, the whole process took a year.”

Nine of the new moons are part of a distant outer swarm of moons that orbit it in the retrograde, or opposite direction of Jupiter’s spin rotation.  These distant retrograde moons are grouped into at least three distinct orbital groupings and are thought to be the remnants of three once-larger parent bodies that broke apart during collisions with asteroids, comets, or other moons. The newly discovered retrograde moons take about two years to orbit Jupiter.

Two of the new discoveries are part of a closer, inner group of moons that orbit in the prograde, or same direction as the planet’s rotation. These inner prograde moons all have similar orbital distances and angles of inclinations around Jupiter and so are thought to also be fragments of a larger moon that was broken apart. These two newly discovered moons take a little less than a year to travel around Jupiter.

 “Our other discovery is a real oddball and has an orbit like no other known Jovian moon,” Sheppard explained. “It’s also likely Jupiter’s smallest known moon, being less than one kilometer in diameter”. 

This new “oddball” moon is more distant and more inclined than the prograde group of moons and takes about one and a half years to orbit Jupiter.  So, unlike the closer-in prograde group of moons, this new oddball prograde moon has an orbit that crosses the outer retrograde moons.

As a result, head-on collisions are much more likely to occur between the “oddball” prograde and the retrograde moons, which are moving in opposite directions. 

“This is an unstable situation,” said Sheppard. “Head-on collisions would quickly break apart and grind the objects down to dust.”

 It’s possible the various orbital moon groupings we see today were formed in the distant past through this exact mechanism.

The team think this small “oddball” prograde moon could be the last-remaining remnant of a once-larger prograde-orbiting moon that formed some of the retrograde moon groupings during past head-on collisions.  The name Valetudo has been proposed for it, after the Roman god Jupiter’s great-granddaughter, the goddess of health and hygiene.

Elucidating the complex influences that shaped a moon’s orbital history can teach scientists about our Solar System’s early years. 

For example, the discovery that the smallest moons in Jupiter’s various orbital groups are still abundant suggests the collisions that created them occurred after the era of planet formation, when the Sun was still surrounded by a rotating disk of gas and dust from which the planets were born.

Because of their sizes—one to three kilometers—these moons are more influenced by surrounding gas and dust. If these raw materials had still been present when Jupiter’s first generation of moons collided to form its current clustered groupings of moons, the drag exerted by any remaining gas and dust on the smaller moons would have been sufficient to cause them to spiral inwards toward Jupiter. Their existence shows that they were likely formed after this gas and dust dissipated.

The initial discovery of most of the new moons were made on the Blanco 4-meter telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American in Chile and operated by the National Optical Astronomical Observatory of the United States.  The telescope recently was upgraded with the Dark Energy Camera, making it a powerful tool for surveying the night sky for faint objects.  Several telescopes were used to confirm the finds, including the 6.5-meter Magellan telescope at Carnegie’s Las Campanas Observatory in Chile; the 4-meter Discovery Channel Telescope at Lowell Observatory Arizona (thanks to Audrey Thirouin, Nick Moskovitz and Maxime Devogele); the 8-meter Subaru Telescope and the Univserity of Hawaii 2.2 meter telescope (thanks to Dave Tholen and Dora Fohring at the University of Hawaii); and 8-meter Gemini Telescope in Hawaii (thanks to Director’s Discretionary Time to recover Valetudo).  Bob Jacobson and Marina Brozovic at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory confirmed the calculated orbit of the unusual oddball moon in 2017 in order to double check its location prediction during the 2018 recovery observations in order to make sure the new interesting moon was not lost.

https://carnegiescience.edu/node/2367

Diamonds In Earth's Mantle

Sound Waves Reveal Diamond
Cache Deep in Earth’s Interior
Study finds 1–2 percent of Earth’s oldest mantle rocks are made from diamond
By Jennifer Chu | MIT News Office

July 16, 2018 -- There may be more than a quadrillion tons of diamond hidden in the Earth’s interior, according to a new study from MIT and other universities. But the new results are unlikely to set off a diamond rush. The scientists estimate the precious minerals are buried more than 100 miles below the surface, far deeper than any drilling expedition has ever reached.

The ultradeep cache may be scattered within cratonic roots — the oldest and most immovable sections of rock that lie beneath the center of most continental tectonic plates. Shaped like inverted mountains, cratons can stretch as deep as 200 miles through the Earth’s crust and into its mantle; geologists refer to their deepest sections as “roots.”

In the new study, scientists estimate that cratonic roots may contain 1 to 2 percent diamond. Considering the total volume of cratonic roots in the Earth, the team figures that about a quadrillion (10¹⁶) tons of diamond are scattered within these ancient rocks, 90 to 150 miles below the surface.   

“This shows that diamond is not perhaps this exotic mineral, but on the [geological] scale of things, it’s relatively common,” says Ulrich Faul, a research scientist in MIT’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences. “We can’t get at them, but still, there is much more diamond there than we have ever thought before.”

Faul’s co-authors include scientists from the University of California at Santa Barbara, the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, the University of California at Berkeley, Ecole Polytechnique, the Carnegie Institution of Washington, Harvard University, the University of Science and Technology of China, the University of Bayreuth, the University of Melbourne, and University College London.

A sound glitch

Faul and his colleagues came to their conclusion after puzzling over an anomaly in seismic data. For the past few decades, agencies such as the United States Geological Survey have kept global records of seismic activity — essentially, sound waves traveling through the Earth that are triggered by earthquakes, tsunamis, explosions, and other ground-shaking sources. Seismic receivers around the world pick up sound waves from such sources, at various speeds and intensities, which seismologists can use to determine where, for example, an earthquake originated.

Scientists can also use this seismic data to construct an image of what the Earth’s interior might look like. Sound waves move at various speeds through the Earth, depending on the temperature, density, and composition of the rocks through which they travel. Scientists have used this relationship between seismic velocity and rock composition to estimate the types of rocks that make up the Earth’s crust and parts of the upper mantle, also known as the lithosphere.

However, in using seismic data to map the Earth’s interior, scientists have been unable to explain a curious anomaly: Sound waves tend to speed up significantly when passing through the roots of ancient cratons. Cratons are known to be colder and less dense than the surrounding mantle, which would in turn yield slightly faster sound waves, but not quite as fast as what has been measured.   

“The velocities that are measured are faster than what we think we can reproduce with reasonable assumptions about what is there,” Faul says. “Then we have to say, ‘There is a problem.’ That’s how this project started.”

Diamonds in the deep

The team aimed to identify the composition of cratonic roots that might explain the spikes in seismic speeds. To do this, seismologists on the team first used seismic data from the USGS and other sources to generate a three-dimensional model of the velocities of seismic waves traveling through the Earth’s major cratons.

Next, Faul and others, who in the past have measured sound speeds through many different types of minerals in the laboratory, used this knowledge to assemble virtual rocks, made from various combinations of minerals. Then the team calculated how fast sound waves would travel through each virtual rock, and found only one type of rock that produced the same velocities as what the seismologists measured: one that contains 1 to 2 percent diamond, in addition to peridotite (the predominant rock type of the Earth’s upper mantle) and minor amounts of eclogite (representing subducted oceanic crust). This scenario represents at least 1,000 times more diamond than people had previously expected.

“Diamond in many ways is special,” Faul says. “One of its special properties is, the sound velocity in diamond is more than twice as fast as in the dominant mineral in upper mantle rocks, olivine.”

The researchers found that a rock composition of 1 to 2 percent diamond would be just enough to produce the higher sound velocities that the seismologists measured. This small fraction of diamond would also not change the overall density of a craton, which is naturally less dense than the surrounding mantle.

“They are like pieces of wood, floating on water,” Faul says. “Cratons are a tiny bit less dense than their surroundings, so they don’t get subducted back into the Earth but stay floating on the surface. This is how they preserve the oldest rocks. So we found that you just need 1 to 2 percent diamond for cratons to be stable and not sink.”

In a way, Faul says cratonic roots made partly of diamond makes sense. Diamonds are forged in the high-pressure, high-temperature environment of the deep Earth and only make it close to the surface through volcanic eruptions that occur every few tens of millions of years. These eruptions carve out geologic “pipes” made of a type of rock called kimberlite (named after the town of Kimberley, South Africa, where the first diamonds in this type of rock were found). Diamond, along with magma from deep in the Earth, can spew out through kimberlite pipes, onto the surface of the Earth.

For the most part, kimberlite pipes have been found at the edges of cratonic roots, such as in certain parts of Canada, Siberia, Australia, and South Africa. It would make sense, then, that cratonic roots should contain some diamond in their makeup.  

“It’s circumstantial evidence, but we’ve pieced it all together,” Faul says. “We went through all the different possibilities, from every angle, and this is the only one that’s left as a reasonable explanation.”

This research was supported, in part, by the National Science Foundation.

             http://news.mit.edu/2018/sound-waves-reveal-diamond-cache-deep-earths-interior-0716

Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9

Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 (formally designated D/1993 F2) was a comet that broke apart in July 1992 and collided with Jupiter in July 1994, providing the first direct observation of an extraterrestrial collision of Solar System objects. This generated a large amount of coverage in the popular media, and the comet was closely observed by astronomers worldwide. The collision provided new information about Jupiter and highlighted its possible role in reducing space debris in the inner Solar System.

The comet was discovered by astronomers Carolyn and Eugene M. Shoemaker and David Levy in 1993. Shoemaker–Levy 9 had been captured by Jupiter and was orbiting the planet at the time. It was located on the night of March 24 in a photograph taken with the 46 cm (18 in) Schmidt telescope at the Palomar Observatory in California. It was the first comet observed to be orbiting a planet, and had probably been captured by Jupiter around 20–30 years earlier.

Calculations showed that its unusual fragmented form was due to a previous closer approach to Jupiter in July 1992. At that time, the orbit of Shoemaker–Levy 9 passed within Jupiter's Roche limit, and Jupiter's tidal forces had acted to pull apart the comet. The comet was later observed as a series of fragments ranging up to 2 km (1.2 mi) in diameter. These fragments collided with Jupiter's southern hemisphere between July 16 and 22, 1994 at a speed of approximately 60 km/s (37 mi/s) (Jupiter's escape velocity) or 216,000 km/h (134,000 mph). The prominent scars from the impacts were more easily visible than the Great Red Spot and persisted for many months.

Impacts of the Comet Fragments

Anticipation grew as the predicted date for the collisions approached, and astronomers trained terrestrial telescopes on Jupiter. Several space observatories did the same, including the Hubble Space Telescope, the ROSAT X-ray-observing satellite, and significantly the Galileo spacecraft, then on its way to a rendezvous with Jupiter scheduled for 1995. Although the impacts took place on the side of Jupiter hidden from Earth, Galileo, then at a distance of 1.6 AU (240 million km; 150 million mi) from the planet, was able to see the impacts as they occurred. Jupiter's rapid rotation brought the impact sites into view for terrestrial observers a few minutes after the collisions.

Two other satellites made observations at the time of the impact: the Ulysses spacecraft, primarily designed for solar observations, was pointed towards Jupiter from its location 2.6 AU (390 million km; 240 million mi) away, and the distant Voyager 2 probe, some 44 AU (6.6 billion kilometres; 4.1 billion miles) from Jupiter and on its way out of the Solar System following its encounter with Neptune in 1989, was programmed to look for radio emission in the 1–390 kHz range.

The first impact occurred at 20:13 UTC on July 16, 1994, when fragment A of the nucleus entered Jupiter's southern hemisphere at a speed of about 60 km/s (35 mi/s). Instruments on Galileo detected a fireball that reached a peak temperature of about 24,000 K (23,700 °C; 42,700 °F), compared to the typical Jovian cloudtop temperature of about 130 K (−143 °C; −226 °F), before expanding and cooling rapidly to about 1,500 K (1,230 °C; 2,240 °F) after 40 seconds. The plume from the fireball quickly reached a height of over 3,000 km (1,900 mi). A few minutes after the impact fireball was detected, Galileo measured renewed heating, probably due to ejected material falling back onto the planet. Earth-based observers detected the fireball rising over the limb of the planet shortly after the initial impact.

Despite published predictions, astronomers had not expected to see the fireballs from the impacts and did not have any idea in advance how visible the other atmospheric effects of the impacts would be from Earth. Observers soon saw a huge dark spot after the first impact. The spot was visible even in very small telescopes, and was about 6,000 km (3,700 mi) (one Earth radius) across. This and subsequent dark spots were thought to have been caused by debris from the impacts, and were markedly asymmetric, forming crescent shapes in front of the direction of impact.

Over the next six days, 21 distinct impacts were observed, with the largest coming on July 18 at 07:33 UTC when fragment G struck Jupiter. This impact created a giant dark spot over 12,000 km (7,500 mi) across, and was estimated to have released an energy equivalent to 6,000,000 megatons of TNT (600 times the world's nuclear arsenal). Two impacts 12 hours apart on July 19 created impact marks of similar size to that caused by fragment G, and impacts continued until July 22, when fragment W struck the planet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_Shoemaker%E2%80%93Levy_9

Multigrain Bread

Multigrain bread is a type of bread prepared with two or more types of grain. Grains used include barley, flax, millet, oats, wheat, and whole-wheat flour, among others. Some varieties include edible seeds in their preparation, such as flaxseed, quinoa, pumpkin seeds, and sunflower seeds. Rye and sourdough multigrain breads are additional varieties. Preparations include 7-grain and 9-grain bread, among others.

Multigrain bread may be prepared using whole, unprocessed grains, although commercial varieties do not necessarily always contain whole grains.

Nutritional Content

Whole grain multigrain breads contain a dietary fibre content of up to four times greater than white breads and may also contain more vitamins and protein compared to white bread. Multigrain breads also provide complex carbohydrates.

Commercial Varieties

Multigrain bread is commercially mass-produced and marketed to consumers. Some commercial varieties are prepared using 100% whole grain flour. Between 1989 and 1994 in the United States, multigrain bread was "one of the fastest growing markets within the bakery sector”.

Use in Brewing

A 4,000-year-old Mesopotamian recipe for brewing beer from multigrain loaves of bread mixed with honey is the oldest surviving beer recipe in the world. The Brussels Beer Project microbrewery in Belgium has developed an amber beer with a 7% alcohol by volume named Babylone that incorporates this recipe using leftover, unsold fresh bread donated by supermarkets.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multigrain_bread

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Sprouted Bread

Sprouted bread is a type of bread made from whole grains that have been allowed to sprout, that is, to germinate, before being milled into flour. There are a few different types of sprouted grain bread. Some are made with additional added flour, some are made with added gluten, and some, such as Essene bread, are made with very few additional ingredients.

These are breads that contain the whole grain (or kernel, or berry) of various seeds after they have been sprouted. They are different from 'white' bread inasmuch as 'white' breads are made from ground wheat endosperm (after removal of the bran and germ). Whole grain breads include the bran, germ and endosperm, therefore providing more fiber, and naturally occurring vitamins and proteins. Sprouted (or germinated) grain breads have roughly the same amount of vitamins per gram.

A comparison of nutritional analyses shows that sprouted grains contain about 75% of the energy (carbohydrates), slightly higher protein and about 40% of the fat when compared to whole grains.

Wheat is not the only grain used in sprouted breads. Grains and legumes such as millet, barley, oat, lentil and soy may be used. Bread that is made from an array of grains and legumes can provide a complete set of amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. Sprouted breads may contain slightly more trace minerals and nutrients than non-sprouted breads. Other than that, they supply much the same advantages as whole grain breads over refined grain breads, such as lowered risk of coronary heart disease.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprouted_bread#Essene_bread

Earliest Hominins Outside Africa

Shangchen is a palaeolithic archaeological site in Shangchen village, Lantian County, Shaanxi, China. Stone tools found at the site and dated to 2.12 million years ago, now are considered the earliest known evidence of hominins outside Africa, surpassing Dmanisi in Georgia by 300,000 years. Shangchen was occupied for 850,000 years, with the newest tools found dating to 1.26 million years ago. No hominin fossils have been found.

Location

Shangchen is located in and named after the village of Shangchen, Yushan Town, Lantian County, Shaanxi, about 50 km (31 mi) southeast of the provincial capital at Xi'an. The archaeological site is on the cliff faces of a gully in the Loess Plateau. Because loess is a soil made by extremely fine particles blown in by the wind, all larger rocks found in loess deposits had to have been carried in by humans or other animals.

Discovery and Excavation

Lantian County is where fossils of the Homo erectus, now called Lantian Man, were discovered in 1964. The oldest fossil, a skull, was initially dated to 1.15 million years ago. In 2001, geologist Zhu Zhaoyu and other scientists began researching the site again, and determined that the skull was 1.63 million years old.

Zhu's team surveyed the region around the fossil site, and discovered stone tools buried deep in the side of a gully in Shangchen, less than three miles away. The team, later joined by British paleoanthropologist Robin Dennell in 2010, thoroughly searched the gully and excavated the site between 2004 and 2017, and their findings were published in July 2018 in the journal Nature.

Findings at Shangchen

96 stone tools have been found at Shangchen, including flakes, points, and cores. They were found in 17 artifact layers. The oldest of the tools date to 2.12 million years ago, while the newest date to 1.26 million years, indicating that the site was occupied (not necessarily continuously) for 850,000 years. Some of the tools were found with bone fragments of animals including deer and bovines. Even older remains may still lie undiscovered, as the deepest layers at Shangchen are inaccessible as of 2018 because of farming activities.

The findings are highly significant as they represent the earliest evidence of hominins outside Africa, surpassing Dmanisi in the Caucasus region of Georgia, which was the previously known oldest hominin site outside Africa, dating to 1.85 million years ago. It is also older than the Yuanmou Man, the oldest hominin fossils found in East Asia, dating to 1.7 million years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shangchen

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Footnote: The Paleolithic Period

The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic is a period in human prehistory distinguished by the original development of stone tools that covers c. 95% of human technological prehistory. It extends from the earliest known use of stone tools by hominins, c. 3.3 million years ago, to the end of the Pleistocene c. 11,650 cal BP.

The Paleolithic is followed in Europe by the Mesolithic, although the date of the transition varies geographically by several thousand years.

During the Paleolithic, hominins grouped together in small societies such as bands, and subsisted by gathering plants and fishing, hunting or scavenging wild animals. The Paleolithic is characterized by the use of knapped stone tools, although at the time humans also used wood and bone tools. Other organic commodities were adapted for use as tools, including leather and vegetable fibers; however, due to their nature, these have not been preserved to any great degree.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithic