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[MIKA27]

The mystery of Mont Blanc's hidden treasure

It's a plotline that wouldn't be out of place in a Tintin comic - a French Mayor, an alpine climber, a historian, a wealthy Jewish stone merchant from London, and their tenuous connections to a bag of lost jewels discovered on the peak of Mont Blanc.

The trail begins early on 24 January 1966, as Air India Flight 101 starts its descent towards Geneva Airport. The pilot had miscalculated the aircraft's altitude and the Boeing 707 was heading directly for the summit of Mont Blanc, France's highest mountain.

All 117 people on board were killed as the plane crashed. "It made a huge crater in the mountain," a mountain guide who was first to reach the scene was quoted as saying. "Everything was completely pulverised. Nothing was identifiable except for a few letters and packets."

Various rescue attempts to recover bodies and debris were called off because of bad weather on the summit. Many remnants from the aircraft - including a bag of diplomatic mail and a wheel hub - have been gathered in the years since the tragedy, but pieces of twisted metal still lie in the peak's nooks and crannies.

The diplomatic mail bag discovered in 2012

A copy of the Hindustan Times Weekly, dated 1966 was discovered in 2008

It took half a century, however, for the crash site to reveal its biggest secret.

Among the burning wreckage that was scattered across a glacier, a small case packed full of 100 precious emeralds, sapphires and rubies was flung through the air and swallowed into the ice.

The box, which two families are claiming had their name embossed into the side, sank into the glacier, only reappearing 47 years later clutched in the hands of a local climber as he strolled into the local gendarmerie.

The gendarmes heralded the climber's decision not to keep his find, with an estimated value of 246,000 euros (£205,000).

"You can see, he is very honest," said chief gendarme Sylvain Merly. "He was a mountaineer… and he didn't want to keep something that belonged to someone who'd died."

Merly took the jewels straight to the mayor of Chamonix, who stored them in a vault below the town hall until the media were told.

When the story came to light, journalists began to scramble for more details - at one point printing a photo of a mountain guide, Stephane Dan, with what appeared to be the jewels in front of him. In fact they were stones he snapped from gullies and sold for 20 euros each.

"It could have been me who found the real thing," he laments. "I climb all summer, collecting the best pieces of mineral to sell. I found many pieces of the aeroplane. I once found wheels. I found a special bottle used for coffee with Air India written on it. I even found the altimeter used for the plane."

Stephane Dan and a fellow mountaineer search for quartz on Mont Blanc

Bizarrely, this was the second Air India crash in the same area. Sixteen years earlier another plane, a Constellation known as the Malabar Princess, had gone down on the mountain, also on its approach to Geneva. So the wreckage of two aircraft is scattered over the area.

Dan said the local rumour was that the climber who discovered the bag of jewels was from Bourg-Saint Mouris, a village three hours' drive from Chamonix. "We all heard it was happening, but it was a mystery. Now we know it was a real - but even I don't know who it was."

At this point, I started making attempts to film the jewels. But Sylvain Merly said he was no longer allowed to discuss the story with journalists, directing me to the prefect of the department of Savoie, in Annecy.

The prefect's office said they had nothing to do with the investigation and shunted me on to Francois Bouquin, head of the mayor's office in Chamonix. Bouquin said the Mayor's office was no longer responsible for leading the enquiry, pointing me to the court of Bonneville.

The court of Bonneville directed me to the court of Albertville, which, confused, sent me back to Bouquin - who said, in hindsight, he wasn't sure which courthouse was in charge.

After repeated calls and many hours spent on hold listening to Mozart's violin concertos, I pointed out to Bouquin that I had spoken to everyone he suggested. Then he finally gave an answer: "I don't want to have to tell you 'No'. But you cannot see the stones. At this time, it is a question of security. We are handling our own investigation into the case. We do not feel the media are useful or necessary at this time."

I was, however, able to persuade him to send me two pictures of what he called the "treasure", in the hands of the mayor, albeit wrapped in thick, white police tape.

"It's so French, this story," says Francoise Rey, a local historian and author of Crash au Mont Blanc, a book about the two Air India accidents. "You ask to see the stones and they send you a photo of them in a bag."

An acquaintance of the mayor, Rey went to lunch with him and sat discussing a viewing of the treasure. But she, like so many others, drew a blank.

Rey is convinced that the mayor and the climber struck a 50-50 deal long before they told journalists about the jewels' existence. Under French law, there is a window of two years, she says.

"If no owner is found by then, one half will go to the Mayor of Chamonix and the other half goes to the climber.

"I am quite sure they are interested in keeping the stones and that they will do nothing whatsoever to help the families or the owner to prove they are theirs."

Fournier downplayed the allure of the jewels, she says, to dampen her interest. "He told me the stones are not so beautiful, and voila. They played the game that they were more embarrassed with them than happy, that's the impression they wanted to give."

Fournier, who is currently campaigning for local elections, was not available to answer questions, so Bouquin spoke on his behalf. "The suggestion we struck a deal a deal is completely mad. There is no deal. We don't even know who found the stones. There is a law and a procedure that must be followed, and that is all."

Back in 1990, while Rey was researching her book, she was given access to a criminal dossier compiled by the local court of Bonneville, which contained many of the documents collated after the accident.

Looking through her notes, Mrs Rey made an amazing discovery. Annotated within the pages are the details of an insurance document making a claim for lost jewels destined for one man, who lived in London.

She had taken down the name of the family: Issacharoff.

Unfortunately, though, she failed to write down the claimant's initial. "I saw the letter. I don't have it, but I saw it. I have written in my notes the name of the person who was waiting for the stones in London. I am sure there are many more details in this letter. The main thing to do is to go back to find this letter. But this is proving very difficult."

Since the dossier will not be opened to the public for 75 years, gaining access to the archive means a lengthy application process - one that Rey has only just began. How long it will take, she says, she doesn't know.

A quick internet search reveals the Issacharoff family to be one of the largest, oldest stone merchants in the UK. A family business started by the Russian-Jewish family in 1930, the Issacharoffs have become the largest coloured-stone importers in the country.

I call them on the telephone. "The parcel is ours," Avi Issacharoff, head of Henig Diamonds, says instantly. "Please come to our offices and I will talk you through the details."

A diminutive, black-suited businessman, Avi is found behind various armoured doors, in the depths of the diamond district of London's Hatton Garden. He says he can recall his father talking about the accident, and the family's collective relief that no relatives were on the plane when it hit the mountain. Normally when the family made a purchase of this size, one of them would go to pick it up in person, he says.

Grandson of Ruben and son of David, Avi is third in a line of directors of the business. His father, while still alive, suffers from dementia and can no longer recall the exact details. "We consulted our lawyers, but they told us we had no chance. We don't have records dating back 50 years. The only way we can prove the parcel was ours is that we know our name would have been written on the package."

The London-based Issacharoff family are not the only claimants to the jewels. Another set of Issacharoffs from Spain - no relation, but apparently also stone merchants - are reportedly approaching the French authorities in an attempt to gain access to the letter that Francoise Rey speaks about.

Bouquin, of the Mayor's office, says he has seen the packaging in which the stones were found, but it is not necessarily possible to make out a name from it.

"Maybe we might be able to identify the name on the parcel, but it is very hard to see. It has been 50 years beneath the ice."

Meanwhile, the days and months are ticking by.

[MIKA27]

What are the Knights Templar up to now?

The Vatican's recent decision to release documents on the persecution of the Knights Templar in the 14th Century has piqued interest in the mysterious order. But what are the latter-day Templars up to?

This is a story. In the Middle Ages there was a secretive organisation called the Knights Templar. They were disbanded with many killed on the orders of the Pope because they knew the secret that Jesus had had a child with Mary Magdalene. Despite the killing of the order's members, societies carry on its legacy of hidden knowledge today.

There's a problem with this version of events, part-inspired by Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown and other earlier authors.

It's cobblers.

There are lots of organisations today that bear the Templar name, but for the most part they are in the business of charitable works inspired by the original order. Secret documents about Mary Magdalene are not the order of the day.

The original Templars were founded in the 12th Century to guard pilgrims on their way along the dangerous roads that led to Jerusalem. Its members were effectively armed monk-like knights who were granted certain legal privileges and whose status was backed by the church. They were reputed to be the possessors of great wealth and power.

But the latter-day Templars are rather like a version of the Rotary Club, with a vague religious tinge, author and broadcaster on religious history Martin Palmer says.

"It's a sort of version of the Rotarians with long cloaks and swords." The overall effect is "clubby with a slight mystical element".

The major non-Masonic, non-Catholic affiliated, ecumenical Templar organisation is the Ordo Supremus Militaris Templi Hierosolymitani. Tracing its ancestry back to 1804, the group stresses that "it reclaims the spirit of, but does not assert any direct descent from the ancient Order". Full members are Christians, but non-Christians are welcomed as "friends and supporters".

TEMPLAR HISTORY

1099: Jerusalem captured by Crusaders

1118: Order formed

1129: Endorsed by church

1307: Members arrested in France

1312: Pope dissolves order

1314: Last Grand Master burned at stake

Chivalric side

Its branch in England and Wales, the Grand Priory of Knights Templar, has about 140 members. Geoff Beck has the rather non-12th Century title of Webmaster of the Grand Priory and explains that it is far from a secret cult.

"We have taken the chivalric side of it. It is a good standard to live up to. We get one or two cranks trying to join particularly after the Da Vinci Code.

"Put it this way, the keys of some vault containing the wealth of Jerusalem have never been given to me. We don't have any secret ceremonies, our initiation ceremonies are in public church services. Any member of the public is free to walk in."

The Vatican's move has excited Templar history enthusiasts

Perhaps the strongest link to the 12th Century Templars is the modern version's interest in the Middle East. The Grand Priory of England and Wales sponsors Medical Aid for Iraqi Children and the Foundation for Reconciliation in the Middle East.

The Middle Ages Templars had a reputation, used occasionally to their detriment, for being prepared to negotiate with Muslims and Jews, and the modern Templars like to see themselves in the same vein.

The other major strand of latter-day Templarism in the UK is within the Freemason fraternity. The organisation says it has 30,000 Knights Templar members among its 250,000 Freemasons in England and Wales. The Knights Templar, dating back to the 18th Century, are very much like other Freemasons but with a Christian ethic. Again, the (Dan) Brownites are going to be disappointed.

"We don't claim any descent. They originated as a means of commemorating the original Templars and of exemplifying certain Masonic principles," says John Hamill, communications director of the United Grand Lodge of England.

Again charity work is the order of the day, with an eye hospital in Jerusalem being the recipient of much of the fundraising.

The third main strand of modern Templars is the lay organisation of the Catholic Church, the Militia Templi, formed in 1979. Again, it claims no descent.

There are various other esoteric or semi-esoteric organisations that claim some kind of link, including a man in Hertford who says he is a direct descendant of a Templar.

All of them will be pleased at the Vatican's recent revelation that it plans to release documents from the 14th Century which will confirm that commonly held view that the Templars were not guilty of heresy and in fact succumbed to the predations of a heavily-indebted king of France who was able to bully the pope.

Their modern legacy in England, where the 14th Century persecution was relatively light, includes the Inner and Middle Temple of the legal profession, once the English Templars' HQ, and their part, along with other religious organisations in the birth of Europe's banking system.

But the conspiracy theorists will continue looking for those elusive secret descendants, and a smattering of ambiguity will always fuel them.

"We have our own archive that will prove our own heritage but we don't need to put that in the public arena," Mr Beck mysteriously explains.

[ramon_cojones]

I love the opening line of the james bond suite

[Fuzz]

What are the Knights Templar up to now?

Hogwash. We know what the Templars are up to. They've been working in secret to instill their order and control over the freedom of individuals. For several milennia they have been seeking Pieces of Eden to enact their nefarious plans...

[Philski]

The only downside? You’ll need to have a far about of cash in the bank, each one of these robots dancers will set you back an eye-watering $39,500.

I can think of another downside

[Duxnutz]

Monster Machines: How The Granddaddy Of US Recon Planes Is Helping Search For Flight 370

I believe Australia sent a P3 too!

[MIKA27]

Would We Ever See A World In Which Titanfall Mechs Rule The Earth?

Everyone is loving Titanfall now. I see the videos and I wonder if we would we ever see a world like that — a reality full of mechs, flying infantry, ekranoplanes, and missile batteries orbiting in the Asteroid Belt like the awesome designs of Al Crutchley.

Crutchley’s futuristic military illustrations are delicious eye candy. I see them and I kind of want them to be real — but only because that would mean that something like interplanetary travel would be possible.

Then I look at NASA’s budget and compare it to the Pentagon’s. Are humans destined to always advance through war and destruction? Would Earth’s future be militaristic — full of giant mechas and aircraft like those created by Crutchley — or a peaceful Star Trek-ish Federation in which technology is only used for the wellbeing of everyone, exploration, and science?

The answers to those questions are depressing right now. As much as I love these concepts, I hope Humanity never sees them in the real world.

[MIKA27]

I Want To Drive All These Fantastic Vehicles Through A Hundred Worlds

I’m a huge fan of the work of Daniel Simon, the design wizard behind the spectacular vehicle design in Tron Legacy, Oblivion, the Lotus C-01 motorbike and countless other machines — like his outstanding Cosmic Motors series.

Whenever I look at that his Cosmic Motors book I can’t stop myself from imagining driving his creations in alien world.

Daniel Simon designs sophisticated vehicle-centred dreams for imagined futures, pasts, and sci-fi worlds. His mechanical fantasies come to life in movies, books, and reality, sparking true emotions with their detailed believability. Simon summarises his creative belief as ‘Style for All Galaxies’ and ‘Vehicle Design Unlimited’.

[MIKA27]

Russia Deploys Armed Jets In Response To NATO Fighters In Poland

Following the deployment of American F-16 Falcon fighters and AWACS surveillance aeroplanes to Poland, the Russians have sent six Su-27 Flanker jets armed with live missiles to Belarus. Two of them are reportedly shown in this photo.

Belarus offered its territory to Russia to deploy warplanes two days ago.

[MIKA27]

Man Hunts Giant Monster Boar That Weighs Over 200kg

Damn, that’s a big boar. Hunter Jett Webb took down this ginormous 2.1m long and 227kg boar on a hunt in the US state of North Carolina with just one shot from his AR-15 rifle from 45m to 95m away. Webb didn’t even realise how big it was until he came up next to it. It’s big. I mean, look at that thing.

Webb told WITN that he slayed the beast cleanly with a shot through the heart and lug and is happy for the ‘massive amount of food’ it will provide his family.

[MIKA27]

Monster Machines: The Blue Angels Used To Travel Aboard A Rocket-Powered Hercules

From experimental aircraft to semi tractor trailers, there is nothing rockets don’t make more awesome. So how could the US Navy’s Blue Angel stunt flying squadron not strap one onto the back of their C-130 Hercules, one of the military’s bulkiest cargo planes?

There is much more that goes into a Blue Angels show than what you see in the air — every event requires a massive behind-the-scenes effort to coordinate. In order to ferry all of the spare parts equipment and support personnel that make this happen from show to show, the Blue Angels employ a United States Marine Corps C-130T Hercules, dubbed Fat Albert. Measuring nearly 30m long with a 40m wingspan, the C-130T is equipped with four Allison T56 engines, providing a top speed of 320 knots, a range of 4000km, and a 20,000kg payload capacity. The T variant denotes that it carries extra under-wing fuel tanks and has an upgraded avionics system over older models, though it isn’t quite as capable as, say, the C-130H Spooky.

Fat Albert’s most impressive feat, however, is its JATO manoeuvre. First performed at the NAS Pensacola, FL in November, 1975, the C-130′s Jet-Assisted Take-Off (JATO) performance still drops jaws. JATO rockets have been around since the tail end of WWI as a means of getting overloaded planes airborne from runways that would otherwise be to short to use.

http://youtu.be/gOVa0G0RqAs

Well, the Blue Angels strapped eight such rockets — each producing 450kg of thrust — onto the back of Fat Albert and set them alight, blasting the 34,000kg aircraft down a runway and into the air at a 45-degree climb, subjecting its eight-person crew to 2 G’s of force. Commercial airliners, by comparison, top out at a 10-degree climb. Unfortunately, the supply of Vietnam-era JATO rockets that the Blue Angels had been using ran out in 2009 and the performance has since been discontinued.

While the rocket demonstration is no longer part of the Blue Angels’ repertoire, the team has successfully survived the latest rounds of sequestration and will hopefully continue to entertain audiences for years to come.

[MIKA27]

Dead Tourists and a Dangerous Pesticide

Some four years ago, a family in the small city of Layton, located in northern Utah, wanted to get rid of the lawn-destroying voles living in their yard. They called a local pest control company. And the applicator — as the resulting criminal investigation revealed — took a total warfare approach, seeding the lawn with more than a pound of pellets containing the fumigant aluminum phosphide.

Within a few days, their two youngest daughters — one four years old, one just over a year in age —were dead. The tidy little home seemed suddenly so dangerous that the National Guard was called in to do the toxicity readings. They found — perhaps not surprisingly — dismaying levels of phosphine gas which had been released by the pellets as they interacted with moisture in the air.

Phosphine gas is notoriously lethal (enough so that it was featured recently in a murderous episode of Breaking Bad). The pure gas is colorless and odorless so it carries no warning sign. It’s a fast, systematic, and corrosive killer; it “denatures” and breaks down a range of enzymes and proteins inside the body, including the ones responsible for moving oxygen through the body, and severely damages the heart. And, as a follow up investigation noted, has no known antidote.

Within a few months after the Utah deaths, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency tightened the restrictions on the use of aluminum phosphide. The longstanding buffer zone of 15 feet from a residential building was expanded to a far more cautious distance of 100 feet. Only professional operators could buy the compound and they had to follow careful procedures to use it (in Canada, it takes six months to be certified in its use).

People who admired its low-cost efficiency — aluminum phosphide came into use in the 1950s and it is both cheap and destructive to pests from from voles to bedbugs — protested the restrictions, insisting that the pesticide was getting a bad rap. But the agency didn’t budge. “Phosphine fumigants are poisons and must be kept away from where our children live,” one administrator said flatly.

No argument from me. The chemistry of aluminum phosphide is so potent that studies show that people who accidentally inhale dust from the pellets, or swallow some of the material, can produce phosphine gas internally as the compound reacts with moisture in the body or even stomach acids. And it’s this rather appalling picture — and the issue of careful regulation — that leads us now to a still mysterious series of tourist deaths in Southeast Asia.

I first wrote about these deaths in 2012, after two young sisters from Quebec died in their hotel on Thailand’s resort island of Ko Phi Phi Don. What caught my attention first was the improbable list of possible causes offered by Thai authorities, everything from poisonous mushrooms to cocktails laced with the mosquito repellent DEET. It rapidly became obvious they were among a surprising number of young women who had suffered undiagnosed poisoning deaths in Southeast Asia, some in the Phi Phi islands, others elsewhere in Thailand, and still others in Vietnam. My emphasis was on the unsolved nature of those deaths and the sorrow and frustration of their families.

Now a team of investigative journalists from Canada have published a report suggesting that the young sisters — Audrey and Noémi Bélanger — appear to have been killed by aluminum phosphide/phosphine gas exposure. The experts they consulted say the bodies showed all the signs of this kind of acute poisoning, including bluing of the fingernails and toenails, which is a classic symptom of the kind of rapid oxygen-deprivation produced by this poison. The report, which also appears on the Canadian Broadcasting Company’s Fifth Estate program, cites evidence that some of the other travelers, such as a Norwegian woman who also died in the Phi Phi Islands, showed similar symptoms.

Interestingly enough I heard recently from a source in Thailand that aluminum phosphide is also suspected in the Vietnam deaths. In both cases, the theory is that the pesticide was used in hotels to kill off bedbugs, which are resistant to many other toxins. Thai authorities have responded that this pesticide is not allowed or used in hotels but the Canadian reporters heard otherwise from some of the hotel operators. In fact, aluminum phosphide poisoning is a known problem across much of Asia and the Middle East. The compound is sold widely as both a grain fumigant and as a handy pesticide. It’s not a surprise that it turns up far too often as a cause of death, accidental, suicidal, and occasionally homicidal. One study of poisonings in northwest India, for instance, cited it was the number one cause of poisoning deaths in that region.

And if you go to this Wikipedia entry on aluminum phosphide poisoning, you will find that almost all the citations derive from research done in India and other Asian countries. And there are more beyond that, such as this one from Iran and this one, interestingly enough, from a scientist from Thailand. Public health authorities in Saudi Arabia recently collaborated on a dark-themed film about the aluminum phosphide/phosphine gas problem there, hoping that public awareness would reduce the risks. The YouTube film, “Phosphine,” has racked up more than 3.5 million views.

“Public awareness must increase in the community and society must not wait until the authorities arrive, they must act quickly in order to save their lives,” a Saudi epidemiologist tells the viewers in the film. My take on that is just a little different. First, the authorities need — and this is equally true in the United States — to do a better job in monitoring — and when needed, yes, restricting — our use of very poisonous compounds. It’s unreasonable to expect everyone to have awareness of the full range of toxic chemical compounds.

And, yes, we also should do a better job of raising community awareness, of helping people figure out what chemical compounds are memorably dangerous. We need to teach everyone kid-glove respect for the compounds that matter. So that when someone on a lovely little resort island suggests using aluminum phosphide to fumigate the rooms, or when a pest exterminator decides to go for an overdose, there’s always someone to remember that this is a very, very bad idea.

And then the sisters from Canada get their chance to dance on the beach before they go home. And the little girls in Utah get their chance to grow up.

[MIKA27]

US Navy veteran in iconic WW2 kissing photo dies

A Texas man thought to be the US Navy sailor kissing a nurse in an iconic end of World War Two photo has died.

Glenn McDuffie died aged 86 at a nursing home in Dallas on Sunday, his daughter said.

McDuffie's claim to be the man in the famed VJ day photo was supported by a police forensic artist's analysis.

Photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt took the image as the news of Japan's surrender filtered through New York's Times Square on 14 August 1945.

McDuffie had told US media that he was changing subway trains when he heard that Japan had surrendered.

Glenn McDuffie: ''She was standing out there in the middle of the street... I went over there and kissed her''

"I was so happy. I ran out in the street," said McDuffie, who was then 18 and on his way to visit his girlfriend.

"And then I saw that nurse,'' he said.

"She saw me hollering and with a big smile on my face... I just went right to her and kissed her."

Edith Shain, who worked in a nearby hospital, claimed to be the nurse in the photo. She died in 2010.

Glenn McDuffie in 2007, holding a photo of himself as a young man and the iconic image

[MIKA27]

China: Ancient coffin 'rescued' from tomb raiders

Chinese archaeologists have "rescued" an ancient coffin from tomb raiders trying to break in to a grave site via a 10m (33ft) hole, it appears.

The 1,500-year-old, pinewood coffin was found in a tomb in pasture land in the northern Inner Mongolian region and dates from the Northern Wei Dynasty between the years 386-535 AD, the China Daily newspaper reports. Inside, scientists found the remains of what appears to be an aristocratic woman, wearing silk clothing, fur boots and a metal headband.

The well-preserved remains will enable archaeologists to study the funeral customs of the Xianbei nomadic groups who lived in northern China at that time, experts told Chinese media. Hair samples will also allow forensic analysis of the woman's age and diet. The area appears to be an important burial site for aristocrats of that period.

Illegal excavations of ancient grave sites has been a persistent problem in China. There have even been reports of tomb raiders using explosives to access historical treasures.

Archaeologists examine the coffin at Xilin Gol league museum in China's Inner Mongolia

[MIKA27]

These Mysterious & Abandoned Ruins Were Once A Polish Palace

In 1910, a beautiful palace was built as a home for Polish royalty. But only a few decades later, it was converted into an agricultural school after WWII. In the 1970's, the building that once housed Poland's ruling class became a center for handicapped adults, and then a home for children with "disturbing behavior" a decade later.

In 1997, the elaborate estate was shut down and abandoned, giving free rein to the wild plants and animals to do with it as they pleased. Photographer Lucas Malkiewicz has captured the decayed building in all it glory, from the crumbling foundation to the peeling paint. It's hard to believe that something so creepy can also be so beautiful at the same time.

It's truly amazing what the passage of time can do to even the most regal and elaborate buildings.

Here's a building with many stories and tales to tell. It was constructed back in 1910 to house members of the Polish royal family, a place for relaxation, opulence and dinner parties. But after WWII, with many buildings destroyed, it was converted into an agricultural school to help educate a new generation of children. By the 1970's it had been converted first into a home for adults with disabilities and then into an institution for children who exhibited 'disturbing' behaviour.

It proved to be the final transformation for the building itself, having been shut down in 1997 and left to become overgrown with weeds, planets and neglect. Recently inquisitive photographer Lucas Malkiewicz stepped inside the ruins to photograph what had become of the building itself. What he found was a hybrid of the regal and elaborate, fused with the unkempt and broken.

A tribute to its lavish beginnings and its decrepit end.

[MIKA27]

1966 LITTLE HONDA P25 | BY CHICARA NAGATA

This minimalist work of art is a creation by Japanese renowned motorcycle builder/artist Chicara Nagata. Not much info on this build, all we know is this thing looks stellar, check out more beautiful photos of the bike in detail after the jump.

[MIKA27]

Scientists prove the five-second rule is no myth

ACCORDING to science the five-second rule is no myth. Offering relief to all those who have been picking their food off the floor and helping them feel a little bit less gross.

Some live by the belief that when you drop a bit of food on the floor you get five-seconds before it’s rendered too disgusting to eat. Six-seconds? No way. But for some reason five has generally been accepted.

Of course, we all thought this was a load of rubbish and only used it to convince ourselves we can still consume that meatball that’s just rolled onto the carpet. But science has proven we’ve been getting it right all along.

Biology students at Aston University in the UK monitored how quickly E.coli and common bacteria spread from surfaces to food such as toast (butter side down, no doubt), pasta and sticky sweets — with time being a significant factor in the transfer of germs.

Food picked up just a few seconds after being dropped is less likely to contain bacteria than if it is left for longer periods of time according to the findings.

The type of flooring the food has been dropped on has an effect, with bacteria least likely to transfer from carpeted surfaces and most likely to transfer from laminate or tiled surfaces to moist foods making contact for more than five-seconds.

“We have found evidence that transfer from indoor flooring surfaces is incredibly poor with carpet actually posing the lowest risk of bacterial transfer onto dropped food,” said Professor Anthony Hilton who headed the study.

But don’t get too cocky next time you reach for a spilt bit of grub. Professor Hilton goes on to clarify:

“Consuming food dropped on the floor still carries an infection risk as it very much depends on which bacteria are present on the floor at the time; however the findings of this study will bring some light relief to those who have been employing the five-second rule for years, despite a general consensus that it is purely a myth.”

MIKA: I still don't buy it... If it drops, I bin it.

[MIKA27]

A Tsunami Alarm Is Going Off In Chile After An Earthquake Off The Coast

Ever wondered what a tsunami warning sounds like? Australia doesn’t really have a tsunami warning system, so it’s unlikely we’ll ever hear what it does. For those wondering, it sounds freaking terrifying, as this video coming out of Chile shows.

A magnitude 7.0 earthquake was just registered off the coast of Chile according to the US Geological Survey, and now everyone has been put on high alert. It sounds chilling.

The video comes from the seaside town of Iquique, Chile. The earthquake hit 60km to the North-North West of the area.

http://youtu.be/AowFeDOWo2g

MIKA: I have family in Chile (From my wife's side) not far from this area. Hope all will be well.

[MIKA27]

Is There Life in Earth’s Massive Underground Oceans?

http://youtu.be/y1sLKLQz3zg

We don’t know what we’re standing on. The roughly 8,000 miles of dirt, solid rock, water, molten rock, and God-knows-what-else under our feet are for the most part as mysterious to us as the moons of Jupiter—and the visible world we live on, the world recorded science has spent four thousand years studying, is only its epidermis. It isn’t completely unreasonable to assume that most of this world is lifeless, that the living species of the world merely live on it, like moss on a stone—but what if there’s life hiding under the surface?

On Wednesday, a team of scientists published an article suggesting the existence of a “hydrous mantle transition zone” larger than every ocean and sea on Earth combined. (If you don’t have a Nature subscription and want more than the abstract,Scientific American explains the article in glorious detail here.)

The discovery of organisms surviving without sunlight in hydrothermal vents introduced us to the concept of chemosynthesis, and suggested that life already exists in pockets of the upper mantle. But now that we know we’re dealing with more than mere pockets of water, the possibility of an entire ecosystem thriving in a warm superocean inside the Earth’s mantle is a very realistic one.

Over the next ten years, the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program’s Chikyú vessel may tell us more about the composition of the mantle by drilling through the ocean floor to get to it:

But right now, the deepest into the Earth we can get is a little less than six miles (about 0.07% of the Earth’s diameter) — and that’s on land, where we’re in no danger of cracking into the mantle. When we’re in a better position to really take a look at what’s underneath us, we may be surprised by what we find.

[MIKA27]

WHISKEY BARREL COFFEE

There are some things in life that are just made to go together — cookies and milk, peanut butter and jelly, spaghetti and meatballs — and of course, whiskey and coffee.

With Whiskey Barrel Coffee, you get the best of two great things, blended together for a beverage that's at once sweet, smooth, and smoky. Green coffee beans are aged in authentic bourbon barrels, infusing them with the taste of whiskey, and then they're roasted in a vintage European roaster for a rich, full-bodied taste. The whole beans are then stored in wax-sealed, labeled, and numbered bottles, ready for you to grind at home for fresh, great coffee.

[MIKA27]

These Incredible Man-Made Highways Are Built Just For Animals

Humans don’t exactly have a stellar record when it comes to environmental stewardship, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t trying. Numerous projects around the world are working to rebuild lost habitats, protect vital wildlife highways, and regenerate lost populations. Here are a few man-made structures built on behalf of our four-footed brethren.

Cattle Creeps: The Doggy Door of Modern Agriculture

Moving a heard of cattle from one pasture to the next can be a harrowing task, especially if it involves driving that herd across a roadway or train tracks. To prevent cow-car collisions ranchers will install cattle creeps, essentially underpasses that allow the animals to avoid dangerous, immovable obstacles like roads, canals, and railway embankments. Similarly, sheep creeps act as semi-permiable barriers designed to be just big enough for a sheep to pass through but too small to allow cows or horses to do the same.

Wildlife Crossings

Man-made structures such as highways and railways pose very real threats to wildlife. These transportation arteries built for the convenience of man arbitrarily divide wild habitats, potentially separating existing animal populations from food and water sources, forcing them to cross the road and endure the dangers entering traffic entails.

Wildlife crossings reduce that risk by providing animals with an alternative means of avoiding the road — either traversing over or under the obstacle — reconnecting fragmented habitats and reducing road kill.

Banff National Park – Alberta, Canada

Alberta’s Banff National Park is home to a wide array of wildlife, from badgers and wolverines to bears and elk. However, the TransCanada Highway also happens to cut straight through this national park, fragmenting the habitat and presenting four lanes of potential death for animals wishing to get to the other side.

To accommodate both vehicular and ungulate foot traffic, the TransCanada Highway incorporates a wooded overpass for animals to safely travel across. Safety netting and barricades effectively funnel first timers across the raised pathway, though the local wildlife have quickly adapted to using it, and the crossing has become a vital corridor for animal traffic within the region.

Natuurbrug Zanderij Crailo – Goois Natuurreservaat, The Netherlands

The Dutch don’t mess around when it comes to protecting wildlife from the dangers of human traffic, having already built more than 600 wildlife crossings throughout the country. This is the longest such structure: Natuurbrug Zanderij Crailo, an 800 meter long, 50 meter wide overpass that whisks wildlife past a railway line, business park, river, roadway, and sports complex. Completed in 2006, the bridge is routinely used by multiple species of deer, wild boar, and the endangered European Badger.

Crab Bridge – Christmas Island, Australia

Every year around mid-October, more than 50 million red crabs march from their summer homes in the rain forests of Australia’s Christmas Island out the the ocean where they breed. These crustaceans form a massive, skittery red tide that pays no heed to things like busy roadways and, as such, as many as 50,000 individuals die each migration under the wheels of passing motorists.

To combat these senseless killings, the government has worked since 1995 to install a series of enclosed bridges and more than 40 tunnels over and through which the crabs can pass. According to the Australian Parks Service, more than 7.5 miles of aluminium siding has been installed along busy roadways to help funnel the crabs to the proper crossing locations. This not only saves thousands of crabs each year, the structures have allowed a new tourist industry to emerge, bringing a significant influx of business to the area each spring.

I-75 Alligator Alley – Collier and Lee counties, Florida

Generous estimates put the remaining population of Florida panthers at around 100 individuals, making this mountain lion subspecies one of the most critically endangered large mammals in North America. The big cats’ biggest threat isn’t poaching or habitat loss, its vehicular accidents. 11 panthers died in 2006 after being struck by cars, another 14 died the following year.

In response, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) took aggressive measures to protect the official state animal from dangerous freeway crossings, installing 24 highway underpasses, building 12 wildlife bridges, and installing continuous fencing along a 40-mile stretch of Interstate 75. And it’s worked, in areas that have both fencing and nearby crossings — not a single panther has died since 2007. What’s more, the underpasses are now routinely used by bobcats, deer, and raccoons — all of which have seen drastic declines in roadkill since the crossings’ installations.

Vole Ladder – Grand Union Canal, England

Water Voles are among the UK’s most endangered mammals, their numbers plunging by 90 per cent since the 1970s, victims of habitat fragmentation that has left numerous groups isolated from the rest of the breeding population. Part of this fragmentation is due to the impassably tall edges of the Grand Union Canal, which runs from Birmingham to London.

The Canal and River Trust organisation spent £100,000 in 2013 to not only redevelop more than .9 miles of habitat along the canal, providing better burrowing space and planting more of the plants that voles prefer. The group has also built and installed a number of vole ladders that will allow the rodents to ascend over the lip of the canal, effectively transforming what was an impassable barrier into a vole superhighway.

Salamander Tunnels – Amherst, Massachusetts

The Yellow Spotted Salamanders of Amherst, MA faced a harrowing ordeal back in the late 1980s: they had to cross a busy city street in order to reach their breeding ponds, however many never made it to the other side, instead getting squished under the tires of passing motorists. Then, in 1988, public outcry prompted city officials to install a series of three 19-inch-high tunnels under the street with funnel fencing to guide the amphibians in.

While the first few (dozen) salamanders did not initially use the tunnels — they were instead carried across the road by volunteers — the amphibian population eventually learned to employ the crossings with great success. The system was so effective that it is now employed throughout the country, including in Santa Rosa, California, where it is helping the endangered tiger salamander reach vital breeding pools.

[MIKA27]

The Australian Da Vinci: How David Unaipon (Almost) Changed Our Nation

David Unaipon has been pictured on the front of Australia’s $50 note since 1995. A hugely intelligent man who nonetheless left school at 13, he lodged 19 patents during his life, revolutionised sheep shearing, devoted much of his time to attempting to achieve perpetual motion, wrote prolifically, and conceptualised the helicopter two decades before it became a reality. This is his story.

A warning for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers: this feature includes numerous images of a deceased person.

“The Best-Known Aborigine”

Almost half a century after his death in 1967, Unaipon has achieved some level of posthumous recognition through his appearance on our national currency, and in the annual David Unaipon award for Indigenous literature. Google even featured one of his mechanical designs on a front page doodle on his 140th birthday.

Unaipon was said to be “the best-known Aborigine in Australia” during his lifetime. But having researched his life and his scientific investigations, it’s impossible to avoid the conclusion that he would have been much better-known and more influential if he had been white.

Born David Ngunaitponi at South Australia’s Point McLeay Mission in 1872, his name was reputed to mean “I go forward”. He undoubtedly went further forward than most of his contemporaries — he remains the only Indigenous Australian on a current Australian banknote. Yet what he tried to achieve remains largely forgotten.

Few Australians can identify him on the $50 note; even fewer would know anything of his life. His descendants aren’t entirely happy about his appearance on our currency either, yet that remains his most visible recognition. What did he do and why don’t we know more about it?

“Bright, Intelligent, Well-Instructed”

Unaipon’s extraordinary ability was evident from when he first began school at the age of seven. One missionary wrote of him: “I only wish the majority of white boys were as bright, intelligent, well-instructed and well-mannered, as the little fellow I am now taking charge of.” In 1885, at the age of 13, he moved to Adelaide to work as a servant. His employer, CB Young, actively encouraged Unaipon to continue his reading and learning.

After working variously as a bootmaker, bookkeeper and storeman, Unaipon was eventually employed by the Aborigines’ Friends Association, which ran the Point McLeay mission, to travel and seek support for its work. A devout Christian (his father was the very first convert at the mission), he saw that belief system as quite compatible with Aboriginal spirituality. But that did not distract him from his continued investigations in science and engineering.

“One Of Nature’s Geniuses”

Unaipon’s ongoing renown rests heavily on his modified design for a sheep-shearing comb. He had come up with the basic idea by 1909, and he placed a provisional patent on his hinge modification, but despite being widely adopted, he never made any money from it, and the patent eventually lapsed — a fate that befell all his subsequent patents as well.

Unaipon’s invention was neatly described in the Adelaide Advertiser in 1910 under the heading ‘An Ingenious Aboriginal’:

The study of mechanics has, it is stated, resulted in the discovery of a new application of force by David Unaipon, an aboriginal, who has spent a good deal of time at the Point McLeay Mission Station. For five years he attempted to solve the hopeless problem of perpetual motion as applied to machinery, and in the course of his various experiments discovered what he describes as a new method of dealing with the law of gravitation, that is by diverting the attraction to a horizontal instead of a perpendicular movement. He described his discovery to Professor Chapman, of the Adelaide University, who advised Unaipon to apply it to machinery. On Monday the aboriginal called at the office and showed how he had adopted the professor’s advice. He has altered the mechanism of a machine sheep shears by a device by which the curvilineal motion of the shears is converted into a straight-line movement. At present these machines cut the wool in a half-circular manner, like the motion of the ordinary hand shears, or a pair of scissors. The new mechanism, which is still kept a secret, has been patented, and the inventor states that the principle can be applied to other machinery.

As a useful innovation in an industry which made enormous sums for Australia, it’s unsurprising that Unaipon’s basic design was taken up, even if he did not profit from it. Importantly, that emerged not from a forced focus on “science with immediate results” — a call we still hear regularly in 2014 — but because of his interest in scientific fundamentals. As the Weekly Times explained in 1914 in a profile that described him fulsomely as “one of Nature’s geniuses”:

For many years past Unaipon has been an omnivorous reader, often, after a day’s work, remaining up till the small hours of the morning deep in the study of Sir Isaac Newton’s works, and other research studies. Perpetual motion has offered to him a fountain of thought which has occupied his mind for years, and his regret is that scientists are not giving more time to the study of this problem, which, he believes, is capable of solution. While he was in search of it he found out the two new motions referred to.

“Australia’s Cleverest Darkie”

Between 1910 and 1915 Unaipon was the subject of much newspaper coverage of this kind. Three elements would be constantly referred to: his sheep shearing innovations, his basic design for a helicopter based on the motion of the traditional boomerang (a functioning helicopter did not appear until 1936), and his interest in the then entirely theoretical field of laser light. The helicopter often attracted the most attention, as this 1914 account Unaipon gave to the Daily Herald suggests:

An aeroplane can be manufactured that will rise straight into the air from the ground by application of the boomerang principle. The boomerang is shaped to rise in the air according to the velocity with which it is propelled, and so can an aeroplane.

What sticks out, reading these newspaper stories a century later, is the unabashed racism that dominates even in what are usually sympathetic accounts.

One example illustrates the point neatly. An interview with Unaipon in 1911 was reproduced in papers across Australia. The content remained largely the same — sometimes trimmed by a line or two to fit the available space — but the headline varied. The Maitland Weekly Mercury and Port Macquarie News chose ‘The Cleverest Aborigine’. The Clarence And Richmond Examiner went with ‘Australian Aborigines: Inventor and Scientist’. The Richmond River Herald instead went for ‘Australia’s Cleverest Darkie’.

That interview also highlights Unaipon’s interest in lasers:

Yet another complex problem that has claimed his attention is the polarisation of light and the concentration of light at a given point. “These would be the greatest weapons in future warfare,” prophesied Unaipon. “We are gradually coming to the age where we might expect to be able to hurl electricity, like nature does, for instance, in the shape of lightning.”

“A Deep Student Of Science”

While it was unfortunate that Unaipon made no money from his shearing invention, it was not unusual. The Brisbane Worker, writing of Unaipon (“a deep student of science”) in 1914, identified the problem succinctly:

David Unaipon had better keep his weather eye open, else those capitalists or patent righters will rob him of his invention as they always rob labour, black and white, of the harvest of its toil.

That pattern of ideas being taken without recognition was repeated with Unaipon’s writing. He regularly penned accounts of Aboriginal myths and beliefs for newspapers, and is often cited as the first Indigenous author to write in English.

In the 1920s, Angus & Robertson commissioned Unaipon to write a book on the topic of Aboriginal legends. While he was reportedly paid 150 pounds, his name did not appear on the published work. Instead, Legendary Tales Of The Australian Aborigines was credited to Scottish author William Ramsay Smith. ((You can view a scan of Unaipon’s full original manuscript on the NSW State Library site.)

Myths defined Unaipon’s life, in both scientific and religious terms. In physics, perpetual motion is generally held to be impossible. But that has not stopped thousands of people seeking the goal. At the time, his ambition was not unusual — save for the context of his circumstances.

Unaipon saw the embrace of Christianity as the most straightforward way to integrate Indigenous and white society (a view that did not endear him to many of his fellow Aboriginals). Much of his life was spent as a guest preacher travelling across Australia. The irony in 2014 is that church attendance is largely irrelevant — less than 10 per cent of Australians regularly attend a church service. Even if that approach had become dominant in Indigenous communities, it might not have achieved Unaipon’s desired result.

“The Aboriginal Scholar”

Despite some recognition in the early part of the century, by the 1930s, Unaipon’s scientific ambitions seemed to be largely ignored, even though he kept tinkering with his perpetual motion concepts and despite the fact that he was now very well-known. His principal public role was to interpret what then remained of traditional Indigenous culture for a sometimes curious but often dismissive white public. Sometimes that involved demonstrating his highly impressive boomerang skills.

Sometimes it involved interpreting “message sticks”, as he did in 1925 for an Adelaide Register reporter:

Note that the numbers are gratuitous additions by the paper. The key message of this diagram was to build fires for smoke signals whenever the angle changed.

His own scientific activities continued intermittently. During his travels as a missionary preacher, Unaipon collected skulls, stone tools and other artefacts and sent them to anthropologist Dr Angus Johnson in Adelaide. With a similar goal of enhancing understanding, Unaipon volunteered himself to be the subject of a full-face mask used as part of a touring exhibition about “man and his ancestors”:

“A Triumph For My People”

Unaipon evidently enjoyed exposing racist views amongst his contemporaries. I love this story from a gossip column in the Adelaide Advertiser of 1930:

David walked into one of the big stores in Adelaide, and as he entered one of the departments he was accosted by the manager in this fashion — ‘Well, Jacky, you wantem buy big fella shirt, eh?’ -’Will you kindly direct me to the manager’s office?’ was the polished reply in perfect English. It was worth going a long way to see the expression on the face of the manager, who afterwards admitted that he felt a perfect fool.

Yet the patronising tone was never far away when reporters discussed him — even the same columnist described him a year later as a “remarkably intelligent specimen of primitive man”. There’s a similarly revolting assumption evident in this extract from another Adelaide Advertiser column in 1931:

It was surprising the number of readers who stopped me yesterday and asked me if I could vouch that David Unaipon was a full-blooded black. They were simply amazed at the depth of thought and the facility of expression of the man.

The assumption? No “full-blooded” Australian Aboriginal would be bright enough to have achieved what Unaipon had. Only “white blood” could claim intellect. Unaipon had to be treated as an “exception”, as an account from almost a decade earlier in the Sydney Morning Herald made even clearer:

It was not as an aboriginal, as he is ordinarily accepted, but as a man of cultured intellect, dignified in his bearing, and speaking perfect English, that Mr Unaipon addressed the congregation last night

That racist attitude was unquestionably and sadly the norm. Punch in 1914 described him as “a remarkably able man, even amongst superior whites”. More of the same: “With the gradual passing away of the aborigines we are taking more interest in the outstanding representatives of the primitive race,” wrote the Adelaide Register News-Pictorial in 1929.

“The gradual passing away of the aborigines.” That was an entirely uncontroversial remark in 1929; it was of no concern to assume every Indigenous Australian would soon die. We wouldn’t assume that in 2014. Would we?

Yet there’s nothing to be proud of in current Indigenous mortality statistics. The life expectancy for Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders is 10.6 years lower than non-Indigenous males, and 9.5 years lower than non-Indigenous females, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Even now we haven’t moved on so far, it seems, from 1947, when the Adelaide News could headline an article referencing Unaipon with the horribly offensive phrase “Our Forgotten Men – The Abos”.

The 1929 piece provides a telling insight into Unaipon’s views on science and its potential influence:

There is a story that he once met Norman Lindsay [well-known Australian artist and author of The Magic Pudding]. “What are you going to do?” Lindsay asked. “I’m going to try to solve the problem of perpetual motion,” Unaipon said. Lindsay laughed. “I know what you’re going to say,” Unaipon said. “I know it’s impossible, but what a triumph for my people if I was successful!”

Unaipon understood the value of science and technology, both for its own sake and for how it might transform perceptions of his brethren. Yet in his lifetime, few recognised what he might have contributed.

It’s a mistake to single-mindedly apply the values of 2014 to past eras. It’s also a mistake to pretend we can excuse appalling attitudes purely on that basis. You would hope that someone of Unaipon’s evident ability and intelligence would be given more opportunities in Australia in 2014 than when he was patronised as “Australia’s cleverest darkie” a century ago. You would hope his scientific skills would be given more recognition and more opportunity to flourish. But in a country that gleefully eliminated its science minister last year, you might not hope too hard.

[MIKA27]

Astronomers Discover First Direct Proof Of The Big Bang Expansion

Somebody’s going to win a Nobel Prize. At least that’s what the physics community is saying after the announcement on Monday that a Harvard team has found the first direct evidence of cosmic inflation right after the Big Bang. It’s more proof that the Big Bang really was the beginning of it all.

The discovery itself is a little bit tough to wrap your head around — as it should be, given that it helps to explain the beginning of existence. Astronomers specifically discovered a twist of light called primordial B-mode polarization. This refers to the swirling effect that enormous gravitation waves had on photons that escaped from the Big Bang and serves as proof that those gravitational waves actually exist. As far as understanding the origins of the universe goes, this is a very, very big deal. Some say that this finding is up there with the discovery of the Higgs boson back in 2012.

Einstein, being Einstein, predicted all of this in 1916. His theory of general relativity hypothesized that these gravitational waves exist as ripples in the fabric of space-time, and scientists have been trying ever since to prove their existence. If gravitational waves do exist that means that the rapid expansion of the universe in the moments after the Big Bang actually happened. The effect is a little bit like how waves form on the surface when you drop a big stone in a pond. However, you also have to imagine that the Big Bang formed the pond itself.

Regardless of how you picture it, this is a big deal. “If it is confirmed, then it would be the most important discovery since the discovery, I think, that the expansion of the universe is accelerating,” says Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb, who was not involved in the research. Loeb added, “It’s worth a Nobel.”

Of course, everything has to be confirmed now. The Harvard team did not reveal their findings recklessly, though. They also used one of the most advanced telescopes in the world, the BICEP2 in Antarctica (above), to collect the data. “These are extremely careful and conservative people,” Marc Kamionowski, a theorist from Johns Hopkins who was one of the few people who saw the data before it was revealed to the public,told Time. “They have had this evidence for three years, looked at every alternative explanation for what they were seeing, and systematically ruled them out one by one.”

And don’t forget: Einstein called it a century ago. If we know anything about Einstein, it’s that he was a pretty damn smart guy.

[MIKA27]

Scientists Revive Moss That Was Encased In Ice For 1500 Years

Cryonics enthusiasts will be pleased to hear that scientists have demonstrated the ability to revive frozen life not just after a couple years or even a couple of decades. They can bring something back to life that’s been frozen for 15 centuries. The previous record was just 20 years.

A team of researchers from the British Antarctic Survey and University of Reading explain in a new report in Current Biology that they managed to revive a patch of moss that had been trapped under antarctic ice for 1500 years. In the words of the British Antarctic Survey’s Peter Convey, the plants “were basically in a very long-term deep freeze”. That means that this moss last saw the light of day not long after the fall of the Roman Empire. That’s old moss!

It wasn’t even that hard either. “We actually did very little other than slice the moss core very carefully,” says Convey. They were also careful not to mix up the moss with any other life forms when they put it into an incubator that recreated normal conditions. Soon enough, the moss started to grow — just like new.

That’s not all. Thanks to this new evidence, the researchers think that life could survive frozen for much, much longer than 1500 years. “The potential clearly exists for much longer survival — although viability between successive interglacials would require a period of at least tens of thousands of years,” they wrote. Immortality, here we come.

[MIKA27]

The Woods Around Chernobyl Aren't Decaying

Like a landscape of the undead, the woods outside Chernobyl are having trouble decomposing. The catastrophic meltdown and ensuing radiation blast of April 1986 has had long-term effects on the very soil and ground cover of the forested region, essentially leaving the dead trees and leaf litter unable to decompose. The result is a forest full of “petrified-looking pine trees” that no longer seem capable of rotting.

Indeed, Smithsonian reports, “decomposers — organisms such as microbes, fungi and some types of insects that drive the process of decay — have also suffered from the contamination. These creatures are responsible for an essential component of any ecosystem: recycling organic matter back into the soil.”

All of that now has been slowed way down, as explored in a new study led by University of South Carolina biologist Timothy Mousseau, just published in Oecologica.

Mouseeau and his colleagues explain that they would normally expect to see between 70 per cent and 90 per cent loss of dead plant matter over the course of a year as the discarded leaves and branches are consumed by local microbes; however, at the various test points they established throughout the Chernobyl forested region, the sampled vegetation had lost less than 40 per cent over the same time frame.

This means the woods are decaying approximately twice as slowly, stretching out their period of decay for years, if not decades, and, in the process, piling up fuel for future forest fires.

As Smithsonian also mentions, this is perhaps the most worrisome aspect of all of this, and all the more reason to be concerned about the radioactive side-effects of such a fire: “Other studies have found that the Chernobyl area is at risk of fire, and 27 years’ worth of leaf litter, Mousseau and his colleagues think, would likely make a good fuel source for such a forest fire. This poses a more worrying problem than just environmental destruction: Fires can potentially redistribute radioactive contaminants to places outside of the exclusion zone, Mousseau says. ‘There is growing concern that there could be a catastrophic fire in the coming years,’ he says.”

Either way, there is something immensely surreal in this dream-like vision of a dead forest that simply cannot decay, its branches lifeless yet ever-present, petrified or fossilized in place, its carpet of leaves always growing deeper and seeming to never go away.