STUFF: News, Technology, the cool and the plain weird

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Google's Spending $1 Billion On An Old NASA Hangar, No One Knows Why

Planetary Ventures, a Google shell company, just signed a very expensive lease on a very large building and airfield in Silicon Valley. The lease in question will cost the search giant $US1.16 billion over the term of 60 years. The building and airfield in question is the Moffett Field, where Google’s founders have been landing their private jets for years.

Of course, we knew this was coming. All the way back in February, NASA announced the deal with Google slash Planetary Ventures. Now it’s a done deal, and NASA revealed the specifics in a press release. In addition to that very large price tag, the agency said that it would save about $US6.3 million annually in maintenance costs. That’s great!

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden’s explanation of why that’s so great is priceless. “As NASA expands its presence in space, we are making strides to reduce our footprint here on Earth,” said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. “We want to invest taxpayer resources in scientific discovery, technology development and space exploration — not in maintaining infrastructure we no longer need.”

You heard that right. NASA busy building **** in space, probably a wormhole or a time machine or something. Who knows what an internet company is going to do with an airfield. Buy more private jets, maybe?

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Smartphone Charging Cables Don't Get Much More Portable Than This

Thin smartphones also mean thin batteries, and carrying a charging cable so your phone can last the day is basically a fact of life now. To make the situation a little more convenient there have been countless keychain-friendly solutions for charging your smartphone, but none as perfectly tiny as the inCharge.

The tiny charger is nothing more than a slim USB connector, a Lightning or microUSB connector on the other end, and a short inch-long flat ribbon cable connecting the two. When not in use the two USB connectors stick to each other thanks to embedded magnets, allowing the inCharge to be easily tethered alongside the keys in your pocket. And while it does mean your smartphone has to sit right next to your computer’s USB port for a charge, that’s a minor inconvenience to never being without a cable.

The inCharge is starting life through an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign hoping to raise $US20,000 to fund production costs. To date it’s raised just shy of $US100,000 so hopefully its creators will easily be able to make it a reality. If you want to claim one for yourself, with an estimated delivery of sometime next month, a $US9 donation is all that’s needed for either the microUSB or Lightning version, in one of eight different colours.

[Indiegogo - inCharge]

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Call The Avengers: The Pentagon Wants To Make Helicarriers

DARPA — the Pentagon’s advanced military technology research agency — is taking a page from Marvel’s playbook and wants to make “aircraft carriers in the sky”. They won’t be Nimitz-size, of course, but they will have “to carry, launch and recover multiple unmanned air systems for a variety of missions.”

According to the agency, drones are obviously a great war platform: They reduce the risk for humans and they get the job doe. The only problem is that “they lack the speed, range and endurance of larger aircraft.” The military transport these drones near the theatre of action in order for them to conduct their missions, a long and cumbersome process.

They think the solution is to create a flying platform that can carry these drones anywhere in the world with enough speed. “Such an approach,” they say, “could greatly extend the range of UAS operations, enhance overall safety, and cost-effectively enable groundbreaking capabilities for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and other missions.”

Combined with other efforts — like long-endurance flight — it seems that DARPA is seeing good potential for a military platform in the far away future. I can imagine always-in-the-sky flying platforms which, like the helicarriers in the movie, can deploy drones anywhere in the world in no time. This call for ideas to turn a large aircraft like the C-130 into a drone aircraft carrier seems like a good seed for that, according to DARPA program manager Dan Patt:

We want to find ways to make smaller aircraft more effective, and one promising idea is enabling existing large aircraft, with minimal modification, to become ‘aircraft carriers in the sky. We envision innovative launch and recovery concepts for new UAS designs that would couple with recent advances in small payload design and collaborative technologies.

Here’s what they want for the proposal:

1. System-level technologies and concepts that would enable low-cost reusable small UAS platforms and airborne launch and recovery systems that would require minimal modification of existing large aircraft types. This area includes modelling and simulation as well as feasibility analysis, including substantiating preliminary data if available.
2. Potentially high-payoff operational concepts and mission applications for distributed airborne capabilities and architectures, as well as relative capability and affordability compared to conventional approaches (e.g., monolithic aircraft and payloads or missile-based approaches). DARPA hopes to leverage significant investments in the area of precision relative navigation, which seeks to enable extremely coordinated flight activities among aircraft, as well as recent and ongoing development of small payloads (100 pounds or less).
3. Proposed plans for achieving full-system flight demonstrations within four years, to assist in planning for a potential future DARPA program. DARPA is interested not only in what system functionality such plans could reasonably achieve within that timeframe, but also how to best demonstrate this functionality to potential users and transition partners. These notional plans should include rough order-of-magnitude (ROM) cost and schedule information, as well as interim risk reduction and demonstration events to evaluate program progress and validate system feasibility and interim capabilities.

They say that they are “particularly interested in engaging nontraditional contributors to help develop leap-ahead technologies in the focus areas above.”

Here’s mine: Forget about the C-130. Get a Stratofortress and make smaller BMF drones.

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The Hungarian-Born Painter Who Immortalised America's Space Program

n a way, artists are the most important men and women in the aerospace industry when it came to visualising the visions of the near (or far) future from engineers, scientists and experts. The first piece of our new series showcasing the work of some of the most noted aerospace artists, is about to pay tribute to the exceptional talent of official NASA artist Attila Héjja (1955-2007).

Héjja was born in Budapest, Hungary, and moved to the United States with his family at the age of two, in 1956, the year of the Hungarian Uprising. He started studying art at the age of 16, and later founded his own art academy in his home town of Oyster Bay, New York. His professional artist career spanned more than 30 years, as a NASA artist, a stamp artist, an official US Air Force artist, and an illustrator for several magazines, until his unexpected death seven years ago.

His dynamic, dramatic,and breathtakingly beautiful paintings are displayed in both private and public collections worldwide, and have been exhibited permanently in US museums, and in travelling exhibits throughout Europe and Japan. The following selection — including four iconic space shuttle paintings and several photorealistic artworks of non-existing air- or spacecraft — are timeless depictions of his very American vision of air and space.

Tomorrow’s Air Force – Systems Command, 1984

Riding the Laser, 1983

The New Bird, 1982

Cape Winds, 1984. The original painting is on display in the Visitor’s Center, Cape Kennedy, Florida.

Lightship, 1984. The original painting is on display in the Visitor’s Center, Cape Kennedy, Florida.

A Night Journey, 1984. The original painting is on display in the Visitor’s Center, Cape Kennedy, Florida.

2001 and Beyond, 1982

Super Plane Jumbo Jet, Popular Mechanics cover, March 1989.

Earth Light, 1992.

1998: This five-stamp Se-Tenant shows the artist’s conception of what it would be like to live on another planet.

Hejja painted more than 25 awesome covers and tons illustrations for Popular Mechanics.

…and created more than 75 science-fiction book covers too:

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We're Definitely Going To Regret Training ATLAS Like The Karate Kid

We can’t help but be both utterly impressed and extremely worried about the progress of humanoid robots like ATLAS. For some reason the folks at IHMC Robotics decided to start teaching ATLAS how to balance on one foot and do the Karate Kid’s famous crane kick. If that move brought down the best fighter that the Cobra Kai Dojo had to offer, what chance does the rest of humanity stand?

Let’s not forget that Noriyuki “Pat” Morita is no longer with us, so Mr Miyagi won’t be able to help. And, as nice a guy as we hear Ralph Macchio is, Daniel LaRusso was just a character in a movie, and probably wouldn’t stand a chance against a 150kg robot like ATLAS. Can’t we just teach ATLAS how to bake cookies and maybe rescue the occasional cat from a tree?

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Wingsuit Video Shows The Impressive Scale Of The Utah Desert

Moab, Utah. To me, one of the most magical and imposing places on Earth. Nothing would prepare you for its majesty. The vastness of Arches National Park and Canyonlands National Park are very hard to appreciate in photos but this wingsuit jump video gives a good sense of scale.

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Tomorrow (Today in Oz), a Spacecraft Will Try to Land on a Comet for the First Time Ever

Tomorrow morning (Today in Oz), a 10-year, 4-billion-mile journey will end when a spacecraft attempts to land on a comet for the first time.

The ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft arrived at comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on August 6, settling in an orbit around the roughly 20-trillion-pound space rock, which, if you squint, kind of looks like a rubber duck. For the last couple months, Rosetta has been studying the comet, surveying its surface and measuring the dust particles and gases around it. Scientists are finding that 67P, which stretches for about 2.5 miles at its widest, is expelling methane, ethanol, and sulfur, which might give it a rotten-egg-like stench.

Tonight, at 11:35 p.m. PST, Rosetta will release its 220-pound lander craft, dubbed Philae, which will slowly descend from a height of about 13 miles onto the landing site named Agilkia, a relatively flat spot on the duck’s head. You can follow along here (above) as the landing unfolds on live webcast from the ESA’s mission control starting at 11:00 a.m. PST/2:00 p.m. EST today. NASA TV is also providinglive coverage starting at 6:00 a.m. PST/9:00 a.m. EST tomorrow.

Scientists didn’t know what the comet’s surface would be like until Rosetta got close, so they couldn’t choose a landing site ahead of time. Once the spacecraft arrived, it scoured the comet for potential places to touch down—the first time a spacecraft had to look for its own landing site. In previous missions to Mars, for instance, data from orbiting spacecraft gave scientists the luxury to spend months and years pondering their options. But Rosetta had to find a location in just six weeks.

Rosetta discovered that the comet was more dusty than it was icy. To maximize the chances of a successful landing, scientists modeled how Philae would land on different kinds of soil—some harder, some softer. Still, there’s a lot of uncertainty. The comet is a rugged place, covered with jagged edges and huge boulders. Philae can’t steer, so if there’s a rock in the way, there isn’t much anyone can do. “That’s the part that worries me most,” said Andrea Accomazzo, flight director of the European Space Operations Centre, in an online media briefing last week.

Once Philae is released, it will float freely toward the comet for seven hours before gently dropping onto the surface. If all goes well, mission controllers will receive confirmation of a successful landing at 8:02 a.m. PST/11:02 a.m. EST.

Philae’s landing spot, seen from about 19 miles away.

Once Philae lands on its three spindly legs, it will fire a harpoon straight into the surface, anchoring itself to the comet to prevent it from floating away. Small thrusters will also blast upward from the lander to help it stay grounded. It will then begin its preprogrammed sequence of snapping pictures and taking data. The lander is equipped with 10 instruments, including cameras and a drill, to analyze the comet’s surface and chemical composition. Rosetta will also send radio signals through the comet to probe 67P’s interior structure; Philae will relay those signals back to Rosetta.

The initial automated phase will last about 65 hours, but the lander is expected to continue doing science until March, when the comet gets so close to the sun that the scorching temperatures will damage Philae’s electronics. Dust may also accumulate on its solar panels over time, choking off its power source.

Meanwhile, Rosetta will remain in orbit as the comet swings by the sun, whose solar wind blows the gases and dust that surround the comet into its characteristic tail. No one’s sure how long Rosetta will last in the sun’s heat and the harsh environment of space, but the spacecraft’s designed to continue studying 67P for 17 more months—and likely several months more. Even though Philae’s landing is certainly important, 80 percent of the scientific data from the mission will be from Rosetta, simply because it will spend more time studying the comet, says Fred Jansen, the Rosetta mission manager.

Needless to say, landing on a comet is hard. Both Rosetta and 67P are hurtling through space at about 40,000 miles per hour, 300 million miles away.

Spacecraft previously have landed only on seven other places in the universe: the moon, Mars, Venus, Saturn’s moon Titan, and two asteroids. Although not quite a landing, NASA’s Deep Impact mission purposefully smashed an impactor into comet Tempel 1 in 2005 to study the resulting cloud of debris. The plan for Philae, of course, is to land in one piece and explore the comet intact.

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The Planet of the Apes Performance That Could Get Andy Serkis an Oscar

Some people think that performance-capture acting is different from standard stage/screen acting. Those people probably don’t do it for a living. Andy Serkis does—and he thinks it’s about time he and his fellow simian-impersonators from Dawn of the Planet of the Apes get held to the same standard by the Academy, just like any other thespians.

“It’s a long-standing debate, really, but I’ve always held that there shouldn’t be a separate [Oscar] category,” Serkis told WIRED just before Dawn’s release this summer. “This is acting, and the acting part of it is what is authoring the performance on set. Then, of course, there’s visual effects—the rendering and the artistry and the animation that goes on top to take our performances and put them [on screen]. That’s a visual effects category. So I don’t think blending them makes any sense whatsoever.”

20th Century Fox agrees. The studio behind Dawn is reportedly going to push hard for Serkis to get a best supporting actor nomination for his work on the film as the ape leader Caesar. It’s also pushing the rest of its cast for consideration—including Toby Kebbell for his mo-cap work as Koba—but the fate of Serkis’ attempt will be the one to watch.

So just what kind of chops it takes to do good performance capture? A lot of physical energy, and a lot of expression—so acting chops, pretty much. For a taste, just watch this exclusive clip (above) from the forthcoming Blu-ray/DVD release of Dawn, which shows Serkis and Kebbell in action. They may not be in full costume on a big set, but it’s hard to argue what they’re doing isn’t acting.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is available to stream on Digital HD today and will hit Blu-ray/DVD on Dec. 2.

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Gillian Anderson And Ben Kingsley In New Robot Overlords

http://youtu.be/ZcevyVngeMc

Gillian Anderson (from the X-Files) and Ben Kingsley are set to star in Robot Overlords. It has some mighty big, Supreme Commander-ish robots in the promotional stuff, and that’s pretty much enough to get me to pay an overpriced cinema ticket right there. Due out in March 2015

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'World War II Isn't Over': Talking to Unbroken Veteran Louis Zamperini

In a 1942 photo, Brigadier General Isaiah Davies pins a pair of silver bombardier wings on Lieutenant Lou Zamperini

Before his death in July at 97, the man immortalized in Laura Hillenbrand's book reflected on courage, forgiveness, and why he doesn't consider himself a hero.

None of us believed it. None of us. Never once. Not underneath, even.

That’s what Sylvia Zamperini would say about her family during World War II when confronted with the idea that her brother, Louis, had been killed. Even when the War Department assigned Louis Zamperini an “official death date,” and President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a condolence letter, his mom knew he was still alive and that she would see him again, one day. She was right.

As the world now knows, thanks to author Laura Hillenbrand, Louis Zamperini waged one of the most astonishing personal battles in World War II as an Army Air Corpsman. In May 1943, his B-24 crashed into the Pacific. For 47 days, he floated on a raft in the ocean. He was then captured by the Japanese, who held him prisoner until August 1945. These experiences tormented Zamperini’s postwar life, but in 1949 things began to turn around for him. Zamperini forgave the men who held him prisoner, including the sadistic Japanese corporal, Mutsuhiro Watanabe, who was known as the “Bird.” This saga is chronicled in Hillenbrand’s book, Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption. The book has remained on the bestseller lists since it was published in 2010, and in December, Universal will release a film adaptation, directed by Angelina Jolie.

Even before his war experience, Zamperini was a remarkable figure, “one of the greatest runners in the world,” as Hillenbrand writes. A track star at the University of Southern California, Zamperini competed in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. He didn’t win the gold medal, but he returned to Los Angeles a celebrated athlete and continued to set college records.

Zamperini was a revered figure in Southern California, and died last July at age 97. After Hillenbrand’s book appeared, I learned that he was my neighbor in the Hollywood Hills. I interviewed him twice, in 2010 and 2011. This is the first time our conversations have appeared. They were edited for length and clarity.

John Meroney: What did you learn from the publication of Unbroken?

Louis Zamperini: That World War II isn’t over. People are still suffering from it. I received a letter from a fellow who told me, “My dad came home from the war, he became an alcoholic, destroyed our family life, and I’ve hated his guts ever since. But after reading your book, I’ve forgiven him. I wish he were still alive so I could tell him I love him.” Letters like that come in all the time. Unbroken was published as a help to society.

Angelina Jolie with Louis Zamperini. Jolie directed Unbroken, a film about Zamperini's life. (Universal Pictures.)

Meroney: Your story isn’t just about forgiveness. It’s about the definition of courage—the courage it takes to overcome incredible odds. Given your expertise in this area, who do you regard as the best examples of courage today?

Zamperini: The injured soldier who comes back from Afghanistan and says, I want to go back. He could get out of the service with a wound, but instead he says, I want to go back and be with my buddies.

Meroney: Do you get to meet with many of the troops?

Zamperini: Yes. For a number of years, I’ve been flying down to the Marine base at Twentynine Palms and speaking to the graduating class. And then they go off to Afghanistan. When I read in the paper that a Marine from Twentynine Palms was killed over there, I know I shook hands with him. That’s kind of hard to take.

Meroney: When you address soldiers, what do you say?

Zamperini: I tell them my war story. I say not to goof off during training—to learn all they can so that if they’re ever in a dire situation they’ll know what to do. When I was on that life raft, I was the only one who was prepared.

Meroney: Is that what kept you going?

Zamperini: Well, I’d taken survival courses all my life. Two weeks before we crashed, there was an expert on the South Pacific who gave a lecture on survival. When I got there to hear him, there were only about 15 out of thousands who could have attended. What he said helped me on the raft. Every soldier should learn survival on land, sea, and in the air.

Meroney: A key turning point in Unbroken is the night in 1949 when you hear a young Reverend Billy Graham preach in Los Angeles. If that night had never happened, how do you think your life would be different?

Zamperini: I wouldn’t have a life. I think I’d be dead. I was going downhill, fast. But Billy Graham came to town.

Meroney: What did he say that got your attention?

Zamperini: The one thing he said that shook me up was, “When people come to the end of their rope and there’s nowhere else to turn, they turn to God.” I thought, That’s what I did on the raft. All I did was pray to God, every day. In prison camp, the main prayer was, “Get me home alive, God, and I’ll seek you and serve you.” I came home, got wrapped up in the celebration, and forgot about the hundreds of promises I’d made to God.

Meroney: After the war, you had nightmares about being a prisoner of war. Hillenbrand discloses that these dreams were so extreme, you almost strangled your pregnant wife to death in your sleep thinking she was the “Bird,” the man who tortured you.

Zamperini: Those nightmares came every night. I looked good, had my weight back, but I had nightmares. I’d always wake up wringing wet. I thought I was strangling the Bird. I honestly wanted to go back to Japan and secretly find and kill him before I’d be satisfied.

Meroney: And your life was never the same after Billy Graham.

Zamperini: Well, that night I went back to his prayer room and made my profession of faith in Christ. I asked God to forgive me for not being conscious that He answered my prayer requests. While I was still on my knees, I knew there was a change. It happened within seconds.

Meroney: What was it?

Zamperini: I felt this perfect calm, a peace. The Bible calls it the peace that passeth all understanding. I knew then that I was through getting drunk, smoking, and chasing around. I also knew I’d forgiven all my prison guards, including the Bird. Boy, that’s something. So I got up, went home, and that was the first night in four years that I didn’t have a nightmare. And I haven’t had one since.

Meroney: How did forgiving your captors change your life?

Zamperini: Well, when you hate somebody, you don’t hurt them in the least. All you’re doing is hurting yourself. But if you can forgive—and if it’s true—you’ll feel good. It’s chemical. White corpuscles flood your immune system, and that’s a secret to good health.

Meroney: What kind of response are you receiving from Unbroken?

Zamperini: Ninety percent of the letters I get are from people who’ve been hurting, and they contact me for advice or counseling. I had one this morning—a woman with three little children, divorced. She goes to church, says she’s a Christian. She can’t forgive her former husband. She said, “I read your book and what it says about forgiveness and I broke down and cried.” I quoted Mark Twain for her: “Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.”

Meroney: What else did you tell her?

Zamperini: That forgiveness has to be complete. If you hate somebody, it’s like a boomerang that misses its target and comes back and hits you in the head. The one who hates is the one who hurts. I talked to girls at a school in Palos Verdes and I said, “If you want to age quickly, then hate somebody.” After that, I got a letter from one of them, she was probably 15. “I went to a girl whom I’d hated for two years and I asked her to forgive me,” she wrote. “Now we’re the best of friends.” So forgiving someone is healing. To hate somebody hurts you physically, mentally, and spiritually.

Meroney: It must be strange to read a book about yourself, especially one that focuses so much on your suffering.

Zamperini: I wrote my own book called Devil at My Heels, in 1956. Writing it reminded me of prison camp—but Laura’s book put me back in that prison. Hers is so graphic. I read one chapter and had to force myself to get through it. I was there again. She apologized to me.

Meroney: Unbroken also gives readers a sense of how much soldiers mean to one another in their common struggle.

Zamperini: There’s something about combat where you have a camaraderie you don’t have anywhere else. One day three or four years ago, all of a sudden, I was just drained. For that entire day, I couldn’t understand what was wrong with me, what was happening. But it was the fact that one of my buddies from the war—the last of them—had died. Laura’s descriptions brought them back to life, and that’s made me happy.

Meroney: You’ve seen challenging times for our country—the Great Depression, World War II, Vietnam, 9/11, endless war. Do you think we’ll prevail against our present challenges?

Zamperini: I’m not really pessimistic, but I can read the signs. When you’re in debt trillions of dollars, there’s no way to get out. To put it in perspective, I just saw an article that said one trillion seconds is 31,000 years. Then I heard somebody on TV say that if every man, woman, and child gave the government $58,000, we could solve our debt. And now we’ve got China building battleships and submarines and an air force. Their No. 1 aim is to get Taiwan back. If China ever did go after Taiwan, what could we do? We’re obligated to them. So we’re in deep trouble.

Meroney: What do you think we’re missing from our leaders in Washington?

Zamperini: I don’t hear any ideas that would be successful. Let me put it this way: A politician has the only job in the world where he can fail and still get paid. I look with hope for new leaders who have the answers, but nobody has them right now.

Meroney: What’s your assessment of President Obama?

Zamperini: I watch him closely. He’s very intelligent, and he’s a real linguist. But the most important thing in life which most of us don’t have is wisdom. And I don’t think he makes wise choices. Education and wisdom have nothing to do with each other. Once I was speaking at Folsom Prison. The warden took me around the yard. He said, “See that fellow over there? He’s a neurosurgeon.” “Whaat?” I asked. He continued, “And that fellow over there? He’s a dentist.” I was puzzled. “If these guys are so well-educated, what are they doing here?” I asked him. The warden said, “I guess they just didn’t make wise choices.”

Meroney: So Washington has a wisdom deficit, too.

Zamperini: I don’t see much wisdom there. Our problems are so big that I don’t know how anybody could come up with a solution.

Meroney: Who was the best president in your lifetime?

Zamperini: I don’t think any of them were what you would call a super leader.

Meroney: How about Franklin Roosevelt?

Zamperini: Stories went around about him among every solider in the Pacific.

Meroney: Stories about what?

Zamperini: Things that didn’t make sense, questions about the war. About an hour before Pearl Harbor was hit, we sank a Japanese midget submarine near the harbor. With a five-minute warning, we could have knocked down that Japanese air attack—we had the stuff to do it. But nobody said a word.*

Meroney: Did you and your fellow soldiers admire Roosevelt?

Zamperini: He was a great leader. But when Europe was in trouble and Churchill wanted to see us in the war, FDR made a very dynamic statement to the American people: “Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars,” he said. However, he was making boys register for the draft at the same time. This was more than a year before we got into the war.

Meroney: What do you think of the criticisms of President Harry Truman for using the atom bomb?

Zamperini: I’m against anything nuclear, including nuclear power plants. Look at Chernobyl and what recently happened in Japan. In 1950, I interviewed victims of Hiroshima. They all said the same thing: I feel honored. Because this happened to me, millions of lives were saved.

Meroney: Why did you interview them?

Zamperini: I was interested in their opinion. Now we have people who were born after that who’ve become historians. They criticize America, but they don’t know anything. Bombs were necessary. The Japanese still had thousands of kamikaze pilots near Tokyo. Besides that, the field marshals ordered all the heads of the prisoner of war camps to kill all the prisoners. We would have been slaughtered. Also, Japanese leaders told the women and girls of Okinawa and Saipan, The Americans are going to take over and then rape and kill you. There were families jumping off of cliffs because of that.

Meroney: Because they were afraid of us?

Zamperini: Yes. Every woman and daughter in Japan was to be given an auger. They were told, When the Americans come, stab them. The bombs stopped all that. They saved thousands of lives, and ended the war. We forget too easily.

Meroney: Do you consider yourself heroic?

Zamperini: Oh, no. I walk into a VA hospital and see guys in wheelchairs with their legs missing—or two legs missing or an arm missing and they’ve got one Purple Heart. Well, I’m in one piece and I’ve got three Purple Hearts. When a guy gives up part of his body, he’s the hero.

Meroney: But doesn’t a Purple Heart indicate valor?

Zamperini: You can get a Purple Heart for scratch. When the Japanese hit us on Funafuti, enlisted men on my crew came to me and said, “Louie, you won’t believe it, guys are cutting themselves with pieces of glass. The Japanese bombed us, and there were guys scratching and cutting themselves with glass and torn aluminum. They’d get in line to get patched up. Their names would be recorded so they’d receive a Purple Heart. It’s sad that things like that happen.

Louis Zamperini ran the 5000-meter race in the 1936 Munich Olympics. Actor Jack O'Connell, above, plays Zamperini in Unbroken.

Meroney: Having been an Olympian, what do you make of the doping scandals in sports?

Zamperini: Drugs have always been around, but in my day no athlete would touch them because there was no money in sports. Today, money is the incentive—I’ll get my gold medal so I can put my name on a product and make a million. Sports has turned into a business, and what a sickening thing that is.

Meroney: The athletic department of USC, your alma mater, was scandalized because its star football player, Reggie Bush, allegedly accepted gifts as a student athlete. NCAA rules forbid that sort of thing. What’s the culprit, in your view?

Zamperini: It’s USC’s fault. I was distraught over punishing the entire football team for Bush’s mistake. The NCAA should punish [the institution of] USC, not all the other players. If they fined the school $100,000, these things wouldn’t happen again.

Meroney: During World War II, who were your heroes?

Zamperini: Glenn Cunningham. As a boy, he was burnt so badly in a fire that the doctors said he’d never walk again. But he got back on his feet, started to walk, and then started to run a little. He had the world record for running the mile. I ran against Glenn, my hero. Once, I saw him in the shower. Not only were his legs burned, he was burned clear up the middle of his back. How that man ever walked or ran is beyond me. He was a real true hero to everybody. Bill was clean living. He wouldn’t take drugs for any kind of money. But today, that’s the name of the game.

Meroney: Do you exercise every day?

Zamperini: Yes. The average person should walk eight flights of stairs a day. I do at least that much, maybe double. Besides that, no matter what happens, if I have a cheerful countenance all the time, nothing gets me down.

Meroney: You survived an airplane crash, lived on a life raft in the ocean for almost two months, and were beaten as a POW. You’re almost 95. What do your doctors say about you?

Zamperini: I recently had a complete physical at the VA hospital and, as part of it, saw a psychiatrist. She announced, “I just deal with anxieties.” I told her that I didn’t have any. She said, “Everybody has anxieties. What do you mean?” I said that I loved my neighbor as myself and believed in doing good to those who hated me. She was astounded. We talked and talked and when I got up to leave she hugged me and said, “I’ve learned something today.” Those are the secrets to a happy, long life.

*A reference to a debunked conspiracy theory that Roosevelt knew about the attack on Pearl Harbor ahead of time but allowed it to happen to facilitate American entry into the war.

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Jesus Christ, Baby Daddy?

A new book resurrects the ‘Jesus-was-married-with-children’ theory made famous by Dan Brown, but the ‘lost Gospel’ on which it is based isn’t actually lost—and doesn’t mention Jesus.

A new book claims that a lost manuscript proves that Jesus was married to the prostitute Mary Magdalene and had two children. “I swear I’ve read this story,” you say, checking the date on this article. And indeed you have. The Jesus-was-married theory made famous by and forever associated with Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code has resurfaced in scholarly garb numerous times in the past 10 years. And each time a media firestorm ensues. Mary Magdalene, we just can’t quit you.

In The Lost Gospel, written by documentarian Simcha Jacobovici and York University professor Barrie Wilson, the authors claim they bring new evidence to bear on this question. They have translated a 1,450-year-old manuscript written in Syriac and housed in the British Library that they say proves Jesus had a wife, children, and close ties to the Roman authorities. They believe the manuscript is a Syriac translation of an earlier Greek text that may have been written by one of Jesus’s closest followers. In their own words, it “tells a story that pre-dates the four Gospels of the Christian canon. It’s a Gospel before the Gospels.”

The book has already been announced on Jacobovici’s website and in interviews with the media, but the official launch and big reveals will come in a high-profile press conference to be held at the British Library in London on Wednesday, November 12.

In the meantime, much of the book is already available online, and scholarly criticism has already started to trickle in. If it seems unfair to criticize a book that isn’t out yet, bear in mind that the “lost Gospel” on which the book is based isn’t actually lost.

The manuscript is attributed to the Christian writer Zacharias Rhetor and, according to Jacobovici and Wilson, it preserves the untold love story between Jesus and Mary and the shocking revelation that they had two children.

Not mentioned: whether Jesus took out the trash or Mary Magdalene stopped making an effort after the second kid was born and Jesus started spending all his time with his guy friends.

We, of course, hear nothing about Jesus’s offspring in the Bible. There’s a line ofrice farmers in Japan who claim to be direct descendants of Jesus (irony alert: they’re Buddhists). And there are at least 40 million copies of a book claiming that Jesus’s great-to-the-power-of-n-granddaughter is a cryptographer in Paris. But other than that, we know nothing about this line of potential demigods. Perhaps they turned out to be deadbeats. It’s a tough act to follow, and not everyone wants to go into the family business. Maybe Grandpa spoiled them. Maybe Jesus—who refuses to acknowledge his mother and brothers as real family in Mark 3—wasn’t going to take responsibility without a DNA test and Maury Povich-style reveal. We can only assume that they’re great at feeding the masses at Thanksgiving and can ice-skate outside year ’round, even in California.

There’s just one small problem with the Jacobovici-Wilson theory. Jesus and Mary are nowhere mentioned in the manuscript. It’s one version of a well-known ancient novel called Joseph and Aseneth, which discusses the life and times of the biblical patriarch Joseph (of technicolor-dreamcoat fame) and his relationship with Aseneth, the Egyptian woman he marries in Genesis 41:45.

Not to be a killjoy fact-checker, but this does seem like an important detail to get right.

Jacobovici and Wilson argue that the use of the names Joseph and Aseneth is a smokescreen. Swap out the names and you get the real story of how Jesus fathered two children when no one was looking.

It’s very creative, but Joseph and Aseneth aren’t mysterious names that need decoding; they’re biblical characters. Expanding on biblical details and creating backstories and sequels to biblical episodes was common practice in the ancient world. Literary expansions of the biblical stories of Enoch, Abraham, Moses, et alia were a common part of the literary landscape of the ancient religious world, and Joseph and Aseneth is another example of this.

The fact that there are Christian elements in the text does not prove that the original version of Joseph and Aseneth was Christian, much less that it was a story about Christ. There are plenty of examples of Christians editing Jewish apocryphal traditions for their own communities. At least half of an apocryphal story known as the Ascension of Isaiah can be attributed to Christian editors. Christians like the heroes of the Hebrew Bible, too; we’ve been grabby since the beginning.

Granted, allegory was also a commonplace literary device in the ancient world, and there were readers who wondered if Joseph and Aseneth was this kind of story. As the authors point out, the person who commissioned the Syriac translation wrote to the translator, Moses of Ingila, to ask whether the novel was just a love story. His response seems to suggest that Joseph and Aseneth is a philosophical allegory in which Joseph stands for transcendental reason and Aseneth is the human soul.

But that’s a different kind of thing. There are many kinds of allegories in the ancient world, but it would be unusual for people to be stand-ins for other people. For example, the beasts of Revelation are symbols for Roman emperors, and the lovers of the Song of Songs are (depending on your religious background) symbols of either God and Israel or God and the church. The idea that Joseph and Aseneth are secret names for Jesus and Mary isn’t allegory, it’s code.

What Jacobovici and Wilson have offered is a pseudo-allegorical interpretation of a sixth-century Syriac translation of a Greek text about the biblical Joseph. The book is imaginative and informed by a quasi-religious devotion to the idea that Jesus was married, but it isn’t historically accurate. They have no real arguments to support their claim that Joseph and Aseneth was written in the first century by someone close to Jesus, and they never really engage any arguments to the contrary. As Mark Goodacre, Robert Cargill, and Greg Carey have observed, none of the other texts that mention Jesus’s special relationship with Mary Magdalene can be dated to the time of Jesus himself.

This isn’t Jacobovici or the greater public’s first ride on the Jesus-was-married carousel, but it is the first time that Joseph and Aseneth has entered the discussion. It’s worth asking: Is this kind of sensationalism beneficial to the study of ancient religious literature? Certainly the British Library received media attention for its collection of priceless manuscripts. And, as a result, an interesting and important text has burst out of the archives and into public consciousness. But at what cost? Anyone who reads Joseph and Aseneth hoping for some hot deity-on-prostitute lovin’ is going to be disappointed. Will it be harder to communicate the value of ancient apocrypha when the bar for public interest is set at “Jesus Christ is my baby daddy”?

[MIKA27]

WATER VILLA AT SIX SENSES NINH VAN BAY

It looks like we have a new dream vacation to add to the bucket list as The Water Villa at Six Senses Ninh Van Bay was just named the “sexiest hotel room in the world.”

Located in Vietnam, the resort was given this prestigious award during the second annual Smith Hotel Awards by boutique hotel specialists Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and this place doesn’t disappoint. The 158 square meter villa features an elevated bedroom complete with walk-in closet, open plan en-suite bathroom, hand-crafted wooden bath tub and a private plunge pool. And what about that private deck for catching some rays? All of that’s great, but it’s that priceless view of the East Vietnam Sea that guests can enjoy from nearly anywhere throughout the villa that sold us. There’s even a dedicated butler on call 24 hours a day. The villas are located on the mountainside of the resort, and can only be accessed by private paths and stairs, ensuring you can enjoy that in-villa mini wine cellar in total seclusion. Expect to spend £350 per night.

[MIKA27]

AERICAM ANURA POCKET-SIZED DRONE

Drones have begun their takeover on the tech scene in recent years. But even with all the options we have, there’s nothing that offers real portability – until now. Meet the AeriCam Anura pocket-sized drone.

After designing drones for the film and the photography industry for the past seven years, the San Francisco-based company AeriCam took two years to create a Swiss Army knife inspired drone. Piloted by nothing more than a Wi-Fi enabled smartphone (both iOS and Android compatible), this quadcopter has been outfitted with a micro camera to stream action directly to your mobile device. It features a range of up to 80 feet, a flight time of 10 minutes on a single charge, and can reach speeds exceeding 25 mph once airborne. When you’re done taking it for a spin, simply tuck the rotors neatly inside the body, slip it into your pocket and off you go. When the rotors are folded, the Anura measures in at around the same size as your standard 4.7-inch iPhone 6. AeriCam easily surpassed its goal on Kickstarter, and plans on hitting the retail scene with a sticker price under $200. Watch the video below. [Purchase]

[MIKA27]

BALDFACE LODGE

Gather your friends and escape to the ultimate snow playground, the Baldface Lodge. At Baldface there´s no waiting for lifts and you never have to worry about competing for fresh tracks. Located in the heart of Canada´s Selkirk Mountains lays this remote lodge surrounded by 32,000 acres of skiable terrain, open bowls, peaks, perfectly spaced trees and 500+ inches of untouched powder. A quick 10-minute helicopter ride transports guests to the Lodge for 3 and 4-day all-inclusive, guided skiing and boarding trips. For all you pros, Baldface also offers an exclusive private Cat so you’re guaranteed to be pushed to your limits

[Fuzz]

We're Definitely Going To Regret Training ATLAS Like The Karate Kid

Have we so quickly forgotten? Drum technique is superior to Crane technique.

[MIKA27]

Mankind Has Landed On A Comet

Over 10 years ago, the Rosetta spacecraft left Earth to begin a long, lonely journey toward a ball of ice and rock. That six billion kilometre trek finally ended today, capped off with a nail-biting finale where Rosetta’s washing-machine-sized lander, Philae, became the first thing we humans have ever landed on a comet.

Rosetta’s target was Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, a lumpy ball whose orbit loops between Jupiter and Earth. There’s no way to get there in one straight shot, so Rosetta took a long, circuitous path, with four planetary flybys that gave it gravity assists.

The last portion of the journey, where Rosetta orbited Comet 67P itself and let go of its lander Philae, was the most complicated and perilous, threatening to undo all the past decade of careful planning. With both the spacecraft and the comet moving at high speeds, the tiniest error could make Philae miss its landing site. And once Philae was ejected from Rosetta, it was in free fall for seven hours, the so-called “seven hours of terror”. A thruster system to push the lander down wasn’t working, so Philae was supposed to use its harpoons to screw itself into the comet. (Update: With further analysis, it looks like the harpoons didn’t fire after all. The team is considering whether to refire them.) If Philae had landed on too steep of a surface, it would have fallen over with no way to get up.

So why did we spend all this trouble to study a barren piece of rock and ice? Only to answer a question as fundamental as the origin of our solar system. Before the sun and planets formed, our solar system was a cloud of gas and dust called “pre-solar nebulae.” Comets are a sort of preserved pre-solar nebulae, a time machine into the early solar system. Philae is equipped with a bevy of instruments to help it study the makeup of Comet 67P’s ice and rocks.

The mission from here is slated to last until August 2015, when the comet reaches its closest point to the Sun. Philae will be there as Comet 67P slowly melts into the streak we think of when we think of comets. It’s the end of one journey, and the beginning of another.

A simulation of the Philae landing. It pretty much went according to plan!

[MIKA27]

Manslaughter Conviction For Italian Earthquake Scientists Overturned

In 2012, the Italian courts handed down a decision that you could say sent shockwaves across the world. Seven Italian scientists were sentenced to six years in prison. Their crime? Failing to warn the public about earthquake risks right before a magnitude 6.3 quake killed 309 people. Today, six of those convictions were overturned.

The seven scientists were all members of a government commission that met to discuss the risk of earthquakes near L’Aquila, Italy back in 2009. They tried reassure residents, who were on edge because of shaken frequent tremors in the area, but the reassurances only backfired when the big one hit a few days later.

An appeals court acquitted six of the seven scientists of the manslaughter charges; they’re now free to go unless the convictions are reinstated by a higher court. The seventh, Bernardo De Bernardinis, former deputy head of Italy’s Civil Protection Department, was sentenced to two years in prison, also pending an appeal. De Bernardinis was singled out because of comments he made to the press about how frequent tremors dissipating energy were a good sign, a discredited idea among seismologists.

The whole earthquake manslaughter trial seems outrageous from afar, but without giving the Italian court system too much credit, I’d urge you to read David Wolman’s piece in Matter on how and why the scientists got convicted in the first place. It doesn’t make the convictions any more justified — thank god the appeals court came to its senses — but it captures the anger and the anguish of the human tragedy behind it.

[MIKA27]

How Two Guys Made an Awesome Alien Movie With $3M

Before they even started shooting their movie Extraterrestrial, the Vicious Brothers (aka Colin Minihan and Stuart Ortiz) knew they wanted their Cabin in the Woods-meets-alien-invasion film to be authentic. Bug-eyed invaders, flying saucers—the whole deal. Unfortunately, those things are expensive, and what they didn’t have was a huge budget.

“It was not the amount that we required, for sure,” Minihan says of Extraterrestrial, which hits theaters next week. “Our complete production budget was $3 million dollars.” Yet, somehow, they crammed the movie with so much wizardry that producers were convinced they’d gotten a $3 million budget for visual effects alone.

How’d they do it? For one, they went digital. Originally, they wanted to shoot the alien using practical effects instead of CGI. But they also wanted a 9-foot-tall skinny creature (“it looks funny when there’s a bunch of four-foot-tall critters cowering around people,” Minihan says), so a human in a suit wouldn’t do the trick. Also, the 9-foot-tall puppet was nearly impossible to light properly and always looked like rubber on camera.

“So we started to opening our minds to the idea of doing it in post-production,” Minihan says. “But it was only when our visual effects company basically sat us down and begged us to do the alien in CG and then proved to us that they could do it that we came around to it.”

That visual effects company, Waterproof Studios, turned in a herculean effort to complete the visual effects on the film. But even so, Minihan and Ortiz still ended up doing about 50 VFX shots themselves. The result is an alien horror film that plays by the alien-invasion rules in all the best ways. There are, of course, the aliens (the Vicious Brothers call them “The Greys”), but there’s also a flying-saucer-like spacecraft that crashes near—surprise!—a secluded cabin, along with terrified young people, and even a little bit of alien conspiracy.

And what extraterrestrial flick would be complete without an anal probe? It’s the one thing that’s become lore without ever really being widely used in space-horror films.

“I think we did really try to incorporate every alien trope we could, everything but the kitchen sink, so maybe we could’ve overlooked the anal probe,” says Ortiz. “But I think it’s become kind of a joke in pop culture—though it’s not that funny if you’re in that situation.”

Originally, the alien torture was much more elaborate, involving 10 different methods using 10 different apparatuses, the filmmakers pared it down after Waterproof informed them that the scene would require 200 shots. “We had to let it go,” says Minihan, “and cut it down to three cool gags.” It still worked out. (The hashtag for the film is still #GetProbed, after all.) “It’s still basically the essence of what we wanted to do,” Ortiz says. “We’re very happy with it.”

Extraterrestrial hits theaters Nov. 21 and is currently available on VOD. Check out the digitally-rendered alien from the film, as well as some storyboards from the torture scene, in the gallery above.

MIKA: Seen it and LOVED it! Don't ask how I seen it but it's a Bluray copy

[Jeremy Festa]

Yep. The Hobbit evolved from bedtime stories he told his kids.

Kids were obviously tougher 80 years ago

[MIKA27]

$300,000 an Hour: The Cost of Fighting ISIS

It's been 96 days since the United States launched its first airstrikes against ISIS militants in Iraq; 50 since it expanded that campaign into Syria. And on each one of those days, the U.S. government has spent an average of roughly $8 million, or more than $300,000 an hour, on the operation against the Sunni Muslim extremist group, according to Pentagon officials.

That's a trivial sum compared with the more than $200 million the U.S. pours each day into its 13-year war in Afghanistan (the National Priorities Project, which advocates for budget transparency, estimates that the U.S. has now spent more than $1.5 trillion on its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and against ISIS, since 2001). But the bean-counting matters, because the place values and line items offer clues to understanding the military offensive President Obama has committed the country to—and now asked Congress to bless.

On Tuesday, for instance, Defense News reported that most of the $5.6 billion in additional funding that Obama recently requested from Congress to fight ISIS will go toward training and equipping the Iraqi and Kurdish militaries, operating military aircraft over Syria and Iraq, and transporting troops and materiel through the region (last week, the White House doubled the number of American soldiers deployed to Iraq in an advisory role, authorizing as many as 3,100 troops). The administration, in other words, is betting billions on a military operation largely predicated on 1) pounding the Islamic State by air and 2) beefing up local forces that can challenge the group on the ground.

The budget for the operation also highlights the ambiguity surrounding when exactly America's campaign against ISIS began. During a press conference in late August, Rear Admiral John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, suggested that U.S. military engagement commenced on June 16, when Obama sent 275 troops to defend the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. But according to Defense News, the Defense Department has since changed course, arguing that the operation in fact began on August 8, the day airstrikes started in Iraq. The Pentagon has not disclosed the price tag for U.S. military activity between June 16 and August 8, though Defense Newsestimates the cost during that period at around $400 million. All told, that would mean the U.S. has so far spent more than $1 billion on its campaign against ISIS.

Most importantly, the numbers serve as a guide not only to when this all began, but also to how it ends. In September, Obama pledged to "degrade and ultimately destroy" ISIS. Thus far, the president's campaign appears to be doing more degrading than destroying. Last week, The New York Times reported that the U.S.-led coalition and various forces on the ground have helped halt the Islamic State's rapid advance in Iraq and Syria, and even reversed some of the group's territorial gains in Iraq. Airstrikes have also forced the jihadists to ditch their military bases for civilian homes (and their flashy convoys for more discreet means of transportation), while depleting ISIS revenues by taking out oil wells and refineries controlled by the group. (Airstrikes aside, ISIS may also simply have alienated local populations and run out of marginalized, sympathetic, Sunni-majority areas to conquer.)

But nearly 800 airstrikes into the U.S.-led military operation, ISIS still controls sizable pockets of territory in Syria and Iraq (the shaded areas in the map below). Strikes have targeted the Islamic State's leaders and rank-and-file, but foreigners continue to join the group in large numbers, and its fighting force remains formidable.

U.S./Coalition Airstrikes Against ISIS in Iraq and Syria

Top U.S. officials acknowledge that airstrikes can only do so much to counter the Islamic State. "The airstrikes are buying us time," General Ray Odierno, the Army chief of staff, told CNN in late October. It will take several years to "significantly degrade" ISIS, he said, and doing so will depend in great measure on the efforts of local ground forces such as the Iraqi army and Kurdish peshmerga. (The U.S. appears to be more concerned with dislodging ISIS in Iraq than in Syria, where it is focusing instead on neutralizing the group's command centers and revenue sources, and reportedly training Syrian opposition fighters to defend rather than seize territory.)

"Over time, if that's not working, then we're going to have to reassess and we'll have to decide whether we think it's worth putting other forces in there, to include U.S. forces," Odierno added.

That's a multibillion-dollar "if." In September, the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) estimated the annual costs of America's campaign against ISIS based on three scenarios of how it will evolve: 1) a low-intensity air campaign; 2) a high-intensity air campaign; and 3) a deployment of 25,000 U.S. combat forces to the region.

Obama has ruled out dispatching U.S. ground troops to fight ISIS, but wars—even limited ones—unfold in unpredictable ways. As the authors of the CSBA's report write:

The cost estimates presented here highlight the high degree of uncertainty involved in current operations. One source of uncertainty are the desired end states in both Iraq and Syria—i.e., what the United States would like to leave in place if and when ISIL is destroyed. Another source of uncertainty is what will be required of the United States to achieve its desired end state and how long it will take. The former is a matter of strategy while the latter is a matter of tactics and planning—and the enemy has a say in both.

As the U.S. air campaign continues, and as ISIS fighters melt into their surroundings, the number of targets will likely dwindle even as the enemy remains, weakened but undefeated. What then? How will Obama define the mission to "ultimately destroy" ISIS? Follow the money.

[MIKA27]

Kids were obviously tougher 80 years ago

And even togher 80 years earlier than that - Has anyone actually red the Brothers Grimm original stories before they were changed? Some pretty graphic and cool stuff IMO

[MIKA27]

Russia: MP calls for East Asians to settle in villages

Firm friends: Posters promoting Soviet-Chinese friendship were common in the 1950s

A Russian MP wants to repopulate the country's empty villages by inviting East Asian immigrants to move in, it's reported.

Ilya Drozdov, a member of the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party, says a rise in agricultural productivity has caused Russians to leave villages, as demand for farm labour falls. The solution, he tells the Russian News Service, is to "bring in the necessary number of hardworking Chinese, North Koreans and Japanese, under Russian supervision of course". He says it would keep the countryside alive, and counter unregulated migration from the mainly-Muslim states of ex-Soviet Central Asia.

Mr Drozdov, who sits on the parliamentary committee for relations with former Soviet states, says the government should work out how many immigrants are needed, and he wants them to think big. "It may say we need 100,000, or even a million," he says, although - in a remark more typical of Russian nationalist attitudes to immigration - he adds that the authorities should "take firm measures to expel all immigrants if it turns out we can get by without them after all".

His proposal has prompted anger and mockery in social media, with some users complaining that the authorities should invite ethnic Russians from former Soviet states, rather than offer incentives to East Asians. One comment on the Dni website suggests the government should settle MPs themselves in the villages, "just like Chairman Mao did during the Cultural Revolution".

[MIKA27]

NATO STRAP BY WORN & WOUND

The NYC NATO Strap by Worn & Wound has quickly become a favourite amongst vintage watch collectors and enthusiasts, each strap is made from Stampede Chromexcel® Leather and uses stainless steel fittings to match stainless, chrome-plated, nickel-plated and titanium watches.

These straps are a great way to dress up a vintage timepiece – often the original band doesn’t age as well as the watch itself, so adding a NYC NATO can give even heavily patinaed wristwatches a new lease on life.

Buy Here

[MIKA27]

First Views From Inside Those Mysterious Siberian Holes

When is the best time to explore a mysterious crater that opened unexpectedly in the Siberian tundra with no warning and no explanation? When it’s frozen and whatever is inside is plugged up with ice, of course. That’s why researchers from the Russian Centre of Arctic Exploration waited until winter (isn’t it always winter in Siberia?) before rappelling down the sides of the largest crater found earlier this year in the northern Siberia area of Yamal.

Researcher preparing to enter the Siberian hole.

Led by the center’s director, Vladimir Pushkarev, scientists descended this week into the hole using climbing equipment. When thawed, the hole was estimated to be 200 feet (61 meters) deep. They went down 54 feet (16.5 meters) before reaching the solid ice plugging the hole.

Rappelling down the side wall of the hole.

At that point, Pusharev says his team got to work.

They did radiolocation tests at a depth of 200 meters, took probes of ice, ground, gases, and air. Now they have all gone back to their institutes and laboratories and will work on the material. ‘The next stage is processing all of the gathered information. Then we plan to explore the surrounding area, comparing images from space, and even those taken in the 1980s, to understand if there are – or were – some similar objects.

Oh, come on, Mr. Pushkarev. Didn’t you see any missile fragments or UFO imprints or sandworm feces?

As of now we don’t see anything dangerous in the sudden appearance of such holes, but we’ve got to study them properly to make absolutely sure we understand the nature of their appearance and don’t need to be afraid about them.

Scientists conducting tests at the frozen bottom of the hole.

The prevailing scientific theory for the holes is still the release of gas hydrates that were thawed by something which caused them to explode, creating the crater from below. Most researchers lean towards climate change as the reason for the increased heat, but scientist Vladimir Popapov thinks it could be geothermal:

The crater is located on the intersection of two tectonic faults. Yamal peninsula is seismically quiet, yet the area of the crater we looked into has quite an active tectonic life. That means that the temperature there was higher than usual.

The team intends to return to explore the other holes and hopefully take some more of these really cool pictures.

[MIKA27]

11 Children Shot in Milwaukee, One in Her Grandpa's Lap

Months after a grieving mother had pleaded with violent thugs to stop shooting, 5-year-old Laylah Petersen was killed by a random bullet. How a city’s kids are caught in the crossfire.

The smaller the coffin, the more monstrous the murder.

And along with the kid-size casket at the funeral on Wednesday for 5-year-old Laylah Petersen, there will be a harrowing statistic:

Eleven children under the age of 13 have been shot in the city of Milwaukee so far this year.

And little Laylah had not even been out in the street.

She had been in the presumed safety of her home, sitting on her grandfather’s lap and watching television on Thursday evening, when a dozen shots were fired at the house. A random slug that seems to have been intended for nobody in particular tore through a wall and struck the child in the head.

“We believe that this bullet read ‘to whom it may concern,’” Capt. Aaron Raap, head of the investigations division of the Milwaukee Police, later said. “And that concerns all of us.”

The same day as that shooting, Raap had sent out a memo praising his cops for their role in the successful prosecution of a young man for the killing of 10-year-old Sierra Guyton, who had been struck in the head by a stray round in a school playground in May.

Sierra had clung to life for seven weeks before finally succumbing to her wound. The child’s mother, LaTayna Anderson, offered a prayer for other parents.

“I just pray that everyone just keep their children safe,” Anderson said. “I would not bear this on no one.”

The mother also made a plea to the violent ones who wreak such havoc.

“I just ask: Can you all please put down the guns? Just put the guns down.”

A week after Sierra’s funeral, a man who had just completed a prison sentence for attempting to shoot a cop got into a gunfight with somebody while driving a van occupied by seven children. A 10-year-old boy and an 11-year-old girl were wounded.

“We have remorseless, reckless criminals in possession of high-quality firearms shooting at each other, and they don’t care who they hit,” Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn said.

The police noted that they had recovered in excess of 1,000 firearms so far this year, nearly as many as New York, which has more than 12 times the population. Milwaukee’s murder rate is four times that of New York.

But that was still one-fourth the murder rate of the country’s most dangerous city, New Orleans. And Laylah’s family never imagined that she was in the slightest danger as she sat happily on her grandfather’s lap at 6 p.m. on Thursday.

In the stunned aftermath, her grieving relatives spoke of her as “our wild child,” incandescently alive, irrepressibly cheerful and delightfully quirky. One aunt said Laylah loved “sparkles, glitter, anything girly,” adding, “Any time you watch the movie Frozen, her favorite song was ‘Let It Go’ and she would sing it all the time.” Another aunt recalled something Laylah had said to her when they went trick-or-treating on Halloween just a few days before.

“I love you more than science!”

And thanks to science, the family found some consolation in donating Laylah’s heart to give another child a chance at life. The police chief, Flynn, announced that he was going to keep Laylah’s picture in his uniform shirt pocket next to his own heart.

“She’s going to be in our hearts, like her little baby heart is going to be in somebody else’s,” Flynn told reporters Saturday. “She will always be remembered, not just by her family, but by that family that she has given her little heart to.”

Laylah and her older sister, Destiny, attended the school affiliated with Our Lady of Good Hope Roman Catholic Church. A teacher there put a teddy bear on Destiny’s empty desk, and those who so desired left notes of condolence.

The pastor, Father Mike Barrett, recalled seeing Laylah at the weekly Wednesday morning service, where the children are given a chance to offer a prayer of their own composing. Barrett had chanced to place a paternal hand on her head as he passed the microphone to the student next to her.

“Excited, willing, open to learning,” Barrett later said of Laylah. “She always had a smile on her face. She was a joy to be around.”

The very next day, Laylah’s head was pierced by that “to whom it may concern” bullet. This week’s prayer service was Tuesday, with a picture of Laylah set up at the front. Barrett arrived wondering what he could possibly say.

The children then proceeded to say it all for him, taking turns with the microphone as they would at the regular weekly prayer service, but now speaking of their grief over the loss of their friend. They eulogized Laylah as only children could.

“Sand castle builder… tag player,” Barrett recalled.

The funeral was set for Wednesday, exactly a week after that moment when Barrett last saw her. He figured on letting the gospel, specifically Matthew 1:28, guide his homily.

“Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

At the conclusion of the funeral Mass, the kid-size coffin from the monstrous murder was then to be taken from the church to Holy Cross Cemetery. And there, the sand castle builder and tag player who loved her aunt more than science would be buried.

Guns.