Feb 10, 2019

Esoterica



Rare half-male, half-female cardinal spotted in Pennsylvania

Jeffrey and Shirley Caldwell have been attracting birds for 25 years with carefully tended backyard feeders. But the lifelong Erie, Pennsylvania, residents have never seen a creature so wondrous as the half-vermillion, half-taupe cardinal—its colors split right down the middle—that first showed up a few weeks ago in the dawn redwood tree 10 yards from their home.

. . .

The anomaly is known as a bilateral gynandromorph. In plain language: Half its body is male and the other half is female. “This remarkable bird is a genuine male/female chimera,” says Daniel Hooper, a postdoctoral fellow at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, in an email.

Gynandromorphs, known as “half-siders” among ornithologists, are uncommon but not unheard of. They likely occur across all species of birds, Hooper says, but we’re only likely to notice them in species where the adult males and females look distinct from each other, a trait known as sexual dimorphism. “Cardinals are one of the most well-known sexually dimorphic birds in North America—their bright red plumage in males is iconic—so people easily notice when they look different,” Hooper says.



Scientists say bees can do basic math

According to a study published this week in Science Advances, scientists at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, have shown that honeybees can add and subtract if trained to do so. This discovery helps scientists understand the relationship between brain size and brain power, perhaps knocking birdbrain off the list of perceived slights. Honeybees and humans are separated by more than 400 million years of evolution, so the study's authors say their findings suggest that an advanced understanding of numbers "may be more accessible to nonhuman animals than previously suspected."

Many animals understand numbers at a basic level for essential tasks. But until now, only a few animals have demonstrated the ability to add and subtract. Honeybees join this short list that includes chimpanzees, African grey parrots and spiders.

The revelation that the tiny brain of a honeybee can understand basic mathematical operations has ramifications for the future development of artificial Intelligence, according to RMIT.

Can Species Evolve Backwards? The Strange Science of 'Devolution'

Is devolution possible? Two verified experts answered this question on independent fact-checking platform Metafact.io. Both answered 'yes'. You can read one answer below.

The short answer is "yes," but that needs to be explained, because the concept of "devolution" is very misleading and makes assumptions about evolution that simply aren't true (it's not a term that I would recommend using).

The concept of "devolution" is built on the notion that evolution has a direction (thus, devolution occurs when evolution goes "backwards"), but evolution does not have a direction.

Natural selection simply adapts organisms to their current environment, and what is beneficial may change as the environment changes. Evolution is not going in a predetermined direction.

Earth's Magnetic North Pole Has Officially Moved

Earth's magnetic North Pole has drifted so fast that authorities have had to officially redefine the location of the magnetic North Pole. The extreme wandering of the North Pole caused increasing concerns over navigation, especially in high latitudes.

. . .

On Monday, the World Magnetic Model updated their official location of the magnetic north. The model is typically updated every five years and was last updated in 2015. However, the recent rapid movement of the magnetic north prompted scientists to update the model early. In the recent past, the magnetic North Pole has moved 34 miles a year toward Russia. Just a half-century ago, the magnetic North Pole was wandering about 7 miles each year.

Earth's magnetic North Pole is quickly moving from the Canadian Arctic toward Russia. The model update ensures the accuracy of work in governmental agencies around the world. Specifically, NASA, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the U.S. Forest Service use the magnetic poles in their daily operations from mapping to air traffic control. On a more individual level, smartphones use the magnetic north for GPS location and compass apps.

A space rock collision may explain how this exoplanet was born

Cataclysmic collisions between space rocks have helped explain some of the solar system’s biggest mysteries, from how the moon formed to how Uranus got its lopsided rotation. But convincing evidence for such events happening outside of the solar system is scant.

Now scientists think that they have found the first known example of a near head-on collision between two massive worlds in another planetary system, roughly 2,000 light-years away from Earth.

The chance discovery came while researchers were observing Kepler 107, a sunlike star with four orbiting planets first described in 2014, to determine each planet’s mass. Surprisingly, the star’s two innermost planets, each roughly 1.5 times the size of Earth, have dramatically different masses, the team reports February 4 in Nature Astronomy. Analysis of each planet’s mass and size revealed that Kepler 107c is roughly twice as dense as Kepler 107b. That finding suggests that Kepler 107c has a large iron-rich core, similar to the solar system’s innermost planet, Mercury, the scientists say.

Harvard’s top astronomer says an alien ship may be among us — and he doesn’t care what his colleagues think

Since publishing his controversial paper, Loeb has run a nearly nonstop media circuit, embracing the celebrity that comes from being perhaps the most academically distinguished E.T. enthusiast of his time — the top Harvard astronomer who suspects technology from another solar system just showed up at our door. And this, in turn, has left some of his peers nonplused — grumbling at what they see as a flimsy theory or bewildered as to why Harvard’s top astronomer won’t shut up about aliens.

What you can’t call Loeb is a crank. When astronomers in Hawaii stumbled across the first known interstellar object in late 2017 — a blip of light moving so fast past the sun that it could only have come from another star — Loeb had three decades of Ivy League professorship and hundreds of astronomical publications on his résumé, mostly to do with the nature of black holes and early galaxies and other subjects far from any tabloid shelf.

So when seemingly every astronomer on the planet was trying to figure out how the interstellar object (dubbed ‘Oumuamua, Hawaiian for “scout”) got to our remote patch of Milky Way, Loeb’s extraordinarily confident suggestion that it probably came from another civilization could not be easily dismissed.

When Europeans Colonized the Americas, They Killed So Many That the Earth’s Climate Cooled

European colonization of the Americas resulted in the killing of so many native people that it transformed the environment and caused the Earth’s climate to cool down, new research has found.

Settlers killed off huge numbers of people in conflicts and also by spreading disease, which reduced the indigenous population by 90 percent in the century following Christopher Columbus’ initial journey to the Americas and Caribbean in 1492.

This “large-scale depopulation” resulted in vast tracts of agricultural land being left untended, researchers say, allowing the land to become overgrown with trees and other new vegetation.

The regrowth soaked up enough carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to actually cool the planet, with the average temperature dropping by 0.15 C in the late 1500s and early 1600s, the study by scientists at University College London found.

Vatican official resigns following abuse accusation from ex-nun

A senior Vatican official has resigned after a former nun accused him of making sexual advances during confession, The Associated Press reported Tuesday.

The Vatican said the Rev. Hermann Geissler has denied allegations made by Doris Wagner and noted that he has the right to file a civil suit.

Geissler said he was resigning “to limit the damage already done” to the Vatican, but noted he wants an investigation to be conducted into the woman’s allegations.

Geissler had previously worked as the chief of staff for the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which oversees sexual abuse cases.

Buddhist teacher arrested for alleged child sex abuse

Police in Boulder, Colorado arrested a former teacher in the Buddhist group Shambhala International on allegations he sexually assaulted a 13-year-old girl.

William L. Karelis, 71, turned himself in on Friday after a judge issued a warrant for his arrest on Wednesday. Karelis faces one felony count of sexual assault on a child.

. . .

In a lengthy statement Friday, Shambhala International’s Interim Board revealed two previous complaints against Karelis for sexual misconduct but said neither involved minors.

Shambhala has been in crisis since last February, when the advocacy group Buddhist Project Sunshine began to publish a series of four reports detailing allegations of sexual assault by Mipham and other members — parts of which Mipham and Shambhala have refuted. Shambhala’s board announced its “phased departure” on July 6. Mipham temporarily stepped aside the same day pending an investigation Shambhala commissioned from the Halifax law firm Wickwire Holm.

Woman behind the arrest of faith healer John of God after claiming he was running a 'sex slave farm' commits suicide at her home in Barcelona

A woman who helped to bring down a Brazilian faith healer accused of sex abuse has taken her own life in Spain.

Sabrina Bittencourt, 38, died at her home in Barcelona just days after accusing John of God - real name Joao Teixeira de Faria - of running a 'sex slave farm'.

She claimed young girls were held captive in a farming operation which exported babies on the black market.

The women would be murdered after ten years of having babies in the alleged scheme run by the 77-year-old celebrity faith healer, who was arrested last year after hundreds of women accused him of abuse, she said.

Ms Bittencourt left Brazil and was forced to live under protection after receiving death threats. 

Her eldest son Gabriel Baum confirmed her death, writing on Facebook: 'She took the last step so that we could live. They killed my mother.' 

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