Swedish archaeologists celebrate ancient find

People lived in the Torne River Valley on the border with Sweden and Finland some 11,000 years ago, an important new archaeological find has shown.

The settlement, found near Pajala in the far north of Sweden, are the oldest known find in the county of Norrbotten, according to the archaeologist Olof Östlund.

The find was uncovered when archaeologists were searching for ancient remains in the area around Kaunisvaar near Pajala where a new mine is set to open, according to a report in local newspaper Norrländska Socialdemokraten.

“Now the pages in the National Encyclopaedia regarding inland ice can be torn out and burned,” Östlund told the newspaper.

The archaeologists located the settlements in the beginning of September and they have now been dated with the help of radiocarbon dating.

“I had been expecting old dates. But when I saw that the first numbers were very high I felt immediately that this was bingo. When the second number was five figures – I felt faint,” Östlund explained to news agency TT.

He was surprised that the find was so old and compared it to another settlement located nearby in Kangofors five years ago. That settlement had been used 10,000 years ago.

The survey was conducted on commission from a company prospecting for mines in the vicinity of Pajala and will shed light on the first inhabitants of Norrbotten.

“So this is important. Especially as in archaological circles, in southern Sweden, the accepted theory is that there was no ancient age up here in northern Sweden it is thus important to raise the issue.”

Östlund compared the new discovery to the find in Voullerim in the middle of the 1980s of 6,000 year-old stone age shelters. Then the assumptions regarding the history of the pre-history of Norrland were revalued to take into account that people had actually lived there.

Archaeologists were also then given new types of remains to look for – and several finds were then later uncovered.

http://www.thelocal.se/23546/20091129/

Massive “Dark Halo” Discovered Beyond Edge of the Milky Way

The biggest things in the universe just got bigger – or rather, they’ve always been bigger and we somehow missed it up to now.  Supercomputer simulations of galactic core black holes indicate that instead of being a mere two billion times the mass of the sun, so insignificant you’d surely lose them if you sneezed, some could be as large as six billion suns -not including the “dark halo” that surrounds the Milky Way, which is more than ten times as much mass as all of the visible stars, gas, and dust in the rest of the galaxy.

The study by scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Studies (which couldn’t sound smarter if it was Lex Luthor’s university degree) focused on Messier 87, a particularly bright active galaxy in the Virgo cluster whose size, strong signals and proximity to Earth make it a common astronomical experimentation subject.  Dr Karl Gebhart and colleagues ran a supercomputer simulation to calculate the mass of the monster at M87′s core.

You need to simulate a black hole’s size because there’s no way to observe its mass directly – you can only infer its immensity by studying the effects on the mass around it (little things like entire galaxies).  Where the new model differs from past efforts is its inclusion of the “dark halo”, an unobservable ring of dark matter which astrophysicists now believe surround galaxies.  Including something you can’t see might sound like a great way to get any answer you like, but the simulation worked it out by observing the effects of this halo on the visible stars, then accounting for those calculated effects when simulating the black hole – which is why the program took several days to run on a computer that could probably calculate you to ten decimal places in one minute.

The dark matter halo is the single largest part of the Milky Way, covering the space between 100,000 light-years to 300,000 light-years from the galactic center. It is now believed that about 95% of the Galaxy is composed of dark matter, which does not seem to interact with the rest of the Galaxy’s matter and energy in any way except through gravity. The dark matter halo is more than ten times as much mass as all of the visible stars, gas, and dust in the rest of the galaxy. While the luminous matter we see in the night skymakes up approximately 90,000,000,000 solar masses, he dark matter halo is believed to include around 600,000,000,000 to 3,000,000,000,000 solar masses of dark matter.

Don’t worry, the results aren’t entirely dependent on the dark matter magic-factor which affects so much of current cosmology – the results seem to explain observations which previously puzzled many scientists (always a good sign for a new result).  Recordings of distant quasars show evidence of black holes far larger than anything we’ve ever seen closer to home.  Now it seems that they were here all along, we just weren’t looking at them right.

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/11/massive-dark-halo-of-the-milky-way-discovered.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheDailyGalaxyNewsFromPlanetEarthBeyond+%28The+Daily+Galaxy%3A+News+from+Planet+Earth+%26+Beyond%29

FBI Paid Controversial NJ Blogger for Help

A New Jersey blogger about to stand trial on charges he made death threats against federal judges apparently was paid by the FBI in its battle against domestic terrorism, according to a published report.

The Record of Bergen County reported Sunday that Hal Turner received thousands of dollars from the FBI to report on neo-Nazis and white supremacist groups and was sent undercover to Brazil.

Turner also claims the FBI coached him to make racist, anti-Semitic and other threatening statements on his radio show, but the newspaper also found many federal officials were concerned that his audience might follow up on his violence rhetoric.

The newspaper reviewed numerous government documents, e-mails, court records and almost 20 hours of jailhouse interviews with Turner.

He goes on trial Tuesday in New York, accused of making death threats against three Chicago-based federal appeals judges after saying in Internet postings in June the judges “deserve to be killed” because they had refused to overturn handgun bans in Chicago and suburban Oak Park.

The postings included the photos and work addresses of the judges — Richard Posner, Frank Easterbrook, and William Bauer — along with a picture of the Dirksen Federal Courthouse in downtown Chicago and notations indicating the placement of “anti-truck bomb barriers.”

Turner’s FBI connections began in 2003 with the Newark-based Joint Terrorism Task Force and continued on and off until this year, according to the newspaper. He claims his postings and other inflammatory statements were part of an undercover operation to ferret out violent left-wing radicals.

His lawyer, Michael Orozco, has subpoenaed Chris Christie, the former U.S. Attorney for New Jersey and the state’s governor-elect, to testify on Turner’s behalf.

In an affidavit filed with the subpoena, Orozco says Christie knew of Turner’s activities between 2002 and 2008 while Christie held his federal post. Orozco says Christie issued a letter saying he would not prosecute Turner for his statements.

It was not known whether Christie would be called to testify.

He said last week that he had not yet seen the subpoena, but said “any advice I gave as U.S. attorney regarding prosecutions is something I am not going to talk about publicly.”

Federal prosecutors and FBI officials declined comment on Turner’s claims.

“We do not comment on matters before the courts, and will not address Mr. Turner’s allegations in the press,” said Weysan Dun, who runs the FBI’s Newark field office.

Turner said he feels double-crossed by the bureau after his June arrest.

But other documents show federal agents growing more anxious about his extremist views while valuing his ties to right-wing hate groups, the newspaper said. It noted one memo that stated Turner “has proven highly reliable and is in a unique position to provide vital information on multiple subversive domestic organizations.”

In a separate case, Turner was charged with “inciting injury to persons” for urging blog readers to “take up arms” against Connecticut lawmakers who proposed legislation to give Roman Catholic lay members more control over parish finances.

http://www.ktradionetwork.com/2009/11/30/fbi-paid-controversial-nj-blogger-for-help/

La Russie pourrait suspendre son adhésion à l’OMS

samedi 28 novembre 2009 (09h54)

 

Grippe A : un député de « Russie unie » demande que la Russie suspende son adhésion à l’OMS (newsru.com 28-11-2009)

Article repris sur le site du KPRF sous le titre : Encore un sale coup des capitalistes, ou comment les laboratoires pharmaceutiques se font une fortune grâce à la « grippe porcine »

Il est absolument urgent de vérifier les informations parues dans les médias occidentaux sur la collusion présumée entre l’organisation mondiale de la santé (OMS) et les compagnies pharmaceutiques. Si ces soupçons étaient confirmés, la Russie pourrait suspendre son adhésion à l’organisation, déclare Igor Barinov, membre de la commission de la douma d’État en charge des affaires de corruption.

D’après certaines sources, les experts de l’OMS ont reçu de l’argent des compagnies pharmaceutiques, et c’est ce qui aurait conduit cette organisation, pour la première fois depuis plus de 40 ans, à déclarer officiellement le niveau six d’alerte de pandémie en rapport avec la diffusion mondiale rapide de la grippe A/H1N1. Ce sont des journalistes du journal danois Information qui, après avoir étudié les liens des experts de l’OMS avec les grandes compagnies pharmaceutiques mondiales, en ont conclu que la pandémie de grippe porcine pourrait être l’affaire de corruption la plus grandiose de notre époque.

L’OMS, après avoir déclaré l’état de pandémie de grippe porcine dans le monde, a dans une première étape recommandé fortement à tous les pays d’utiliser dans la lutte contre le virus le produit Tamiflu des laboratoires suisses. Rappelons que ce produit a suscité des critiques en Russie à cause de ses effets secondaires possibles. En même temps, le ministère de la santé ukrainien a été accusé de faire des achats excessifs et injustifiés de Tamiflu.

D’après Barinov, la Russie ne peut rester indifférente aux accusations portées contre l’OMS. « L’organisation est suspectée de corruption. Nous devons absolument mener une enquête minutieuse avant de prendre toute décision » – a-t-il déclaré vendredi aux journalistes. « Si l’information est confirmée, nous devrons poser la question du bien-fondé de la participation de la Russie de l’OMS, et le cas échéant suspendre notre adhésion ».

D’après les chiffres qu’il cite, la Russie a dépensé pour la lutte contre le nouveau virus plus de 4 milliards de roubles, qui, selon le député, auraient pu être dépensés à meilleur escient, annonce RIA Novosti.

Barinov a suggéré de faire mener l’enquête à l’OMS par le représentant russe dans cette organisation, le membre du comité exécutif de l’OMS Vladimir Starodoubov. « Personne ne remet en cause les services rendus au XXe siècle par l’OMS dans la lutte contre la malaria, la variole, le sida, mais aujourd’hui il faut se demander si cette organisation n’est pas frappée elle-même par le virus de la corruption, et dans quelle mesure ces recommandations sont fondées, dans quelle mesure on peut lui faire confiance » – estime le député.

De son côté, le directeur de l’institut de veille sanitaire Guennadi Onichtchenko, prenant la parole vendredi à une conférence du parquet général de la fédération de Russie consacrée au respect de la législation dans le domaine pharmaceutique, a déclaré lui aussi que la lutte contre la grippe porcine dans le monde prend l’allure d’un complot.

http://www.theflucase.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2100%3Arussia-could-withdraw-from-who-over-swine-flu-corruption&catid=41%3Ahighlighted-news&Itemid=105&lang=en

 

Swine flu epidemic ‘escaped from lab’

THREE Australian experts are making waves in the medical community with a report suggesting swine flu may have developed because of a lab error in making vaccines.

“It could have happened in a lab where somebody became affected and then travelled with it,” virologist Dr Adrian Gibbs said yesterday.

Conjuring up a vision of Frankenstein’s fictional monster fleeing the laboratory, he added: “Things do get out of labs and this has to be explored. There needs to be more research done in this area.

“At the moment there is no way of distinguishing where swine flu has come from.”

The research, published in the Virology Journal on Tuesday, was compiled by two former researchers at the Australian National University – Dr Gibbs and programmer John S. Armstrong.

Dr Jean Downie, once the head of HIV research at Westmead Hospital, was also involved.

The article claimed the swine-origin influenza A (H1N1) virus that appeared in Mexico in April has at least three parent genes which originated in the US, Europe and Asia.

“The three parents of the virus may have been assembled in one place by natural means, such as by migrating birds, however the consistent link with pig viruses suggests that human activity was involved,” the research found.

Within two days of them publishing their findings there were more than 16,000 downloads of the article.

“What we wanted to do was instigate debate about this again because we still don’t know the source of this virus,” Dr Gibbs said.

The research suggested more tests be done on laboratories “which share and propagate a range of swine influenza viruses”.

It said that if the virus was generated by laboratory activity it would explain why it had “escaped surveillance for over a decade”.

Dr Gibbs said it was not the first time lab errors had been made, with evidence foot and mouth disease in England had been born out of a lab mistake and circumstantial evidence that Spanish influenza in 1918 and Asian influenza in 1957 reappeared decades later because of mistakes.

“Measures to restore confidence include establishing an international framework co-ordinating surveillance, research and commercial work with this virus and a registry of all influenza isolates held for research and vaccine production,” the report concluded.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/swine-flu-epidemic-escaped-from-lab/story-e6frf7l6-1225804798759

New feature

I have added an email subscription service, so whenever there is a new post, you get an email. It is on the left side…if you decide to use it, I will give you a kiss!!

MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Bacteria from Mars found inside ancient meteorite

Their fossilised remains have been found in the rock, which was blasted out of Mars 16 million years ago as the solar system was forming.

The meteorite, called Allen Hills 84001, made headlines in 1996 after fossils were found in it. Scientists believed they were bacteria from Earth that contaminated the rock while it lay in the frozen wastes.

But a Nasa report now says there is strong evidence they originated on Mars, according to The Sun.

Dr Emily Baldwin, deputy editor of the UK’s Astronomy Now magazine, said: “Many scientists argued that what looked like fossils in the meteorite were really caused by the explosive event, such as an asteroid impact, that blasted the rock out of Mars in the first place.

“But the Nasa team is now saying they have proved that they could not have been produced by the blast itself.

“If the features turn out to have an extraterrestrial, biological origin and were not formed during the 13,000 years the meteorite spent lying on Earth, this will have profound implications for our understanding of how life evolved in the solar system.”

Prof Colin Pillinger, of the Open University, who was behind Britain’s ill-fated Beagle 2 probe to the planet that was lost on Christmas Day 2003, said: “This is good quality work and more compelling evidence to add to the mix. These guys have been plugging away at this for years. It is a very careful study by very reputable people.”

The Nasa study, led by Kathie Thomas-Keprta, found carbonate discs and tiny magnetite crystals inside the space rock. Scientists were able to use high resolution electron microscopes that were not available 13 years ago.

They concluded “unusual chemical and physical properties” in the meteorite were “intimately associated within and throughout these carbonate disks”. That, they said, was evidence of interaction with water on Mars more than 3.5 billion years ago.

Nasa is expected to announce the findings, from its Johnson Space Centre in Houston, Texas, later this week.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/6660045/Bacteria-from-Mars-found-inside-ancient-meteorite.html

Things I remember…

I would like to write them down BEFORE I forget! Hey, never know, somebody else might remember these places, also. Stuff from the Quad, from when I was a kid. Besides, I am getting old now. I have to document stuff.

I remember Skateland in East Moline. I must have been there every weekend. I spent way too much time there. Loved the New Years Skate, when you could stay there until the wee hours of the morning. Hell yeah. Had my speed skates, loved it! Closed down now.

Skate Ranch in Milan. I didn’t spend as much time there, but I liked it. Closed down now. Had this really groovy dance floor in the middle of the skating rink. Also had volleyball outside and a mini movie theater. Milan used to have a lot of entertainment options…from what I understand, it is pretty much dead now.

Hmmm, speaking of Milan, it used to have the kickass Showcase Cinemas and Razz-Ma-Tazz. Razz-Ma-Tazz was this pizza place, kinda like Chuck-E-Cheese but a lot bigger. Milan was the fast food mecca, also…Rudy’s Tacos, Happy Joe’s, etc. There was this great pizza place called the Pizza Joynt that was outside of Milan proper, on the way to Andalusia, I believe. I spent a lot of time in Showcase Cinemas.

Theaters-Parkway Theater in Moline, near Southpark Mall. Closed down. Sierra Theater, on 23rd Avenue. Closed. I don’t think they call it 23rd Avenue anymore…

There was this weird restaurant I remember going to when I was a child. Called Drawbridge Restaurant, or something like that. It looked like a castle. I don’t think it lasted very long…it was cool.

Showbiz Pizza, Davenport! Had two birthday parties there. Turned into Chuck-E-Cheese. Bummer.

Duck Creek Plaza in Bettendorf! That place was usually dead, but it is gone, anyway.

Used to like the Book Emporium in East Moline. Bought many, many books there. Gone.

Remember those fountains in Southpark Mall in Moline?

Wacky Waters…Davenport. Gone.

That is life, I suppose…I wish I had pictures of these places that I remember once in awhile. Would be great.

A lot of great stuff is gone, which is rather disappointing, but there is still Harris Pizza and Frank’s Pizza. I hope. Doesn’t do me a lot of good here in rural Canada, but miss it all the same.

 

Happy Thanksgiving

If you are in the USA and celebrating with family and or friends, feel thankful…you are most lucky. I really miss the States around this time of year. It is very difficult for me, especially lately, given the fact I keep thinking about the past. Trying to move into the future, but feeling pangs of loneliness. My family has pretty much abandoned me, so that is not an option. I see my old friends going through so many problems; sadness, depression, lack of money.

I suppose whatever doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.

I wish you safe journeys, love and hope. May you be blessed.

 

August-October 2009 DREAMS

August 29^th

 

I was in Vancouver. There was a layer of ash over everything. There was snow in the background, in the mountains.

 

September 1^st

 

I was living next to an odd river. I was upset it was fake. It was somewhere up north. I went into the river, it had no water. They always turned off the water in the Fall. I was standing in it, when suddenly someone turned on the water again. I was stuck in the river. There was a child following me.

 

September 6^th

 

I was in a strange mall. I wanted to get a camera. It was a Canon and it folded up to be tiny and could be carried on a key ring, but still had all the available features.

 

September 7^th

 

I was stuck in a mall. I couldn’t leave. One of the stores was closing down, so I stole something. There was a priest there. My car fell off a bridge into the water. I saw the word horseman.

 

September 13^th

 

I was on a boat. There was a swamp we were going through. There were weird animals in the swamp, including a huge snake. I had to meet some strange man named Richard at a coffee shop.

 

September 15^th

 

I was at a school reunion. Things were strange, I got lost. Every store was having a huge sale. Staci, a girl from school, had become a missionary. Suddenly, I was at a water park. I had to walk over a huge hole full of water to get to the rides. There was a couple that kept insisting that Ted Kennedy was still alive.

 

September 16^th

 

I was with a strange, unknown woman. We were both looking at a map of North America. We were looking at places we thought should have waterfront property, creating floods. We were concentrating on the North. There was a judge living with her son in that area, for some reason we thought it should be flooded.

 

September 20^th

 

I was in a mall in Washington DC, with another girl. She was modeling clothes. We were trying to steal tea. Suddenly, I was with Laura Bush. She was talking about her kayak that could fit in the bathtub. We were working on a calendar, I was walking a dog. The dog was trying to eat a poisonous plant, I wouldn’t let him. I tried to eat the plant.

 

September 23^rd

 

I was at some sort of auditorium with Laura Bush, GW Bush and Obama. There was something wrong, something sad was happening. I was trying to help Laura Bush. I was showing her my cat.

 

September 26^th

 

I was standing on a hill, watching the sea. There were a lot of people on the beach, having fun. A huge wave came out of nowhere. People went into the water and drowned. There was a car in the water. It was like a toy and got swept out to sea.

 

September 29^th

 

I was in an airplane with a strange man who had wild brown hair and a wild beard. We were trying to get over the international dateline, but we were having problems.

 

October 3^rd

 

There was a man, somewhere in the Middle East, amongst Arabs. He was not Arabic. He was walking through a very poor village. He got in a small plane to pilot it, it crashed in water. He lived, but had too many secrets. He had a pill, took it, and died. He was in very shallow water.

 

October 9^th

 

I was riding a bike along the South American coast, something was wrong, the atmosphere was all weird and a hole opened up in the sky.

 

October 12^th

 

I was in Africa. There was terrible flooding. I was trying to get to places on a bus. People kept trying to get into my backpack and steal things.

 

October 26^th

 

I was looking at a floor, it was ruined by water and age. There was American money all over the place, but it was moldy and in bad shape. People were trying to grab the money, but it fell apart in their hands.

 

October 27^th

 

I was in an old house, getting ready to move. Satan was changing bodies, he was in a little boy. My parents old buffet had stuff in it. Things were empty all over the Quad Cities, all the stores were closed. One of the parks had weeds and plant growth all over it, like nobody had taken care of it. People were gone.