Thai police seek protesters who urged change to monarchy

Panarat Thepgumpanat, Patpicha Tanakasempipat


BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thai authorities have issued arrest warrants for six activists who took part in a demonstration at which students issued a 10-point call for reform of the monarchy last week, police said on Wednesday as students called more protests.

FILE PHOTO: Anon Nampa, one of the leaders of recent anti-government protests, does a three-fingered salute after being granted a bail, outside the criminal court in Bangkok, Thailand August 8, 2020. REUTERS/Chalinee Thirasupa/File photo

The charges against the six were not over the demands made at the protest by thousands of people at Thammasat University on Aug. 10, but for breaching internal security and measures to stop the spread of the coronavirus as well as computer crimes.

The six include Panusaya Sithijirawattankul, 21, the student who read out a manifesto demanding reform of the monarchy. They also include Anon Nampa, who made the first public call for royal reform and has also been charged over earlier protests.

“They can hand themselves in today or whenever but shouldn’t bring a crowd,” Police Lieutenant General Amphol Buarabporn told Reuters.

“If they don’t hand themselves in, we can arrest them when they’re spotted.”

Student-led protests have taken place almost daily for more than a month to demand the departure of Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, a former junta leader, a new constitution and an end to the harassment of activists.

Some students have also called for reforms to curb the powers of King Maha Vajiralongkorn over the constitution, the armed forces and the palace fortune - touching a subject that had long been taboo in Thailand.

Insulting the monarchy can lead to a 15-year jail sentence, but Prayuth has said the king had requested no prosecutions under the lese majeste laws for now.

The Ministry of Digital Economy and Society will file a complaint against exiled academic Pavin Chachavalpongpun for creating a Facebook group deemed critical of the monarchy, ministry spokesman Putchapong Nodthaisong told Reuters.

The group, called Royalist Marketplace, has more than one million members.

“We have filed a request to Facebook to delete the entire group, but the platform hasn’t been cooperative,” Putchapong said. “So the ministry is now going to use the Computer Crime Act.”

The ministry has been ramping up efforts to curb online content it deems critical of the monarchy.

It has filed thousands requests this year to restrict or remove content deemed illegal, including perceived insults to the monarchy, on social media platform Facebook and Google’s video service YouTube.

“The ministry’s action is the crudest form of information censorship. It goes against the freedom of expression that we are all entitled to,” Pavin told Reuters.

“We protest against the ministry’s action and urge Facebook to ignore its call for the sake of democracy and the support for freedom of speech.

Two of the six activists wanted over the Aug. 10 rally are among three who have already been arrested once and bailed for the organisation of earlier protests.


Prayuth has said that young people have the right to protest, but that the rally at which the calls for royal reform was made “went too far”.

Prominent right-wing activists plan to meet on Wednesday in Bangkok to discuss way to counter the student-led protests.

High school students are also planning to rally at the Ministry Education on Wednesday following a string of pro-democracy demonstrations at schools across the country.

QUEBEC 

Canada's hardest-hit province for COVID-19 launches plan to combat second wave
FILE PHOTO: Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) medical personnel arrive at Villa Val des Arbres, a seniors' long-term care centre, to help amid the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Montreal, Quebec, Canada April 20, 2020. REUTERS/Christinne MuschiMONTREAL (Reuters) - The Canadian province of Quebec on Tuesday announced plans to tackle earlier mistakes in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, while preparing its health sector against a possible second wave of coronavirus in the autumn.

Quebec, once the country’s hardest-hit province for COVID-19, will boost public health sector hiring, reduce screening delays, and ensure staff like orderlies can no longer work at multiple long-term care facilities, a practice previously blamed for spreading the virus, Health Minister Christian Dubé told reporters.

Canada has flattened its curve of coronavirus cases since the spring, but some of the country’s 10 provinces have reported higher numbers of COVID-19 infections recently, as the economy restarts and restrictions on social gathering are relaxed.


Schools across Canada will be reopening in autumn.

Quebec accounts for about half of Canada’s 122,872 total coronavirus cases and more than half of its 9,032 deaths. But the once hard-hit province only reported 46 new cases and two deaths in the last 24 hours, according to government data.

“We have done an appraisal of this first wave so we can now establish the solution to be implemented in view of a potential second wave,” Dubé said.


There will no longer be movement of workers, other than nurses under certain conditions, between seniors’ homes, where most of the province’s 5,727 COVID-19 deaths took place.

Under the plan, Quebec will also invest C$106 million ($80.58 million) in public health to allow for the hiring of 1,000 workers to do contact tracing and infection control.

RUSSIA UNDER PUTIN 20 YEARS OF PROTEST

https://putin20.imrussia.org/assets/files/IMR_Putin-20-years-protests_eng.pdf
This first report examines the protest dynamics in Russia over the last 20 years. Under Vladimir Putin’s rule, protests in Russia have transformed from being driven by economic grievances to being motivated by political demands, while local issues have also remained important to participants. As public demonstrations have evolved, so too has the regime’s response. Since 2012, the Kremlin has introduced an array of measures to restrict participation in protests and clamp down more severely on unsanctioned rallies. Despite these efforts, as research has shown, the public appetite for protest is growing, with more people blaming Putin personally for the country's many problems.

Protest patterns reflect the political system in which they take place. By clearly describing the frequency, volume, and nature of protest, as well as regime responses to it, one might be able to gain a better understanding of the world’s most high-profile authoritarian regimes.

U.S. Oil Deal in Syria Angers the Kremlin

THE KURDS GET THEIR WAY

18 August 2020 Ksenia Svetlova

In early August, the U.S. firm signed a surprise deal with the Syrian Kurds to revamp oil fields in northeastern Syria. The deal clearly irritated Moscow, which doesn’t hide its intentions to gain control over oil production in the country and prop up Bashar Assad’s heavily oil-reliant regime. As the Syrian economy continues to deteriorate, U.S.-Russia tensions in the region are likely to grow.

Syria's oil-rich Deir el-Zour province is currently under control of the US-backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. Photo: Sgt. Arjenis Nunez (jcs.mil).


About two years following the U.S. announcement to withdraw from Syria, American oil companies based in the northeast of the country continue to operate and sign agreements with the Kurdish leadership of the Syrian Democratic Forces. Both Syria’s Bashar Assad and his Kremlin backers are not happy.

Russia’s gaining control over the northeastern regions of Syria would signify control over the entire country, weaken other players, and open up access to rich natural resources such as gas, oil, and phosphates. In addition, the Kremlin lusts after the important transport hub located in this area, which is used both to export Syrian gas to Europe and to connect trade routes between Iran, Iraqi Kurdistan, Turkey, and Syria. As of now, all of these advantages remain out of the Kremlin’s reach.

It is, perhaps, for these reasons that when, in early August, the U.S. company Delta Crescent Energy LLC signed a 25-year-long agreement with the Syrian Kurds to modernize the oil fields in northeastern Syria, the news provoked a particularly angry reaction from the Kremlin. According to media reports, one of the clauses in this deal prohibits the Syrian Democratic Forces from sharing profits from oil production with Assad’s regime (which remains under U.S. sanctions).

Russia’s permanent representative to the UN Security Council, Vassily Nebenzia, once again called on the U.S. to end its “occupation of the Syrian oil fields,” and accused it of using “barbaric methods [of oil production] that could lead to an ecological disaster in northeastern Syria and Iraq.”

Profits from oil production in northeastern Syria are currently estimated at about $40 million per month. The United States has no intention of handing this source of income over to the Assad regime. To protect the oil fields in the region, it is building special units that include the Kurds, the Arabs (cooperating with the Syrian Democratic Forces), and the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), whose purpose is to fend off the attacks of pro-Iranian militias operating in the oil-rich province of Deir al-Zour in eastern Syria.

Most of the Syrian oil is in fact concentrated in the northeastern parts of the country, which are controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces. In 2011, the Al-Omar field—Syria’s largest oil field—produced about 80,000 barrels of oil per day, with about 40,000 barrels added by the Al-Tanak field. The two largest fields in the Deir al-Zour and Al-Hasakah provinces rendered about 200,000 barrels of oil per day, or roughly half of all oil production in Syria.

Oil revenues are Syria’s main source of income. In 2008, oil production in the country peaked at about 406,000 barrels per day, but by 2018, as a result of the war, it had dropped to only 24,000 barrels per day (not accounting for the black oil market).

During the war, most of Syria’s oil resources came under Kurdish and American control. This turn of events had serious consequences for Iran, which failed to retain control over the Al-Qa’im border crossing—one of the major supply routes across the Middle East. As a result, transportation flows between Iran, Iraq, and Syria have been disrupted. In addition, Iran is now facing Russian competition for lucrative energy contracts with Damascus, and Russian oil companies have already been granted exploration rights in Syria’s internal waters. The Syrian Ministry of Energy estimates its offshore gas reserves at about 250 billion cubic meters. However, as Lebanese experience has recently shown, exploration rights do not necessarily translate into profits.

What are the possible scenarios regarding the fate of the oil fields in northeastern Syria?

Clearly, Russia will not give up its efforts to help Bashar Assad regain control over the northeast of the country—both to get access to the oil fields and to stabilize the Syrian economy. However, the U.S. presence in the region and its willingness to defend the oil fields together with the Kurds signal that the current U.S.-Russia friction in Syria will intensify. Last time Russia tried to take over oil fields in the northeast was in 2018—a failed attempt that resulted in the U.S. killing of several hundred Russian mercenaries. As the Syrian economy continues to deteriorate, Russia might make another try.

A Russian takeover of Syria’s northeastern regions (about a third of the country’s territory) is possible only in two cases: if the U.S. decides to end its presence and withdraw its troops from this area or if the interested parties—including the Syrian Democratic Forces, the central government in Damascus, and its Russian partners—reach an agreement as to how to divide the oil profits. With regard to the U.S. policy, much will depend on the outcome of the presidential election this November.

* This article was originally published on the website of the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya (Israel).

THE ULTIMATE BETA TESTER
INTERNET EXPLORER IS DEAD AS MICROSOFT KILLS OFF 25-YEAR-OLD BROWSER


The browser will no longer be supported by the company from 17 August, 2021

Adam Smith
@adamndsmith
10 hours ago

Microsoft has finally killed Internet Explorer

The browser will be finished on 17 August, 2021, the company said.

In a blog post, Microsoft explained that the Microsoft Teams web app will no longer support Internet Explorer 11 – the most recent and final iteration of the browser - from November 30, 2020.

The remaining Microsoft 365 apps and services will end support for the browser next year.

Replacing the browser is Microsoft Edge, the computer giant’s new browser which relies on Chromium open-source software, developed by Google for Google Chrome. That gives Edge more features than Internet Explorer.

There is an older version of Edge which does not use Chromium; that version will also be phased out on 9 March 2021.

Read more

With many websites and applications still using Internet Explorer, Microsoft is trying to avoid having two active browsers at once.

Instead, Microsoft Edge’s Internet Explorer Legacy mode means that users can stay on one browser – to “seamlessly experience the best of the modern web in one tab while accessing a business-critical legacy IE 11 app in another tab”, the company says.

The closure of Internet Explorer, and Microsoft’s non-Chromium browsers, has been on the cards for years. Internet Explorer 8, 9, and 10 were discontinued in 2016, while Microsoft Edge was introduced one year before, in 2015.

The move towards Chromium for Microsoft’s browser, compared to its previous proprietary browser, has larger ramifications for the future of the open internet. Those concerns have become more pressing in recent months because of, among other things, the fallout between the US government and TikTok.

Chromium is now the basis of Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Brave, Vivaldi, Avast Secure Browser, and Opera.

This means that Google has greater influence when it comes to what features are developed, practises accepted, and which usability concerns are deemed vital.

Nonetheless, the new Edge browser includes a range of features that differentiate it from others like Google Chrome.

This includes turning on tracking protection by default, which blocks both advertisements and almost all third-party tracking code.

Famous alien-hunting telescope slashed to pieces in mysterious midnight accident

By Brandon Specktor - Senior Writer 8/14/2020
Arecibo Observatory’s main collecting dish, which is among the world’s largest single-dish radio telescopes, was badly damaged when a cable snapped on Monday, Aug. 10. (Image credit: University of Central Florida)The Arecibo Observatory — a gargantuan telescope in Puerto Rico famous for scouring the cosmos for asteroids and alien life — went quiet this week, following a devastating accident that left the telescope's reflector dish in pieces.

On Monday (Aug. 10) at approximately 2:45 a.m. local time, a metal cable at the facility snapped, slashing through the radar dish and tearing open a 100-foot-long (30 meters) hole, according to a statement from the University of Central Florida, which operates the National Science Foundation-owned facility. The snapped cable also smashed through several other cables and platforms that support the dish, causing debris to rain down on the ground below and making it harder for technicians to access the site.

"We have a team of experts assessing the situation," Francisco Cordova, the director of the observatory, said in the statement. "Our focus is assuring the safety of our staff, protecting the facilities and equipment, and restoring the facility to full operations as soon as possible, so it can continue to assist scientists around the world."

Arecibo began operating in 1963 from the bottom of a natural sinkhole in Puerto Rico. At the time of its completion, Arecibo was the world's largest single-dish telescope, stretching 1,000 feet (305 m) in diameter. While you may not know the telescope by name, you might know it by sight, thanks to the 1997 movie "Contact." That film's protagonist is an astronomer working at Arecibo, who hopes to make first contact with extraterrestrial intelligence. (The observatory's gargantuan reflector dish also stole the show at the end of the 1995 James Bond flick, "GoldenEye.")

Though we're still waiting for that epic first DM from aliens, Arecibo has played a central role in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) since the 1970s. In 1974, astronomers used the radio telescope to transmit a binary code toward a dense cluster of stars 25,000 light-years away, hoping the message might get picked up by another technologically-advanced civilization. (It wasn't).

SETI experiments have remained a key part of the observatory's agenda — and so has planetary defense. Arecibo's Planetary Radar Project, part of NASA's Planetary Defense program, is responsible for detecting and studying near-Earth objects, such as asteroids, that could pose a threat to our planet.

That project, along with all other Arecibo projects, has been suspended due to the damage. But Arecibo has bounced back from damage before, including the fallout from earthquakes and Hurricane Maria, and this accident will hopefully be no exception. Still … it would be a lousy time for the aliens to finally return our call.

Originally published on Live Science.

What does the Pentagon's new UFO task force mean? Experts weigh in.

By Leonard David 8/18/2020

U.S. Navy videos of alleged UFO sightings were previously available but had not been officially declassified.(Image: © U.S. Navy)

If you're a fan of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) and alien visitation, this is manna from heaven.

Three videos showing U.S. Navy pilots encountering mysterious, fast-moving objects emerged in 2017 and 2018. The videos were made public due to reporting by The New York Times and efforts by To The Stars Academy, a research, development and media center for cutting-edge science and technology.

One of the UAP videos was taken in November 2004, and the other two were shot in January 2015. All were captured by Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet jets with pilots utilizing Forward-Looking Infrared (FLIR) technology, hardware that detects heat and creates images.

The three released UAP videos are called "Gimbal," "GoFast" and "FLIR1" (also known as the "Tic Tac" video).

Related: 7 things most often mistaken for UFOs

New task force

Last week, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) announced the creation of a task force to analyze and understand the "nature and origins" of UAPs. The Department of the Navy, under the cognizance of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security, will lead the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF).

The mission of the UAPTF "is to detect, analyze and catalog UAPs that could potentially pose a threat to U.S. national security," DoD officials said in a brief statement released on Friday (Aug. 14).

But before you set up greeting signs and start tossing out welcome mats for the incoming aliens, a little perspective and context are in order. I asked some UFO specialists what they thought of the newly announced task force.

Cautiously optimistic


"The formation of a task force on UFOs is another welcome development in the recent renewed interest and attention to these reports by government agencies and political actors," said Mark Rodeghier, president and scientific director of the J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies in Chicago.
Without further details, it's impossible to judge how well-positioned the task force will be to seriously investigate reports, Rodeghier added, "but I remain cautiously optimistic for now."

Rodeghier said he understands the need for secrecy. However, "I would hope that as much information as possible is released to the public so we can all be informed on this potentially world-shattering subject," he told Inside Outer Space.

Related: UFO watch: 8 times the government looked for flying saucers

Reasons for the DoD to care

"I have no doubt that military intelligence services around the world have always been interested in ‘UFO reports' — whether or not a real 'unexplainable' phenomenon is behind a few of them."

That's the view of Jim Oberg, a noted space journalist, historian and a debunker of a slew of UFO sightings. He's an admitted "lifelong space nut" and professional rocket scientist whose career includes 20-plus years at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

There are many non-extraterrestrial reasons why the Defense Department is interested in UFO reports, Oberg said.
First, to identify and ameliorate instrumental "funnies" in new sensory technology, to make sure we don't accidentally misinterpret or overlook future readings.
Second, to determine how detection "funnies" might be deliberately induced by hackers and real enemies, and what we can do to frustrate such efforts.
Third, to deliberately induce anomalous targets into the range of our own new detection/tracking technology, as a way of testing it.
Fourth, to test enemy detection systems with deliberate pokes to identify exploitable weaknesses.
Fifth, to assess which reports from within or near adversary nations are indicators of their classified military testing and operations that we need insight into.
Sixth, to determine which detections (at home or abroad) accidentally reveal highly classified operations of our own that might be revealed to enemy nations that are also looking for such indications, so as to improve our masking, misdirection and stealth.
Seventh, in so far as observations of UFO reports from adversary nations are indicators of leaked observable clues to military capabilities, to do nothing to provoke such regimes from curtailing their own news media coverage of the "pseudo-UFOs." Never announce how such innocent (to them) news items can be exploited.
Eighth, in so far as our own domestic UFO reports may be authentic indicators of classified military activities, to purposefully create camouflage and masking reports to distract, confuse or lull foreign observers and analysts.

"Perceptive observers of the UFO scene over the last two-thirds of a century have noted a telltale feature of the evolution of reports," Oberg said. "Their nature has been changing, keeping uncanny pace with the progress in human observation and detection technologies."

Oberg added that, year by year, the "old UFOs" fade away just before the advent of new technologies that would have unambiguously documented them come online, to be replaced by a new flavor of "anomalies" that precisely match the limits of vision of new technologies.

Related: 5 bold claims of alien life

Not open-ended and ongoing

"I don't think this [task force] is as significant as some people are suggesting," said writer and UFO skeptic Robert Sheaffer. "It's just a response to all the publicity generated by To The Stars leaking the three Navy infrared videos, which the Pentagon later released."

In the military, a task force is something that is put together to deal with a specific situation or problem, Sheaffer said. It is expected to produce a report and recommendations concerning that issue and is disbanded when such work is complete.

"So, this is not something open-ended and ongoing, like Project Blue Book. It does not suggest an ongoing government interest in unidentified objects," Sheaffer observed. Conducted by the United States Air Force, Project Blue Book appraised the UFO situation starting in 1952 and officially closed down in 1970.
Intruding into their sandbox

Military operations areas (MOAs) are clearly designated on aviation maps, and civilian aircraft are generally supposed to avoid them, Sheaffer pointed out.

Most of the recent Pentagon comments about "unidentified objects" mention "range incursions," Sheaffer added — i.e., unknown objects that seem to be entering one of these MOAs.

"So, it seems that the military is worried about unidentified objects that might be intruding into their sandbox. If unidentified objects turn up elsewhere, the military doesn't care," Sheaffer said. "The 'Tic Tac' and 'Gimbal' videos appear to show distant jets, which are probably well outside the MOA, quite far away. The military is investigating out of an abundance of caution, and a sensitivity to criticism."

Temper expectations

Sarah Scoles is author of the recently published book, "They Are Already Here: UFO Culture and Why We See Saucers" (Pegasus Books, 2020).

"First, I'd say that the establishment of a task force to investigate and understand UAP makes sense and could, if done systematically and scientifically and transparently, provide data useful in interpreting pilots' sightings," Scoles told Inside Outer Space.

And it also makes sense, she said, that the Department of Defense — whose job it is, of course, to protect the U.S. from threats — is undertaking this endeavor.

"However, I think those expecting big, exotic conclusions from the task force would do well to temper their expectations," Scoles said. "If you look at what the official announcement actually says, it's not quite as extraordinary as it might seem at first glance."

Boundary-crossing objects

Last week's three-paragraph DoD release, Scoles added, uses language similar to that of other, previous statements about UAPs. For example, a September 2019 statement from Joseph Gradisher, spokesman for the deputy chief of naval operations for information warfare defining "UAP," reads, "The 'Unidentified Aerial Phenomena' terminology is used because it provides the basic descriptor for the sightings/observations of unauthorized/unidentified aircraft/objects entering/operating in the airspace of various military-controlled training ranges."

Scoles said that "UAP" technically could include aircraft or objects that are simply unauthorized, as well as aircraft or objects that cannot be immediately identified. "That means that, if a pilot sees something they cannot explain, but someone else explains it a few hours later, it could still fall under the definition of UAP."

The task force press release uses very similar wording to talk about DoD interest.

"It very specifically states that the DoD is concerned with boundary-crossing by objects that are — right when an observer sees them — unidentified," Scoles said. "It says nothing so specific about objects that remain forever unidentified and mysterious. It certainly says nothing nor implies anything about alien aircraft."

But, like all things UFO, Scoles concluded, "vague and somewhat weaselly wording leaves enough room for people to interpret this latest development very differently."

Leonard David is author of "Moon Rush: The New Space Race" (National Geographic, 2019). A longtime writer for Space.com, David has been reporting on the space industry for more than five decades. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. This version of the story published on Space.com.

2 COMMENTS
jaaronsan 18 August 2020 16:58
Please check out YouTuber Anton Petrov's What Da Math -"Here Is What We Know About These Pentagon UFO Videos". In it he has excellent explanations for the well used videos showing UFO's.
Remember, the U stands for Unidentified! It does not automatically mean that aliens have crossed the vast distances to give us a thrill here on Earth.
...Read MoreREPLY


Valentine Michael Smith 18 August 2020 19:12
"So, it seems that the military is worried about unidentified objects that might be intruding into their sandbox. If unidentified objects turn up elsewhere, the military doesn't care," Sheaffer said.
Duh. What we expect from a human organization (xeno, yo), and in particular from those who have a penis.

What would happen to Earth if humans went extinct?

Nature always finds a way.

This city is going green.
(Image: © Shutterstock

By Emma Bryce - Live Science Contributor 15/8/2020

Deep within Guatemala's rainforest sits one of the most famous remnants of the Maya civilization: a roughly 2,000-year-old citadel turned to ruins called Tikal. When Alan Weisman hiked through the surrounding region, he discovered something fascinating along the way: "You're walking through this really dense rainforest, and you're walking over hills," said Weisman, author and journalist. "And the archaeologists are explaining to you that what you're really walking over are pyramids and cities that haven't been excavated."

In other words, we know about sites like Tikal because humans have gone to great efforts to dig up and restore their remains. Meanwhile, countless other ruins remain hidden, sealed beneath forest and earth. "It's just amazingly thrilling how fast nature can bury us," Weisman told Live Science.

This scene from the rainforest allows us a glimpse of what our planet could look like, if humans simply stopped existing. Lately, that idea has been especially pertinent, as the global COVID-19 pandemic has kept people inside, and emboldened animals to return to our quieter urban environments — giving us a sense of what life might look like if we retreated further into the background. Weisman, who wrote "The World Without Us" (Thomas Dunne Books, 2007), spent several years interviewing experts and systematically investigating this question: What would happen to our planet — to our cities, to our industries, to nature — if humans disappeared?

Related: What could drive humans to extinction?

A different kind of skyline

There are several developing theories for what could drive humanity to extinction, and it is unlikely that we'd all simply disappear in an instant. Nevertheless, imagining our sudden and complete eradication from the planet — perhaps by an as-yet undiscovered, human-specific virus, Weisman said — is the most powerful way to explore what could occur if humans left the planet.

In Weisman's own research, this question took him firstly into cities, where some of the most dramatic and immediate changes would unfold, thanks to a sudden lack of human maintenance. Without people to run pumps that divert rainfall and rising groundwater, the subways of huge sprawling cities like London and New York would flood within hours of our disappearance, Weisman learned during his research. "[Engineers] have told me that it would take about 36 hours for the subways to flood completely," he said.


Lacking human oversight, glitches in oil refineries and nuclear plants would go unchecked, likely resulting in massive fires, nuclear explosions and devastating nuclear fallout. "There's going to be a gush of radiation if suddenly we disappear. And that's a real wildcard, it's almost impossible to predict what that's going to do," Weisman said. Similarly, in the wake of our demise, we'd leave behind mountains of waste — much of it plastic, which would likely persist for thousands of years, with effects on wildlife that we are only now beginning to understand.

Meanwhile, petroleum waste that spills or seeps into the ground at industrial sites and factories would be broken down and reused by microbes and plants, which would probably take decades. Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) — human-made chemicals such as PCBs that currently can’t be broken down in nature — would take much longer, Weisman says. "Some of these POPs may be around until the end of time on Earth. In time, however, they will be safely buried away." The combined rapid and slow release of all the polluting waste we leave behind would undoubtedly have damaging effects on surrounding habitats and wildlife. (But that doesn't necessarily mean total destruction: We need only look at the rebounding of wildlife at the site of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster to understand that nature can be resilient on short timescales, even under such extremes.)

While that polluting legacy unfolds, water running underground in cities would corrode the metal structures that hold up the streets above subterranean transport systems, and whole avenues would collapse, transformed suddenly into mid-city rivers, Weisman explained. Over successive winters, without humans to do regular de-icing, pavements would crack, providing new niches for seeds to take root — carried on the wind and excreted by overflying birds — and develop into trees that continue the gradual dismemberment of pavements and roads. The same would happen to bridges, without humans there to weed out rogue saplings taking root between the steel rivets: coupled with general degradation, this could dismantle these structures within a few hundred years.

Related: Are trees vegetarian?

With all this fresh new habitat opening up, nature would stoically march in, pasting over the formerly concrete jungle with grasslands, shrubbery and dense stands of trees. That would cause the accumulation of dry organic material, such as leaves and twigs — providing the perfect fodder for fires sparked by lightning, which would go roaring through the maze of buildings and streets, potentially razing whole parts of cities to the ground. "Fires are going to create a lot of charred material that will fall to the street, which is going to be terrific for nurturing biological life. The streets will convert to little grasslands and forests growing up within 500 years," as Weisman tells it.

Over hundreds of years, as buildings are subjected to sustained damage from erosion and fire, they would degrade, he said. The first to topple would be modern glass and metal structures that would shatter and rust. But tellingly, "buildings that will last the longest are the ones made out of the Earth itself" — like stone structures, Wesiman added. Even those would become a softened version of their former selves: eventually the defined, iconic skylines we know so well today would be no more.


Where the wild things are

Looking beyond the city limits to the great swathes of farmland that currently cover half of Earth's habitable land, there would be a swift recovery of insects, as the application of pesticides and other chemicals ceases with humanity's demise. "That's going to start a real cascade of events," Weisman said. "Once the insects are doing better, then the plants are going to do much better, then the birds." Surrounding habitats — plant communities, soils, waterways and oceans — will recover, free from the far-reaching influence that chemicals have on ecosystems today. That, in turn, will encourage more wildlife to move in and take up residence.

This transition will precipitate an increase in biodiversity on a global scale. Researchers who have modeled the diversity of megafauna — the likes of lions, elephants, tigers, rhinoceroses and bears — across the planet have revealed that the world used to be exceptionally rich in these species. But that changed when humans began to spread across the planet, hunting these animals and invading their habitats. As humans migrated out of Africa and Eurasia to other parts of the globe, "we see a consistent increase in extinction rates following the arrival of humans," explained Søren Faurby, a lecturer in macroecology and macroevolution at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. "In Australia, there is an increase in extinction near 60,000 years ago. In North and South America, an increase is seen [about] 15,000 years ago, and in Madagascar and the Caribbean islands a drastic increase is seen a few thousand years ago."


Related: Why haven't all primates evolved into humans?


Without humans spreading to the far corners of the Earth and driving down megafauna populations, the entire planet could have been as diverse in these species as the famed Serengeti in East Africa is today, Faurby told Live Science. "Effectively, there used to be large animals everywhere, and there would be large animals everywhere around the globe without human involvement." His research has revealed that without humanity's heavy species impact, the central United States, and parts of South America, would be the most megafauna-rich places on Earth today. Animals like elephants would be a common sight in the Mediterranean Islands. There would even be rhinoceroses across most of northern Europe.


Without humans, could Earth reclaim that diversity? Even if we did suddenly disappear from the picture, it would still take millions of years for the planet to recover from those past extinctions, Faurby and his colleagues have calculated. They investigated what it would take to return to a baseline level of species richness and a distribution of large-bodied animals across the planet that mirrors what we had before modern humans fanned out across the globe. They estimate it would take "somewhere between 3 and up to 7 million or more years to get back to the pre-extinction baseline," explained Jens-Christian Svenning, a professor of macroecology and biogeography at Aarhus University in Denmark, and a colleague of Faurby's who has worked on the same body of research.

Basically, "if there weren't human impacts, the whole world would be one big wilderness," Svenning told Live Science.
Nature finds a way


The planet might eventually become lusher and more diverse — but we can't dismiss the effects of climate change, arguably humanity's most indelible impact on the planet. Weisman notes the inherent uncertainty in making useful predictions about what will unfold. For instance, if there are explosions at industrial plants, or oil or gas wellheads that continue to burn long after we're all gone, huge amounts of heat-trapping carbon dioxide would continue to be discharged into the atmosphere, he explained.


Carbon dioxide doesn't stay suspended in the atmosphere forever: Our oceans play an essential role in absorbing vast amounts of carbon dioxide from the air. But there are still limits to how much of it the ocean can take up without its own waters acidifying to unhealthy levels — potentially to the detriment of thousands of marine species. There's also a cap on how much the sea can physically absorb, meaning it isn't simply the bottomless carbon sink it's often thought to be.


Related: What are the ingredients of life?


As it stands, current levels of CO2 in our atmosphere will already take thousands of years to be fully removed from the atmosphere. (Based on the research he did for his own book, Weisman found it could take upwards of 100,000 years.) And if the sea reaches its cap and more greenhouse gases stay suspended up in the atmosphere, the resulting continuous warming will lead to further melting of the polar ice caps, and the release of even more greenhouse gases from softening permafrost. This will cycle into an ongoing, climate-altering, feedback loop. All this means that we can confidently assume that climate change's impacts will last long after we leave.


But to this, Weisman offered a word of hope. During the Jurassic period, he said, there was five times as much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as there is today, which led to a dramatic increase in ocean acidity. Evidently, however, there must have been marine species that coped with these extremes, and went on to evolve and be part of the planet we know today. Which is to say that ultimately, despite climate extremes and the immense losses they can incur, "nature always finds a way," Weisman said.

There might one day be a world without humans, but that won't stop the rest of the planet from soldiering on.

RELATED MYSTERIES


—Why does Earth have an atmosphere?

—Why does freshly cut grass smell so nice?

—Why are some plants purple?
Moving forward

Is there any point in us pondering what our planet will look like, without us here? Well, on the one hand, we might simply take comfort in the knowledge that, free of people, our planet would ultimately be fine, as Weisman said. In fact, it would ultimately thrive.

But taking a glimpse at this imagined future might also prompt us to be more mindful of our actions, in a bid to preserve our own spot on the planet, too. Weisman sees an inherent value to visualizing a world without us, which is why he decided to write his book in the first place. He explained that when he started out, he was conscious that many people avoid environmental stories because it makes them feel bad about the damage that humans are doing to the planet, and how in turn, that's hastening our own demise. "I found out a way to get rid of the fear factor was just to kill [humans] off first," he said, with humor.

With that distraction gone, he found, he could focus people's attention on the planet, and the real point he wanted to make: "I wanted people to see how beautifully nature could come back, and even heal a lot of the scars that we've placed on this planet. Then to think, is there possibly a way to add ourselves back into this picture of a restored Earth?"

Originally published on Live Science.

This palm-sized elephant relative was just sighted for the first time in 50 years

It's related to an elephant, has a long nose, a fur tuft on its tail and big, spectacled eyes.

This is the first-ever photo of a live Somali Sengi, a tiny mammal that was recently rediscovered in Africa.
(Image: © Photo by Steven Heritage, Duke University Lemur Center)

By Yasemin Saplakoglu - Staff Writer 8/18/2020


A teensy animal, with a long nose, a fur tuft on its tail and big, spectacled eyes hadn't been seen in nearly half a century. That is, until a whiff of peanut butter lured the wee mouse-sized mammal out from the rocky, rugged lands of Djibouti in the Horn of Africa.

The recently "rediscovered" mammal, called a Somali sengi (Elephantulus revoilii), is a species of elephant shrew. While elephant shrews are related to elephants, aardvarks and manatees — they're not elephants and they're not shrews.

The Somali sengi has not been seen since 1973. Everything known about the obscure mini mammal came from 39 individual specimens that were collected decades and centuries ago and that are now stored in museums, according to a statement from Global Wildlife Conservation.

In 2019, a group of scientists from the U.S. and Djibouti set out to look for the species after receiving tips that the creatures could be hiding in Djibouti, although the animals had only previously been found in Somalia, according to the statement.

"For us living in Djibouti, and by extension the Horn of Africa, we never considered the sengis to be 'lost,' but this new research does bring the Somali sengi back into the scientific community, which we value," co-author Houssein Rayaleh, a research ecologist and conservationist with the nonprofit organization Association Djibouti Nature, said in the statement. Rayaleh had seen the creature before — and locals had too, correctly identifying it in photos during interviews with the scientists, according to the statement.



This Somali Sengi was spotted way up north, greatly expanding the range of the species. (Image credit: Photo by Houssein Rayaleh, Association Djibouti Nature)

Using information from interviews, analysis of dung piles at candidate sites and assessments of terrain and sheltering potential, the researchers set up 1,259 traps at 12 different locations across the rocky terrain. They lured the animals to the traps by setting out peanut butter, oatmeal and yeast. They caught one of the elusive mammals in the first trap they set.

In total, they found 12 Somali sengis, which they could distinguish from a similar species by the tuft of fur on their tails, according to the statement. "For Djibouti, this is an important story that highlights the great biodiversity of the country and the region and shows that there are opportunities for new science and research here," Rayaleh said.

They found all of sengis by rocky outcrops and relatively sparse vegetation, areas that are typically inhospitable to human activities, meaning the tiny creatures are not likely to experience habitat destruction, according to the statement. Because they found comparable numbers to other sengi taxa and because they now know that the creatures live beyond just Somalia, the authors recommended that the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species change the Somali sengi's current "data deficient" status to "least concern," according to the statement.

"Usually when we rediscover lost species, we find just one or two individuals and have to act quickly to try to prevent their imminent extinction," Robin Moore, one of GWC's Search for Lost Species program leads, said in the statement. "This is a welcome and wonderful rediscovery during a time of turmoil for our planet, and one that fills us with renewed hope for the remaining small mammal species on our most wanted list." (GWC crafted a list of 25 of the most wanted "lost" species.)

The findings were published today (Aug. 18) in the journal PeerJ.

Originally published on Live Science.

NASA INVESTIGATING EARTH'S MYSTERIOUSLY WEAKENING MAGNETIC FIELD AMID CONCERNS OVER SATELLITES AND SPACECRAFT

SpaceX Starlink satellites are pictured in the sky seen from Svendborg on South Funen, Denmark 21 April, 2020( Reuters )

'Dent' or anomaly is small but getting bigger, scientists warn

Andrew Griffin
8/18/2020

Nasa is monitoring a "small but evolving dent" in the Earth's magnetic field that could cause major problems for satellites and spacecraft.

The Earth's magnetic field wraps around our planet, bouncing away charged particles that come to us from the Sun. But there is an unexplained gap in it, where the magnetic field is weak, hovering over South America and the southern Atlantic Ocean.

What's more, the region is spreading and continuing to weaken, leading to fears that the problem could get worse.

Researchers refer to the gap as the "South Atlantic Anomaly, or SAA", and fear that it could cause significant problems for equipment that is used on Earth. Within the anomaly, particles are able to get closer to the surface than usual, meaning that satellites and computers that pass through it could be hit by problems.
That has led Nasa to devote resources to tracking the dent, in an attempt to better understand where it is and what could be causing it.

At the moment, there is no obvious consequence of the SAA for anyone living on Earth. But detailed observations have suggested that it is getting more extreme and that it is expanding to the west, as well as splitting so that there are two points at which the anomaly is least strong.

The Earth's magnetic field – and the changes it undergoes – are happening beneath our feet. Underneath the Earth, in its outer core, metals are churning that create electric currents that then go on to produce the important magnetic field.

Over time, those conditions within the core change, and so does the magnetic field. It is those changes that lead to phenomena such as the SAA.

But the greatest concern about the magnetic fields for the time being is it effects on equipment away from Earth's surface. Ordinarily, the magnetic field keeps the satellites that are around the Earth safe – including inhabited ones like the International Space Station – but the changes mean they lack the protection as they fly through the area covered by the SAA.

At the moment, operators are forced to shut down specific components as they pass through the area. That is one of the reasons that tracking the SAA is important to Nasa, since it needs to know exactly where it is so that those changes can be made most accurately.

With better data in the future, Nasa hopes to be able to more accurately predict how the SAA could be changing and therefore what danger it might pose to satellites and the instruments on them. Future missions will better inform those models, Nasa says, and can also be used to better understand the processes in the Earth that are leading to the changes.