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Curiosity rover makes ‘arguably the most exciting organic detection to date on Mars’
[url=https://bangeeexchange.com]bungee exchange[/url]The NASA Curiosity rover has detected the largest organic molecules found to date on Mars, opening a window into the red planet’s past. The newly detected compounds suggest complex organic chemistry may have occurred in the planet’s past — the kind necessary for the origin of life, according to new research.
The organic compounds, which include decane, undecane and dodecane, came to light after the rover analyzed a pulverized 3.7 billion-year-old rock sample using its onboard mini lab called SAM, short for Sample Analysis at Mars.
Scientists believe the long chains of molecules could be fragments of fatty acids, which are organic molecules that are chemical building blocks of life on Earth and help form cell membranes. But such compounds can also be formed without the presence of life, created when water interacts with minerals in hydrothermal vents.
The molecules cannot currently be confirmed as evidence of past life on the red planet, but they add to the growing list of compounds that robotic explorers have discovered on Mars in recent years. A study detailing the findings was published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The detection of the fragile molecules also encourages astrobiologists that if any biosignatures, or past signs of life, ever existed on Mars, they are likely still detectable despite the harsh solar radiation that has bombarded the planet for tens of millions of years.“Ancient life, if it happened on Mars, it would have released some complex and fragile molecules,” said lead study author Dr. Caroline Freissinet, research scientist at the French National Centre for Scientific Research in the Laboratory for Atmospheres, Observations, and Space in Guyancourt, France. “And because now we know that Mars can preserve these complex and fragile molecules, it means that we could detect ancient life on Mars.”
Everyone is talking about Greenland. Here’s what it’s like to visit
[url=https://cow-swop.org]cow swap[/url]A few months ago, Greenland was quietly getting on with winter, as the territory slid deeper into the darkness that envelops the world’s northerly reaches at this time of year.
But President Donald Trump’s musings about America taking over this island of 56,000 largely Inuit people, halfway between New York and Moscow, has seen Greenland shaken from its frozen Arctic anonymity.
Denmark, for whom Greenland is an autonomous crown dependency, has protested it’s not for sale. Officials in Greenland, meanwhile, have sought to assert the territory’s right to independence.
The conversation continues to intensify. A contentious March 28 visit to a US military installation by Usha Vance, the second lady, accompanied by her husband, Vice President JD Vance, was the latest in a series of events to focus attention on Trump’s ambitions for Greenland.
The visit was originally planned as a cultural exchange, but was shortened following complaints from Greenland Prime Minister Mute B. Egede.
Had the Vances prolonged their scheduled brief visit, they would’ve discovered a ruggedly pristine wildernesses steeped in rich Indigenous culture.
An inhospitable icecap several miles deep covers 80% of Greenland, forcing the Inuit to dwell along the shorelines in brightly painted communities. Here, they spend brutally cold winters hunting seals on ice under the northern lights in near perpetual darkness. Although these days, they can also rely on community stores.
The problem for travelers over the years has been getting to Greenland via time-consuming indirect flights. That’s changing. Late in 2024, the capital Nuuk opened a long-delayed international airport. From June 2025, United Airlines will be operating a twice-weekly direct service from Newark to Nuuk.
Two further international airports are due to open by 2026 — Qaqortoq in South Greenland and more significantly in Ilulissat, the island’s only real tourism hotspot.
Iceberg flotillas
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Located on the west coast, Ilulissat is a pretty halibut- and prawn-fishing port on a dark rock bay where visitors can sit in pubs sipping craft beers chill-filtered by 100,000-year-old glacial ice.It’s a place to be awed by the UNESCO World Heritage Icefjord where Manhattan skyscraper-sized icebergs disgorge from Greenland’s icecap to float like ghostly ships in the surrounding Disko Bay.
Small boats take visitors out to sail closely among the bay’s magnificent iceberg flotilla. But not too close.
“I was on my boat once and saw one of these icebergs split in two. The pieces fell backwards into the sea and created a giant wave,” said David Karlsen, skipper of the pleasure-boat, Katak. “…I didn’t hang around.”
Disko Bay’s other giants are whales. From June to September breaching humpback whales join the likes of fin and minke whales feasting on plankton. Whale-watching is excellent all around Greenland’s craggy coastline.
Whales are eaten here. Visitors shouldn’t be surprised to encounter the traditional Greenlandic delicacy of mattak — whale-skin and blubber that when tasted is akin to chewing on rubber. Inuit communities have quotas to not only hunt the likes of narwhals but also polar bears, musk-ox and caribou — which can also appear on menus.
‘For the public to enjoy’
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The museum’s history starts in 1998, when Sheikh Faisal Bin Qassim Al Thani opened a building to the public on his farm some 20 kilometers (12 miles) north of Qatari capital Doha.A distant relative of Qatar’s ruling family, founder and chairman of Al Faisal Holdings (one of Qatar’s biggest conglomerates), and a billionaire whose business acumen had him recognized as one of the most influential Arab businessmen in the world, Sheikh Faisal had already amassed a substantial private collection of historically important regional artifacts, plus a few quirky pieces of interest, allowing visitors an intimate look into Qatari life and history.
In an interview with Qatari channel Alrayyan TV in 2018, Sheikh Faisal said that the museum started as a hobby.
“I used to collect items whenever I got the chance,” he said. “As my business grew, so did my collections, and soon I was able to collect more and more items until I decided to put them in the museum for the public to enjoy.”
His private cabinet of curiosities has since evolved into a 130-acre complex. Through the fort-like entrance gate lies an oryx reserve, an impressive riding school and stables, a duck pond and a mosque built with a quirky leaning minaret. There’s now even a five-star Marriott hotel, two cafes and the Zoufa restaurant serving modern Lebanese cuisine.
Of course, there’s also the super-sized museum, with a recently-opened car collection housing everything from vintage Rolls-Royces to wartime Jeeps and colorful Buicks. Outside you’ll find peacocks roaming the grounds, and signs warning drivers to be aware of horses and ostriches.
Visitors to the FBQ museum are free to explore the grounds and can even enter the stables to pat the horses.
Remote and rugged
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A more organic way to see this coast is by the multi-day coastal ferry, the long-running Sarfaq Ittuk, of the Arctic Umiaq Line. It’s less corporate than the modern cruise ships and travelers get to meet Inuit commuters. Greenland is pricey. Lettuce in a local community store might cost $10, but this coastal voyage won’t break the bank.The hot ticket currently for exploring Greenland’s wilder side is to head to the east coast facing Europe. It’s raw and sees far fewer tourists, with a harshly dramatic coastline of fjords where icebergs drift south. There are no roads and the scattered population of just over 3,500 people inhabit a coastline roughly the distance from New York to Denver.
A growing number of small expedition vessels probe this remote coast for its frosted scenery and wildlife. Increasingly popular is the world’s largest fjord system of Scoresby Sound with its sharp-fanged mountains and hanging valleys choked by glaciers. Sailing north is the prosaically named North East Greenland National Park, fabulous for spotting wildlife on the tundra.
Travelers come to see polar bears which, during the northern hemisphere’s summer, move closer to land as the sea-ice melts. There are also musk oxen, great flocks of migrating geese, Arctic foxes and walrus.
Some of these animals are fair game for the local communities. Perhaps Greenland’s most interesting cultural visit is to a village that will take longer to learn how to pronounce than actually walk around — Ittoqqortoormiit. Five hundred miles north of its neighboring settlement, the 345 locals are frozen in for nine months of the year. Ships sail in to meet them during the brief summer melt between June and August.Locked in by ice, they’ve retained traditional habits.
“My parents hunt nearly all their food,” said Mette Barselajsen, who owns Ittoqqortoormiit’s only guesthouse. “They prefer the old ways, burying it in the ground to ferment and preserve it. Just one muskox can bring 440 pounds of meat.”
Siham Haleem, a private tour guide for 15 years, says that Doha now has many world-class, modern museums — the National Museum of Qatar being a firm personal favorite. And yet he says that visiting Sheikh Faisal’s museum should still be on everybody’s to-do list.
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“For those eager to learn about Qatar’s — and the region’s — heritage and beyond, the museum is an ideal destination,” he says. “Personally, I’m captivated by the car collection, the fossils, and especially the Syrian house, painstakingly transported and reassembled piece by piece.”Stephanie Y. Martinez, a Mexican-American student mobility manager at Texas A&M University in Qatar likes the museum so much she includes it on all of her itineraries for students visiting from the main campus in Texas.
“The guided tours are very detailed, and the collections found at the museum have great variety and so many stories to unfold,” she says. “Truly, the museum has something to pique everyone’s interest. My favorites are the cars and the furniture exhibits showcasing wood and mother-of-pearl details. Definitely one of my favorite museums in Qatar, every time I visit I learn something new.”
Raynor Abreu, from India, also had praise for the unusual and immense collection.
“Each item has its own story, making the visit even more interesting,” he says. “It’s also impressive to know that Sheikh Faisal started collecting these unique pieces when he was very young. Knowing this makes the museum even more special, as it reflects his lifelong passion for history and culture.”
It takes time and dedication to truly examine the many collections within the museum — especially since most of them are simply on display without explanation.
Eclectic it may be, but it’s hard to fault the determination of Sheikh Faisal, who has brought together items that tell the story of Qatar and the Middle East.
Sarah Bayley, from the UK, says she visited the museum recently with her family, including 16 and 19-year-old teenagers, and was won over by its sheer eccentricity.
“Amazing. Loved it. It is a crazy place.”
Greenland’s leader says US officials’ visit is ‘highly aggressive.’ Trump says it’s ‘friendliness, not provocation’
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Greenland’s prime minister said a planned visit to the island by US officials, including second lady Usha Vance, is “highly aggressive,” plunging relations to a new low after President Donald Trump vowed to annex the autonomous Danish territory.But despite the backlash, Trump has insisted the visit is about “friendliness, not provocation” – and claims the US team was “invited.”
Vance, the wife of US Vice President JD Vance, will travel to Greenland this week to watch the island’s national dogsled race and “celebrate Greenlandic culture and unity,” according to a statement from the White House. National security adviser Mike Waltz is also expected to visit the territory this week, according to a source familiar with the trip.
Greenland Prime Minister Mute B. Egede called the US delegation’s trip to the island “highly aggressive” in an interview with Greenlandic newspaper Sermitsiaq on Sunday, and raised particular objection to Waltz’s visit.
“What is the national security adviser doing in Greenland? The only purpose is to demonstrate power over us,” Egede said. “His mere presence in Greenland will no doubt fuel American belief in Trump’s mission — and the pressure will increase.”
Trump claimed on Monday that people in Greenland have responded warmly to the US’s recent interest in the territory. “They’re calling us. We’re not calling them. And we were invited over there,” he said.
“We’re dealing with a lot of people from Greenland that would like to see something happen with respect to them being properly protected and properly taken care of,” Trump told reporters following a meeting with his Cabinet.
“I think Greenland is going to be something that maybe is in our future,” Trump added.
The president said he believes Secretary of State Marco Rubio would be traveling to Greenland too.
Trump’s idea to annex Greenland has thrown an international spotlight on the territory, which holds vast stores of rare earth minerals critical for high-tech industries, and has raised questions about the island’s future security as the US, Russia and China vie for influence in the Arctic. Trump has repeatedly expressed interest in the US taking the island by force or economic coercion, even as Denmark and Greenland have firmly rejected the idea.
Some scientists believe that fatty acids such as decanoic acid and dodecanoic acid formed the membranes of the first simple cell-like structures on Earth, Pearce said.
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“(This is) the closest we’ve come to detecting a major biomolecule-related signal — something potentially tied to membrane structure, which is a key feature of life,” Pearce said via email. “Organics on their own are intriguing, but not evidence of life. In contrast, biomolecules like membranes, amino acids, nucleotides, and sugars are central components of biology as we know it, and finding any of them would be groundbreaking (we haven’t yet).”
Returning samples from Mars
The European Space Agency plans to launch its ExoMars Rosalind Franklin rover to the red planet in 2028, and the robotic explorer will carry a complementary instrument to SAM. The rover LS6 will have the capability to drill up to 6.5 feet (2 meters) beneath the Martian surface — and perhaps find larger and better-preserved organic molecules.While Curiosity’s samples can’t be studied on Earth, the Perseverance rover has actively been collecting samples from Jezero Crater, the site of an ancient lake and river delta, all with the intention of returning them to Earth in the 2030s via a complicated symphony of missions called Mars Sample Return.
Both rovers have detected a variety of organic carbon molecules in different regions on Mars, suggesting that organic carbon is common on the red planet, Williams said.While Curiosity and Perseverance have proven they can detect organic matter, their instruments can’t definitively determine all the answers about their origins, said Dr. Ashley Murphy, postdoctoral research scientist at the Planetary Science Institute. Murphy, who along with Williams previously studied organics identified by Perseverance, was not involved in the new research.
“To appropriately probe the biosignature question, these samples require high-resolution and high-sensitivity analyses in terrestrial labs, which can be facilitated by the return of these samples to Earth,” Murphy said.
Wellness perfectionism doesn’t exist. Focus on these sustainable habits
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ou’re scrolling through your phone when you stumble upon the next viral trend: an influencer claiming that following their incredibly strict diet will help you achieve their jaw-dropping physique. Or you see a fresh-faced runner swearing you can run a marathon without any training — just like they did.Whether or not you’re actively searching for wellness advice, it’s nearly impossible to avoid hearing about the latest health craze making bold guarantees of transformation.
As you wonder if these claims hold any truth, you might also question why people often feel motivated to dive into intense challenges — when seemingly simple habits, such as getting enough sleep or eating more vegetables, often feel much harder to tackle.
Many of us are drawn to these extreme challenges because we’re craving radical change, hoping it will help prove something to ourselves or to others, experts say.
“We always see these kinds of challenges as opportunities for growth, particularly if we’re in a phase of our life where we’ve let ourselves go,” said Dr. Thomas Curran, associate professor of psychology at the London School of Economics and Political Science and an expert on perfectionism. “Maybe we feel that we need to be healthier, or we just had a breakup or (major) life event.”
With social media amplifying these movements, it’s easy to see why people are increasingly drawn to the idea of achieving the “perfect” version of themselves. But before jumping into a new wellness challenge, it’s important to take a moment, reflect on your goals, and consider where you’re starting from.New design revealed for Airbus hydrogen plane
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In travel news this week: Bhutan’s spectacular new airport, the world’s first 3D-printed train station has been built in Japan, plus new designs for Airbus’ zero-emission aircraft and France’s next-generation high-speed trains.Grand designs
European aerospace giant Airbus has revealed a new design for its upcoming fully electric, hydrogen-powered ZEROe aircraft. powered by hydrogen fuel cells.The single-aisle plane now has four engines, rather than six, each powered by their own fuel cell stack.
The reworked design comes after the news that the ZEROe will be in our skies later than Airbus hoped.
The plan was to launch a zero-emission aircraft by 2035, but now the next-generation single-aisle aircraft is slated to enter service in the second half of the 2030s.
Over in Asia, the Himalayan country of Bhutan is building a gloriously Zen-like new airport befitting a nation with its very own happiness index.
Gelephu International is designed to serve a brand new “mindfulness city,” planned for southern Bhutan, near its border with India.
In rail travel, Japan has just built the world’s first 3D-printed train station, which took just two and a half hours to construct, according to The Japan Times. That’s even shorter than the whizzy six hours it was projected to take.
France’s high-speed TGV rail service has revealed its next generation of trains, which will be capable of reaching speeds of up to 320 kilometers an hour (nearly 200 mph).
The stylish interiors have been causing a stir online, as has the double-decker dining car.
Finally, work is underway in London on turning a mile-long series of secret World War II tunnels under a tube station into a major new tourist attraction. CNN took a look inside.
Josh Giddey hits halfcourt buzzer-beater over LeBron James to cap wild finale as the Bulls stun the Lakers
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Josh Giddey hit a game-winning, halfcourt buzzer-beater over LeBron James as the Chicago Bulls stunned the Los Angeles Lakers in one of the wildest endings to an NBA game you are ever likely to see.Trailing 115-110 with 12.6 seconds remaining, Giddey’s inbound pass found Nikola Vucevic, who pushed the ball to a wide-open Patrick Williams for a corner three-pointer.
James then fluffed the Lakers inbound pass from the baseline, allowing Giddey to steal the ball and find Coby White for a second Bulls triple in quick succession to put Chicago up 116-115 with 6.1 seconds remaining.
Austin Reaves then made a driving layup to put the Lakers ahead 117-116 with 3.3 seconds left, but the game wasn’t done yet.With no timeouts remaining, Giddey inbounded the ball to Williams from the baseline, got the pass back, took one dribble and launched a shot from beyond halfcourt.
Supporters in the stands seemed frozen in anticipation as the ball sailed through the air, and the United Center then erupted as it fell through the net. After the dramatic win, Giddey found himself being swarmed by his teammates.
“Special moment to do it with these guys, this team,” Giddey said, per ESPN. “We’ve shown over the last month to six weeks that we can beat anybody. The way we play the game, I think it wears people down.
“We get up and down. We run. We put heat on them to get back. A lot of veteran teams don’t particularly want to get back and play in transition.”
Giddey later told the Bulls broadcast that he’d “never made a game-winner before.”
The ending capped an incredible couple of games for the Lakers, who had themselves won their last game against the Indiana Pacers on Wednesday with a buzzer-beating tip-in from James.
New design revealed for Airbus hydrogen plane
[url=https://v2-renzo.net]renzo[/url]In travel news this week: Bhutan’s spectacular new airport, the world’s first 3D-printed train station has been built in Japan, plus new designs for Airbus’ zero-emission aircraft and France’s next-generation high-speed trains.
Grand designs
European aerospace giant Airbus has revealed a new design for its upcoming fully electric, hydrogen-powered ZEROe aircraft. powered by hydrogen fuel cells.The single-aisle plane now has four engines, rather than six, each powered by their own fuel cell stack.
The reworked design comes after the news that the ZEROe will be in our skies later than Airbus hoped.
The plan was to launch a zero-emission aircraft by 2035, but now the next-generation single-aisle aircraft is slated to enter service in the second half of the 2030s.
Over in Asia, the Himalayan country of Bhutan is building a gloriously Zen-like new airport befitting a nation with its very own happiness index.
Gelephu International is designed to serve a brand new “mindfulness city,” planned for southern Bhutan, near its border with India.
In rail travel, Japan has just built the world’s first 3D-printed train station, which took just two and a half hours to construct, according to The Japan Times. That’s even shorter than the whizzy six hours it was projected to take.
France’s high-speed TGV rail service has revealed its next generation of trains, which will be capable of reaching speeds of up to 320 kilometers an hour (nearly 200 mph).
The stylish interiors have been causing a stir online, as has the double-decker dining car.
Finally, work is underway in London on turning a mile-long series of secret World War II tunnels under a tube station into a major new tourist attraction. CNN took a look inside.
Mindful wellness challenges
If you’re the type of person who thrives on challenges and pushing your limits, this doesn’t mean you need to shy away from wellness challenges altogether. But before diving in, take a step back and ask yourself if you’re pursuing the challenge for the right reasons, McGregor said.
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Some people want to try these challenges because they believe something is missing from their life, and they’re looking to attain “worth” or receive validation, McGregor noted.A good way to assess your motivation is by considering whether the challenge will benefit your health or if it’s about showcasing your accomplishments on social media or some other reason.
Before trying any new trend, make sure you have the foundation to handle it and be aware of any potential risks, McGregor said.
For casual runners, this might mean signing up for a 5K but building your endurance gradually while incorporating other strength training exercises into your routine. For more intense challenges, such as a marathon, McGregor encourages people to consult with professionals or a coach who can monitor your progress and condition along the way.
Focusing on sustainable habits
Both McGregor and Curran emphasize the importance of fostering sustainable health habits before embarking on more extreme challenges.Rather than chasing the idea of being “healthy,” McGregor suggests focusing on actual healthful behaviors and starting small.
If you’re a highly sedentary person and want to add more movement to your day, try doing lunges while brushing your teeth or taking short walks throughout your typical routine.
Mist and microlightning
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To recreate a scenario that may have produced Earth’s first organic molecules, researchers built upon experiments from 1953 when American chemists Stanley Miller and Harold Urey concocted a gas mixture mimicking the atmosphere of ancient Earth. Miller and Urey combined ammonia (NH3), methane (CH4), hydrogen (H2) and water, enclosed their “atmosphere” inside a glass sphere and jolted it with electricity, producing simple amino acids containing carbon and nitrogen. The Miller-Urey experiment, as it is now known, supported the scientific theory of abiogenesis: that life could emerge from nonliving molecules.
For the new study, scientists revisited the 1953 experiments but directed their attention toward electrical activity on a smaller scale, said senior study author Dr. Richard Zare, the Marguerite Blake Wilbur Professor of Natural Science and professor of chemistry at Stanford University in California. Zare and his colleagues looked at electricity exchange between charged water droplets measuring between 1 micron and 20 microns in diameter. (The width of a human hair is 100 microns.)“The big droplets are positively charged. The little droplets are negatively charged,” Zare told CNN. “When droplets that have opposite charges are close together, electrons can jump from the negatively charged droplet to the positively charged droplet.”
The researchers mixed ammonia, carbon dioxide, methane and nitrogen in a glass bulb, then sprayed the gases with water mist, using a high-speed camera to capture faint flashes of microlightning in the vapor. When they examined the bulb’s contents, they found organic molecules with carbon-nitrogen bonds. These included the amino acid glycine and uracil, a nucleotide base in RNA.“We discovered no new chemistry; we have actually reproduced all the chemistry that Miller and Urey did in 1953,” Zare said. Nor did the team discover new physics, he added — the experiments were based on known principles of electrostatics.
“What we have done, for the first time, is we have seen that little droplets, when they’re formed from water, actually emit light and get this spark,” Zare said. “That’s new. And that spark causes all types of chemical transformations.”
A tiny rainforest country is growing into a petrostate. A US oil company could reap the biggest rewards
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Guyana’s destiny changed in 2015. US fossil fuel giant Exxon discovered nearly 11 billion barrels of oil in the deep water off the coast of this tiny, rainforested country.It was one of the most spectacular oil discoveries of recent decades. By 2019, Exxon and its partners, US oil company Hess and China-headquartered CNOOC, had started producing the fossil fuel.? They now pump around 650,000 barrels of oil a day, with plans to more than double this to 1.3 million by 2027.
Guyana now has the world’s highest expected oil production growth through 2035.
This country — sandwiched between Brazil, Venezuela and Suriname — has been hailed as a climate champion for the lush, well-preserved forests that carpet nearly 90% of its land. It is on the path to becoming a petrostate at the same time as the impacts of the fossil fuel-driven climate crisis escalate.
While the government says environmental protection and an oil industry can go hand-in-hand, and low-income countries must be allowed to exploit their own resources, critics say it’s a dangerous path in a warming world, and the benefits may ultimately skew toward Exxon — not Guyana.
