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• Comment Link Friday, 04 April 2025 11:59 JasonloK

  Water and life
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  Lightning is a dramatic display of electrical power, but it is also sporadic and unpredictable. Even on a volatile Earth billions of years ago, lightning may have been too infrequent to produce amino acids in quantities sufficient for life — a fact that has cast doubt on such theories in the past, Zare said.
  
  Water spray, however, would have been more common than lightning. A more likely scenario is that mist-generated microlightning constantly zapped amino acids into existence from pools and puddles, where the molecules could accumulate and form more complex molecules, eventually leading to the evolution of life.
  
  “Microdischarges between obviously charged water microdroplets make all the organic molecules observed previously in the Miller-Urey experiment,” Zare said. “We propose that this is a new mechanism for the prebiotic synthesis of molecules that constitute the building blocks of life.”
  
  However, even with the new findings about microlightning, questions remain about life’s origins, he added. While some scientists support the notion of electrically charged beginnings for life’s earliest building blocks, an alternative abiogenesis hypothesis proposes that Earth’s first amino acids were cooked up around hydrothermal vents on the seafloor, produced by a combination of seawater, hydrogen-rich fluids and extreme pressure.
  
  Researchers identified salt minerals in the Bennu samples that were deposited as a result of brine evaporation from the asteroid’s parent body. In particular, they found a number of sodium salts, such as the needles of hydrated sodium carbonate highlighted in purple in this false-colored image – salts that could easily have been compromised if the samples had been exposed to water in Earth’s atmosphere.
  
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  Yet another hypothesis suggests that organic molecules didn’t originate on Earth at all. Rather, they formed in space and were carried here by comets or fragments of asteroids, a process known as panspermia.
  
  “We still don’t know the answer to this question,” Zare said. “But I think we’re closer to understanding something more about what could have happened.”
  
  Though the details of life’s origins on Earth may never be fully explained, “this study provides another avenue for the formation of molecules crucial to the origin of life,” Williams said. “Water is a ubiquitous aspect of our world, giving rise to the moniker ‘Blue Marble’ to describe the Earth from space. Perhaps the falling of water, the most crucial element that sustains us, also played a greater role in the origin of life on Earth than we previously recognized.”
• Comment Link Friday, 04 April 2025 11:19 JamesSeide

  ‘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.
• Comment Link Friday, 04 April 2025 11:05 KevinCom

  Why there’s a huge collection of vintage cars stored in the middle of the desert
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  Back at the turn of the 21st century, Qatar was a country with few cultural attractions to keep visitors and residents entertained. Yet the Sheikh Faisal Bin Qassim Al Thani Museum — known as the FBQ Museum — was a place that most people visited as an alternative to the then-still rather ramshackle National Museum of Qatar.
  
  You had to make an appointment, and drive out into the desert, getting lost a few times along the way, but then you were welcomed to the lush Al Samriya Farm with a cup of tea and some cake. The highlight was being allowed into a space crammed full with shelves and vitrines holding all sorts of eclectic artifacts from swords to coins — with the odd car and carriage standing in the grounds.
  
  It wasn’t necessarily the kind of museum you’d find elsewhere in the world, but it was definitely a sight that needed seeing.
  
  Today, it has grown and now claims to be one of the world’s largest private museums. It holds over 30,000 items, including a fleet of traditional dhow sailboats, and countless carpets. There’s also an entire house that once stood in Damascus, Syria.
  
  There are archaeological finds dating to the Jurassic age, ancient copies of the Quran, a section that details the importance of pearling within Qatar’s history, and jewelry dating to the 17th century.
  
  There are also items from 2022’s FIFA World Cup in Qatar including replica trophies, balls used in the games, entry passes, football jerseys and even shelves full of slightly creepy dolls and children’s plush animals.
  
  Some of the more disturbing exhibits include various items of Third Reich paraphernalia in the wartime room, and, strangely enough, several showcases of birds’ legs with marking rings on them. Basically, whatever you can think of, you have a very good chance of finding it here.
  
  Rumor even has it that behind a locked door is a room filled with the late Princess Diana’s dresses and other memorabilia, accessible only to a select few visitors. Another door hides a room, no longer open to the public, filled with collectibles of the late Saddam Hussein.
• Comment Link Friday, 04 April 2025 10:49 JohnnieBluck

  Curiosity rover makes ‘arguably the most exciting organic detection to date on Mars’
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  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.”
• Comment Link Friday, 04 April 2025 09:05 Lloydrat

  Tesla is bringing its electric cars to oil-rich Saudi Arabia amid falling global sales
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  Tesla will start selling its electric vehicles in Saudi Arabia, entering the Gulf region’s largest economy as the company’s global sales are sliding and CEO Elon Musk courts controversy with his role in the US government.
  
  The carmaker announced Wednesday that it would host a launch event in the kingdom on April 10, where it will showcase its EVs. Attendees will also have the chance to “experience the future of autonomous driving with Cybercab and meet Optimus, our humanoid robot, as we showcase what’s next in AI and robotics,” Tesla (TSLA) said.
  
  Tesla may struggle to gain market share in oil-rich Saudi Arabia as EVs make up a little over 1% of all car sales in the country, according to a report by consultancy PwC published in September.
  Tesla’s entry into the new market comes as the company fights battles on several fronts.
  
  Last year, it recorded the first annual decline in sales in its history as a public company, posting a drop of 1%.
  
  The company is facing intensifying competition in China, the world’s largest auto market. On Tuesday, BYD, a Chinese maker of electric and hybrid cars, reported $107 billion in annual sales for 2024, beating the near-$98 billion notched by Tesla.
  
  And last week, BYD unveiled an ultra-fast charging system, which it said was capable of adding 250 miles (402 km) of range in just five minutes, easily outdoing Tesla’s charging technology. Tesla’s Superchargers take 15 minutes to charge an EV, providing a range of 200 miles.
  
  Tesla has also suffered slumping sales in Europe. In February, the carmaker sold around 40% fewer vehicles on the continent compared with the same month in 2024, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association.
• Comment Link Friday, 04 April 2025 08:29 Davidpoeri

  While the Cumberland sample may contain longer chains of fatty acids, SAM is not designed to detect them. But SAM’s ability to spot these larger molecules suggests it could detect similar chemical signatures of past life on Mars if they’re present, Williams said.
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  “Curiosity is not a life detection mission,” Freissinet said. “Curiosity is a habitability detection mission to know if all the conditions were right … for life to evolve. Having these results, it’s really at the edge of the capabilities of Curiosity, and it’s even maybe better than what we had expected from this mission.”
  
  Before sending missions to Mars, scientists didn’t think organic molecules would be found on the red planet because of the intensity of radiation Mars has long endured, Glavin said.
  Curiosity won’t return to Yellowknife Bay during its mission, but there are still pristine pieces of the Cumberland sample aboard. Next, the team wants to design a new experiment to see what it can detect. If the team can identify similar long-chain molecules, it would mark another step forward that might help researchers determine their origins, Freissinet said.
  
  “That’s the most precious sample we have on board … waiting for us to run the perfect experiment on it,” she said. “It holds secrets, and we need to decipher the secrets.”
  
  Briony Horgan, coinvestigator on the Perseverance rover mission and professor of planetary science at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, called the detection “a big win for the whole team.” Horgan was not involved the study.
  “This detection really confirms our hopes that sediments laid down in ancient watery environments on Mars could preserve a treasure trove of organic molecules that can tell us about everything from prebiotic processes and pathways for the origin of life, to potential biosignatures from ancient organisms,” Horgan said.
  
  Dr. Ben K.D. Pearce, assistant professor in Purdue’s department of Earth, atmospheric, and planetary sciences and leader of the Laboratory for Origins and Astrobiology Research, called the findings “arguably the most exciting organic detection to date on Mars.” Pearce did not participate in the research.
• Comment Link Friday, 04 April 2025 08:22 JasonHox

  Arctic auroras
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  For getting around during winter, the Inuit here nowadays prefer snowmobiles, although they still keep their sled dogs. During winter they’ll offer intrepid visitors, wrapped up warm against the deep-freeze temperatures, dog-sledding jaunts. These can last either an hour or be part of expeditions over several days, sometimes with the added experience of learning how to build an igloo. Sisimiut on the west coast and Tasilaq in the southeast are active winter centers for dog sledding.
  
  Winter’s most stellar attraction, though, is northern lights watching. With little urban light pollution, Greenland is a dark canvas for spectacular displays, and aurora borealis-watching vacations are becoming more popular.
  
  Staying outdoors, Greenland is developing a reputation among adventure enthusiasts: from long-distance skiing expeditions and heliskiing on the icecap to hiking the 100-mile-long Arctic Circle Trail from Kangerslussuaq, where firearms need to be carried for warning shots in case of polar bear encounters.
  
  Life is definitely changing here. The climate crisis is eating away at its icecap and Greenland may well end up as a pawn in a game of geopolitical chess. But for now, the bright glare of international attention should shine a favorable light on one of the wildest travel destinations on Earth.
  
  Travel writer Mark Stratton is an Arctic specialist who has traveled to Greenland six times and counting. He’s marveled at the aurora borealis, sailed to Disko Island, dog-sledded with the Inuit, and once got stuck in an icefloe.
• Comment Link Friday, 04 April 2025 07:26 DanielDoB

  “You get some of me but not tomorrow as they want me in as soon as I can make it happen. This is the one time when they say jump and I ask how high due the financial gains the company could benefit from and it being important enough for the client to appear in person.”
  
  “Well I get an extra night of you at least! I wonder what we could do with that? Meantime, what about food? I am starving and delicious as it was a second breakfast is not quite enough to replenish me!”
  
  “Well get something on and we’ll sort that out first.”
  
  We drove into town and decided that a daytime visit to Charlie’s was going to be the answer. I parked in the bar lot and Elise dashed in to change into something more appropriate, jeans and a t-shirt along with her biker jacket but keeping her Converses on.
  
  Walking down to the restaurant was different from the middle of the night visits as the streets were bustling and all of the shops and outlets were open.
  
  Reaching Charlie’s we entered the front door and sat in a booth near the window. A beautiful young American Chinese girl came,smiled and said hello to Elise and gave us menus and asked if we wanted drinks in the meantime.
  
  "No thanks Lin just a pot of Jasmine tea for us please." Lin went back to the kitchen area. “No booze for me today as I will have to work in the bar so it is just tea for me.”
  
  Not in a drinking mood either, I agreed with her."
  
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• Comment Link Friday, 04 April 2025 07:12 Kevindek

  A long time in the making
  Curiosity landed in Gale Crater on August 6, 2012. More than 12 years later, the rover has driven over 21 miles (34 kilometers) to ascend Mount Sharp, which is within the crater. The feature’s many layers preserve millions of years of geological history on Mars, showing how it shifted from a wet to a dry environment.
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  Perhaps one of the most valuable samples Curiosity has gathered on its mission to understand whether Mars was ever habitable was collected in May 2013.
  
  The rover drilled the Cumberland sample from an area within a crater called Yellowknife Bay, which resembled an ancient lake bed. The rocks from Yellowknife Bay so intrigued Curiosity’s science team that it had the rover drive in the opposite direction to collect samples from the area before heading to Mount Sharp.
  Since collecting the Cumberland sample, Curiosity has used SAM to study it in a variety of ways, revealing that Yellowknife Bay was once the site of an ancient lake where clay minerals formed in water. The mudstone created an environment that could concentrate and preserve organic molecules and trapped them inside the fine grains of the sedimentary rock.
  
  Freissinet helped lead a research team in 2015 that was able to identify organic molecules within the Cumberland sample.
  
  The instrument detected an abundance of sulfur, which can be used to preserve organic molecules; nitrates, which are essential for plant and animal health on Earth; and methane composed of a type of carbon associated with biological processes on Earth.
  
  “There is evidence that liquid water existed in Gale Crater for millions of years and probably much longer, which means there was enough time for life-forming chemistry to happen in these crater-lake environments on Mars,” said study coauthor Daniel Glavin, senior scientist for sample return at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, in a statement.
• Comment Link Thursday, 03 April 2025 15:47 Robert

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