MaxRedline

To The Moon, Alice!

It's best known for its cars here on Earth, but Toyota is looking out of this world for its next vehicle - all the way to the moon. 

They're working with Japan's space agency (JAXA) to produce a lunar exploration vehicle as part of its ambitions to help people live on the moon by 2040, and beyond that, Mars.

The vehicle being developed with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency is called the Lunar Cruiser, with the name paying homage to the Toyota Land Cruiser sport utility vehicle.

And it won't be long before the Lunar Cruiser becomes a reality, with its launch set for the late 2020s.

They must be planning to send it up there in modules. It doesn't seem likely that they can ship the whole unit up there at once. In any case, it's sure to give astronauts tons of fun. Just maintenance should be a hoot.

How do you do an oil change on this thing? That's just for starters....

 

 

Eat Your Weed, Don't Smoke It

According to a study from researchers at Oregon State University, cannabis compounds show the ability to prevent the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 from entering human cells. 

The two compounds commonly found in hemp, called cannabigerolic acid, or CBGA, and cannabidiolic acid, or CBDA, were identified during a chemical screening as having the potential to prevent coronavirus. In the study, the compounds bound to spike proteins found on the virus and blocked a step the pathogen uses to infect people.

https://www.fox13news.com/news/cannabis-compounds-prevent-coronavirus-from-entering-human-cells-oregon-state-university-study

Newman pointed out how the study shows the cannabis must be ingested in edible form.

By the way, the compounds won't get you high, and they're destroyed when burned in a joint.

I guess this means that where pot's still illegal, you can legitimately claim that it's only for medicinal purposes.

 

Crappy Jobs

There is a dog in Washington state named Tucker, and he can smell orca poop that is floating on the choppy waters of the Puget Sound from more than a mile away.

This is invaluable to the University of Washington biologists who work with the black lab mix, because the feces can tell them about killer whales’ hormone levels, diet and toxins, and that information can help them understand why the region’s killer whale population has dropped. But orca poo floats for just minutes, so people don’t stand a chance to locate it alone.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/animalia/wp/2016/10/27/how-dogs-use-smell-to-see-and-save-the-world/

The nose knows where killer whales go.

 

Reedies & Waste

The U.S. federal government, via its National Institute of Health (NIH), gave more than $465,000 to Portland, Oregon's Reed College to fund a study on gambling that taught pigeons to play slot machines.

Sen. Paul released a statement to the Daily Wire in which he noted, "It seems like just yesterday the national debt was $20 trillion, but now the U.S. has managed to breeze past $28 trillion, spending and wasting more than we ever have."

But remember, Sen. Paul, that people are happier after hearing good news.  So let's focus on the fact that we now have pigeons capable of playing slot machines.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/12/sen_rand_paul_releases_annual_festivus_report.html

Republican Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.) on Wednesday released his annual "Festivus Report," this year reportedly uncovering a whopping $52 billion in wasted federal government dollars — which he said went toward things like a study on gambling that paid for pigeons to play slot machines and another study verifying that, yes, kids crave junk food.

As Congress-critters go, Rand Paul seems most level-headed. How he remains so in that environment remains a mystery.

 

Pups!

Dog owners might not be too impressed when they’re able to point out a fallen piece of chicken or a thrown stick to their pooch, but dogs’ ability to follow that seemingly simple gesture places them in rare air in the animal kingdom. Some research suggests that even chimpanzees, our closest evolutionary relatives, don’t understand pointing as well as dogs. For decades, researchers have debated whether dogs obtain their ability to understand pointing by spending time with humans and learning it or if our furry companions are born with a capacity to comprehend this deceptively complex feat of communication. 

Now, a study—published in June 2021 in the journal Current Biology—finds that even 8-week-old puppies with little exposure to humans can understand pointing and show sophisticated levels of social cognition in other tests. On top of that, the study found that each fluffball’s genetic makeup was a strong predictor of its ability to follow a pointed finger to a hidden treat as well as the pup’s tendency to pay attention to human faces.

The team behind the study had two main questions. The first was whether young puppies who had yet to spend any significant time with humans were sensitive to human attempts to communicate. The second was whether there was a genetic basis for the puppies’ social smarts.

They tested 375 pups between 8-10 weeks of age (the average age was 8 weeks), who until then had spent most all of their time with their moms and litter-mates. The tests involved considerable janitorial duties on the part of the researchers, as those pups peed and pooped with abandon.

In regard to the tests, the puppies performed at levels significantly above chance from the outset, but showed no improvement over time:

“However they’re solving this problem they’re doing it above chance from the first exposure and they’re not getting better across time,” says MacLean. “That says they’re ready to do this and don’t need to learn it.”

According to Monique Udell, a psychologist studying human-animal interactions at Oregon State University who was not involved in this research, this study is the first to show, with a large group of dogs and with known levels of relatedness between them, that the animals don’t have to acquire these traits through learning and that some forms of social cognition do indeed have a substantial genetic component.

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/puppies-are-born-ready-to-communicate-with-humans?

 

 

 

 

Sly Foxes

When the monstrous Dixie fire scorched a northeastern California expanse that the elusive Sierra Nevada red fox calls home, wildlife officials were worried.

The diminutive foxes, which dwell in the high-elevation reaches of the Sierra Nevada and southern Cascade mountains in California and Oregon, are one of the rarest mammals on the continent. Their population size is unknown but is potentially only in the dozens, with an estimated 18 to 39 spread across the Sonora Pass, northern Yosemite and Mono Creek areas.

Biologists said a vixen named Tule, who was tending to at least two pups in the remote Caribou Wilderness of Lassen National Forest, was at particular risk from the raging Dixie fire.

Tule is among a group of Sierra Nevada red foxes that state wildlife officials began capturing in 2018 and outfitting with satellite collars. Three other collared females in Lassen Volcanic National Park also appear to have survived the blaze, which charred about two-thirds of the park, Carlson said. Less of their habitat was damaged by the Dixie fire, but they're continuing to use parts that did burn.

https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-sierra-nevada-red-fox-20180308-story.html

Tobe able to detect the coming wildfire, leave in time to escape it, and find the way back home after it passed is pretty amazing.

 

Coming Soon

You can see the longest partial lunar eclipse in hundreds of years this week.

The “nearly total” lunar eclipse is expected overnight Thursday, Nov. 18, to Friday, Nov. 19, NASA said.

The eclipse will last 3 hours, 28 minutes and 23 seconds, making it the longest in centuries, Space.com reported.

“For U.S. East Coast observers, the partial eclipse begins a little after 2 a.m., reaching its maximum at 4 in the morning,” NASA reported. “For observers on the West Coast, that translates to beginning just after 11 p.m., with a maximum at 1 a.m.”

You can check what time is best to watch the eclipse in your town on timeanddate.com.

https://www.bakersfield.com/ap/national/the-longest-lunar-eclipse-in-centuries-will-happen-this-week-nasa-says-what-to-know/article_b4d0edf6-f4d6-58cb-84f0-d5f36bcb6438.html#:~:text=%E2%80%9CThe%20Moon%20will%20be%20so,centuries%2C%20Space.com%20reported.

I'm usually asleep by then, but may have to make an exception....

 

Butterflies

San Luis Obispo County farmer Lisen Bonnier of Vintage Organics has a stretch of her farmland that has never grown crops well.

It floods and has always been generally “problematic,” she said.

So when an opportunity arose for her to re-think how the area could be used and she was able to obtain 170 native plants attractive to pollinators such as monarch butterflies and bumblebees, Bonnier jumped at it.

“This is something I can make a difference with,” she said. “I would like to have good pollinator habitat here, and we need to think more about not just ourselves, but the impact on everyone — my neighbors who grow pumpkins and squash and other crops who also need pollinators.”

Bonnier is one of several grantees across San Luis Obispo County and California who have received free native pollinator-friendly plants from the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation.

“One of the reasons monarchs and other pollinators are declining is a loss of habitat. So anything we can add makes a difference,” said Angela Laws, an endangered species conservation biologist with the Xerces Society.The Coastal San Luis Resource Conservation District — a nonprofit that works to restore natural resources in the county — also worked to help both landowners get the plants and find volunteers to help plant them.

 

https://www.sanluisobispo.com/article255531351.html

They're doing some great work down there. Hope it catches on elsewhere around the country!

 

The U.S. Military Tries "Anti-Aging Pills" For Troops

U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM), the organization that administers America’s Spec Ops forces, says it will soon start clinical trials of an “anti-aging pill” that could halt some naturally degenerative effects of aging.

The hope seems to be that these will make them bigger, stronger, and able to quickly recover from injuries in order to rejoin their comrades faster than would normally be the case with their untreated counterparts. Presumably, they're going to have to wait a while in order to assess the relative effects of the treatments.

“We have completed pre-clinical safety and dosing studies in anticipation of follow-on performance testing in fiscal year 2022,” Navy Commander Tim Hawkins, a SOCOM spokesperson, told Breaking Defense.

 

 

Mutant Crawdads!

Ahh, Science!

Escaped self-cloning mutant crayfish created in experimental breeding programmes have invaded a Belgian cemetery.

"It's impossible to round up all of them. It's like trying to empty the ocean with a thimble," said Kevin Scheers, of the Flemish Institute for Nature and Woodland Research.

Well, at least they're not mutant ninja turtles.