Could Dimming The Sun Help To Cool The Earth?

The first test of a project backed to spray millions of tonnes of chalk into the stratosphere, to dim the sun and cool the Earth, could happen in June.

Harvard University experts will test the system by sending a big balloon 12 miles above the Swedish town of Kiruna and have it drop 2kg of chalk dust into the stratosphere.

The purpose of the estimated $3 million mission, backed by billionaire Bill Gates, is to have the chalk deflect a portion of the sun’s radiation and stop it from hitting the surface, and cool the planet.

But the plan has been massively criticised since its inception, with project director Frank Keutsch even calling the need for this scale of geo-engineering terrifying, and experts have warned that the novel technique could be disastrous for weather systems in ways nobody can predict.

Backed by a variety of private donors including Bill Gates, the test mission is launching from Sweden as they could offer a launch by the end of this summer.

The test balloon will lift 600kg of scientific equipment 12 miles above the surface of the Arctic town and if all goes well, about 2kg of dust will be released.

This will then create a dust plume several kilometres in length, not big enough to have any impact on the intensity of the sun’s rays hitting the Earth.

During the first test, the team will gather data on how particles of dust react with the air. This could then be fed into computer models to determine what would occur if it were ever carried to scale.

Keutsch told the Times he wants to learn the real effects, as current models may be too optimistic and make the technique look attractive, and that it would take tonnes of dust and plumes many hundreds of kilometres to make a difference, the theory being that the dust would create a massive sunshade.

This would reflect some of the sun’s rays and heat back into space, dimming those that get through and so protecting Earth from the ravages of climate warming.

Keutsch, whose Harvard laboratory is leading the project, says the strategy would only be deployed in desperation to stop parts of the planet from becoming uninhabitable.

Studies show that without any attempts to stop climate change, such as curbs on greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels and other pollutants, parts of the world will be up to 10 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than they are today.

But this is something right out of a comic book villains playbook, and if the day does come when people commence messing around with the weather, then we’re done, but then all you have to do is look up geo-engineering, and you can see for yourself.

And Bill Gates attempting to play God will be a disaster, and it’s not a good idea to start terraforming the only planet you’ve got and which we can live on, and this man is a threat to humankind, and he needs to be locked up for the sake of himself, his family, and most of all, the sake of humanity and wasn’t there a little fella called Adolf Hitler who was comparable to Bill Gates, only he never had the money to buy the world’s governments.

Either that, or he believes he’s God, and we should all be extremely concerned, and it appears that Bill Gates has too much time on his hands – someone needs to give him something constructive to do – a bit of manual labour wouldn’t go amiss.

Every Adult In The United Kingdom Will Be Required To Play Their Part

Every adult will be encouraged to test themselves for coronavirus at least twice a week under new plans to help ease Britain out of lockdown.

Testing chiefs are driving the message in the hope of identifying people without symptoms.

They think that getting people to regularly swab is essential in driving down the spread of the virus and an advertising campaign will encourage Britons to play their part.

The new drive, revealed by the Times, will be supplemented by national sewage monitoring, and it’s expected that areas with growing cases will then be immediately identified and stopped by surge testing, possibly reducing the demand for future lockdowns.

Britain’s successful vaccine drive has led to calls for the lockdown to be eased more quickly, despite fresh regulations to prolong emergency government powers to extend restrictions by up to six months.

The bill is expected to sail through parliament despite threats of a Tory revolt.

The Tory MPs warned that Britain risks squandering the advantages of our vaccination programme by moving too slowly to lift the lockdown.

Amid signs of a mass revolt, a string of MPs said they were ready to vote against the Government this week when it attempts to extend COVID laws to the end of September.

The NHS yesterday revealed a third consecutive record day of vaccinations with 844,285 on Saturday.

The Institute of Economics Affairs yesterday said the success of the programme meant there was now a clear case for bringing forward Boris Johnson’s road map dates by four weeks.

This view was supported by Tory backbenchers, including former minister Steve Baker.

Mr Baker, the head of the COVID Recovery Group, said he will vote against plans to extend government powers, warning that the detention powers in the Coronavirus Act were excessive, unreasonable, and completely unnecessary and that renewing them would not be reconcilable with the Prime Minister’s guarantee that they’re on a one-way road to freedom by June 21.

Windsor MP Adam Afriyie said that he worries that some minds in government were centring on arbitrary dates rather than looking at the reality of the data on hospitalisations and deaths, which was what they were told in January would determine the unlocking.

Christopher Snowdon, of the Institute of Economic Affairs, said that even if the vaccination programme slowed down next month, they were in a far better place than anybody anticipated in January and that there was a strong case for bringing the roadmap forward by four weeks.

So, it seems it’s back to cases we go, and it’s a never-ending cycle – deaths, deaths, deaths, and then when those numbers fall, it’s cases, cases, cases, and then when those fall, those that haven’t learned from the past year, never will, but don’t forget, vaccines are the way out – right?

Coronavirus Appeared In China As Early As October 2019

The first case of a human infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus which causes COVID 19, may have occurred in China’s Hubei province as early as October 7, 2019.

Only in mid-December, two months later were the first cases officially reported in Wuhan at the now ill-famed Huanan wet market.

Further analysis of the virus spread and its molecular clock revealed it was most likely already established in Wuhan by this time and had been circulating in Hubei at low levels in early November 2019, and possibly as early as mid-October.

But due to novel symptoms of COVID 19 and an initially small number of infections, it was difficult to identify the pathogen.

As a result, the virus only came to the attention of the authorities when a cluster of inexplicable symptoms linked to the Huanan Seafood Market was seen in December, and this led to the now-discredited theory that the wet market, where a broad variety of animals are sold both alive and dead, was where the pandemic began.

Dr Jonathan Pekar from the University of California San Diego led a mathematical study to determine when and where it began, and his team examined 583 early virus samples from Hubei to find their latest common ancestor from which they all descended, and they found they dated back to about December 9.

But reports of the unusual pneumonia-like condition were being reported in the Chinese media before this date.

As a result of this, the researchers say the only rational explanation is that the first appearance of the virus which bounced from an animal into a human was a weak strain that quickly went extinct.

But before it fizzled out, the researchers hypothesised it mutated to become more potent and this variant then radiated throughout Wuhan and later the world.

The researchers recorded in their study, published in Science that in their initial analysis, they believe that November 17 represents the first documented case of COVID 19, and they conducted further analysis under this hypothesis using a computer model.

When accounting for a delay in transmission, discovery and manifestations occurring, the first case of COVID 19 infection transpired in Hubei on or about November 4, 2019, the researchers estimate.

However, this figure could be as early as October 7, the researchers calculated, but the researchers struggled to pinpoint a geographical area for the viruses origin, but say if the original strain, which was weaker than the Wuhan variant and all subsequent mutations, appeared in a rural area, it would have had to migrate to an urban area to survive.

But the bottom line is millions died.

Young People Who’ve Come Out As Asexual

Young people who define themselves as asexual have been sharing the often adverse reactions they encounter if they’re open about their lack of sexual desire, including being told they simply haven’t met the right person.

One of the most notable voices of the asexual community in the United Kingdom is 24 year old Yasmin Benoit, a model and activist who wants to raise the visibility of asexuality and aromanticism.

In an interview with a news outlet, she explained that she’s been branded a psychopath because of her sexuality and that people have assumed she’s been molested in the past to justify her absence of sexual attraction.

Yasmin said that they say that she doesn’t look asexual, and that she’s probably insecure, or that she must have been molested or must be gay, or that perhaps she’s just a psychopath.

According to asexual YouTuber Lynn Saga, 23, who uses the they/them pronoun, signs that you might be asexual if you’re not interested in intimacy, not rushing into a relationship, or having little or no crushes in your lifetime.

In a video marking Asexual Awareness Week, they opened up about how they first knew they were asexual, and that even though a tactile person, was never interested in sex and didn’t realise that was something people wanted.

They went onto say that not feeling the wanting of that sort of intimacy or feeling a connection like that is one of the biggest signs you might be asexual.

They said that teens are frequently told they haven’t met the right person yet, with people usually not accepting that they could be asexual.

Talking of growing up with different desires to their friends, Lynn went onto say that all of her friends around 15, 16 and 17 were beginning to think about getting into relationships and being boy or girl crazed and she was just sitting thinking about what those guys were on about.

British blogger Daniel Walker, 24, who runs the Slice Of Ace YouTube account told a news outlet that nine times out of 10 he has to explain to people what his sexuality means.

He’s physically affectionate with his male partner but has no desire to have sex, however, can engage in sexual activity comfortably as part of his relationship.

Shelby Grace, 27, is best known for her popular gaming videos, but has also opened up about her sexual orientation, having come out on a friend’s YouTube channel in January last year about being asexual.

It’s quite a simple concept – there’s little or no sexual desire, and some people are single and happy and don’t want to ruin that by being in a relationship.

Residents In Sydney’s West Are Told To Evacuate In The Face Of Floodwaters

Thousands of families across rain-soaked New South Wales face their homes being flooded as a once in a century mega-storm lashes Australia’s east coast.

Conditions were unstable and unpredictable as more flood alerts were declared for parts of western Sydney and NSW mid-north coast.

Surging floodwaters in Sydney’s west and north-west are now higher than the catastrophic 1961 flood, with residents in parts of Penrith being told to flee their homes by 9 pm before floods were expected to peak.

Other residents in the area were told to get out by 4.30 pm as the Nepean River broke its banks and floods of water destroyed homes.

The Bureau of Meteorology announced major flood alerts for the Hawkesbury, Nepean and Colo Rivers, warning of extreme flooding at Windsor, Sackville, Lower Portland and Wisemans Ferry.

The Hawkesbury at Richmond was forecast to reach 15 metres by 7 pm, with further rises possible – the river was expected to reach the same level at Windsor by 3 pm.

Further evacuation alerts were issued for the western Sydney suburbs of Eastern Creek, Stonecutters Creek and Marsden Park, where residents were told to prepare to leave their homes by 3 am.

Residents of parts of Wilberforce north of Hawkesbury were told to be ready to vacate by 9 am.

Severe weather remains in place for much of the NSW coast up to Queensland for life-threatening flash flooding with 137 schools closed and workers forced to stay at home.

Up to 60mm of rain was forecast to flood Sydney after 110mm fell in the space of 24 hours as two weather systems hit, and the NSW State Emergency Service declared western parts of Penrith as a high danger zone where some homes have already been flooded with water.

And an evacuation order was issued for all homes within the area bounded by the Nepean River, south of the Great Western Highway and west of Peach Tree Creek, including Captains Road, Finch Avenue, Ladbury Avenue, Memorial Avenue, Nepean Avenue, and Recreation Avenue.

Residents near the vicinity of Cables Wake Park bounded by the Nepean River, Jamison Road, and Peach Tree Creek were also ordered to evacuate, and the NSW SES alert stated that once floodwater reached 7.96m the Great Western Highway Evacuation Route would be cut.

If residents remained in the region, they might be trapped without power, water and other essential services and it might be too dangerous to rescue them.

Sadly in Sydney, there have been housing estates built that should never have been built, but hopefully, they will all get to safety as quickly as humanly possible because we can’t imagine what they could be facing or have endured so far.

White House Says Additional Factors Led To Five Staffers Losing Their Jobs

Press secretary Jen Psaki said on Friday that five White House staffers have been fired because of their prior use of drugs, including marijuana.

Marijuana has become a sensitive problem for President Joe Biden’s administration because 15 states and Washington, DC allow for recreational usage, despite a federal ban.

Jen Psaki said in a statement to The Associated Press that the administration has tried not to automatically punish potential staffers for legal behaviour in their communities by developing a more compliant policy.

And said that while they would not get into specific cases, there were added factors at play in numerous instances for the small number of individuals who were terminated.

She added in a tweet that the bottom line was that of the hundreds of people hired, only five people who’d started working at the White House, were no longer employed as a result of the policy.

The Daily Beast website first announced the firings Thursday night, and the move amassed harsh criticism from people all along the political rainbow.

Hundreds of aides in the two-month-old Biden administration have cleared the suitability reviewed by career staffers managing security concerns, and the White House has said there could be various factors for dismissals, including hard drug use.

The marijuana policy has become less stringent under the Biden administration, allowing for up to 15 past uses in a year amongst White House staffers.

The broader federal government has also become slightly more tolerant, with the Office of Personnel Management issuing a memorandum that says a person should not be considered unfit merely because of past marijuana usage, and that the seriousness of the use and the nature of the position would also be factors in judging new hires.

Security and suitability reviews have been an issue for past administrations, and at least twenty five clearance rejections were upturned by President Donald Trump’s administration, where people faced possible disqualification because of foreign influence, conflicts of interest, concerning personal conduct, financial difficulties, drug use and criminal behaviour.

Despite Jen Psaki’s statement on the matter, it’s difficult to dismiss Vice President Kamala Harris’s comments about marijuana, but then perhaps this is what happens when an old man is in charge, although is he really in charge, or is he just a tool?

But I don’t suppose it was just marijuana why these people were fired, and nobody really worries about grass anymore, and you can buy pot anywhere, it’s just a reality now.

Princess Margaret Accused The Royals Of Ignoring Her Mental Anguish

When Princess Margaret was aged six, she discovered that her father had become King and that her older sister Elizabeth would one day become Queen, and her response was revealing, and she told her nanny that she was nobody now, and as a Royal second sibling, it was a feeling that would plague her until she died in 2002.

The dynamic between Queen Elizabeth II and Margaret was, like that between Prince William and Harry today, a profoundly complicated one. It was also one whose illuminating intricacies have been surprisingly neglected by Royal biographers.

Although at times suffocatingly close, the sisters wore identical clothes until Elizabeth was in her teens, and their relationship was at other times marked by dramatic sibling tensions that shook their close bond to its core.

During a fitting for their father’s coronation in 1937, Margaret, launched a tantrum when she saw that the train to Elizabeth’s gown was a foot longer than hers.

Her mother coldly explained that because of her sister’s status of birth, she was entitled to that right, and it was a moment that always irritated Margaret, and when 18 years old Elizabeth was allowed by her parents to participate in the war effort by entering the women’s Auxillary Territorial Service in 1945, but Margaret, then 14 years old was overwhelmed with resentment, according to their nanny Marion Crawford.

Marion Crawford said that as usual she was quite cross at seeing Lilibet, the family name for the Queen, doing something without her, but in the meantime, Elizabeth said that Margaret always wanted what she had.

And it’s fair to say that in the popular imagination, every generation of the House Of Windsor was stalked by darkness. The good versus the naughty Royal – the rebellious extrovert versus the sensible introvert.

Prince William the straight shooter – Harry the wild child. Diana the demure, Fergie the roustabout – The Sun and the Moon, and these stereotypes usually conceal as much as they reveal, and yet, each set of Royal siblings, like all siblings, feed off this asymmetry.

And the Queen and Margaret were no exception, and as Margaret told a friend that when there are two sisters and one is the Queen who must be the source of honour and all that is good, the other must be the focus of the most creative malice, the evil sister.

But it was a different time back then, with different attitudes, and should we really unearth Princess Margaret to prop up the Markles? And in those days, the treatment was generally damaging to one’s mental health, and the perceptions of what caused mental illness, particularly in women were often misogynistic.

What Margaret had to go through was awful, but then a lot of other Royals have had to go through this as well, and it was the way at the time to keep a stiff upper lip and not speak about these things.

Not that it was a good thing, but we do have to begin looking at things from the perspective of the times because history is full of aversions, and the human race is continually evolving, and we should quit judging the past and start looking at what we could improve in the present.

Is Shamima Begum’s New Look Just A Pretence?

She’s clothed in the casual urban cool outfit of the London 20 something, with skinny jeans, unzipped hoodie, a Nike baseball cap and fashionable shades.

Her hair coloured and straightened in the style of her generation – she actually could be any young woman about town, but this isn’t any young woman – this is Shamima Begum, the teenager who fled Britain in 2015 to marry an ISIS fighter.

The now 21-year old described with chilling indifference how she wasn’t disturbed by the sight of a severed head, and who said how she had a great time with ISIS, and who justified the bombing of the Manchester Arena.

When photographs surfaced of her this week at the Syrian internment camp, they were bound to cause alarm, and many, including her own family, would struggle to immediately recognise her.

Gone is the black, full-length chador (long, flowing gown) and black hijab which used to frame her face that now carries the suggestion of a smile, and now a news outlet can share the truth about Shamima Begum’s new life at the al-Roj detention centre in northeast Syria, where she’s been living for the past two years.

Speaking to her closest friends, the news outlet discovered how she fills her days watching Good Morning Britain on ITV in her tent, playing charades or dancing to the music of Shakira downloaded from the internet with her fellow Western campmates.

She’s also fond of Zumba classes and watching movies like Spider-Man and Men in Black franchises which are her favourites, and Shamima Begum maintains that she’s changed and that she isn’t that person any more, saying to people in the United Kingdom to give her a second chance because she was young when she left, which she pleaded this week in an emotive interview for a new documentary.

Her rejection of Islamic attire is evidence, for some, at least, that she’s abandoned her past.

Others believe her transformation is part of a ploy to gain sympathy while her lawyers challenge the decision to strip her of her British citizenship.

Last month, the UK’s Supreme Court ruled on national security grounds that she couldn’t return to Britain to seek an appeal against the decision.

Either way, her stunning new image has turned the global spotlight on Shamima Begum and her life at al-Roj. But is she still the same under the new look? And if we let her back into Britain, will others follow – this could be a dangerous path to go down.

And of course, she will want a new identity and then probably pop out another half a dozen children who could all be radicalised in the future, and why take the chance because she’s not an important asset to us anyhow.

This saga could drag on forever, and be a boundless abyss for taxpayers money, and perhaps the answer is for the Government to say no, and to refuse to give any lawyers a penny to defend her.

And things can’t be that bad out there if she can get her hands on hair dye when people in the United Kingdom have been waiting months to get a hair cut, and she can dress in whatever way she wants, she will still always be an ISIS follower.

Her lawyers have probably told her that she needs to dress like this to make the public feel sorry for her, and why are we giving this girl publicity? And shame on the news providers for entertaining this.

Unruly NJ Flyer Forces Plane To Land Mid-Flight After Attacking Passengers

A United Airlines aircraft to Miami was forced to land mid-flight after an unruly New Jersey man attacked two other passengers.

John Yurkovich Jr, 45, had to be restrained with zip ties, and a doctor on board was forced to use Benadryl via injection in his buttocks to help calm him down.

Court reports say that John Yurkovich was arrested after the aircraft, which took off from Newark, NJ, just after 8 am Wednesday, was forced to land in South Carolina due to a disruptive passenger.

According to the FBI complaint, John Yurkovich was carrying two grams of methamphetamine at the time.

The complaint stated that he allegedly became upset after going to the bathroom, and when he returned to his seat, he was acting erratic and seemed to be off-balance, and that when he was seated, he yelled out loud, attracting the attention of some passengers in the neighbouring area.

Authorities said that at one point, the suspect was seen getting what seemed to be pills from his carry on and ingesting them, and a passenger sitting next to him put up his hands to brace himself from Yurkovich falling on him, prompting the suspect to take off his mask and start yelling at the person.

According to court reports, Yurkovich allegedly yelled, “Don’t f–king put your hands on me! I’ll f–king punch you in the face.” He then began hitting the male passenger at least seven times, breaking his glass and cutting open his ear, causing extreme bleeding.

The victim needed seven stitches for the gash on his left ear, which the FBI complaint says was from a series of punches, and the complaint stated that some of the passengers tried to restrain Yurkovich, but one sustained a broken nose in the process.

The unruly passenger was charged with federal assault charges and criminal acts on an aircraft, as well as state charges for alleged drug possession.

John Yurkovich’s lawyer, Rose Mary Parham, told the News & Observer in a statement that the whole incident was quite uncharacteristic of John, and that he was a devoted husband, father and successful businessman.

We can’t have crazed junkie’s going psycho on a plane, and if they can’t be respectful, then they should stay at home, and it’s only a matter of time before something very bad happens on a flight because our friendly skies have long gone.

And it’s nice to see that the passengers helped, but with all the drug-sniffing dogs and security, how on earth did he manage to get Meth on board the aircraft? And they need a no-fly list for people like this, and he should lose his right to fly from now on, and he should have been jailed immediately.

Plastic Particles Pass From Mothers Into Foetuses

Research reveals that small plastic particles in the lungs of pregnant rats move quickly into the hearts, brains and other organs of their foetuses, and it’s the first study in a live mammal to show that the placenta doesn’t block such particles.

The experiments also revealed that the rat foetuses exposed to the particles put on significantly less weight towards the end of gestation, and the research follows the revelation in December of small plastic particles in human placentas, which scientists described as a matter of great concern.

Earlier laboratory research on human placentas donated by mothers after birth has also shown polystyrene beads can cross the placental barrier.

Microplastic pollution has touched every part of the planet, from the top of Mount Everest to the deepest oceans, and people are already known to consume the small particles through food and water, and also breathe them in.

The health impact of small plastic particles in the body is as yet unknown, but scientists say there’s an urgent need to evaluate the problem, especially for growing foetuses and babies, as plastics can carry chemicals that could cause long term harm.

Professor Phoebe Stapleton, at Rutgers University, who led the rat research said that they discovered the plastic nanoparticles everywhere they looked, in the maternal tissues, in the placenta and the foetal tissues, and that they found them in the foetal heart, brain, lungs, liver and kidneys.

Dunzhu Li, at Trinity College Dublin (TCD) in Ireland and not part of the research team, said that this study was extremely important because it shows the potential to transfer plastic particles in mammal pregnancy, and that maybe it might be happening from the very beginning of human life as well, and that the particles were found almost everywhere in the foetus and could also pass through the blood-brain barrier, and it was quite shocking.

Professor John Boland, also at TCD, said that it was however important not to over-interpret the results and that the nanoparticles used were near-spherical in shape, whereas real microplastics were irregular flake like objects.

He said that shape matters, as it dictates how particles interact with their environment, and in October, Li, Boland and co-workers showed that babies fed formula milk in plastic bottles were swallowing millions of particles a day.

The rat study was published in the journal Particle and Fibre Toxicology and involved putting nanoparticles in the trachea of the animals. Stapleton said the number of particles used was estimated to be the equivalent of sixty per cent of the number a human mother would be exposed to in a day, although Li’s opinion was this estimate was too high.

But plastics are now in the air. They leech from plastic bottles, milk, water and coke, and it’s on the land, hence in the food you eat.

Microplastics are in the water, then the fish, then the animals. It’s been found in humans, in the bloodstream, and blood is essentially what the placenta is made of, so now plastic has been discovered in the placenta.

Plastics are chemical polymers that have macromolecular weight, so when we throw them in the water resources, they decay by that time to extremely tiny or small particles that cause water contamination and ultimately severe disease like cancer et cetera. However, the process of decomposing would take a long time, perhaps decades.

Perhaps it’s time to consider other ways to reduce that particle emission in waterways and invest in membrane filter technology, which is a well-known technology used in Israel.

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