Marking an impassioned return to the campaign trail, former President Barack Obama made a plea Thursday night to Virginia voters to vote for Democratic candidates in the state’s first elections to be held since last year’s presidential contest.
“We need you to take this seriously, because our democracy is at stake, and it’s at stake right here in Virginia,” Obama told a crowd of 7,500 people at the Richmond Coliseum. “You can’t sit this one out.”
As Obama spoke, Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam — the Democratic nominee for governor in the commonwealth — sat on a barstool next to the 56-year-old former two-term president, basking in the glow of the former president’s political star power.
.
Former President Barack Obama with Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ralph Northam during a rally in Richmond, Va., Oct. 19, 2017. (Photo: Steve Helber/AP)
Archaeologists working at the Saqqara necropolis, a large burial ground south of the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt, have recovered the tip of an obelisk more than 4,300 years old; it’s one of the largest fragments from an ancient stone monument ever found.
The Swiss-French mission, headed by professor Phillippe Collombert, uncovered the upper part of the monument, built in 2,350 B.C. in the Old Kingdom era during the reign of Ankhnespepy II.
.
10_06_Obelisk
Indentations at the top of the obelisk indicate that it was covered in copper or gold to make it reflect the sun’s rays. Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities
Even 34,000 years ago, our ancestors knew incest was a bad idea. Analysis of ancient human remains discovered in Russia has revealed that even among an extremely small society, inbreeding did not take place. This arrangement suggests these early humans mated outside their own clans, instead of risking the problems that arise from having sex with their relatives.
Researchers led by Martin Sikora, from the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, were looking at human remains found at the Sunghir burial site. This Upper Paleolithic archaeological site represents some of the earliest evidence of Homo sapiens in Europe. The four individual males found there lived between 34,600 and 33,600 years ago. Two of them were children and had been buried head to toe.
In their study, published in Science, the team analyzed the genomes of all four, looking at the genetic diversity between them. To the researchers surprise, they found they were unrelated to each other, despite being part of what would have been a very small group of maybe 25 people—humans had only just arrived in western Eurasia, so had not had long to build up a significant population.
Coming into Thursday night, the stakes were pretty clear for the Cleveland Indians: Another win — No. 22 in a row — would set the modern record for an MLB winning streak, passing the 1935 Chicago Cubs. But a loss to the Kansas City Royals and Cleveland’s magical run would be over.
Oh, but the Indians had a little more magic left in them.
The Indians won a nail-biter against the Royals, 3-2 in 10 innings, a game that began to feel like October as the Indians mounted a ninth-inning rally. Then in the 10th inning, when Jay Bruce knocked a walk-off single into right, it was proven — the Indians wouldn’t be denied a piece of baseball history. They hadn’t lost since Aug. 23 and they wouldn’t on Thursday night. Sorry, Cubs, this is Cleveland’s record now.
Incredibly, it was the Indians’ first walk-off win their 22-game streak. Gotta keep it fresh, right? The Tribe also managed to clinch a postseason berth later in the evening when the Angels lost to the Astros. Cleveland’s main target, of course, is the AL Central crown. Their magic number for that is three.
.
The Indians wouldn’t be denied win No. 22 in a row. (AP)
Pakistani police have arrested 25 members of an informal village council accused of ordering the rape of a 16-year-old girl as revenge for her brother’s alleged sexual assault of another girl.
The Supreme Court also requested a report on the case, which echoed a notorious case from 2002 in which another teenager was gang-raped on a local council’s order.
“A total of 29 people were involved in this ghastly crime, and we have 25 of them in our custody,” Multan City Police Officer Ahsan Younus told Reuters by telephone on Thursday.
Nearly 80 percent of young people in the United States who die are killed by injuries, and more than half of these injuries are unintentional, such as those sustained in car crashes, falls or fires, according to a new report.
Researchers looked at all people ages 1 to 30 in the United States who died in 2010, and found that 79 percent of deaths in that group were from injuries; while 20 percent were from chronic diseases such as heart disease or cancer, and 1 percent were due to infections, the report said.
Of the deaths among young people that were due to injuries, about 60 percent were a result of unintentional injuries, while 20 percent were due to suicide, and another 20 percent to homicide.
A spacecraft carrying two Russians and a U.S. astronaut lifted off early on Friday for what was scheduled to be the quickest trip ever from Earth to the International Space Station (ISS).
With NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy and Russian cosmonauts Pavel Vinogradov and Alexander Misurkin aboard, the Soyuz TMA-08M blasted off at 2:43 a.m. local time from Russia’s Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
“We feel great,” Vinogradov reported to mission control outside Moscow after the launch, in footage broadcast on Russian television and NASA TV. A good luck charm – a toy bear he took on a 2006 voyage – hung from a string above the crew.
.
.
.Click link below for article and gallery of pictures and videos:
A gelatinous, semi-opaque slime that appeared mysteriously in an English nature park has proved a brain teaser for area scientists. Others have posited that the material may have extraterrestrial origins.
The substance, which some are calling a “jelly,” was found at the RSPB Ham Wall Nature reserve in Somerset, according to Yahoo! News.
Steve Hughes, site manager at Ham Wall, said the jelly was unlike anything he’d ever seen before.
.
A mysterious, gelatinous slime has been found in a nature park in England, and theories about its origins range from the down-to-earth to the far-out.
The earthquakes that rocked Tohoku, Japan in 2011, Sumatra in 2004 and Chile in 1960 — all of magnitude 9.0 or greater — should not have happened, according to seismologist’s theories of earthquake cycles. And that might mean earthquake prediction needs an overhaul, some researchers say.
All three earthquakes struck along subduction zones, where two of Earth’s tectonic plates collide and one dives beneath the other. Earlier earthquakes had released the pent-up strain along Chile’s master fault, meaning no big quakes were coming, scientists had thought. Japan and Sumatra both sat above on old oceanic crust, thought to be too stiff for superquakes.
Photographer Tommy Eliassen captured this spectacular view of an Orionid meteor streaking through the dazzling northern lights and Milky Way from his camp in Korgfjellet, Hemnes, Norway, on Oct. 20, 2012, during the peak of the 2012 Orionid met.
.
.
.Click link below for slideshow (click on the picture above once in –Science Slideshows – to start this slideshow):
Explore the dynamic relationship between faith and science, where curiosity meets belief. Join us in fostering dialogue, inspiring discovery, and celebrating the profound connections that enrich our understanding of existence.
.
James' World 2 