People Who May Have Been Saved by Ghosts

Ghosts can be terrifying, but I don’t think they’re all dangerous. Of course, there are stories of demon possessions all around the world, but I think ghosts usually want to be left alone. Some people believe ghosts will even go as far as saving people’s lives. Here are some examples of such cases.
 

1. The Gray Man

The small town of Pawleys Island in South Carolina is home to beautiful beaches, historic homes and apparently a lot of ghosts, the most famous of which is known as the gray man. For 200 years there have been numerous sightings of the mysterious grey figure typically right before a major hurricane hits the area. And seeing the grey man could not only save your life but also save your home.

Sounds like an urban legend right? Well, not according to Jim and Clara Moore who had a run in with the Grey Man two days before Hurricane Hugo struck in 1989. They told the story on one of my favorite childhood shows, mysteries. According to Jim, "We were talking a walk late in the afternoon which we usually do. You see so many people walking on the beach at this time of the day. That particular afternoon we only saw the one, and he was coming directly toward us. When I got within speaking distance, I raised my hand to say ‘Hi’ or ‘Beautiful evening’ or whatever, and he disappeared.”

Although the hurricane wreaked havoc on Jim and Clara’s neighborhood, their home was somehow the only one to escape the storm unscathed.

No one really knows who the Grey Man was, some say he was just some pirate, there are others who claim he was a young man who died in quicksand while on the way to see the woman that he loved. Not long after his death he appeared before his lover and warned her to leave the island the woman and her family did, right before a deadly hurricane struck. So I’m thinking maybe he loved the woman so much he came back to warn her but in the process was cursed to wander through eternity warning others of impending doom. So kinda like the Flying Dutchman, except the opposite.

2. The Wife with a Warning

According to the Chicago Tribune, a farmer named Charles Henry Durand was heading home late one evening when his horse stopped in the middle of the road, yea this happened back when people still rode horses, anyway, his horse stopped and would not move any further and began to tremble. Suddenly the air grew oppressive, and a faint light appeared gradually taking the shape of a woman beside Durand's wagon.

At this point, Durand wanted to run away, but he said he was scared stiff. The white figure then spoke in a whisper and said: "There is danger at home, stay away until morning." It was then Durand said he recognized the voice of his late wife. As soon as the warning was uttered, the figure disappeared.

Durand just went straight on home where he noticed that a window he had locked was now open and there were muddy footprints inside the house. As he walked inside carefully, he noticed a string which he pulled with his umbrella. Right then a gun went off, and the bullet would have hit Durand straight in the chest if he did not notice the string which was hard to see in the dark, Durand told the paper he would have died if not for the warning of his late wife.

3. The Woman Who was Dead for 56 Minutes

50-year-old Sonia Burton counts herself as a living miracle, for a good reason too because she was dead for 56 minutes following a heart attack.

Sonia’s day was just like any other as she showed up for work at a bingo hall, but as her shift started, she felt a pain in her chest and then collapsed. Paramedics were on the scene quickly and worked for the next 56 minutes to try to save Sonia as she was being transported the hospital. It was during this time that Sonia said she received a message from her late husband John who died of a heart attack in 2004

She said: "The only thing I remember is my late husband coming to me and saying 'It's not your time Sonia. Go back to the children.' Then I woke up in hospital."

4. The Mother’s Ghost

In March of 2015, emergency responders responded to a report about an overturned car in an icy river. When they arrived, they saw a woman and a baby who was strapped in a seat in the back of her mother’s car, which was hanging upside down in cold water.

Here’s where it gets creepy, when the rescuers entered the water they say they heard a voice calling for help. The 25-year-old mother was already dead, but the officers swear they heard an adult's voice calling out to them for help.

Officer Jared Warner of the Spanish Fork Police Department was one of the first to reach the vehicle; he told the Desert News that “We’ve gotten together and to just talk about it and all four of us swear that we heard somebody inside the car saying, ‘Help,’”

Officer Bryan Dewitt who was also on the scene said “The only people in there were the deceased mother and the child.” Officer Tyler Beddoes another responder said they couldn't explain it, but have no doubt they heard it.

"It wasn't just something that was just in our heads. To me it was plain as day cause I remember hearing a voice," Beddoes told the Deseret News. "I think it was Dewitt who said, 'We're trying. We're trying our best to get in there.' How do you explain that? I don't know,"

Also, it was a miracle that little Lily survived, as she was hanging upside down for almost 14 hours in her car seat with no food or water with the icy river flowing right below her head and temperatures dropping to near freezing throughout the night.

Strange 518-Million-Year-Old 'Mythical Beast' Sea Creature Fossil Discovered

An artistic rendition shows the rare creature had a long worm-like body, a shell over its head like a bike helmet and lengthy scary spikes poking out from either side of its body.

Experts find rare ancient fossilized sea creature that's 'strange beyond measure'

• The second one of its kind ever found
• 518 million years old from Cambrian Period
• Likely lived in shallow waters less than 100 meters deep
   

This bizarre prehistoric sea creature looks like an armored spikey caterpillar from outer space! It was found by archaeologists at southern China's famous fossil site of Yunnan Province where a treasure trove of ancient history lies hidden beneath the earth dating back to the Cambrian Period 541 to 485.4 million years ago. 

Its official name is orthrozanclus elongata, after its long body and despite the tens of thousands of fossils in the area, only 2 of these have ever been found so far. 

1. The first one was dug up in 2015 in Chengjiang fossil site by Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology's researchers. 
2. The second was discovered in 2016 in Kunming by a fossil lover who gave it to Mr. Zhao, who learned it was the same as species. 

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Zhao Fangchen holds one of the two fossils of the ancient species that have been discovered in Yunnan Province, China.

“The two specimens could shed light on the diversity of extinct creatures as well as their connection with animals in modern times.”

— Zhao Fangchen, researcher

Zhao Fangchen knew as soon as he saw the fossil it was different from others 'even if it was very small' because of its extremely long spikes and unsegmented body. These made it difficult to categorize.

"The creature was about 1.5cm long and 3mm wide, but its spikes were about 6mm long. It just looked so different," said Mr. Zhao.

Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology. Shell-armoured creatures, sclerite-covered taxa, discovered in Chengjiang, Yunnan fossil site. A, b, f, and g are the two new specimens.

Ancient Mythical Beasts

With an armored body and long spikes all around Dr. Smith said "the creature is like a mythical beast." He added that "we don't know much about the animal underneath these mineralized plates - whether it had legs or a slug-like foot, whether it had teeth or tentacles." 

Mr. Zhao Fangchen believes this strange appearance is more than just some ornate decoration to attract mates but that it evolved to protect itself from enemies. The armor is a strong defense and the spikes are even better, acting as feelers through the water as well as an offensive defense to keep predators at a distance. 

Mr. Zhao and other researchers think these fossils backup the Cambrian Explosion theory that claims a huge variety of creatures emerged about 541 million years ago due to a dramatic increase in oxygen. Before that time, there were mostly simple organisms that didn't change much for a long time. This diversification explosion ended during an extinction even about 488 million years ago. 

A tiny but significant discovery.

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Sources:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5132611/518-million-year-old-creature-strange-measure.html

https://www.livescience.com/61021-bizarre-cambrian-worm-discovered.html

China's Dark Matter 'Monkey King' Satellite Detects Evidence of Dark Matter Particles

The Dark Matter Particle Explorer (DAMPE) satellite China launched 310 miles in space in 2015 to collect cosmic ray data just picked up something extraordinary. 

While hunting for traces of dark matter in the universe, the satellite nicknamed "Wukong" or "Monkey King," detected a huge spike of unknown matter. 

Fan Yizhong, deputy chief designer of DAMPE's scientific application system, added that the spike was highly unusual. “The signals might have originated from either dark matter or pulsars,” he said.

Chinese Academy of Sciences' scientists have been recording the DAMPE satellite's findings for two years now and have measured over 3,500,000,000 high energy particles. This is the first anomaly in their electron and positron data spectrum. They are very excited but careful to not overreact to their discovery, waiting for higher probability scores from further analysis to confirm their expectations.

Why is this Important?

Basically, out of the 100% of the matter in the universe, we can only actually see ~5% of it. Then ~27% is "dark matter" that we cannot see but know exists because we can measure its gravitational influence. The last ~68% is the mysterious "dark energy" supposedly expanding everything in the universe. 

A main dark matter theory is that whatever it is can decay into some matter we can see: electrons, positrons, photos, etc. So this is what China's "Monkey King" DAMPE satellite has been scanning for. 

Since scientists have painstakingly searched for hard proof of dark matter for decades with only failure after failure, you can see why this long-awaited little "blip" in the data is actually a huge deal.

The latest findings were published in Nature and show the spectral break at 0.9 TeV (tera-electron-volts) and a potential spike at 1.4 TeV. This discovery helps fine-tune the parameters for future models of cosmic phenomena like pulsars, supernovas, and dark matter. 

In other words, they found visible particles of an invisible needle in the universal haystack and using those to help find evidence of more invisible needles. 

 "Together with data from the cosmic microwave background experiments, high energy gamma-ray measurements, and other astronomical telescopes, the DAMPE data may help to ultimately clarify the connection between the positron anomaly and the annihilation or decay of particle dark matter," Fan Yizhong, said in a statement.

"DAMPE has opened a new window for observing the high-energy universe, unveiling new physical phenomena beyond our current understanding," Chang Jin, chief scientist of DAMPE, told Xinhua. "Our data may inspire some new ideas in particle physics and astrophysics. We never expected such signals.”

So this could propel scientists beyond the bounds of previous limitations. They could have the means to find and interact with the invisible matter of our universe. The potential implications and opportunities are indeed intriguing. 

Chang continued: “The spike might indicate that there exists a kind of unknown particle with a mass of about 1.4 TeV. All the 61 elementary particles predicted by the standard model of particle physics have been found. Dark matter particles are beyond the list. So if we find a new elementary particle, it will be a breakthrough in physics. Even if they were from pulsars, it would be quite a strange astrophysical phenomenon that nobody had known before.”

But for now, the team will just keep logging cosmic ray data to increase their accuracy.

“So far, we are 99.99 percent sure this spike is real, but we need to collect more data. If the statistical probability exceeds 99.99994 percent, it will be a groundbreaking discovery in particle physics and astrophysics,” Chang said.

Even if this new data doesn't solve the dark matter question, astrophysicist at Princeton University David Spergel says, "These measurements will inform our understanding of cosmic ray acceleration [and] will tell us about the physical processes in shocks around supernova and the physics of pulsars."

And then what? I can't wait for someone will invent a device that can see dark matter and reflect that onto a human's brain so we can "see" the rest of the universe. Well, until then keep exploring outside the box.

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Sources:

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/china-detects-weird-space-signals-135544032.html

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/11/china-s-dark-matter-space-probe-detects-tantalizing-signal

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2017-11/30/c_136788775.htm

Scientists Bring Viking King "Back from the Dead" with 3D Printer

Computer model of dead Viking King's skeleton rebuilt with 3D printer.

Danish Viking king, Gorm the Old, is the son of semi-legendary Danish King Harthacnut, originally from Northmannia, who took power in the early 10th century deposing young king Sigtrygg Gnupasson and reigning over Western Denmark. When Harthacnut died, Gorm ascended the throne and ruled into his old age until he died in 958 AD. 

Scientists at the National Museum of Denmark made computer tomography (CT) scans of Gorm the Old's remains before reburying them in 2000. However, these early low-resolution scans were not good enough to learn many aspects about the man himself. For example, they could only guesstimate his age was between 35 to 50.

In the computer, they repaired the 3D model of his bones to compensate for damages of time. Marie Louise Jørkov of the University of Copenhagen said “you can print the bones one to one in 3D, which makes it possible to display the bones. We can then re-analyse the skeleton and study the bones to look for any signs of disease, which can’t be seen at the surface.”

They found a bump on the back of the skull that “can best be compared to a bunion,” concluded Carsten Reidies Bjarkam of Aarhus University. This is larger than normal but not a big deal, besides it probably being painful to lay down on. There's plenty of room for speculation as to what pressure could have caused such a protrusion, among the most likely may be a battle injury or the heavy burden of the king's crown. 

Despite not being able to gather DNA evidence of this body's actual identity, the museum feels it's best to leave the bones to rest since they've already been excavating and reburied several times. It's also an issue for the church and the royal family to decide. 

“He’s been in the grave for 800 years, which for much of that time was under water, and his bones are very damaged. I doubt that it’s possible to extract DNA or strontium [a trace element that can say something about where a person was born and lived]. Moreover, he’s been disinterred three times now, so it’s also a question of allowing him to rest in peace,” he says.

Rest in peace Viking King.

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Sources:

http://sciencenordic.com/denmark%E2%80%99s-first-viking-king-printed-3d

https://www.archaeology.org/news/6114-171121-gorm-the-old

500 Million-Year-Old Human Footprint Fossil Baffles Scientists

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An ancient trilobite was stepped on by a someone wearing shoes hundreds of millions of years ago.

In the summer of 1968, an amateur fossil collector, William J. Meister, made the discovery of a lifetime 43 miles west of Delta, Utah. To his surprise he found a fossilized human footprint about the size of a US 13 shoe (3.5"W x 10.25"L) stepping on a trilobite. Now, trilobites only existed between 260 to 600 million years ago, so this makes it the oldest human fossil footprint ever discovered! 

Trilobites were small marine invertebrates related to crabs and shrimps. Scientists currently think humans emerged 1 or 2 million years ago and only began wearing such shoes a few thousand years ago. 

This archaeological discovery could be sufficient to overturn all conventionally accepted ideas of human and geological evolution. According to science's currently accepted timeline of human existence on this planet, humans advanced enough to wear shoes would not have existed hundreds of millions of years ago. As one might expect, this sent shockwaves throughout the scientific communities with excitement for a new paradigm shift as well as skeptical denial.

Meister took the rock to a professor of metallurgy at the University of Utah, Melvin Cook, who suggested he show it to the university's geologists. But none of the geologists were willing to examine it, so Meister took it to a local newspaper called The Deseret News and quickly became very well-known around the country.

This amazing find was presented on March 1, 1973 in a creation-evolution debate at California State University in Sacramento. The creationist team included Dr. Duane Gish of the Institute for Creation Research and Reverend Boswell of a local Sacramento church. The scientific team consisted of Dr. Richard Lemmon of the University of California at Berkeley and Dr. G. Ledyard Stebbins of the University of California at Davis. Reverend Boswell said:

I have here something that pretty much destroys the entire geological column. It has been studied by three laboratories around the world and it's been tested and found valid. It represents a footprint that was found at Antelope Springs, Utah, while digging for trilobites.

The man was digging for trilobites, and these are trilobites here and here embedded [pointing to photo]. This is a brick mold of a trilobite footprint [laughter] of a human footprint with a trilobite in it. The man stepped on a living trilobite, [thus burying] him in the mud. This particular strata is dated Cambrian, supposedly 500 million years extinct before man arrived on the face of the earth. The interesting thing about this photograph is that there is also heel marks, which would indicate that they were made by modern man.

In a news conference, the skeptical curator of the Museum of Earth Science at the University of Utah, James Madsen, dismissively said: "There were no men 600 million years ago. Neither were there monkeys or bears or ground sloths to make pseudo-human tracks. What man-thing could possibly have been walking about on this planet before vertebrates even evolved?" 

Another astonishing trilobite fossil discovery was made in Antelope Spring, Arizona on July 20, 1968 by Dr. Clifford Burdick, a consulting geologist from Tucson, Arizona. He found an impression of a child's foot in a bed of shale.

'The impression was about six inches in length, with the toes spreading as if the child had never yet worn shoes, which compress the toes. There does not appear to be much of an arch, and the big toe is not prominent.'

This was shown to two geologists and a paleontologist. One geologist agreed it seemed to belong to a human being, but the paleontologist's opinion was that no biological agent had been involved. Dr.Burdick affirmed:

The rock chanced to fracture along the front of the toes before the fossil footprint was found. On cross section the fabric of the rock stands out in fine laminations, or bedding planes. Where the toes pressed into the soft material, the laminations were bowed downward from the horizontal, indicating a weight that had been pressed into the mud.

Mr. Meister claimed that when he had a geologist examine the print, the geologist offered him $250,000 for the print. Meister asked him, “What are you going to do with it if I sell it to you?” The geologist replied, “I’m going to destroy it, it destroys my entire life work as a geologist.”

It's disappointing to think that some people would be willing to destroy such a monumental artifact that can reveal such a new perspective on our human heritage and origins. 

Respected archaeological researcher, Michael Cremo, has written books on the subject of such examples of ancient artifacts and he has learned that certain scientific institutions, like the Smithsonian Institution, make great efforts to maintain the concept of recent human evolution. He has documented several instances where they deny, defame, and even exile archeologists for publishing their findings for peer review. 

In defense of the dates obtained by the geologists, Virginia Steen-McIntyre wrote in a letter (March 30, 1981) to Estella Leopold, associate editor of Quaternary Research: "The problem as I see it is much bigger than Hueyatlaco. It concerns the manipulation of scientific thought through the suppression of 'Enigmatic Data,' data that challenges the prevailing mode of thinking."

Can you imagine the implications of mankind around the world learning or realizing we are hundreds of millions of years older than we thought and that we have been far more advanced than even we are today? The questions and answers beyond this metaphoric opened doorway could cause a rippling paradigm shift worldwide. 

During one interview, Michael Cremo said:

"The reactions in your question are typical of a group that I call the fundamentalist Darwinists. They support the theory of evolution not for purely scientific reasons, but because it confirms their prior commitments to a strict materialism. They do not want to hear me, and they do not want anyone else to hear me, so they say those kinds of things. Sometimes they try to stop me from lecturing at universities."

Those really seeking the truth are open to new information to learn from and examine the scientific findings rationally without bias. We may have to dig deep within ourselves to find the answers to the questions: Who are we? Where did we come from? Why are we here?

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Sources:

http://www.footprintsinstone.com/the-footprints/meister-print/

https://ncse.com/cej/2/4/tripping-over-trilobite-study-meister-tracks

http://mcremo.com/

800-Year-Old Tombs of Lord Hu Hong Discovered in China

Here, the rear wall of the coffin chamber in Née Wu's tomb.

Ancient tombs discovered in a Chinese construction site.

After being buried for 800 years, the tombs of Lord Hu Hong and his wife Née Wu were found in Qingyuan County, Zhejiang province, China. There's an inscription that translates to "Grand Master for Thorough Counsel." 

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According to researchers, Hu Hong served the southern Song Dynasty during a time when China was split between two dynasties. There's a long inscription inside Hu Hong's tomb that tells the story of his life. In part, it reads "has been inscribed on this stone to be treasured here, in the hope it will last as long as heaven and earth!"

In 1195 the Chinese government held a massive crackdown on the Tao-hsueh practitioners, a religious group that called out senior officials in the government and even emperors for drinking alcohol, having concubines, and multiple wives. It turns out, Hu Hong was the "Investigating Censor prosecuting the treacherous and the heretical, with awe-inspiring justice." It seems he arrested, or worse, members of this group for publicly criticizing the government. Perhaps the many people he angered in his prosecution took revenge and robbed his tomb. 

Missing Artifacts & Erased Inscriptions

Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology's main researcher, Jianming Zheng, led a team of archaeologists to excavate these tombs. According to them, Lord Hu Hong's tomb was already robbed but his wife's tomb was left intact. Some may suspect foul play due to the political sensitivity and, interestingly, the inscriptions in Née Wu's tomb were not readable, supposedly.

Now, the bodies themselves were extremely decayed despite the large amount of mercury archaeologists found and believe was used in attempts to preserve their bodies. Besides this, the only remaining artifacts were gold jewelry, gold and silver alloy hairpins, elephant patterned porcelain jars, and an interesting crystal disc. 

The Story of Lord Hu Hong

According to researchers and his tomb inscription, Hu Hong was born in April 1147 to a poor family. His father taught Confucianism to the public and, during China's 10th century civil war, his ancestors were refugees moving to Longquan County, near Qingyuan County.

"Hu Hong loved learning, but his family was poor and had no money to buy books. When there were book peddlers passing by, he would borrow the books, read them overnight and return them the next day," the "Gazetteer of Chuzhou Prefecture," which was a text published in 1486, reads in translation.

He was a student of "outstanding talent" and passed government exams amidst peer competition, according to the inscription. Making his way through government ranking over the years, he became the "best county magistrate of the year" in 1193 while serving on the northern borders of the southern Song Dynasty territory. In 1200, "at the time, the Yao tribes were rebellious, and he stamped the rebels out," the inscription reads. 

He seems quite the accomplished official. Yet, towards the end of his career, Hu Hong experienced enough to become critical of the government himself. 

"He knew that he was beyond his prime and insisted on retiring. Had he kept being outspoken, he would have been pushed out. Although worried about current affairs and concerned with the moral decline of the time, and though he could not easily let go, he no longer had the energy to fight and serve," the inscription says.

Finally, Hu Hong died in 1203 with his wife following shortly afterward in 1206 and entombed side by side. After just over 800 years, in March 2014, the tombs were discovered and published in the Chinese journal Wenwu in 2015.

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Sources

https://www.livescience.com/60979-ancient-tombs-chinese-couple.html

https://www.archaeology.org/news/6111-171120-china-hu-hong

North Korean 'Ghost Ships' with Skeletons Turning Up on Japanese Shores

'Ghost Ships' with human skeletons have been landing on Japanese shores since the beginning of November with only a few clues to their origins. 

The most recent was a 23-foot long wooden boat found with eight skeletons on board that washed up in Oga, Akita Prefecture shore (facing North Korea), according to the Japan Coast Guard. Investigators found a North Korean cigarette pack and unused life jackets with Korean lettering. For the bodies to have decomposed down to skeletons means they've been drifting around at sea for a long time. 

This one was first spotted by a 68-year-old woman who reported the strange old boat to authorities.

“I was surprised to see the boat in such a bad condition. I watched authorities use stretchers to carry bodies off the boat," she said.

Two other boats had some people found still alive among other dead bodies aboard. Another vessel carrying eight fishermen landed in the same prefecture on Friday last week, while two more ships were found adrift on November 19 and 13 in the ocean further north. Two capsized boats were found on November 15 and 17 off the coast of the Noto Penninsula by Japanese coast guard. 

Eleven survivors were sent back to North Korea after they supposedly said they wanted to return, authorities said. Eight of them were North Korean squid fishermen and told Japanese authorities their engine lost power leaving them stranded for a month. 

A Japanese expert on North Korea, Satoru Miyamoto, told CNN these 'ghost ships' may be from Kim Jong Un expanding fisheries to provide more money for the army.

'They are using old boats manned by the military, by people who have no knowledge about fishing. It will continue,' he said.

International sanctions were placed on North Korea by various countries for pursuing it's nuclear missile advancement and threatening neighboring countries and the United States with nuclear strikes. North Korea's communist dictator's policies have caused their citizens to suffer even more during these poor times.

President Trump announced that many North Koreans don't have plumbing or electricity with some even starving to death. 

In 2015, more such boats were found on Japanese shores with both living and dead people on board. They were said to be desperate fishermen that explored too far looking for food during the famine. Others believe they were refugees escaping the grim and fearful life living under North Korean tyranny. 

North Korean Capital, Pyongyang, denies any of its fishermen were trying to flee the country, saying all deaths were due to navigational errors. 

Escaping North Korea

During North Korea's terrible famine of the mid-1990's, 30,000 North Koreans have escaped to China, South Korea, and Japan and tell stories of violent punishments for honest political speech, being sent to forced labor camps for watching American movies, and simple starvation. Many don't even survive their escape attempt and those who are captured are severely punished.

According to Vice, “the North Korean penal code states that defectors face two years of hard labor if they are caught crossing the border,” though punishments can vary.

Radio Free Asia reported that North Korean officials warn citizens near the Chinese border that if they help people escape, they would be put to death and their family will be imprisoned or exiled to remote regions.

Despite all these threats and dangers, North Koreans flee by the hundreds.

Earlier this month, a North Korean soldier made an epic escape like out of an action movie. He raced a jeep towards the border then sprinting on foot through the border while being chased and shot at by his former comrades. Hit with 5 bullets he was rescued by South Korean soldiers who flew him in a helicopter to a nearby hospital for emergency surgery. It was a miracle he survived. 

Upon examining him, his doctors discovered some symptoms of his horrible life in communist North Korea. He had hepatitis B, tuberculosis, and parasitic worms nearly a foot long in his intestines. These are evidence of the poor health conditions people suffer through over there.

This story of a young North Korean girl is heartbreaking. Please share:

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Sources:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5125089/Six-North-Korean-ghost-ships-wash-Japan.html#ixzz4zkq7TKiJ 

http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/11/28/clues-point-to-n-korea-in-ghost-ship-mystery/

Copper Detected in Ancient Egyptian Ink

Courtesy University of Copenhagen

Recent test of Egyptian papyrus shows black ink filled with copper. 

According to Cosmos report, this metal-filled ink was used in Egypt from 200 BC to 100 AD. This is 400 years earlier than previously known. 

Thomas Christiansen of the University of Copenhagen and his team of scientists used X-ray microscopy at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility. They scanned papyrus from 88 BC and 200 AD. 

They believe the charcoal used to make these inks contained traces of copper left over from the process of separating copper from other ores. Specifically, the copper was found in the form of cuprite, azurite, and malachite minerals. 

They also found out that the ancient Egyptians' blue ink contained scraps of copper most likely from metal workshops near the temples. Their alchemical knowledge was more advanced than they're commonly credited for. 

Sources:

https://www.archaeology.org/news/6101-171115-egypt-copper-ink

New Silver Nanowire Makes Printed Electronics 4,000x Better

Silver nanowires conduct electricity 4,000x better than nanoparticles and don't require heat. 

To get good electrical signal conductivity, engineers use to heat nanoparticles until they melted together, which would burn up thinner materials like paper, fabric, etc. This meant only thicker, heat resistant, and more expensive materials could be made into electronics. 

Thanks to researchers from Duke University, now flexible electronics can be made much cheaper, more effective, and on almost anything. Ironically, the solution turns out to be rather simple. Simply changing the shape of the nanoparticles in the ink eliminated the need for heat.

They tested silver nanosphere, short and long nanowire, and microflake exposed to different temperatures to create the best conductive films from the ink compounds. Tests on the different films them showed that electrons flowed easier through films made of silver nanowires than those made of nanospheres or microflakes. 

The "Aha!" moment wasn't the finding the best form but in learning how much more conductive nanowires were to nanoparticles: 4,000 times greater! 

They’re currently studying whether silver-coated copper nanowires, a cheaper alternative to pure silver nanowires, will deliver the same effect as a part of that effort, and they’re also experimenting with aerosol jets as a method of printing silver nanowire inks in usable circuits.

Silver + Graphene = WOW

Even better than silver plating copper, is balancing the weaknesses of silver with the strengths of graphene. Other researchers have been experimenting with combinations of super conductive silver nanowires and super thin yet extremely durable graphene. 

It is the strongest material ever tested, efficiently conducts heat and electricity, and is nearly transparent. However, it is also very expensive to make, so a hybrid combo seems to be a great solution.

"The addition of graphene to the silver nanowire network also increases its ability to conduct electricity by around a factor of ten thousand," says Alan Dalton, head of the team behind this new material. "This means we can use a fraction of the amount of silver to get the same, or better, performance. As a result screens will be more responsive and use less power."

"One of the issues with using silver is that it tarnishes in air," says Matthew Large, lead researcher on the project. "What we've found is that the graphene layer prevents this from happening by stopping contaminants in the air from attacking the silver. What we've also seen is that when we bend the hybrid films repeatedly the electrical properties don't change, whereas you see a drift in the films without graphene that people have developed previously. This paves the way towards one day developing completely flexible devices."

Endless Silver Nanowire Possibilities

Duke University researchers are excited to develop technologies with these super conductive silver nanowires. They expect these to improve photovoltaic solar cells, touch-screens, pressure sensitive devices, LEDs, batteries, and even bio-electric devices. They will be exploring aerosol jet 3D printing of such metal foams for uniquely customizable and versatile applications. 

Using nanowires as building blocks, the silver aerogels don't have traditional rigid limitations. They even have tunable densities, controlled pore structures, improved electrical conductivity and mechanical properties, making them uber practical for any application.

"The high porosity and excellent mechanical/electrical properties of these silver nanowire aerogels may lead to enhanced device performance and open up new possibilities in fuel cells, energy storage, medical devices, catalysis and sensors," said Fang Qian
 

Sources:

https://phys.org/news/2017-10-ultralight-silver-nanowire-aerogel-boon.html#jCp

https://newatlas.com/graphene-silver-tougher-smartphone-screen/51923/

VANTABLACK: The Darkest Material in the World Makes Things Disappear

 

This latest advanced material can make anything vanish into a black hole.

Thanks to Surrey Nano Systems, you can now spray paint any object and it will disappear into what looks like a flat black hole. They've achieved the impossible using a unique material made of carbon nanotubes called Vantablack. It is so unimaginably black that the human eye actually has trouble processing what it is seeing. 

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VANTA stands for Vertically Aligned NanoTube Array and is made by “growing” carbon nanotubes on a metal surface. One nanotube is a billionth of a meter thick, or the width of three gold atoms. Light is trapped between the tubes, bouncing around until it’s absorbed (up to 99.96%) instead of reflecting back to our eye. So the only thing we can see is, literally, nothing. Visually, this can make 3D objects appear a flat black... blacker than black.

The possibilities of this new material have excited British architect Asif Khan who has decided to create an unmatched display in the upcoming 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea, plunging spectators into a "schism of space."

Khan wants visitors to fully experience Vantablack’s unique properties and is creating a building for this in the Olympic Park with four curved walls. With tiny lights as stars, the effect will feel like floating in deep space.

“It will be like you’re looking into the depths of space itself. As you approach the building that star field will grow to fill your entire field of view, and then you’ll enter as though you’re being absorbed into a cloud of blackness.”

Blacker than Black Ops

Since it's development over 3 years ago, Vanta Black has been attracting aerospace engineers, architects, artists, electrical engineers, and more. The possibilities for new stealth drones, microchips, touch screens, ultra-light wiring, heat absorption, etc. are endless. This kind of new material gives innovators the kind of resource they've only been able to dream of before.

One of Surrey Nano Systems' founders and the chief technology officer, Ben Jensen, of Surrey NanoSystems said, 

"It’s almost like an alien material from “Star Trek.” Imagine a drinking straw, closed at one end, with a wall one-atom thick. This straw is one-ten-thousandth the diameter of a human hair, but it is 10 times stronger than steel, and 10 times better at conducting heat than copper. It’s been known to exhibit what is called 'ballistic transport;' electrons travel through it with almost no resistance. Vantablack packs billions of these straws together."

I'd love to have a Vanta Black ninja suit but Ben says...

"When I read about making black ninja suits and black aircraft, I just laugh. It’s not a reasonable application."

Okay, I'll settle for a unicorn head trophy.

An object coated in Vantablack appears 2-dimensional and is difficult to perceive. Image Credit: Surrey NanoSystems

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Sources:

www.surreynanosystems.com

https://www.livescience.com/58561-spray-on-vantablack-coating-is-blackest-material.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/06/garden/what-you-can-do-with-vantablack-the-darkest-material-ever-made.html