Excerpt:

>Gunmen attacked a major Shiite holy site in Iran on Wednesday, killing at least 15 people and wounding dozens.

>The official website of the judiciary said two gunmen were arrested and a third is on the run after the attack on the Shah Cheragh mosque, the second holiest site in Iran.

>The state-run IRNA news agency reported the death toll and state TV said 40 people were wounded.

>The Islamic State group late Wednesday claimed responsibility for the attack on its Amaq news agency. It said an armed IS militant stormed the shrine and opened fire on its visitors. It claimed that some 20 people were killed and dozens more were wounded.

The Associated Press October 27, 2022

Excerpt:

>Although the number of people who lived at Calakmul during the height of the Snake King’s rule was not a complete surprise because of previous mapping and archaeological investigations by the Autonomous University of Campeche and INAH [Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia], the team was astonished at the scale and degree of urban construction.

>Immense apartment-style residential compounds have been identified throughout the surveyed area, some with as many as 60 individual structures, the seats of large households composed of extended families and affiliated members. These large residential units were clustered around numerous temples, shrines, and possible marketplaces, making Calakmul one of the largest cities in the Americas at 700 AD.

>But that’s not all the team was able to see.

>“We were also able to see that the magnitude of landscape modification equaled the scale of the urban population,” explains [UCalgary’s] Reese-Taylor. “All available land was covered with water canals, terraces, walls, and dams, no doubt to provide maximum food and water security for the city dwellers.”

"A man's pair of trousers exploded with a loud report. Fortunately the owner was not in them at the time" the North Island’s Hutt News printed on August 12, 1931. "Although dazed by the force of the explosion, was able to seize the garment, which was hanging before the fire, and hurl it out on to the grass outside.

“There is nothing visible to warn the owner that the affected portion of the dried out clothing may catch fire (or even explode) by coming near a fire (there need not be actual contact with flame or spark), or by friction, or by the concussion of a sudden blow. Even sunheat can cause ignition.”

Farmers sprayed sodium chlorate on ragwort – an introduced species with poor effects for livestock – and trousers with the residual chemical became flammable.

• Watson, J. (2004). The Significance of Mr. Richard Buckley’s Exploding Trousers: Reflections on an Aspect of Technological Change in New Zealand Dairy Farming between the World Wars. Agricultural History, 78(3), 346–360. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3744710

Cerberus marsquake magma is an otherworldly discovery!

From the linked release by ETH Zurich:

>An international team of researchers, led by ETH Zurich, analysed a cluster of more than 20 recent marsquakes that originated in the Cerberus Fossae graben system.

>From the seismic data, scientists concluded that the low-frequency quakes indicate a potentially warm source that could be explained by present day molten lava, i.e., magma at that depth, and volcanic activity on Mars. Specifically, they found that the quakes are located mostly in the innermost part of Cerberus Fossae.

>When they scanned observational orbital images of the same area, they noticed that the epicentres were located very close to a structure that has previously been described as a “young volcanic fissure.” Darker deposits of dust around this fissure are present not only in the dominant direction of the wind, but in all directions surrounding the Cerberus Fossae Mantling Unit.

>“The darker shade of the dust signifies geological evidence of more recent volcanic activity – perhaps within the past 50,000 years - relatively young, in geological terms,” explains Simon Stähler, the lead author of the paper, which has now been published in the journal Nature.

>Stähler is a Senior Scientist working in the Seismology and Geodynamics group led by Professor Domenico Giardini at the Institute of Geophysics, ETH Zurich.

ETA spacing.

Hu H, Wang Y, Fabbri M, et al. Cranial osteology and palaeobiology of the Early Cretaceous bird Jeholornis prima (Aves: Jeholornithiformes). Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society.

>Abstract

>Jeholornis is a representative of the earliest-diverging bird lineages, providing important evidence of anatomical transitions involved in bird origins. Although ~100 specimens have been reported, its cranial morphology remains poorly documented owing to poor two-dimensional preservation, limiting our understanding of the morphology and ecology of the key avian lineage Jeholornithiformes, in addition to cranial evolution during the origin and early evolution of birds.

>Here, we provide a detailed description of the cranial osteology of Jeholornis prima, based primarily on high-quality, three-dimensional data of a recently reported specimen. New anatomical information confirms the overall plesiomorphic morphology of the skull, with the exception of the more specialized rostrum.

>Data from a large sample size of specimens reveal the dental formula of J. prima to be 0–2–3 (premaxillary–maxillary–dentary tooth counts), contrary to previous suggestions that the presence of maxillary teeth is diagnostic of a separate species, Jeholornis palmapenis.

>We also present evidence of sensory adaptation, including relatively large olfactory bulbs in comparison to other known stem birds, suggesting that olfaction was an important aspect of Jeholornis ecology. The digitally reconstructed scleral ring suggests a strongly diurnal habit, supporting the hypothesis that early-diverging birds were predominantly active during the day.

Progress 82 freighter will arrive at the orbiting lab on Thursday, October 27.

Coverage of the unpiloted mission, carrying food, fuel, and supplies for the multi-national Expedition 68 crew aboard the ISS, began at 8 p.m. EDT (5:20 a.m. Baikonur time) Tuesday, October 25 on NASA Television, the NASA app, and the agency’s website.

Texas-based RealPage Inc. provides software and services to the real estate industry.

The complaint, filed in the Southern District of California against RealPage Inc. and nine landlords, claims they violated Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act by eliminating natural imbalances and competitive pricing for multifamily residential real estate leases.

The complaint also quotes from a marketing video used to attract additional real estate clients, in which a RealPage Vice President discusses the recent and never-before seen price increases for residential real estate leases, as high as 14.5% in some markets. When another RealPage executive asks: “What role has the [RealPage] software played” in those increases, the RealPage Vice President responded: “I think it’s driving it, quite honestly.”

(Link submitted 25 October 2022 04:10 UTC.)

Filed by Jennifer Ouellette, 22 October 2022 07:23 GMT+11.

Excerpt:

>"For the first time, we went right after rainfall to the fairy circles and checked the new grasses for termite herbivory," Getzin told Ars. "Our excavations demonstrate that termites did certainly not cause the death of the grasses. If you come too late to the fairy circles, the grasses are long dead and detritivores like termites may have already fed on the lignified grass. But they did not kill the grass. We are showing unambiguously that the grasses die before and completely independent of any termite action."

>So what's next for Getzin? He believes more research is needed on the swarm intelligence of plants, likening plants to beavers in the sense that they can act as "ecosystem engineers" that modify their environment. "Most people cannot believe this or are unwilling to believe that, because plants have no brains," said Getzin. "But plants act similarly like the beaver as ecosystem engineers because their only way to survive is forming optimal, strictly geometric patterns"—in other words, Turing patterns.

>DOI: Perspectives in Plant Ecology, Evolution and Systematics, 2022. 10.1016/j.ppees.2022.125698

Thanks! (The press release didn’t include hyperlinks.)

>Abstract

>Little is known about the origin of the spectral diversity of asteroids and what it says about conditions in the protoplanetary disk. Here we show that samples returned from Cb-type asteroid Ryugu have Fe isotopic anomalies indistinguishable from Ivuna-type (CI) chondrites, which are distinct from all other carbonaceous chondrites. Iron isotopes, therefore, demonstrate that Ryugu and CI chondrites formed in a reservoir that was different from the source regions of other carbonaceous asteroids. Growth and migration of the giant planets destabilized nearby planetesimals and ejected some inwards to be implanted into the Main Belt.

>In this framework, most carbonaceous chondrites may have originated from regions around the birthplaces of Jupiter and Saturn, while the distinct isotopic composition of CI chondrites and Ryugu may reflect their formation further away in the disk, owing their presence in the inner Solar System to excitation by Uranus and Neptune.

Papers published 20 October 2022:

>First asteroid gas sample delivered by the Hayabusa2 mission: A treasure box from Ryugu

>https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abo7239

>Abstract

>The Hayabusa2 spacecraft returned to Earth from the asteroid 162173 Ryugu on December 6, 2020. One day after the recovery, the gas species retained in the sample container were extracted and measured on-site, and stored in gas collection bottles. The container gas consists of helium and neon with an extraterrestrial 3He/4He and 20Ne/22Ne ratios, along with some contaminant terrestrial atmospheric gases. A mixture of solar and Earth’s atmospheric gas is the best explanation of the container gas composition. Fragmentation of Ryugu grains within the sample container is discussed based on the estimated amount of indigenous He and the size distribution of the recovered Ryugu grains. This is the first successful return of gas species from a near-Earth asteroid.

and

>Noble gases and nitrogen in samples of asteroid Ryugu record its volatile sources and recent surface evolution

>https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abo0431

>Abstract

>The near-Earth carbonaceous asteroid (162173) Ryugu is expected to contain volatile chemical species that could provide information on the origin of Earth’s volatiles. Samples of Ryugu were retrieved by the Hayabusa2 spacecraft. We measure noble gas and nitrogen isotopes in Ryugu samples, finding they are dominated by pre-solar and primordial components, incorporated during Solar System formation. Noble gas concentrations are higher than those in Ivuna-type carbonaceous (CI) chondrite meteorites. Several host phases of isotopically distinct nitrogen have heterogeneous abundances between the samples. Our measurements support a close relationship between Ryugu and CI chondrites. Noble gases produced by galactic cosmic rays, indicating ~5 Myr exposure, and from implanted solar wind, record the recent irradiation history of Ryugu after it migrated to its current orbit.

Submitted one hour prior :)

>Using hybridization capture to obtain genome-wide nuclear data, this paper presents genetic insights into the social organization of Neanderthals.

>https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/y8sp1l/using_hybridization_capture_to_obtain_genomewide/

ETA:

/TorrentialOutpouring, I submitted the paper at 04:41 GMT-4; OP’s link was submitted at 05:37 GMT-4.