Message from Mars

Father and daughter decipher message coming from Mars.

Ken and Keli Chaffin, a father/daughter team from the US, have deciphered a simulated “extraterrestrial” message that was transmitted in May 2023 via a radio signal sent by the European Space Agency’s ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter. The message was intercepted by three observatories on Earth. It was part of a project which aimed to engage citizen scientists in decoding an alien message.

The Chaffins realized that the message contained a diagram that represented the structures of five amino acids, the fundamental building blocks of life. According to specialists, the Chaffins conducted hours-long simulations every day and ultimately organized the bits into coherent structures using computer simulations and reversible cellular automata.

The simulated signal was received on Earth 16 minutes after it was sent. A worldwide community of over 5,000 citizen scientists went to work on the raw data and managed to extract the signal within ten days. This extraction of the encrypted message from the raw radio signal showcases the potential of global collaboration

The project, called “A Sign in Space”, was initiated by artist Daniela de Paulis in collaboration with the European Space Agency, the SETI Institute, the Green Bank Observatory in West Virginia, and the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics. It was conceived to test which methods might be useful for decoding transmissions from extraterrestrial civilizations.

According to the European Space Agency, the results of the project showed that if humanity ever receives a signal from real extraterrestrials, citizen scientists could play a crucial role in deciphering it. The involvement of so many amateur scientists and the success of the Chaffins demonstrate the power of collaborative efforts and diverse approaches.

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/father-daughter-duo-decipher-message-coming-from-mars/ar-AA1tpWJl?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=6fc7dd98f17b42d8852b3bbcb7f5d7c6&ei=69

Ancient Europeans were Dark

New research finds that most prehistoric Europeans had dark skin, hair, and eyes until about 3,000 years ago.

The genes that cause lighter skin, hair and eyes emerged among early Europeans only about 14,000 years ago, during the Old Stone Age. But light features appeared only sporadically until relatively recently. If I had to guess, I would say that the genes for lighter features are recessive, and a person would have had to get the recessive genes from both mother and father, which wouldn’t have happened that often.

Lighter skin may have had an evolutionary advantage for Europeans because it enabled people to synthesize more vitamin D in Europe’s weaker sunlight. But lighter eye color, like blue or green, does not seem to have any major evolutionary advantages, so its eventual emergence may have been driven by chance or sexual selection.

Scientists analyzed 348 samples of ancient DNA from archaeological sites in 34 countries in Western Europe and Asia. The oldest, from 45,000 years ago, was from western Siberia, and another high-quality DNA sample came from a 9,000-year-old individual from Sweden. But many of the older samples were badly degraded, in which case the researchers estimated their pigmentation using “probabilistic phenotype inference” and the HlrisPlex-S system, which can predict eye, hair, and skin color from an incomplete DNA sample.

Palaeoanthropologists think the first Homo sapiens arrived permanently in Europe between 50,000 and 60,000 years ago, which meant they weren’t far removed from African modern human ancestors. Therefore, early Europeans initially only had genetics for dark skin, hair, and eyes. This coloring relies on hundreds of interconnected genes.

The study showed that the frequency of people dark skin was still high in parts of Europe until the Copper Age, about 5,000 years ago. In some areas, dark skin appeared frequently until even later.

Researchers found that light eyes emerged in Northern and Western Europe between 14,000 and 4,000 years ago, even though dark hair and skin were still dominant at that time. There were those who bucked the trend; as a 1-year-old boy living in Europe about 17,000 years ago had dark hair and skin, but blue eyes.

The genetic basis for lighter skin seems to have emerged in Sweden at about the same time as lighter eyes but initially remained relatively rare. The research also showed a statistical “spike” in the incidence of light eyes color at this time, which suggests that blue or green eyes were more prevalent at that time than earlier or later.

So it looks like the Nazis were wrong. Instead of blond hair and blue eyes proving the owners were “pure”, these traits actually proved these individuals were descended from “mutants”.

But then, all of us are, because that’s how evolution works.

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/most-ancient-europeans-had-dark-skin-eyes-and-hair-up-until-3-000-years-ago-new-research-finds/ar-AA1AN5EZ?ocid=mailsignout&pc=U591&cvid=92b66b3d61ca48d8deba7416e37ab7fb&ei=36

A Radio Signal From 15 Billion Miles Away

An aging spacecraft turned on a radio transmitter it hasn’t used in decades.

47-year-old Voyager 1 is back in touch with NASA. A technical issue caused a days-long communications blackout with the historic mission, which is 15 billion miles away, in interstellar space. While engineers work to understand what went wrong, Voyager is now using a radio transmitter it hadn’t used since 1981.

Launched in September 1977, the NASA team has slowly turned off components to conserve power. This has allowed the aging spacecraft to send back science data from time to time.

The probe is the farthest spacecraft from Earth, now operating beyond the heliosphere, which is the sun’s bubble of magnetic fields and particles that extends well beyond Pluto’s orbit. Now Voyager’s instruments can directly sample interstellar space.

The new problem is one of many the vehicle has faced in recent months, but the Voyager’s team keeps finding creative solutions.

Occasionally, engineers command Voyager 1 to turn on some heaters to warm components that have sustained radiation damage. The heat can help reverse the damage. Messages are relayed to Voyager from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory through the Deep Space Network. A system of radio antennas on Earth helps facilitate communications with Voyagers 1 and 2, and other spacecraft. When Voyager 1 sends data about how it is responding to the commands, it takes about 23 hours for a message to travel one way.

But when a recent command to the heater was sent, something triggered the spacecraft’s autonomous fault protection system. If the spacecraft draws more power than it should, this system shuts off non-essential systems. The team discovered the latest issue when it didn’t get the response signal.

Voyager 1 has been using its X-band radio transmitter for decades. Its second transmitter, called the S-band, hasn’t been used since 1981 because its signal is much fainter. The team believes the fault protection system shifted the spacecraft to the S-band transmitter, which uses less power.

The team won’t command Voyager 1 to turn on the X-band transmitter until it figures out what happened, which could take weeks. They want to determine if there are any risks to turning on the X-band. But if the team can get the X-band working again, they may get some data that reveals what happened.

In the meantime, they don’t want to rely on the S-band for too long, because its signal is too weak.

You’ve got to give it to NASA, when they build something, they build it to last. Billions of miles further than a car would.

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/aging-spacecraft-starts-up-a-radio-transmitter-it-hasn-t-used-since-1981-from-15-billion-miles-away/ar-AA1tkOkQ?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=6a178edabc1e45ac98d75dfb769caebc&ei=81

An Ice Age Infant

By analyzing the DNA of a baby found in southern Italy, scientists have a striking picture of the young boy. The poorly developed child lived during the Ice Age about 17,000 years ago. He likely had curly dark hair, brown skin, and blue eyes.

In 1998, his remains were discovered in the Grotta delle Mura cave in Monopoli, Puglia. The baby’s bones were carefully covered with rock slabs. With no grave goods, the simple burial was the only grave in the cave.

The largely intact skeleton revealed the child was about 2.5 feet tall when he died. Recent dental examination revealed he was between 8 and 18 months old. Radiocarbon dating stated the remains were 16,910 to 17,320 years old, meaning he lived a few centuries after the Last Glacial Maximum, when glaciers covered a quarter of the planet’s land, some 20,000 years ago.

Ancient skeletons found in warm climates are often too degraded for any significant genetic analysis. But the cave was so cool, the boy’s remains were well preserved. Researchers were able to recover about 75% of the boy’s genome, which is remarkable.

His skin was darker than most modern Europeans’, but his pale blue eyes match those of other western European hunter-gatherers. The infant appears to be related to the Villabruna cluster, a group of post Ice Age people who lived up to 14,000 years ago. This suggests the Villabruna line began in southern Europe well before the end of the Ice Age.

Researchers also determined his cause of death. He had an inherited condition that causes the heart muscle to thicken. This results in fatal congestive heart failure.

Nine accentuated lines marking the baby’s teeth indicate “physiological stress events” that occurred before and after birth. Isotopes in the teeth suggest that his mother stayed in one area during pregnancy and may have been malnourished. His birth was likely difficult, according to a fracture in the baby’s collarbone.

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/an-ice-age-infant-s-17-000-year-old-dna-reveals-he-had-dark-skin-and-blue-eyes/ar-AA1sFhf0?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=ed46623d933043f19069e3bf9a8f9350&ei=23