A reminder

 

Credit: pinterest

From my own blog:

The day the sun stood still 

From Krakatoa with love

Dragons and giants

 

For the record, I don´t believe in this kind of stuff. I think...

Not medical advice

 

Dr Robert goes full "Doctor Robert" in this YouTube clip, discussing an mysterious Ayurvedic remedy known as shilajit. Never heard of it before. Will probably not spice my bhong lassie with it, but you be you...

A finite universe

 

It´s fascinating that we can observe galaxies at the (alleged) outer rim of the universe (which - supposedly - means we see them as they looked like perhaps 280 million years after the Big Bang), while we can´t discover Planet X in our own cosmic backyard, and still don´t know exactly how the interior of the Earth really works. Nor do we know how the schmuck our own brains can be conscious. And for a very long time, scientists didn´t realize that the giant panda is actually a bear...

And this in a supposedly "finite" universe. LOL.   

Clear as crystal

 

A sequel to the previous blog post. Homo erectus collected crystals already 800,000 years ago. Other hominins have also valued these little trinkets. Here is a quote from the paper linked below: "Notably, none of those crystals was used as a tool, weapon or ornament. They were neither worked, modified or repurposed in any way, nor do they show signs of use as jewels. Yet, hominins valued these stones enough to transport them from the geological outcrops to the caves used as refuges. These findings suggest that, almost 800,000 years ago— possibly earlier if additional claims are confirmed—, H. erectus displayed attraction to quartz and calcite crystals, treasuring them for reasons beyond practical necessity." The authors point out that in Homo sapiens, this would surely have been interpreted as evidence for symbolic thought!

Unfortunetely, the bulk of the paper is less impressive. Why is it strange that a few chimpanzees from circuses who are used to seeing and handling objects of human interest find crystals sufficiently alluring to collect them? Clue: it isn´t, and the researchers even admit it themselves. They recommend studies on wild apes instead...

Ahem. So nothing has really been proven here.

On the origin of our fascination with crystals

Worthless research?

 

Credit: fir0002

In 2300, an area the size of Pennsylvania in Antarctica will be ice free, prompting geopolitical conflicts over its resources. Think gold, silver, that kind of stuff.

But wait just a minute...

Did you say *2300*? Ahem, that´s in 200 years. Why was this even published? 

Antarctica hides huge cashes of gold, silver, copper and iron

Doomsday fish

 

Yes, oarfish. That´s the new apocalyptic sign, apparently. From a channel which previously promoted the idea that 3I/ATLAS is alien tech and that the Blood Moon was some kind of doomsday event. And yet, here we are. And how many stranded oarfish are we talking about, anyway? Two? Three??

Here is ChatGPT.

Are oarfish known as "doomsday fish" and associated with earthquakes and tsunamis?

Yes — the fish you’re thinking of is the Oarfish, and it is often called a “doomsday fish.” But the reputation is mostly folklore rather than science.

Why oarfish are called “doomsday fish”

In parts of East Asia, especially Japan, oarfish are traditionally believed to predict earthquakes or tsunamis. In Japanese folklore they are called Ryūgū-no-tsukai, meaning “Messenger from the Sea God’s Palace.”

The idea is that when these deep-sea fish appear near the surface or wash ashore, it signals that something is wrong beneath the ocean floor.

This belief gained attention after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, because several oarfish had washed up on Japanese beaches in the preceding years.

Why people connect them with earthquakes

There are a few speculative reasons people propose:

• Deep-sea disturbance theory – If tectonic activity changes pressure or releases chemicals, deep-sea animals might become disoriented and rise toward the surface.

• Rare sightings – Oarfish normally live hundreds of meters deep, so when one appears it seems mysterious or ominous.

• Sea-serpent appearance – Their long ribbon-like body (sometimes over 10 m long) historically inspired myths about sea monsters.

What science says

Scientists have actually tested the idea.
A statistical study in 2019 concluded that the link between oarfish sightings and earthquakes is an “illusory correlation.”

In other words:

• Earthquakes happen all the time, so coincidences occur.

• Oarfish occasionally wash up because they are sick, dying, or injured, not because of seismic events.

Bottom line

• Folklore: Oarfish = omen of earthquakes or tsunamis.

• Science: No reliable evidence of any predictive relationship.

---

Interestingly, because of their strange appearance and deep-sea habitat, oarfish are also one of the animals often proposed as a historical source for sea-serpent legends.

If you want, I can also show you:

• why deep-sea fish sometimes suddenly appear near the surface, or

• some other animals that people historically believed could predict earthquakes (there are several fascinating ones).

 

Seismic discovery?

 

With all due respecc to this content-creator, this is click bait about a nothing-burger. So there may have been an earthquake in the Dead Sea in the same decade as Jesus was crucified in Jerusalem? In a region were there are always earthquakes? And that proves...what? Nothing in particular, of course. 

If the Gospel accounts were accurate, why didn´t Josephus mention both the eclipse, the earthquake *and the massive resurrection of the saints* which allegedly took place at the death of Jesus on the cross? Exactly.

Diamonds in the sky

 

JWST continues to surprise scientists and, I suppose, the rest of us. The super-telescope has discovered a lemon-shaped planet revolving around a pulsar. Even better, its atmosphere contains soot and diamonds?! 

Thank god PSR J2322-2650b (the official name of this planetary body) is 750 light years away. It would take millions of years for a space ship to reach it. So it won´t be busting the diamond markets anytime soon!

"What the heck is this?" 

Holy Blood, Holy Crude

 

Isn´t this one of the postmodernist philosophers mocked by Andreas Malm years ago? One of the guys who proposed that maybe oil is sentient? But Thomas Sheridan seems to like this speculative turn in continental philosophy (he mentioned "Cyclonopedia" in his previously linked conservation with ChatGPT, as well).

"Drill, baby, drill" - there will be Trump

Thriving before Armageddon

 

Here we go again. New evidence confirming that the (non-avian) dinosaurs weren´t in decline before the asteroid hit. Nupe, they were thriving and doing just fine, making that impact a genuine disaster. 

Dinosaurs were thriving before asteroid annihilated them all

Intraterrestrials

 

Whoa! The strangest life on Earth is found *under* the earth. The term "intraterrestrial" is a keeper. I predict it will be used in scy fy flicks from now on. 

Sleeping microbes of the deep

The hidden life sleeping deep under the earth

Frat boy pseudo-science?

 

A Skeptic (and perhaps atheist) criticism of Jay Dyer, the bad boy of the Orthobro interwebs. "Frat boy brand of Christianity" is a keeper. 

TL/DR: Dyer is a young earth creationist and presuppositionalist. He actually references an essay by Traditionalist author Titus Burckhardt against evolution. (Our old friend Huston Smith had a similar argument about Platonic forms manifesting in the material world. Perhaps he got them from Burckhardt.) 

More unexpectedly, Dyer sounds agnostic on the existence of dinosaurs and even heliocentrism?! Which I suppose is inevitable if you interpret the Bible too literally. Not sure why Seraphim Rose´s name never comes up in the video. This content seems to be a kind of "parallel plot" to the recent drama between Dyer, Professor Dave et al.   

Hopeful monsters

 

I´m still trying to process this as we speak. Our man Anton discusses LOME a.k.a. the Late Ordovician Mass Extinction. Which I´m sure you never heard about. Yet, your evolutionary grandmama might very well hail from this period of Earth history about 445 million years ago. The short story is that a series of radical changes in the Earth´s climate became too much for the dominant species at the time, which included jawless fishes known as conodonts and a number of peculiar squid-like molluscs. Jawed fishes did exist, but were few and specialized. Guess what happened next?

Thanks to LOME, jawed fish from isolated habitats in what is now southern China - where they had diversified in standard "hopeful monster" fashion - could start spreading throughout the oceans, filling the now empty ecological niches. Anton, ever the optimist, even refers to what happened as an "ecological reset". Something similar happened after the disappearence of non-avian dinosaurs, when mammals could freely radiate and take over. And here we are!

Not addressed in this happy video is the ecological reset after *we* are gone. Who knows, maybe jawless fish will again take over the oceans? That would be a fitting revenge after all these years!

Theory of everything cancelled...again

 

Correlation aint causation, baby. And so on, and so forth...

Dr Robert is a real gem

 

Some occult-astrological stuff from "Dr Robert" (no known connection to the Beatles) about planets and gemstones. Bottom line: better to avoid gemstones altogether! I was surprised by this take, since videos of this kind usually recommend people to take all kinds of snake oil remedies. Blue sapphires are a particular no-no, while moonstones or garnets are somewhat more acceptable. Especially with the right mantras. OK, bruh, I keep that in mind next time I take a stroll in the park and find some little trinket somewhere... 

Orinoco Flow

Credit: jkaiser

Some context to the claim that Venezuela has the world´s largest oil reserves. TL/DR: No, they don´t really have that. Much of their oil is of very low quality, something I read somewhere before. The link goes to X. 

Yellowbull on Venezuelan oil

Plague volcano

 

OK, this was interesting. Why did the Great Plague reach Europe when it did (1347)? 

New research suggests that the reason was a severe famine in southern Europe caused by volcanic eruptions, perhaps in Africa. The Italian city-states activated their sophisticated trade networks to obtain grain and lifted a previous embargo on trading with the Mongols north of the Black Sea. Unfortunately, the grain from that particular part of the world was infected by fleas acting as a vector for Yersinia pestis. The rest is history. 

Note that Anton doesn´t mention the usual cannard that the Mongols started the pandemic by catapulting infected corpses over the city walls of Kaffa...

In other words: globalization leads to more pandemics. Which doesn´t mean that global trade networks are necessarily bad. It does mean that we have to develop medical science (hint hint)...  

Soy boy

 

Correct me if I´m wrong, but is this true? China sells rare earth minerals to the United States (and the rest of world), while the United States sell soy beans to China? I mean, the PRC must be in really dire straits, right, if they can´t fucking grow their own soy! 

I´m being ironic. 

Rock me baby

 

I´m not a great fanboy of Matt Powell (see some previous blog post somewhere), but the atheists in this video simply engage in autistic "well, akshually" nitpicking. 

Atheist-materialists *do* believe that life emerged from non-living matter. Richard Dawkins (yes, that guy again) speculated that maybe life first emerged from self-replicating clay. And then there´s the claim that we are star dust or "thinking star stuff". 

So what´s the big deal with Powell saying that "atheists believe we come from rocks...a rock was your ancestor". OK, so it wasn´t a literal rock (as in "that kind of stone stuff you see over there at the quarry") but rather...clay and shit. 

Maybe I need to go off the internet for a week or so?